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the most comprehensive and sensible one presented in class. There is only one
modification I would make to this proposal and that is to remove the proviso
'organized'. The question must be asked; what forms of communication are left out
the extent of excluding small groups of 5 or less and most certainly excluding
people or at least more than one person. This would mean that if we attempted to
analyze a newspaper article we would need to establish that more than just the
individual author of the column was involved in an attempt to affect beliefs in the
way described. This is a problem as I do not think individuals should be ruled out
from analysis, not to mention the fact that establishing the responsibility of a
certain article to more than the author herself could be a burden of proof of a far
many believe individuals are incapable of affecting change, that only organizations
complex and increasingly alienationist society. Thus the advent of large numbers of
conspiracy theories abound to deal with our society's lack of faith that individuals
can affect change on their own. Now I am not suggesting that Randal Marlin's
in the first sense which I described above he would be partly falling prey to a broad
should be noted that the absence of proof that an individual is acting at the behest
of a group or organized whole is not conclusive evidence that they are in fact working
solely on their own, thus a definition that requires the presumption of groups as the
the article.
It does not seem likely that Randal Marlin was utilizing the first sense of
'organized' and I believe it is sufficiently obvious given the above discussion that it is
overly restrictive. The second sense of 'organized' if you will remember is an attempt
achieve certain goals in audience behaviour. The reason I oppose use of the term
'organized' in this sense is because of a lack of need for the proviso at all. When we
communicate with each other we have a reason for doing so, we wish to inform them
intention or some form of plan in its purpose. My intentions in writing this paper are
a planned and intentional attempt to explain my views on propaganda, but they are
confusion.
The confusion results from the possibility that the first sense of 'organized'
prudent use of the term 'organized'. Thus I would reword Randal Marlin's definition
or attitudes, and thereby actions of the masses, in ways that circumvent or suppress
An example of propaganda for the purposes of this paper is the article, "The
jobs crisis myth: Mother's experiment shows there is work if you want it" by Carol
Lewis. This article is a very misleading and subtle form of propaganda, it attempts to
approach one of the most important issues of the day in a very misleading and
The result of Lewis' little 'experiment', as she called it, were several offers of
her data leaves a great deal to desired as she states that she "no longer believes
there is a job crisis."ii Of course she only later (2 paragraphs later) states
that the only area in which she sought employment was the food service industry.
Places like Wendy's, McDonald's, Harvey's, etcetera were reportedly all eager for
applicants, the thing that Lewis neglects to mention is that to get employment at one
of these establishments is normally referred to as a Mcjob not a job unless you are
under 18 or, as is becoming increasingly popular, over 60. It is on the basis of the
abundance of Mcjobs that Lewis is willing to assert that she is satisfied that our
and our children." This is summed up by her assertion that she no longer believes
Presumably these higher paying jobs where you get the "big bucks" that are offered
by the "same" people who were more than willing to hire Lewis are management jobs
vague about what kind of job it is that pays these 'big bucks'. It would appear that
the reason that she does not make the type of "big bucks" jobs explicit is precisely
because they are not well paying nor are they widely considered real jobs by the
public -- they are Mcjobs in management. Lewis makes good use of the vagueness of
the term job to attempt to mislead her average reader, what she does not mention is
that the only kind of work that she has found to be available "if you want it" is work
in a low paying, low prestige, and low satisfaction job -- that is, a Mcjob.
