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Cumulative feedback

For the stories 1-3

Attitude is a psychological construct, a modification of human brain. Attitudes are formed after
the brain’s deliberation of certain issues in a certain light. Now the governments take advantage
of this vulnerability of the masses’ brains, i.e. in wartime or war-like conditions.

In our case, India is our convenient (story 2) and – conventional enemy. For Palestine (story 1) it
is Israel and vice versa. To deconstruct the media messages, you have to find the myths like two
nation theory and the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs, and hence you will decode the
media clippings as specific media tools for wartime propaganda. Consider the following bullets:

 How and why these attitudes in specific nations prevail (hatred for Hindus amongst
Pakistanis and hatred for Pakistanis in India, you can cite some recent examples of media
bashing or raise any Bal Thackeray issue to back your argument up.)
 How governments take advantage of these attitudes to war
 What actions govt. takes to maintain these attitudes
 What could cause changes in the public’s perception of war
 How all these media programs, videos, reports appeal to your emotions of fear, hatred ,
fear sympathy ( report 3-B), patriotism
 It’s also a foil to ensure the future supply for the armed forces’ personnel, by boosting the
morale of the soldiers, talking heavily of divine intervention, making the experience
sound too good to be true, hyperbolizing the courage and fearlessness of the interviewees.
The usage of ornate and flowery language to further lend it grandeur.
 To feed of the nationalistic instinct
 “Psychological warfare”- fancy word for propaganda – even after 10 years of Kargill, the
print and electronic media commemorate the issue and to reinvent some lost attitudes to
the enemy. The same goes for the news story 3-B as it occurs 5 years later than the
original catastrophe.
 So what you actually find in theses three news items is that a certain degree of
propaganda is used
o to rally people behind a cause ( 1-Aand B)( in story 4 B to some extent)
o , but often at the cost of exaggerating,
o misrepresenting,
o Selective presentation of facts over and over( news story 3 A, when Siddique’s
claims are neither backed up nor refuted with evidence- as he himself did all the
damage in his “ alleged” confession of sorts)
o or even lying about the issues in order to gain that support ( contradictory
statements in story 1-A)
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o Narrow sources of “experts” to provide insights in to the situation. (For example,

the in story 3B,media typically interviewed psychologist to talk about the people
who extended their support for the injured during the 7/7 issue, but no such help is
sought to cross check or verify Siddique’s claims about atrocities on the Muslim
world were. So through some selective presentation of facts, it now appears
twisted around some chosen facts. Moreover in story 2, retired military personnel
for many conflict-related issues, or treat official government sources as fact,
rather than just one perspective that needs to be verified and researched)
o ( For report 1, 2and 3)Those who promote the negative image of the “enemy”
may often reinforce it with rhetoric about the righteousness of themselves; the
attempt is to muster up support and nurture the belief that what is to be done is in
the positive and beneficial interest of everyone. Often, the principles used to
demonize the other, is not used to judge the self, leading to accusations of double
standards and hypocrisy.
o
 You can have a further insight into this psyche with help of this quote:

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and
every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the
war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-
deception Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger,

The list of tactics used in propaganda listed further above is also expressed in a similar way by
Johann Galtung, a professor of Peace Studies:

1. Decontextualizing violence: focusing on the irrational without looking at the reasons

for unresolved conflicts and polarization.
2. Dualism: reducing the number of parties in a conflict to two, when often more are
involved. Stories that just focus on internal developments often ignore such outside or
“external” forces as foreign governments and transnational companies.
3. Manicheanism: portraying one side as good and demonizing the other as “evil.”
4. Armageddon: presenting violence as inevitable, omitting alternatives.
5. Focusing on individual acts of violence while avoiding structural causes, like
poverty, government neglect and military or police repression.
6. Confusion: focusing only on the conflict arena (i.e., the battlefield or location of
violent incidents) but not on the forces and factors that influence the violence.
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7. Excluding and omitting the bereaved, thus never explaining why there are acts of
revenge and spirals of violence.
8. Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage
itself.
9. Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists, especially big powers.
10. Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcomes.
11. Confusing cease-fires and negotiations with actual peace.
12. Omitting reconciliation: conflicts tend to reemerge if attention is not paid to efforts to
heal fractured societies. When news about attempts to resolve conflicts are absent,
fatalism is reinforced. That can help engender even more violence, when people have
no images or information about possible peaceful outcomes and the promise of
healing.

