The
Wopajo Says . .
De
Propaganda Fides
by:
f. g. lopriato y lopez
Propaganda is a Latin word. Originally it was used by horticulturists
to
describe a method of propagating plants.
The Catholic church adopted it to describe the method by which to
propagate
the Catholic faith.
The method could create an attitude toward any individual,
organization,
or ideal by influencing opinion ..
It can be religious, cultural, or political, and it is used in all the
means of communication, as well as the arts. It plays a large role in
internal,
as well as external relations, The Voice of America, and The U. S.
Information,
for instance.
Propaganda
can
be a very effective both as a tool or a weapon, in the hands of experts
but a loose cannon in the hands of non professionals. All you have to
do
is tune in any call in show to see what I mean.
It's all. Negative or Positive propaganda. Positive propaganda praises
a sponsor's product or service and negative propaganda condemns,
demonizes,
insults, slanders, and all but cuddles an opposing political party,
religion
and anyone associated with the ideal, belief, or proposition.
Positive propaganda is handled by a professional propagandist, while
Negative
propaganda is left up to the caller, that is because the radio station
must not get too deeply involved in the negatism or it may be held
liable.
The talk Master can control the conversation by allowing station
sanctioned
negativism and cutting short opposing callers.
Incidentally, never assume that call in radio is about the caller's
freedom
of speech, it all about the station's freedom of speech.
Talk-shows
do
not represent one view-point or another because of their profound
belief
and commitment to "the cause." Most of the stations are part of a
greater
corporation that depends on a Special Interest of some sort for most of
it's funding.; Their corporate offices are lobbied by deep pocket
bag-men
just as aggressively as they lobby politicians, and should you be under
the spell of talk-shows and think that these lobbyists are committed to
the ideal of better their services broadcasting, better government or
better
unity of any sort, guess again. They are mercenaries, their loyalty is
for hire to the highest bidder.
Talk radio has the means by which to reach thousands of listeners, and
for a price they will deliver the client's message. If it is an honest
message it is Positive Propaganda, if it is not, it is Negative
Propaganda.
Sales Propaganda has to be phones, or the FTC would come down hard on
the
station. In other cases the intent of the perbetrator is taken into
account.
Not in sales propaganda, ignorance is no defense when it comes to
defrauding
in sales propaganda, the intent to defraud does not have to be there to
obtain a conviction. In other cases, the perpetrator's familiarity with
the product is taken into account, but not in sales propaganda.
None of this is true about Political Propaganda. Physical contact is
about
the only thing that is forbidden in political propaganda. That is why
candidates,
radio talk-show hosts, and callers can get away with what they say. Not
because Talk Masters, Networks, or individual radio stations protect
the
callers freedom of speech . The Constitution does that.
What talk-radio does for your freedom of speech is to make you jump
through
a dozen hoops before you are allowed to practice it on certain shows
and
if you get passed the screamers and on the air, the host can still hang
up on or give you the bums rush so that you cannot fully express
yourself
then spend the next half hour criticizing what they think you were
going
to say.
I won't paint all talk-masters with the same wide brush. There are some
that air both sides of an argument, but most let it happen only if the
criticism is what they would say themselves.
Once again I ran out of space before I got to my main point.
///fgyl
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