Week 5 - Soviet Animated Propaganda

This week's propaganda is titled "Black and White" and is an animated Soviet propaganda. The animation shows the mistreatment of African Americans by white Capitalists.

This piece of propaganda is a social engineering type of propaganda. The target audience would be the Soviet populace, and the idea is to use blacks as "scapegoats" to demonize white Americans. It "Pinpoints" white Capitalist Americans as the enemy, showing them mistreating blacks by yelling at them and uses other propaganda techniques to suggest other ill treatment of them. Transfer is widely used, hoping that the soviet people will associate the bad images such as the electric chair with American Capitalists. Cardstacking is used throughout, showing the white Americans as greedy and evil (with a LARGE pineapple for dinner, nice cars, and decidedly corpulent) and the African Americans as oppressed and enslaved (and very sad, getting capital punishment for no apparent reason). No evidence contrary to this is offered, although it is definitely not the actual case by any means.

Propaganda Art - Week 4

This contemporary piece of Propaganda art is a Propaganda Poster from North Korea. It shows North Korean children, each representing a different branch of the North Korean armed forces, destroying the head symbolizing the US army. The text reads: "Playing war by strangling the American pigs is exciting".

The intended audience of this piece is North Korean children, and most likely their parents as well. The message in this piece of propaganda art is that it is fun to "play" war, and exciting to pretend to destroy Americans, so the real thing must be even better. This piece of Propaganda makes use of card-stacking. Only the bad features of the US army is shown, symbolized here as an old ugly head that is breaking apart, and that must be very weak. The children on the other hand are shown as powerful, on a higher plane than the army head (possibly a form of deification) and with dynamic, energetic poses, and smiling faces. It tells a sort of half-truth. The text on the image could also be seen as a "glittering generality", since it has no context and does not show the negative aspects of war such as losses on both sides. There is somewhat of a visual context to the image, but overall this statement evokes feelings and is not factual. Transfer is also employed with the juxtaposition of children and armed forces imagery. The creator of this piece most likely intended for the viewer to associate the innocence of play (using children) with war, making it appear fun and not scary, gory, or any of the other things that war generally entails.

Propaganda - Week 3

Week 3 - This contemporary piece of Propaganda art is a movie poster for the first Spider-Man film. It depicts Spider-Man in the image perched on the American flag with a shot of New York City in the background and a slogan on the bottom that claims, "With great power comes great responsibility."

The intended audience would be movie-goers, American citizens specifically. The message in this piece of propaganda art is that Spider-Man is a upstanding American citizen who must have great power and thus great responsibility according to the slogan. Transfer is also used. The American flag is blatantly obvious, and the creator of this piece wants the viewer to associate the positive stereotypes of the flag with Spider-Man and thus the movie, and go to see it. This piece of Propaganda makes use of a glittering generality with it's use of "With great power comes great responsibility" without context.

Propaganda Art - Week 2

This piece of propaganda artwork shows president Obama in the colors of the American flag with the word "PROGRESS" in large capital letters at the bottom. This piece of propaganda art uses multiple Propaganda techniques to make its message. The word "Progress" is a glittering generality, a word without context. Transfer is also used with the American flag colors, transferring the feelings of liberty and freedom that have come to be associated with the flag.

The intended audience is pretty much all Americans, especially people who are unsure of whether Obama has made "progress" since becoming president. Obama is glorified, made to look larger than life. This could be a form of deification.