Research Article
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Relevance of Propaganda: Learning From Twentieth-Century Theory

Year 2022, Volume: 25(1) Issue: 49, 74 - 101, 08.03.2022
https://doi.org/10.18691/kulturveiletisim.1063060

Abstract

Propaganda is gathering momentum today and it looks to be a crucial aspect of epistemic crisis of democracy. Many phenomena thought to be associated with propaganda in the twentieth century have emerged with new faces; fake news, disinformation, trolls, conspiracy theories, and so on. However, the theoretical debates about propaganda that occurred over the last century are mostly forgotten. This article evokes approaches that attempted to comprehend the shocking effect of propaganda between the two world wars and to explore how these can be articulated into current debates. We argue that, more than many recent arguments, the interwar debate and criticism of the twentieth century can shed more light on how we might think about propaganda today. To begin, we look at how the propaganda issue is addressed within the context of American positivist sociology and political science. Then, we evaluate the research conducted by the Frankfurt School on the tools and techniques of fascist propaganda in the United States of America. These two chapters demonstrate how addressing the problem of propaganda with different intellectual resources and methodological tool results in different insights. Following that, we relate the presence of propaganda in the new media ecology to both theoretical discussions and current concepts such as fake news, post-truth, and social media manipulation. Here we argue that propaganda retains its power in today's media and political world, and point out the shortcomings of approaches that refer to technology as a remedy to the spread of fake news.