The beauty of this piece of art by Lewis is the way she mixes and matches
stereotypes and 'crises'. On the one hand Lewis talks about the rate of high
unemployment and how she has found that jobs are plentiful so people should not be
unemployed. On the other hand Lewis exploits the stereotype of young people in the
so-called generation-X who make up a good bulk of the unemployed and describes
them as depressed, spoiled teenagers who just do not want to "go out and work for a
living".iv What Lewis neglects in this article is that the majority of unemployed
people are not teenagers who just do not want to earn a living they are; lawyers,
last budget), many of the current unemployed are the people who did not get hired
adage 'the more things change the more things stay the same'. Lewis asserts that
when she was a teenager things were just the same for her as they are for teenagers
It would seem that Lewis wants to argue for the timelessness of her experiences
what she says. By inference she is asserting that the current perceived "jobs crisis"
and high unemployment are the result of teenagers who do not want to work for a
living. Lewis attempts to mitigate the truth of high unemployment by describing the
phenomena not as fact but as myth. This myth is born out of "cries of high
unemployment rates", and is placed on the same standing as the rest of Lewis'
opening statement; " and my eldest daughter's lament that there were no jobs
available."vi
There is the distinct possibility that Carol Lewis believes every idea which she
expresses in this article, although it does not seem likely given that it fits perfectly
you believe the best moral policy is to not tell the whole truth but without
arguments and pronouncements about the first subject of her sentence (ie. high
unemployment) while actually talking about the second subject of her sentence (her
eldest daughters's lament that there are no jobs). The fact that Lewis' examples,
analyses and experiment are pertinent to only the second subject does not distract
from her pronouncements and certainty about the first subject in establishing that
Perhaps her use of the words 'I no longer believe' at this point is another way out
for her. In sentential logic we discover that the words 'I believe' when preceding
one might be led to believe that one can not be lying in using such a sentence either.
The title of this article suggests that Lewis' claims hold for all jobs and all of the
teens like her daughter. At the very least it can be said that this article was
These last several pages are the primary basis upon which I place my assertion
that this article is propaganda. Carol Lewis is attempting to suppress the formation
of an adequately informed and rational judgment in her audience with regard to the
jobs crisis and high unemployment. In attempting to liken her own climb out of the
realm of mcjobsviii through hard work with that of the present unemployed youth,
Lewis is glossing over certain realities of the present times. In the seventies or
eighties when Lewis applied for her current well-paying job she had to compete with
dozens of qualified applicants. This can be compared with the present economic
climate in which people now in Lewis' position must compete with hundreds or even
The likely intended impact of this article could be to convince herself and
others of her socio-economic group that they should feel no culpability or guilt in the
present conditions of youth through denial of the very existence of those conditions.
Another possibility involves a need to make sense of the crazy and hopeless seeming
their children and the news. Also Lewis could see youth much like her eldest
daughter as her target audience; attempting to shake them up and make them break
parents with a tool perhaps useful in persuading their young children to go out and
get a Mcjob.
present job market for many thousands of unemployed and under-employed citizens
of Canada through the assertion that 'there are plenty of jobs' without explaining
the true reality of these so-called 'jobs'. To be accurate Lewis should really be
saying; there are plenty low-status, low-income, low-satisfaction jobs that can lead
industry. This latter group of jobs Lewis inaccurately describes as "big bucks" jobs.ix
Inaccurate because $8.00, $9.00, or $10.00 an hour is hardly big bucks even when
In a very small way Lewis' article may have a positive impact by helping
stressed and hopeless citizens to believe their is an easy and readily definable reason
for 'the jobs crisis' -- giving meaning to the lives of some where there was little
before. Unfortunately, Lewis chose to write an article with a message that was full
of inaccuracies and that was not capable of fulfilling the scope of its title -- except
by deception.x In class discussion it was once asserted by Marlin xi that the majority
of readers only read the first two or three paragraphs of most articles. In the light
of this assertion it appears that this article is perfectly designed for just such an
audience. That is, the fact that the job offers that Carol Lewis received were all
Mcjobs and payed minimum wage is not revealed to the reader until they have read
the sixth paragraph, this in concert with the sweeping title provides a perfect
improve our audience, not simply in the lying or telling of that which is not quite true
(reservationism).xii The Newspaper editors themselves are also culpable due to the
fact that they dressed up this opinion page article to look exactly like news articles.
The only distinguishing feature that could differentiate this opinion page article
from a regular news column is the small title at the top of the page which reads
'opinion'. It is hard to say whether these articles are purposefully designed to look
just like news columns or not, but the fact that they do resemble news is certainly