New class on propaganda

Fair's fair. If I'm asking students to keep a blog, I should reactivate my own.

I'll be posting comments and reflections here, as well as links to items of interest. A couple of the latter for now:

1. One of the continuing themes of the present administration is the habit of softening reports so that they are less critical of what is happening. A column in the Aug. 30 Washington Post offers yet another example. After the controversial 2000 Florida recount, Congress established an Election Assistance Commission to look into what went wrong--specifically, into charges of election tampering, attempts to suppress turnout, and voter fraud. (The first two have been used recently to benefit Republican candidates, the latter a counter-charge against Democrats.) A bipartisan report was produced, and then its conclusions neutered by the White House. (Report here.)

Keep in mind that, as with all such articles, the author is an interested party, and you should check out her facts.

2. As for resources, one that can help with finding out the source of PR information is SourceWatch. Maintained by the Center on Media and Democracy, its intent is to make information available about those behind PR efforts.

New class on propaganda

Fair's fair. If I'm asking students to keep a blog, I should reactivate my own.

I'll be posting comments and reflections here, as well as links to items of interest. A couple of the latter for now:

1. One of the continuing themes of the present administration is the habit of softening reports so that they are less critical of what is happening. A column in the Aug. 30 Washington Post offers yet another example. After the controversial 2000 Florida recount, Congress established an Election Assistance Commission to look into what went wrong--specifically, into charges of election tampering, attempts to suppress turnout, and voter fraud. (The first two have been used recently to benefit Republican candidates, the latter a counter-charge against Democrats.) A bipartisan report was produced, and then its conclusions neutered by the White House. (http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifReport here.)

Keep in mind that, as with all such articles, the author is an interested party, and you should check out her facts.

2. As for resources, one that can help with finding out the source of PR information is SourceWatch. Maintained by the Center on Media and Democracy, its intent is to make information available about those behind PR efforts.