References

  • Adorno,Theodor. W. (1982). “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda.” The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. Andrew Arato ve Eike Gebhart (der.) içinde. New York: Continuum, 118–137.
  • Adorno, Theodor W. (2000). The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Addresses. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  • Adorno, Theodor W. (2020). Yeni Sağ Radikalizmin Veçheleri. Çev., Şeyda Öztürk. İstanbul: Metis.
  • Bauer, A. J. ve Anthony Nadler (2021). “Propaganda Analysis Revisited.” Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/propaganda-analysis-revisited/. Erişim Tarihi: 5 Ekim 2021.
  • Benjamin, Walter (2002). “Tekniğin Olanaklarıyla Yeniden Üretilebildiği Çağda Sanat Yapıtı.” Pasajlar içinde. Çev., Ahmet Cemal. İstanbul: YKY. 46–76.
  • Bernays, Edward L. (2015). Crystallizing Public Opinion. New York: Open Road Media.
  • Blumler, Jay G. (2020). “As It was in Analogue Days: The Relevance of Legacy Research.” A Research Agenda for Digital Politics. W. H. Dutton (der.) içinde. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. 25-35.
  • Bourdieu, Pierre (1997). Televizyon Üzerine. Çev., Turhan Ilgaz. İstanbul: YKY.
  • Cavalletto, George (2007). Crossing the Psycho-Social Divide: Freud, Weber, Adorno and Elias. Londra: Routledge.
  • Collins, Sue (2012). “Propaganda Studies: The US Interwar Years.” The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies. A. N. Valdivia (der.) içinde. doi.org/10.1002/9781444361506.wbiems028.
  • Cull, Nicholas J. vd. (2003). Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present. California: ABC-Clio.
  • Dahlgren, Peter (2018). “Media, Knowledge and Trust: The Deepening Epistemic Crisis of Democracy.” Javnost-The Public, 25(1-2): 20–27.
  • Farkas, Johan ve Jannick Schou (2018). “Fake News as a Floating Signifier: Hegemony, Antagonism and the Politics of Falsehood.” Javnost-The Public, 25(3): 298–314.
  • Finchelstein, Federico (2021). Faşist Yalanların Kısa Tarihi. Çev. Zeynep Şarlak. İstanbul: İletişim.
  • Gencel Bek, Mine (2021). “Reclaiming and Tabloidizing “Truth” in Turkey.” Global Tabloid: Culture and Technology. Martin Conboy ve Scott A. Eldridge (der.) içinde. Londra: Routledge. 98–212.
  • Hyzen, Aaron (2021). “Revisiting the Theoretical Foundations of Propaganda.” International Journal of Communication, 15: 3479–3496.
  • Keane, John (2021). Yeni Despotizm. Çev. İsmail Ferhat Çekem. İstanbul: İletişim.
  • Köker, Levent (1998). İki Farklı Siyaset: Bilgi Teorisi-Siyaset Bilimi İlişkileri Açısından Pozitivizm ve Eleştirel Teori. Ankara: Vadi.
  • Lasswell, Harold D. (1938). Propaganda Technique in the World War. New York: Peter Smith.
  • Lazarsfeld, Paul F. ve Robert K. Merton (2004). “Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Social Action.” Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919–1968. John Durham Peters ve Peter Simonson (der.) içinde. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield. 230–241.
  • Lippmann, Walter (2004). Public Opinion. Chemsford: Courier Dover.
  • Lippmann, Walter (2018). Liberty and the News. Londra: Routledge.
  • Löwenthal, Leo ve Norbert Guterman (1970). Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator. New York: Harper Brothers.
  • Noble, Safiya Umoja (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press.
  • Oates, Sarah (2021). “Rewired Propaganda: Propaganda, Misinformation, and Populism in the Digital Age.” The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Howard Tumber ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) içinde. Londra: Routledge. 71-79.
  • Peters, John Durham ve Peter Simonson (der.) (2004). Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919-1968. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield.
  • Pickard, Victor (2021). “Unseeing Propaganda: How Communication Scholars Learned to Love Commercial Media.” Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-66. Erişim Tarihi: 7 Ekim 2021.
  • Qualter, Terence H. (1980). “Propaganda Teorisi ve Propagandanın Gelişimi.” Çev. Ünsal Oskay. SBF Dergisi, 35(1): 255-307.
  • Rensmann, Lars (2017). The Politics of Unreason: The Frankfurt School and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism. Albany: Suny Press.
  • Scannell, Paddy (2020). Medya ve İletişim. Çev. Oğuzhan Taş ve Burcu Sümer. Ankara: Ütopya.
  • Schudson, Michael (1978). Discovering the News: A Social History of American Journalism. New York: Basic Books.
  • Schudson, Michael (2019). “The Public, the Media and the Limits of Democracy: Re-Examining the Lippmann-Dewey ‘Debate’.” https://www.abc.net.au/religion/public-media-and-limits-of-democracy-the-lippmann-dewey-debate/11228168. Erişim Tarihi: 13 Eylül 2021.
  • Sparkes-Vian, Cassian (2019). “Digital Propaganda: Tyranny of Ignorance.” Critical Sociology, 45(3): 393–409.
  • Sproule, Michael J. (1987). “Propaganda Studies in American Social Science: The Rise and Fall of the Critical Paradigm.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 73: 60–78.
  • Sproule, Michael J. (1991). “Propaganda and American Ideological Critique.” Annals of the International Communication Association, 14 (1): 211-238.
  • Sproule, Michael J. (1997). Propaganda and Democracy: The American Experience of Media and Mass Persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Taş, Oğuzhan ve Tuğba Taş (2018). “Post-Hakikat Çağında Sosyal Medyada Yalan Haber ve Suriyeli Mülteciler Sorunu.” Galatasaray Üniversitesi İletişim Dergisi, 29: 183–208.
  • Tsyrenzhapova, Dariya ve Samuel C. Woolley (2021). “The Evolution of Computational Propaganda: Theories, Debates, and Innovation of The Russian Model.” The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Howard Tumber ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) içinde. Londra: Routledge. 121-130.
  • Tumber, Howard ve Silvio Waisbord (2021a). “Introduction.” The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Howard Tumber ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) içinde. Londra: Routledge. 1-12.
  • Tumber, Howard ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) (2021). The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Londra: Routledge.
  • Waisbord, Silvio (2018). “Truth is What Happens to News.” Journalism Studies, doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2018.1492881.
  • Weiss, Volker (2020). “Bugünden Bakınca.” Yeni Sağ Radikalizmin Veçheleri, Theodor W. Adorno içinde. Çev., Şeyda Öztürk. İstanbul: Metis, 11-29.
  • Yeşil, Bilge (2018). “Authoritarian Turn or Continuity? Governance of Media through Capture and Discipline in the AKP Era.” South European Society and Politics, 23(2): 239-257.
  • Yeşil, Bilge (2021). “Social Media Manipulation in Turkey: Actors, Tactics, Targets.” The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Howard Tumber ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) içinde. Oxon: Routledge. 386-396.
  • Zollmann, Florian (2019). “Bringing Propaganda Back into News Media Studies.” Critical Sociology, 45(3): 329-345.

Propagandanın Güncelliği: Yirminci Yüzyıl Teorisinden Dersler

Year 2022, Volume: 25(1) Issue: 49, 74 - 101, 08.03.2022
https://doi.org/10.18691/kulturveiletisim.1063060

Abstract

Propaganda günümüzde yeniden güç kazanıyor ve demokrasinin epistemik krizinin bir parçası olarak karşımıza çıkıyor. Yirminci yüzyılda propagandayla ilişkili düşünülen pek çok fenomen yeni yüzlerle aramızda; yalan haber, dezenformasyon, “troll”ler, komplo teorileri ve benzerleri. Buna karşılık propaganda hakkında geçmiş yüzyılda yürütülmüş teorik tartışmalar artık pek hatırlanmıyor. Bu yazının amacı, iki dünya savaşı arasındaki dönemde propagandanın sarsıcı etkisini kavramaya çalışan yaklaşımları hatırlatmak ve bunların güncel tartışmalara nasıl eklemlenebileceğini araştırmak. I. ve II. Dünya Savaşı arasındaki dönem, propagandanın tanımlanışına dair farklılaşan kavrayışlara sahne olmuştur. Bu dönemdeki tartışma ve eleştirilerin, bugün propaganda üzerine nasıl düşünebileceğimiz konusunda bize pek çok yeni tartışmadan daha fazla ışık tutabileceğini iddia ediyoruz. Bunun için ilk olarak Amerikan pozitivist sosyolojisi ve siyaset bilimi çerçevesinde propaganda sorununun nasıl ele alındığını inceliyoruz. Ardından Frankfurt Okulu’nun Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nde, faşist propagandanın araç ve teknikleriyle ilgili yürüttüğü araştırmaları değerlendiriyoruz. Bu iki başlık, propaganda sorununa farklı düşünsel kaynaklar ve metodolojik araçlarla yönelmenin nasıl farklı kavrayışlarla sonuçlandığını gösteriyor. Sonraki bölümde ise propagandanın yeni medya ekolojisi içindeki varlığını hem bu teorik tartışmalarla hem de yalan haber, hakikat sonrası ve sosyal medya manipülasyonu gibi güncel kavramlarla ilişkilendiriyoruz. Propagandanın günümüzün medya ve siyaset dünyasında gücünü hala koruduğunu öne süreceğimiz bu bölümde, yalan haberlerin yaygınlığı karşısında çözümü genellikle teknolojiye havale eden yaklaşımların barındırdığı sorunlara da işaret ediyoruz.

