Propaganda theory. Chapter 4

Three tactics that can be used in propaganda or PR in the time of crisis and serve to control the narrative suppressing or devaluing alternative points of view.

Marco Melgrati @m_melgrati “Politicians' Lies” (2016)

In the first three chapters I’ve already talked about the psychology behind propaganda techniques, approach to content writing and to strategy, now I want to look into different tactics that are widely used in PR, especially in crisis PR, especially when it’s about reputation or image risks, and in propaganda when such damage is precisely the purpose of selected strategy. 

The first is the right one

It’s really important to stay in control of the narrative about the subject of ongoing campaigns, especially when they attract a lot of public attention. It can be a sort of personal or brand disaster, then the best tactic is to be first to tell about the problem and explain the official point of view. That can be truthful or made up, the thing is it should be clear and widely spread so as to form the first wanted impression on the audience.

If it’s about political games and propaganda, the message should be there before the opponent can form their argumentation. That can be all sorts of accusations, absurd stories that have no ground under them, or black PR, compromising materials (photos or records) that are released just to make someone look bad. Even if later all that will be proven false, the image of the campaign’s subject or a group of subjects will be spoiled enough. 

As we know already, the crowd has no time and no will to think. Then the injected  information sparks discussion and divides the audience, simple minds prefer to believe it and they never check the facts relying mostly on someone’s authority. They rarely review their own decisions.

If the information is controversial and there’s no opportunity for fact checking, people tend to choose the first heard version and view as more trustworthy than what they learn later.