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Propaganda and Its Effect on America

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Propaganda and Its Effect on America
Thesis: Propaganda was a tool that leaders used to get people involved in wars of the past.

Propaganda, a term that only reminds people of corruption and manipulation. Others, it reminds of advertising and raising American spirit. Well, they are both right. ["Propaganda" Pg. 1, sec.1] Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation aimed at serving an agenda. At its root, propaganda is to propagate (spread around) a certain position or point of view, rather than just reporting the facts. Most propaganda is associated with politics or war time. It is used to help unite countries, especially the U.S. in the past. [Pg. 1, sec. 1]

Most propaganda that people have heard of came from World War II in Nazi, Germany. They would be surprised to learn that the U.S. has done the same thing in the past. [Pg. 1, sec. 1] Before World War I, uninterrupted public support was thought to be critical to all the wartime effort. In 1917, Wilson created the War Aims Committee on Public Information (CPI) to promote World War One Nationally, while advertising America overseas. Under the guidance of a journalist named Creel, the CPI gathered people from different aspects all over the world. The CPI mixed advertising techniques with a refined understanding of human psychology; its efforts represent the first time that a modern government distributed propaganda on such a large scale. It is intriguing that this occurrence, often linked with totalitarianism, emerged in a democratic state. [Pg. 1, sec. 14]

Also, being that video was more popular than written propaganda, they begin to make videos. One propaganda video I came across was of an American citizen pretending to be a Japanese man in a very racially discriminating way. The man was obviously a fake Japanese man who was made to look Japanese by using stereotypes and donning a very obviously fake Japanese accent. ["My Japan" Pg. 2, sec. 2] The video went on to try and convince Americans at home that Japan was to

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