Reading response - Essay Example

College Reading Response: use of Propaganda Propaganda is one of the most ideal tools to create unity and divisions within society. A major factor with propaganda is that it plays with the emotions of the people and their intellect to affect their mentality. As a tool to unite societies, propaganda is highly effective in swaying the masses towards a common direction. As a result, the party spreading the propaganda propagates their philosophies and ideologies efficiently. Creating a common ideology and philosophy among the masses with the pure aim consolidating support becomes effective especially when the masses embrace such ideologies.

Likewise, Hitler understood propaganda as the best medicine to have the masses embrace a particular ideology. Instead of having intellectual propaganda that could only be understood by the intellectually gifted, Hitler believed that the masses are gullible and any effective propaganda had to be in its simplest possible form. However, such propaganda had to have a few, but strong slogans that evoked emotions among the public to elicit the required reactions. Considering the public has limited understanding and would not digest too many materials, Hitler maintained in using a few scale but emotions-evoking points as the best tool for propaganda but with great effectiveness in swaying the public.

There have been some cases of propaganda in the United States most of which are related to its foreign ideologies and warfare. For example, a general propaganda was used to justify attacking and dethroning Saddam Hussein from power on the pretext that he had weapons of mass destruction which posed a high risk not only to American citizens, but also to the whole world. Spreading the propaganda created fear attracted support for the U.S and her allies to attack Iraq though nothing of the weapons as claimed was found.

Similar propaganda are spread about the possibility of terrorist attacks within American territory to ensure everyone is vigilant in guaranteeing home security.Work UsedAn excerpt from Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translated by Ralph Manheim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943