21st century propaganda and education – friends or foes?

Nicoleta Cristina Silitra

doi:10.31926/but.ssl.2020.13.62.3.15

Abstract

Today, in the 21st century, there are extensive discussions about propaganda. On the one hand, education can be used for propaganda but, on the other hand, education can cultivate skills, such as critical thinking, necessary to identify and reject propaganda. I set out to identify frames promoted by Sputnik, in the context of the Centenary, to identify mental models activated by the propaganda and those associated frames, and to determine if they are related to the educational process within school. The strongest frame is failure; however, we also identified attitudes of rejection of the approach of communicator but we cannot associate these attitudes with school. We consider that school (at least secondary school and high school) does not cultivate enough elements of Romanian identity.

Highlights

I set out to identify frames promoted by Sputnik, in the context of the Centenary, to identify mental models activated by the propaganda and those associated frames, and to determine if they are related to the educational process within school
The authors appeal in this regard to the definitions in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, where propaganda is defined as „the systematic propagation of a given doctrine”, and education as “an act of transmitting knowledge or skills” The difference that the authors highlight in those definitions refers to the agreement or disagreement with certain values but does not agree with it as being most relevant, Pratkanis and Aronson refer to the ideas of a German psychologist, Max Wertheimer, who, in the middle of the last century, made a pertinent distinction between the two concepts / processes / mechanisms
Synthesizing the ideas in the articles mentioned in the bibliography, we made a table that illustrates the main differences between education and propaganda: Table 1 Comparative presentation of the concepts of education and propaganda

Summary

Introduction

The authors appeal in this regard to the definitions in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, where propaganda is defined as „the systematic propagation of a given doctrine”, and education as “an act of transmitting knowledge or skills” 107) The difference that the authors highlight in those definitions refers to the agreement or disagreement with certain values but does not agree with it as being most relevant, Pratkanis and Aronson refer to the ideas of a German psychologist, Max Wertheimer, who, in the middle of the last century, made a pertinent distinction between the two concepts / processes / mechanisms. I have identified in the literature in the field other differences between education and propaganda: Education - process through which information, knowledge and truths are tracked and discovered, through critical analysis. The truth is propagated but alongside the lie, deception, appearance, misinformation, falsity

Objective

Methodology

Conclusions