The Use of Propoganda

Prompt:

Is it okay for the government to mislead in order to promote nationalism?

Propaganda is a term that refers official government communications released to the public in order to influence an opinion.  Statistically the use of propaganda increases in times of war or international conflict. As propaganda is heavily biased it has a tendency to provide extremist views in order to voice a strong opinion. Also a group tends to favor certain information and in a sense may provide a misleading image to their audience as the "whole story" is not visible.  The documentary "control room" aims to voice that the broadcasting network Al Jazeera was the only broadcasting station at the time of the Iraq-USA war that showed the public the "entire story".  

Governments have been known to withhold, spin and even at times fabricate information in order to promote a sense of nationalism within the country's civilian population. Personally I do not agree with this ideology. A government of a country is one of the key foundational elements in a nation and not only do they voice the views and opinions of a nation but they also influence and impact other worldwide audiences. When there is a sense of instability in the foundation it is obvious that the structures surrounding it will also be impacted. Similarly when this key establishment misleads the public there will be an impact, in this situation a negative one. For example in the United States there tends to be large parties with opposing extreme ideologies. When the information presented to them is misleading the claims they build off of this original idea will be irrelevant and inaccurate.

 In the documentary it was evident that the director aimed to portray Al Jazeera as a superior news-reporting station and claimed that they were more reliable than the American news coverage. There is even a section in the documentary where there is a clip from an interview with an American official stating that the images and stories broadcasted to their audience is in a sense "fake “as Al Jazeera would quote "go find children and crying women to act as if they were in pain". From prior understanding it was stated from President Bush that Al Jazeera was the "mouthpiece to Bin laden".  Hence it is clear that this was a form of American Propaganda which was "spun" from an original source (Al Jazeera) to clarify to the American Public that there was no large negative consequence from the bombing of Baghdad.

The Jessica Lynch story is another example of how propaganda has been theatrically spun in order to sway the public’s opinion through misleading information. Jessica lynch was put across as a war hero rescued by her American comrades in Iraq. It was stated by the Pentagon and United States news broadcasting network that she was “shot” and interrogated by soldiers in a hospital where she was being held hostage. Her miraculous “prison-break” was used as propaganda for the American Public with a negative outlook on the Iraqi people holistically.  This story was sold well in the States and the nationalistic view and patriotic response increased. After the initial story was released there were apparent discrepancies with resulted in counter-stories being released with perspectives of the actual patients and doctors in the hospital who claimed that there were not any armed individuals in the hospital. They also claimed that the Americans had used this story as way of communicating to the American public with video footage in a dramatic “Hollywood” style way. This use of propaganda to form the public’s opinion is not only negative but in some ways also completely fiction.  Yes this did initially result in a increased patriotic response but after people understood the counterclaims it made them question their government.