Media & Society: Propaganda Assignment

Modern Day Propaganda in the United States

By Julia Berman

When someone mentions propaganda, most people tend to think about the mass amounts of propaganda released during World War I and World War II. It is commonly thought of something of the past, but I can assure you propaganda is used just as much today as it was back then. Modern propaganda can be seen as even more dangerous than ever before. The use of the internet and social media makes information spread like wildfire, and it is difficult to decipher reality from the misinformation. The year of 2020 was one of the most chaotic years of my lifetime, and I am sure many others can agree. With the spread of the coronavirus becoming a global pandemic, as well as the extreme controversy and drama over the 2020 Presidential Election, it was certainly an interesting year. Propaganda is commonly associated with Presidential elections of the past, and 2020 is no different. Now former President, Donald Trump retweeted Russian propaganda before the election had taken place about former Vice President Joe Biden. The US intelligence community announced that it was part of Moscow's ongoing effort to "denigrate" the Democrat ahead of the election. By retweeting material that the US government has already labeled as propaganda—and doing so with the 2020 Democratic National Convention kicking off on Monday—Trump demonstrated once again that he is willing to capitalize on foreign election meddling for his own political gain. Election officials knew they would be targets for mistaken claims and intentionally distorted claims in 2020. Officials were pleased with the steps they were taking inside their state and local offices, but the outside attacks on voting kept building during the general election. The early attacks were narrowly focused but shrewd,as voting rights groups sent absentee ballot applications to voters in swing states, posts appeared on social media falsely stating that voters and even dead people were receiving multiple ballots. As states put up online voter registration portals to assist voters during the pandemic, online posts falsely asserted that voter information could be sabotaged by political opponents to block voters. When early in-person voting began, false claims erupted about when and where to vote, using ballot drop boxes, the results (before there were any), and votes being thrown out. In the week before Election Day and right after it, the volume of misinformation and disinformation increased. Half of CIS’s cases emerged in this period. As the process shifted to casting ballots and counting votes, more conspiratorial narratives emerged where the vote-counting process became the target. Many might read these things and think that it isn’t propaganda because it is not in the form of silly cartoons or advertisements. But the definition of propaganda includes all information of a biased or misleading nature that is mainly used to publicize or promote a political cause or view. That being said, all stated above is used to misinform on the behalf of political events. Just because the main source of modern propaganda is not from cartoons and advertisements, does not mean that there weren’t any. Below I have included one of many entertaining cartoons that were released during the 2020 Presidential Election.