Should Propaganda Tecniques Be Taught In School? (final draft)

I am required to write a post answering this question: should schools be required to provide all students with a course on how to identify and analyze the motives behind propaganda.

For many years people have been being tricked by TV and radio commercials telling them to buy a product. Companies use certain techniques like the Plain Folks Appeal  which is when commercials try to show you that a person or product is good for “ordinary” people, because a person is “just like you” and understands you. Or Glittering Generality which is telling only positive things about something or someone without giving evidence or facts. These are either really developed techniques or we are just really susceptible to propaganda.

I think people would benefit from having a course on propaganda in schools, it might help students make good financial choices in the future and in the present. Apparently kids are also targeted by propaganda, but probably in a different way though like being lured in by the prize in the bottom of a cereal box as opposed to adults who may have the reason of some famous person driving some fancy car. People need to be taught what to look out for so they can determine when they are being tricked and when they are being offered something worth their while

These techniques obviously work considering the fact that people are having money taken from them either because they are not being provided with full or correct information which leads to a nice dent in your wallet. Now for adults who have big paychecks this is less of a problem but for students in higher grades and college or kids who get an allowance and don’t have a full time job and don’t have a very large paycheck if they get one at all, it becomes necessary for you to get your money’s worth and if you are tricked then it could affect your financial future and not just your financial future but your whole future.

If schools provide a course on propaganda it may render these techniques ineffective but for this to occur the student has to identify the motives behind propaganda, for example the motive behind the Plain Folks Appeal is that if a company uses an actor that can relate to the audience that the commercial is aimed at then the audience will be more likely to think “oh if that person who is similar to me needs this thing then I guess I need it to”.

Propaganda also promotes the use of logic which is what your mind uses to work through things and help you find reasonable answers to things. If you have logic you will become almost invulnerable to propaganda.  Another thing that you can use to protect yourself from propaganda is thinking independently and not doing things because everyone else does it.

All together I think it is very important to learn about propaganda so you know when you ARE going to get cheated out of your money and so you know when you are NOT going to get cheated out of your money. Along the way it will help you make better decisions in your life it may make you think “why am I buying this?   Is it because of the way it was being presented or is it because I really need it?”