Okay, here’s a whole bunch I can think of off the top of my head.
Opposition to DEI initiatives, feminism, affirmative action, immigration, etc., are rooted in racism/sexism. Even dislike for certain movies is rooted in racism/sexism.
People are being stolen from and/or their privacy is being violated when companies use public data about them to train AI, target ads, etc. People get really mad about this.
On a similar note, AI art “has no soul” and AI artists aren’t “real artists.”
Hamas and/or Israel are evil. Pick whatever position you want on this conflict, there’s a flood of propaganda pushing it and reasoned discussion that goes against it is hard.
Everything Elon Musk does is somehow evil or idiotic.
Cryptocurrency is a scam. AI is a scam. <insert some other new technology> is a scam.
Religion is bad.
All cops are bastards.
Unions are good and corporations are bad. Heck, the “capitalism is bad” message in this comic is itself propaganda.
Cancelling major NASA initiatives like Artemis or Mars Sample Return (or James Webb, Space Shuttle, etc. historically) would be a disaster for space exploration and science, despite their wildly spiralling costs.
Okay, that last one is perhaps getting down into the weeds of one of the more particular communities I find myself in. :)
Of course, there are other communities out there that I’m not commonly in that I expect have the opposite “everyone agrees” views on a lot of these things - DEI is part of some “gay agenda” conspiracy to groom children, Elon Musk is an infallible messiah, cops are the thin blue line protecting us from criminals, unions are destructive to the economy and cause unemployment, and so on and so forth. Propaganda is highly specific to its target audience, as this comic suggests.
The fundamental problem is just that in any significant group or community there are always hot-button issues that “everyone agrees” about, and attempting to question or discuss them with any nuance gets shouted down.
Those ideas you listed are indeed often spread by means of propaganda, but the word propaganda has gained a negative connotation that is itself lacking nuance and is thus undeserved.
Any information disseminated that reflects the views or interests of any particular doctrine or cause - even just your own - is propaganda. If you have publicly expressed any sort of political opinion at all, you have engaged in propaganda.
The word was more useful when widely disseminating information required lots of resources or coordinated effort. Now that anyone can easily do so in a second, the word casts too wide a net to be useful in determining what information is expressed in earnest, and what information is deceptive.
When I see propaganda I first consider where it’s coming from. Does it have the backing of mainstream media? Is it publicly/privately funded? Is it facing opposition, and if so from who? Is it grassroots or is it astroturfing?
Edit: Using the comic we’re commenting under as an example, it is indeed propaganda. That of course is not a useful categorization, so we’ll consider its’ source. The creator of this comic Alzward is independent and their funding seems to come both from crowdsourcing and from selling access to their comics on Webtoons. The scale suggests this is just an independent artist supporting themselves, and that their art - and by extension this comic - is not influenced by money to a great extent. From this we can infer that the views expressed in this comic are expressed in earnest by the artist. The artist’s views may themselves be influenced, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion. In other words, this is grassroots propaganda.
Propaganda derives from the foreign missions of the catholic church to propagate their faith. This was later generalized to include any messaging with the intention of propagating a belief system, and, after WWI began to also be inflected by a sense that it is deliberately misleading.
I’m not trying to “save” the word propaganda. In highlighting its over-broad definition in combination with its negative connotation, I am actually advocating against its use.
“saving”
Also, don’t use quotes around something the person you’re responding to didn’t say. You are now the second person I’ve responded to in this thread to have done so.
How are those conspiracy theories?
They are consensus you disagree with that people are sensitive about? Where is the conspiracy? Just that most people disagree with you?
A lot of these “theories” that you disagree with have no conspiracy in them. Mate you’re just angry that most people disagree with you.
![[Alzwards Corner] Never could happen here](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f554a50e-b397-4ea1-9cab-40fd25d3dcb5.png){kind=link}
Okay, here’s a whole bunch I can think of off the top of my head.
Okay, that last one is perhaps getting down into the weeds of one of the more particular communities I find myself in. :)
Of course, there are other communities out there that I’m not commonly in that I expect have the opposite “everyone agrees” views on a lot of these things - DEI is part of some “gay agenda” conspiracy to groom children, Elon Musk is an infallible messiah, cops are the thin blue line protecting us from criminals, unions are destructive to the economy and cause unemployment, and so on and so forth. Propaganda is highly specific to its target audience, as this comic suggests.
The fundamental problem is just that in any significant group or community there are always hot-button issues that “everyone agrees” about, and attempting to question or discuss them with any nuance gets shouted down.
Those ideas you listed are indeed often spread by means of propaganda, but the word propaganda has gained a negative connotation that is itself lacking nuance and is thus undeserved.
Any information disseminated that reflects the views or interests of any particular doctrine or cause - even just your own - is propaganda. If you have publicly expressed any sort of political opinion at all, you have engaged in propaganda.
The word was more useful when widely disseminating information required lots of resources or coordinated effort. Now that anyone can easily do so in a second, the word casts too wide a net to be useful in determining what information is expressed in earnest, and what information is deceptive.
When I see propaganda I first consider where it’s coming from. Does it have the backing of mainstream media? Is it publicly/privately funded? Is it facing opposition, and if so from who? Is it grassroots or is it astroturfing?
Edit: Using the comic we’re commenting under as an example, it is indeed propaganda. That of course is not a useful categorization, so we’ll consider its’ source. The creator of this comic Alzward is independent and their funding seems to come both from crowdsourcing and from selling access to their comics on Webtoons. The scale suggests this is just an independent artist supporting themselves, and that their art - and by extension this comic - is not influenced by money to a great extent. From this we can infer that the views expressed in this comic are expressed in earnest by the artist. The artist’s views may themselves be influenced, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion. In other words, this is grassroots propaganda.
Propaganda derives from the foreign missions of the catholic church to propagate their faith. This was later generalized to include any messaging with the intention of propagating a belief system, and, after WWI began to also be inflected by a sense that it is deliberately misleading.
The word “propaganda” isn’t what needs “saving.”
I’m not trying to “save” the word propaganda. In highlighting its over-broad definition in combination with its negative connotation, I am actually advocating against its use.
Also, don’t use quotes around something the person you’re responding to didn’t say. You are now the second person I’ve responded to in this thread to have done so.
I’ll “definitely” stop doing that for you.
How are those conspiracy theories? They are consensus you disagree with that people are sensitive about? Where is the conspiracy? Just that most people disagree with you?
A lot of these “theories” that you disagree with have no conspiracy in them. Mate you’re just angry that most people disagree with you.