I feel like this post is a perfect example of what propaganda is, and how it works, so I want to break it down;
First, what is propaganda? It's a piece of information, that's biased or misleading, & distributed to promote a political cause, agenda or point of view. It's used to influence public opinion, & in war time is often a recruitment tool, to recruit workers, soldiers and allies.
This Israel post first provides a piece of info that's misleading (Taylor Swift's bodyguard is fighting for Israel, he isn't her bodyguard or in her employment), & forms an association w/ Taylor Swift by using her lyrics and speaking directly to her as if they were friends.
Association is a common propaganda technique, they praise Taylor Swift's so-called bodyguard for joining the war, and Taylor Swift by association. It's also known as "Transfer". A less offensive example might be Taylor Swift being photographed drinking Diet Coke.
But the lie is more interesting, bc they use "photographic evidence" of him standing w/ Swift to reinforce the lie, further manipulating the audience into believing its veracity. In the same way Israel used "video evidence" to con us into believing Hamas bombed the hospital.
That's what's so interesting to me about this post, it's the same strategy, but employed in a completely different way. Another thing is that it serves as a recruitment poster, celebrating someone associated with Swift joining the war effort, implicitly inviting swifties in.
Idk if it will work, bc swifties have been training all their lives in media literacy, literally decoding the most frivolous social media posts. And thank god. This post has already been called out.
But it's valuable to understand the language of propaganda. Transfer is especially insidious, because when people start making associations between their favourite celebrities and Israel, they start building emotional connections, and emotions are hard to break.
I also want to point out this post is a classic example of Bandwagoning, when the propagandist pretends as if everyone is on board their ideology or cause to encourage more people to join. "Look! Even people in Taylor Swift's orbit are fighting for us! We must be great!"
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For the first time in my life I applaud celebrities fans for being so knowledgeable about every detail of their fav.
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Swifties and Army both are very knowledgeable and aware of their favs. Proud to be part of both.
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
snowghoul
janainaart
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