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Propaganda analysis;: A study of inferences made from Nazi propaganda in World War II
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 29, 2020
This book reads like a dissertation. It needed to be edited. It's about 300 pages and could have been cut to at least 150 pages. On the other hand, it was published in 1959 by The Rand Corporation and it was probably never intended to have readers outside a small circle.
If you can get through the overly academic parts, there are some interesting aspects. The tone of the analysis is neutral and scientifically objective. However, given the findings, it seems as if the Republicans have been using Nazi propaganda techniques as an instruction manual for their own abuses of power. There are not as many specific examples as I expected, but the ones that are there show how Hitler and his team used the same strategies as Trump today: projection (saying your opponent is something you are or are planning to do), insulting someone's character to distract from actions you are taking, pretending you knew it all along when something unexpected happens, etc. They had Goebbels's diary and many other papers from Germany that detailed their strategies.
The book does NOT go into propaganda about the Jews. It focuses on military strategies during the war, how they planned to win the war and how they dealt with it when it became evident they were losing.
I can't really recommend this book, unless you need any more evidence that Trump and his cronies are using Hitler's strategies...
If you can get through the overly academic parts, there are some interesting aspects. The tone of the analysis is neutral and scientifically objective. However, given the findings, it seems as if the Republicans have been using Nazi propaganda techniques as an instruction manual for their own abuses of power. There are not as many specific examples as I expected, but the ones that are there show how Hitler and his team used the same strategies as Trump today: projection (saying your opponent is something you are or are planning to do), insulting someone's character to distract from actions you are taking, pretending you knew it all along when something unexpected happens, etc. They had Goebbels's diary and many other papers from Germany that detailed their strategies.
The book does NOT go into propaganda about the Jews. It focuses on military strategies during the war, how they planned to win the war and how they dealt with it when it became evident they were losing.
I can't really recommend this book, unless you need any more evidence that Trump and his cronies are using Hitler's strategies...
March 15, 2023
BLUF: (1) Using domain knowledge to structure analysis allows more efficient use of statistical and scientific generalizations. (2) We should be looking to postwar/early cold war propaganda research (like this and Linebarger's Psychological Warfare) to leverage their insight to frame modern influence/disinfo research.
Absolutely fascinating. This book felt like hidden knowledge (it was rather hard to find and very much out of print). George is working through (in a deliciously rigorous way) the same kinds of issues (regarding formalizing propaganda analysis as a mode of inference) as the field of disinformation is wrestling with today - how do you make inferences about extremely dynamic, highly interdependent, and non-linear strategic/cognitive environment? I think the complexity has only increased today, but his arguments remain extremely relevant and have been very helpful for me in formulating my views on how we should do "disinfo" research. Specifically, the idea that an analyst structuring (ie, specifying a causal model/DAG) the analytic problem of drawing inferences from propaganda allows us to more efficiently use (data/social) scientific results to create timely insight to inform a policy maker.
Absolutely fascinating. This book felt like hidden knowledge (it was rather hard to find and very much out of print). George is working through (in a deliciously rigorous way) the same kinds of issues (regarding formalizing propaganda analysis as a mode of inference) as the field of disinformation is wrestling with today - how do you make inferences about extremely dynamic, highly interdependent, and non-linear strategic/cognitive environment? I think the complexity has only increased today, but his arguments remain extremely relevant and have been very helpful for me in formulating my views on how we should do "disinfo" research. Specifically, the idea that an analyst structuring (ie, specifying a causal model/DAG) the analytic problem of drawing inferences from propaganda allows us to more efficiently use (data/social) scientific results to create timely insight to inform a policy maker.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews