Thursday, November 20, 2014
Propaganda
Having spent time recently in another country, it is easy to understand how news coverage shifts to the biases of the reading public. But this is an extreme. Through control of the media, Russians are being told what to believe and how. There is no diversity of viewpoint. Russian TV follows the orders of Putin and provides the images that Putin wants to convince citizens that he is in the right. As the article states, he is playing an emotional game and appealing to the base instincts of Russians to convince them that there were no soldiers or tanks in Eastern Ukraine, that Crimea belonged to the Russians from the beginning, that Putin is guiding the state with a firm hand. It is "trust me" writ large over the country's many time zones. Putin may be a master diplomatist but he also can make mistakes if he lets his arrogance get ahead of him. It would not be surprising if in the future he invades another country re-create the Soviet empire. As long as the West talks but does not act, he can get away with it too. If you want to understand propaganda and how it works, look at Russia today.
Comments:
Post a Comment