Public Affairs Quarterly
نویسنده
چکیده
The purpose of this essay is to offer criteria for the identification of propaganda as a type of discourse, and for the analysis and evaluation of argumentation used in propaganda.1 Ten essential characteristics (as well as several other typical properties) of propaganda as an identifiable type of discourse are given. Some advice is given on how to analyze argumentation in propaganda, and to reconstruct certain types of common arguments that are central to propaganda. But the main problem addressed, and the most difficult one, is that of how to evaluate arguments used in propaganda. What frequently happens, especially in courses on logic and critical thinking, is that arguments are automatically dismissed as irrational or fallacious, as soon as they are categorized as propaganda. For the term `propaganda' has such highly negative connotations that people tend to see only the arguments of their opposition as describable with this label, as if their own arguments could never be. This essay critically questions such a policy of automatic dismissal of arguments used in propaganda, and seeks out a better method of evaluating such arguments, so that an evaluation can be supported or refuted by the employment of clearly stated criteria that can be used to assess the textual evidence given in a particular case.
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