PROPAGANDA ANALYSIS

Jowett and O’Donnell (1999) attempted to move beyond
description by providing a “plan of analysis” that features a 10-point
schema intended to help pinpoint propagandistic tendencies of a communication
campaign. This 10-step process simultaneously helps identify important
details of a campaign and addresses broader social and cultural
sources on which propaganda campaigns generally rely. Jowett and
O’Donnell’s 10 divisions for propaganda analysis are as follows:

1. The ideology and purpose of the propaganda campaign
2. The context in which the campaign occurs
3. Identification of the propagandist
4. The structure of the propaganda organization
5. The target audience
6. Media utilization techniques
7. Special techniques to maximize effect
8. Audience reaction to various techniques
9. Counterpropaganda, if present
10. Effects and evaluation. (p. 280)

Critical discourse analysis is
a branch of linguistics that focuses on identifying and explicating hints of
cultural and ideological meaning in spoken and written texts (Fairclough,
1989; Hodge & Kress, 1993; O’Halloran, 2003). With their focus on the use
of language in the context of power relations, critical discourse analysts
look at how individuals and groups use (and manipulate) linguistic strategies
to exercise or oppose power and uphold or challenge ideological assumptions.
Hodge and Kress, for example, claimed that propaganda
typically operates on two broad strategies: manipulation of reality and manipulation
of the orientation to reality. “It is possible for propaganda to be
fully successful without needing to resort to actual or demonstrable lies, so
a form of analysis is necessary that can isolate these processes and mechanisms,
irrespective of claims to truth” (p. 161).