References

  • Adorno,Theodor. W. (1982). “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda.” The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. Andrew Arato ve Eike Gebhart (der.) içinde. New York: Continuum, 118–137.
  • Adorno, Theodor W. (2000). The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Addresses. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  • Adorno, Theodor W. (2020). Yeni Sağ Radikalizmin Veçheleri. Çev., Şeyda Öztürk. İstanbul: Metis.
  • Bauer, A. J. ve Anthony Nadler (2021). “Propaganda Analysis Revisited.” Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/propaganda-analysis-revisited/. Erişim Tarihi: 5 Ekim 2021.
  • Benjamin, Walter (2002). “Tekniğin Olanaklarıyla Yeniden Üretilebildiği Çağda Sanat Yapıtı.” Pasajlar içinde. Çev., Ahmet Cemal. İstanbul: YKY. 46–76.
  • Bernays, Edward L. (2015). Crystallizing Public Opinion. New York: Open Road Media.
  • Blumler, Jay G. (2020). “As It was in Analogue Days: The Relevance of Legacy Research.” A Research Agenda for Digital Politics. W. H. Dutton (der.) içinde. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. 25-35.
  • Bourdieu, Pierre (1997). Televizyon Üzerine. Çev., Turhan Ilgaz. İstanbul: YKY.
  • Cavalletto, George (2007). Crossing the Psycho-Social Divide: Freud, Weber, Adorno and Elias. Londra: Routledge.
  • Collins, Sue (2012). “Propaganda Studies: The US Interwar Years.” The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies. A. N. Valdivia (der.) içinde. doi.org/10.1002/9781444361506.wbiems028.
  • Cull, Nicholas J. vd. (2003). Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present. California: ABC-Clio.
  • Dahlgren, Peter (2018). “Media, Knowledge and Trust: The Deepening Epistemic Crisis of Democracy.” Javnost-The Public, 25(1-2): 20–27.
  • Farkas, Johan ve Jannick Schou (2018). “Fake News as a Floating Signifier: Hegemony, Antagonism and the Politics of Falsehood.” Javnost-The Public, 25(3): 298–314.
  • Finchelstein, Federico (2021). Faşist Yalanların Kısa Tarihi. Çev. Zeynep Şarlak. İstanbul: İletişim.
  • Gencel Bek, Mine (2021). “Reclaiming and Tabloidizing “Truth” in Turkey.” Global Tabloid: Culture and Technology. Martin Conboy ve Scott A. Eldridge (der.) içinde. Londra: Routledge. 98–212.
  • Hyzen, Aaron (2021). “Revisiting the Theoretical Foundations of Propaganda.” International Journal of Communication, 15: 3479–3496.
  • Keane, John (2021). Yeni Despotizm. Çev. İsmail Ferhat Çekem. İstanbul: İletişim.
  • Köker, Levent (1998). İki Farklı Siyaset: Bilgi Teorisi-Siyaset Bilimi İlişkileri Açısından Pozitivizm ve Eleştirel Teori. Ankara: Vadi.
  • Lasswell, Harold D. (1938). Propaganda Technique in the World War. New York: Peter Smith.
  • Lazarsfeld, Paul F. ve Robert K. Merton (2004). “Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Social Action.” Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919–1968. John Durham Peters ve Peter Simonson (der.) içinde. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield. 230–241.
  • Lippmann, Walter (2004). Public Opinion. Chemsford: Courier Dover.
  • Lippmann, Walter (2018). Liberty and the News. Londra: Routledge.
  • Löwenthal, Leo ve Norbert Guterman (1970). Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator. New York: Harper Brothers.
  • Noble, Safiya Umoja (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press.
  • Oates, Sarah (2021). “Rewired Propaganda: Propaganda, Misinformation, and Populism in the Digital Age.” The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Howard Tumber ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) içinde. Londra: Routledge. 71-79.
  • Peters, John Durham ve Peter Simonson (der.) (2004). Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919-1968. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield.
  • Pickard, Victor (2021). “Unseeing Propaganda: How Communication Scholars Learned to Love Commercial Media.” Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-66. Erişim Tarihi: 7 Ekim 2021.
  • Qualter, Terence H. (1980). “Propaganda Teorisi ve Propagandanın Gelişimi.” Çev. Ünsal Oskay. SBF Dergisi, 35(1): 255-307.
  • Rensmann, Lars (2017). The Politics of Unreason: The Frankfurt School and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism. Albany: Suny Press.
  • Scannell, Paddy (2020). Medya ve İletişim. Çev. Oğuzhan Taş ve Burcu Sümer. Ankara: Ütopya.
  • Schudson, Michael (1978). Discovering the News: A Social History of American Journalism. New York: Basic Books.
  • Schudson, Michael (2019). “The Public, the Media and the Limits of Democracy: Re-Examining the Lippmann-Dewey ‘Debate’.” https://www.abc.net.au/religion/public-media-and-limits-of-democracy-the-lippmann-dewey-debate/11228168. Erişim Tarihi: 13 Eylül 2021.
  • Sparkes-Vian, Cassian (2019). “Digital Propaganda: Tyranny of Ignorance.” Critical Sociology, 45(3): 393–409.
  • Sproule, Michael J. (1987). “Propaganda Studies in American Social Science: The Rise and Fall of the Critical Paradigm.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 73: 60–78.
  • Sproule, Michael J. (1991). “Propaganda and American Ideological Critique.” Annals of the International Communication Association, 14 (1): 211-238.
  • Sproule, Michael J. (1997). Propaganda and Democracy: The American Experience of Media and Mass Persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Taş, Oğuzhan ve Tuğba Taş (2018). “Post-Hakikat Çağında Sosyal Medyada Yalan Haber ve Suriyeli Mülteciler Sorunu.” Galatasaray Üniversitesi İletişim Dergisi, 29: 183–208.
  • Tsyrenzhapova, Dariya ve Samuel C. Woolley (2021). “The Evolution of Computational Propaganda: Theories, Debates, and Innovation of The Russian Model.” The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Howard Tumber ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) içinde. Londra: Routledge. 121-130.
  • Tumber, Howard ve Silvio Waisbord (2021a). “Introduction.” The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Howard Tumber ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) içinde. Londra: Routledge. 1-12.
  • Tumber, Howard ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) (2021). The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Londra: Routledge.
  • Waisbord, Silvio (2018). “Truth is What Happens to News.” Journalism Studies, doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2018.1492881.
  • Weiss, Volker (2020). “Bugünden Bakınca.” Yeni Sağ Radikalizmin Veçheleri, Theodor W. Adorno içinde. Çev., Şeyda Öztürk. İstanbul: Metis, 11-29.
  • Yeşil, Bilge (2018). “Authoritarian Turn or Continuity? Governance of Media through Capture and Discipline in the AKP Era.” South European Society and Politics, 23(2): 239-257.
  • Yeşil, Bilge (2021). “Social Media Manipulation in Turkey: Actors, Tactics, Targets.” The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. Howard Tumber ve Silvio Waisbord (der.) içinde. Oxon: Routledge. 386-396.
  • Zollmann, Florian (2019). “Bringing Propaganda Back into News Media Studies.” Critical Sociology, 45(3): 329-345.
There are 45 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language Turkish
Journal Section Research Article
Authors

Oguzhan Tas 0000-0001-5151-7155

Publication Date March 8, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022 Volume: 25(1) Issue: 49

Cite

APA Tas, O. (2022). Propagandanın Güncelliği: Yirminci Yüzyıl Teorisinden Dersler. Kültür Ve İletişim, 25(1)(49), 74-101. https://doi.org/10.18691/kulturveiletisim.1063060