Like a tail wagging a dog. The ABC of Propaganda.

[Lord777]

The more accessible the information, the more it is around. The faster it spreads, the less time is left to test it. Gradually, the information environment turns into a kind of "white noise". It is becoming more and more difficult to build new information filters within oneself in order to weed out unnecessary things: to put aside slogans, agitation, propaganda, and leave only what is actually hidden behind them.

The tail wags the dog
"Wag the dog" - in order to avoid a big scandal or "hush up", to leave unnoticed some important but unpleasant event, a simple but cunning and clever trick is often used, which English-speaking political strategists call "Wag the dog", and Russian-speaking ones - "The tail wags the dog."

It consists in raising in time a wave of discussion around an issue of secondary importance, against the background of which another, more important event or action will pass unnoticed.

Examples of such questions: Cancellation of the transition to winter time, Russian citizenship of Depardieu, the trip of Putin or Sasha Gray in Lada Kalina across Russia, flights with Siberian Cranes, etc.

This technique got its name in honor of the English expression tail wagging the dog, which, in turn, emerged from the following folk passage:

- Why does the dog wag its tail?

- Because the dog is smarter than the tail. If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.

Common carriage effect
Bandwagon effect - also called "Orchestra carriage", "Common platform".

This technique consists in the selection of phrases that require like-mindedness or uniformity in behavior, create confidence that everyone is doing this: "Not a single normal person will say that ...", "Any sane person knows that ..." , "All Russians see that ...", "Educated people are sitting on Habré, you must understand that ...", etc.

This technique makes a person feel that the majority of the members of the social group to which he considers himself, or would like to belong, or whose opinion is significant for him, think this way and not otherwise, have specific values, ideas, share the same point of view.

"Hanging labels"
Name Calling is a simple technique that can be seen on television, in the comments on LiveJournal of Navalny, Echo of Moscow, and in everyday life.

It consists in the choice of offensive metaphors, names, derogatory epithets, names for specific individuals, categories of people, phenomena.

Vivid examples of recent times: “Navalny's Hamsters”, “Kreakly”, “Liberasty” in relation to liberal-minded people, “Nashists”, “Kremlebots” in relation to supporters of the current government, “Fascists”, “Nazis” in relation to nationalists; deliberate misrepresentation and distortion of names: "Oval / Anal", "Putler", etc.

With the help of this technique, it is relatively easy to defame, cause hostility to a whole group of people or to an individual.

"Brilliant generalizations"
Glittering generality is almost the exact opposite of the previous technique.

It consists in replacing the name of a social phenomenon, idea or group of people with a more general one, which has a brightly positive connotation.

This technique exploits the positive emotions of people in relation to the words "peace", "freedom", "happiness", "patriotism", "democracy", etc. With the help of this technique, the properties, qualities, views inherent in a particular person or group are attributed to a well-known phenomenon.

An illustration can be the substitution of the concept of "Orthodoxy" with a more general, obviously positive word "faith", the definition of Russia as an "energy superpower", or, on the contrary, as a "raw material appendage," and so on.

"Link to authorities"
Testimonial - a widespread technique consists in bringing statements of persons with high authority, or vice versa, causing a negative reaction from the target audience. Statements should contain value judgments about people, ideas, organizations, express condemnation or approval.

Bringing quotes of the classics that are often taken out of context, a video message from the terrorist Doku Umarov (by the way, here is the labeling - no one knows what this Umarov is trying to achieve and what he is fighting for, but everyone knows that he is a terrorist) before the presidential elections, where he expressed his disapproval of the ruling party, quoting Lenin in conversations with the communists, etc.

"The game of the common people"
Plain folks - presenting an individual as a person from the people, a simple layman, the same as his target audience.

A biography of a person can be used (or written from scratch), audience-specific slang can be used.

An example is the unforgettable "Wet in the toilets", stories about Ilyich's childhood, the appointment of a UralVagonZavod worker as a plenipotentiary, the recent duck about the Chechen war veteran Sergei Maslenitsa, etc.

With the help of this technique, the target audience forms trust in the object, a positive attitude at the level of "friend or foe".

"Card fraud"
Card stacking - the technique consists in a one-sided, tendentious presentation of facts, when only the positive, or vice versa, exclusively negative aspects of a person or phenomenon are announced, while others are hushed up.

"Navalny stole the forest", "Limonov is a fagot", "There was no such thing under Stalin" or, on the contrary, "Bloody Stalinist regime" are an illustration of this technique.

The main purpose of the technique is to show the attractiveness or, on the contrary, the unacceptability of any point of view or idea, using a one-sided selection of facts.

"Transfer"
Transfer is a technique that is skillful, imperceptible and unobtrusive for most people to spread the authority and prestige of what they value to what the source of communication presents to them.

With the help of the technique, associative links of the object with something of value and significance are initiated.

For example, to call loyalty to the current government patriotism, to shoot the president against the backdrop of the proudly flying flag of the country (just like the Olympic champions), etc.

Conclusion
I believe that in order to maintain clarity of consciousness, one must not only be able to notice these techniques, but, first of all, independently analyze the information.

And in no case should the words of the authorities be taken as an axiom - everyone is mistaken, and many deliberately lie.

You need to be critical of everything around you. Including this article.