Weapons Of Mass Persuasion

These collected essays apply human communication concepts and theories to the communication problems encountered by nations, communities, and individuals to move beyond critique of the failed U.S. communication campaigns and strategies in the war on terror.

With nearly sixty percent of Americans initially against a pre-emptive war without sanction from the United Nations, and even higher anti-war numbers in most other nations of the world, the 2003 war against Iraq quickly became an enormous public relations challenge for the George W. Bush administration. The subject of Weapons of Mass Persuasion is a war in which American patriotism became so mired in commercial jingoism that the demarcations between entertainment and political conduct disappeared completely. In this engaging and disturbing book, Paul Rutherford shows how the marketing campaign for the war against Iraq was constructed and carried out. He argues that not only was the campaign a new chapter in the presentation of real-time war as pop culture, but that its deeper implications have now come to constitute part of the history of modern democracy. Situating the war against Iraq within an existing tradition of war as narrative, spectacle, and, more broadly, commodity, Rutherford offers a brief overview of the history of civic advertising and propaganda, then examines in detail the different dimensions of three weeks of war presented to North Americans as it became a branded conflict, processed and cleansed to appeal to the well-established tastes of veteran consumers of popular culture. Including incisive analyses of visual material - speeches, editorial cartoons, and media political commentary, but particularly news reports of such sound bite events as the bombing of Baghdad, the toppling of the Hussein statue, and the rescue of captured soldier Private Jessica Lynch - as well as extensive polling data from around the world and interviews with the actual consumers of war, Weapons of Mass Persuasion chronicles the making of a Hollywood war: fast-paced and heroic, pitting the forces of good against the forces of evil to achieve a triumphant, sanitized, and commodified outcome. Not since Naomi Klein's No Logo have the gods of marketing and the art of commercialism been so thoroughly disrobed. Electronic Format Disclaimer: Images removed at the request of the rights holder.

Weapons of Mass Persuasion chronicles the making of a Hollywood war: fast-paced and heroic, pitting the forces of good against the forces of evil to achieve a triumphant, sanitized, and commodified outcome.

Features stunning full-colour posters from both world wars of the 20th century

Weapons of Mass Deception reveals: How the Iraq war was sold to the American public through professional P.R. strategies. "The First Casualty": Lies that were told related to the Iraq war. Euphemisms and jargon related to the Iraq war, e.g. "shock and awe," "Operation Iraqi Freedom," "axis of evil," "coalition of the willing," etc. "War as Opportunity": How the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq have been used as marketing hooks to sell products and policies that have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. "Brand America": The efforts of Charlotte Beers and other U.S. propaganda campaigns designed to win hearts overseas. "The Mass Media as Propaganda Vehicle": How news coverage followed Washington's lead and language. The book includes a glossary — "Propaganda: A User's Guide" — and resources to help Americans sort through the deceptions to see the strings behind Washington's campaign to sell the Iraq war to the public.

The CCP has employed the united-front approaches it honed during its early years in its encounters with the United States from the 1930s and ’40s to the present. These approaches are so foreign to American ways of operating that they have hardly been understood, a gap this report has sought to fill. The CCP’s current goals and behavior come into focus through study of the modern history of Sino-American relations from the party’s perspective: what the Communists were trying to do, when, and with what means. Applying lessons from past U.S.–CCP interactions should help the United States shape future interactions favorably while avoiding negative surprises. The United States risks letting united-front techniques compromise its understanding of the character of the CCP threat. By failing to protect Americans against this distortion and not mobilizing defenses, Washington abets the CCP Dream. If the U.S. government instead rouses itself to help expose and confront the truth about the CCP, its techniques, and its ambition, the country will be able to counter Beijing’s unfolding twenty-first century united-front offensive. This would entail educating the U.S. (and the broader Western) population, ceasing to enable the PRC’s economic rise and technomilitary build up, and securing critical infrastructure and supply chains against CCP interference.