— Danny Schechter,  Covering Violence: How Should Media Handle Conflict?, July 18, 2001
(Emphasis Added)
From this list you can use as many as your story( ies ) requires.

Arthur Siegel, a social science professor at York University in Toronto, describes four levels of
varieties of propaganda:

No matter how it is spread, propaganda comes in four basic varieties, said Arthur Siegel, social
science professor at York University in Toronto, whose 1996 book Radio Canada International
examines World War II and Cold War propaganda.

“The first level is the Big Lie, adapted by Hitler and Stalin. The state-controlled Egyptian press
has been spreading a Big Lie, saying the World Trade Center was attacked by Israel to embarrass
Arabs,” said Siegel.

“The second layer says, ‘It doesn’t have to be the truth, so long as it’s plausible.’

“The third strategy is to tell the truth but withhold the other side’s point of view.
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“The fourth and most productive is to tell the truth, the good and the bad, the losses and the
gains.

“Governments in Western society take the last three steps. They avoid the Big Lie, which
nobody here will swallow,” Siegel said.

— Beth Gillin, U.S. intensifies the war of words, The Philadelphia Inequirer, October 21, 2001
For the story 1 , you will find that to make amends for the attack on the flotilla, the Israeli
aligned media launches into the justification propaganda as through the media campaign as the
links to ‘ al-Qaida’ are placed in the news lead to lend urgency to the case for armed intervention
to bring about a rapid restitution of “normality”;

For Story 2, you see ‘ Information war-fare ‘ too after some time has elapsed ( in case of the
story B)

For the Story 3-A, we see the preliminary stage of the media propaganda, as you see the quotes
from Siddique’s confession preceded by the introduction of the Al-jazeera as the “Arabic –
language network”, hence connoting the involvement of the expansive array Muslim countries.
Furthermore, when he is giving his ‘testimony’ it appears as if he is being trialed by some court
of law.

Just observe what Noam Chomsky says on this kind of reporting:

a principle familiar to propagandists is that the doctrine to be instilled in the target audience
should not be articulated: that would only expose them to reflection, inquiry, and, very likely,
ridicule. The proper procedure is to drill them home by constantly presupposing them, so that
they become the very condition for discourse.

— Noam Chomsky
Can you see how this otherwise’ objective reporting ‘ of the story 3 A helps to tighten the grips
on the alleged terrorists and how it equips some of the nations to exercise the economic , and
military sanctions on some of the countries. Just concentrating and reporting on the “official
line” of Siddique, without offering a wider set of perspectives ( when he talks of people being
affected by the western countries’ induced warfare, no native Muslim is interviewed for further
strengthening or refuting his claims)can also impact people’s opinions

For some analysts, it appears as a favorable tool used by the intelligence and their p[partner news
agencies to create an excuse or to ‘ justify’ the further attacks on Muslim sovereign states and the
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capturing for more native residents of the Muslim countries on the pretext of terrorism related
activities. Just in case, you can cite the example of the ‘ under-wear black Muslim teenager’,
who became a ploy for launching the notorious and controversial body scanners on some of the
airports across the globe.

Take help from the following list of devices used to win over any war through the use of
media:

1.Word Games
Name-calling
Labeling people, groups, institutions, etc in a negative manner( Story 1, 2,3 A)

Glittering generality
Labeling people, groups, institutions, etc in a positive manner ( story 3 B)

Euphemisms
Words that pacify the audience with blander meanings and connotations

2.False Connections
Transfer
Using symbols and imagery of positive institutions etc to strengthen acceptance or vice
versa ( Story 3 B, and 1)

Testimonial
Citing individuals not qualified to make the claims made( story 3 A to some extent)

3.Special Appeal
Plain Folks
Leaders appealing to ordinary citizens by doing “ordinary” things( video 2 A, shalwar
kameez))

Band Wagon
The “everyone else is doing it” argument

Fear
Heightening, exploiting or arousing people’s fears to get supportive opinions and actions
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For you to cite, Machiavelli ‘s The Prince explains what every politician knows , and in
our world, what almost all corporate media journalists feign not to know when they
assume that the reality of politicians’ “hopes” — their intentions, motivations and goals
— is identical to the appearance. ( cite examples from the story 1 A, 2A,B)