[Here is the first of a five-part series from new contributor “benjaminTheDonkey.” Let us know how you like it. -ETR]
Is propaganda just a quaint artifact of the past, or are art, design, and other communications being used now to exert a subtle but powerful influence in the political arena? And—are taxpayer dollars being used to fund it? (Make sure you read through to the end for the answer to that one) In the commercial arena, US businesses spent over $400 billion on marketing in 2008, down from much higher numbers in years previous. Business is driven by the bottom line, so all that spending must be reaping big rewards. What happens when the tools of marketing influence are turned toward political ends?
As a marketing communications and branding professional, I have been watching the way Barack Obama presents himself to the public with great interest. Here is someone who is clearly very savvy—he understands the power of communications, and uses it very deftly. He has shown himself to be quite shrewd—every move being executed with care and forethought. Because of this, his choices are eyebrow-raising—since we know they are not made in ignorance.
Certain people have already made note of the creepy similarities between the branding used by Obama and that of various totalitarian regimes. This post notes the visual similarity between the new Obama healthcare logo and the eagle/swastika emblem of the German National Socialist party. It has also been noted how the now famous Shepard Fairey “Hope” poster turns Obama into an icon employing a style reminiscent of Russian Constructivist design—the look used to great effect in Soviet propaganda. Of course, visual similarity does not mean an equivalency in substance. Merely looking like something doesn’t make it that thing. However, noting how aware and articulate the administration is when it comes to media, I am left wondering because the choices are not arbitrary.
Good design is always rooted in a basic understanding of human psychology. It uses color, line, form, composition, careful word choice, and other tools to influence and convey meaning—emphasizing particular aspects of a message (or even manufacturing them) by dressing it up in the appropriate trappings. A designer knows both a) that much of what is conveyed happens at a non-verbal level, and b) that meaning is powerfully conveyed through association. Visual style is used to give messages a feeling of being comfortable and informal, dramatic and powerful, or any other desired vibe (or “positioning” to use a marketing term) by carefully selecting how to put the various elements together. Additionally, since nothing is new under the sun, and everything we create is within the context of our collective human experience, a skilled designer crafts things to make use of similarities with other things in order to hook into those associations and help create the proper “resonance” for the communication being crafted. Designers are visually literate and keenly aware of the things that are in the public “mindspace”, and carefully steer their creations—shaping and reshaping, harmonizing with the associations they want, and tuning out the things that are not part of the positioning they’re going for.
The Total Brand 20th Century Totalitarianism made much use of the tools of design and propaganda to sway the masses. While brute force can be used to bring about a desired end, a compliant people is much easier to deal with than one that requires the cattle prod. Saul Alinsky puts it quite nicely in his Rules for Radicals:
To know these [rules for radicals] is basic to a pragmatic attack on the system. These rules make the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one who uses the tired old words and slogans, calls the police “pig” or “white fascist racist” or “motherf---er” and has so stereotyped himself that others react by saying, “Oh, he’s one of those,” and then promptly turn off.
This failure of many of our younger activists to understand the art of communication has been disastrous …
Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people…
To assume that a political revolution can survive without the supporting base of a popular reformation is to ask for the impossible in politics.
People must be persuaded that a new system is necessary, that the existing one is unfixable and needs to be discarded, while the change being proffered is an opportunity to sow the seeds of Utopia. Why does totalitarianism like its slickly designed communications? Because it is so acutely aware of its need to take ownership of hearts and minds. Statist regimes tend to love ladling on visual branding and propaganda. Democratic republics have their icons to be sure, but they are not such self-consciously managed brands as are those of the Soviets, Mussolini, Mao and the National Socialists. (For a fascinating look into the guts of the role design played in National Socialism, I recommend the documentary The Architecture of Doom – description here, watchable here)
In any endeavor, strong design and well-crafted communications convey great weight and import to the things they express. They create an idealized image that is so “together” in its presentation, that the strength, power and cohesion of the communications are conferred in the mind to the message they carry—the ideas, movement, and people. That is, the vehicle is so well put together, that many don’t examine the payload very carefully because they see it all as cut from a whole cloth.
Next Up … Part 2: Back to Old-School— How to Wow Like Mao
The Propaganda Series
1. What’s Good for the Goose-Step is Good Propaganda
2. Back to Old-School
3. Enter the Great and Powerful Obamessiah of Oz
4. The People’s Revolution
5. Hope & Change in All Its Taxpayer-Funded Glory
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