Joey Alexis D.

Piguerra
10 – Sci Class

What I can Do
Individuality and Independence vs. Political Propaganda

Individuality is necessary for the development of the self. Individual spontaneity is not
acknowledged as having any value in and of itself, and it is not seen as fundamental to well-
being, according to Mill. Rather, the majority believes that its methods should be sufficient for
everyone. While people should be taught the collected knowledge of human experience as
children, Mill believes that adults should have the flexibility to interpret that information as they
see appropriate. He places a high moral value on the process of making choices rather than
blindly accepting customs: only those who make choices use all of their human capacities. Mill
then connects the desires and impulses represented in individuality to the creation of character:
"One whose desires and impulses are not his own has no character, any more than a steam
machine has character."

In the Philippines, paid trolls, social medias, fallacious reasoning, leaps in logic,
poisoning the well, these are only some of the propaganda techniques that have helped shift
public opinion on key issues. These are only a few of the numerous misinformation tactics that
have emerged since the election: social media campaigns aimed at shaping public opinion,
destroying reputations, and crippling established media organizations. This "death by a thousand
cuts" technique takes use of the internet's power and utilizes the algorithms that underlie social
media to create uncertainty and distrust. This series dissects the new phenomena brought about
by the exponential rise of technology and knowledge. Political propaganda is nothing new to us,
but not everyone recognizes it because of their strong convictions in anything.

This enables these propaganda accounts to develop a social movement that exploits
economic, regional, and political gaps to exacerbate the fissures in Philippine society. It's a
"death by a thousand cuts" tactic of chipping away at facts, using half-truths to build another
reality by combining the power of bots and bogus accounts on social media to deceive actual
people. This enables these propaganda accounts to develop a social movement that exploits
economic, regional, and political gaps to exacerbate the fissures in Philippine society. This
enables these propaganda accounts to develop a social movement that exploits economic,
regional, and political gaps to exacerbate the fissures in Philippine society.
 Lasswell's propaganda theory combined ideas from behaviorism and Freudianism to
create a particularly pessimistic view of media and their role in the formation of modern social
orders. Lasswell was one of the first political scientists to recognize the utility of various
psychological theories and to demonstrate how they could be applied to political understanding.
The power of propaganda was due to the vulnerable state of mind of ordinary people, rather than
the substance or appeal of specific messages. Psychological theories can be used to evaluate
one's mental state. Lasswell contended that widespread psychosis had been caused by economic
depression and escalating political conflict, making most people vulnerable to even crude forms
of propaganda. When ordinary people are confronted with these issues on a daily basis.
Democracy, according to Lasswell, has a fatal defect. It aims to find the truth and make choices
via open debates about problems. However, if these disputes devolve into verbal or even physical
combat amongst supporters of opposing beliefs, widespread insanity would occur. Those who
watch these confrontations will be scarred. According to Floyd Matson (1964, pp. 90–93),
Lasswell concluded that even seemingly innocuous types of political strife were pathological.
When conflict reaches the extent that it did in Germany during the Depression, an entire nation
may become mentally imbalanced and susceptible to manipulation. Democracy, according to
Lasswell, has a fatal defect. It aims to find the truth and make choices via open debates about
problems. However, if these disputes devolve into verbal or even physical combat amongst
supporters of opposing beliefs, widespread insanity would occur. Those who watch these
confrontations will be scarred. According to Floyd Matson (1964, pp. 90–93), Lasswell
concluded that even seemingly innocuous types of political strife were pathological. When
conflict reaches the extent that it did in Germany during the Depression, an entire nation may
become mentally imbalanced and susceptible to manipulation.

Given that protest is risky under an authoritarian regime and that participants of a failed
protest are subject to potentially severe punishment, most individuals’ decisions about whether to
protest depend not only on their own preferences or beliefs about the government but also on
their perceptions of whether or how many other people will turn out to protest, which then
determines how likely the protest will be to succeed (Chwe 2003; Egorov et al. 2009; Lohmann
1994). In other words, protest is a game of complementarity in which individuals will be more
(less) willing to participate the more (less) likely they think other people will participate (e.g.,
Gehlbach et al. 2016; Bueno De Mesquita 2010; Edmond 2013). Incorporating the logic of
collective protest into theories of propaganda thus introduces an alternative channel by which
regimes can manipulate citizen behavior: Even if propaganda does not directly persuade
individuals about the merits of government or influence their beliefs about its power and
capacity, it can still make them less willing to protest if they believe that propaganda has
successfully persuaded or intimidated other people not to protest.

In the end individuality and independence plays a big role in our society. In other words,
propaganda can sometimes succeed by convincing people that their own preferences or views
have been affected rather than by convincing them that other people's preferences or beliefs have
been influenced. This propaganda method is based on its indirect influence at the group level
rather than its direct effect at the individual level.
 Reference:

Fakhar Naveed, (2016) Age of Propaganda THE RISE OF MEDIA THEORY IN THE
AGE OF PROPAGANDA (Review) https://www.masscommunicationtalk.com/category/age-of-
propaganda

Gunther, A. C., & Storey, J. D. (2003). The influence of presumed influence. Journal of
Communication, 53(2), 199–215.

Jang, S. M., & Kim, J. K. (2018). Third person effects of fake news: Fake news
regulation and media literacy interventions. Computers in Human Behavior, 80, 295–302.

Maria A. Ressa. (2016) Propaganda war: Weaponizing the internet

https://www.rappler.com/nation/148007-propaganda-war-weaponizing-internet/

Perloff, R. M. (2009). Mass media, social perception, and the third-person effect. In J.
Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 252–
268). Abingdon: Routledge.