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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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This article is a bit of propaganda though. That doesn't mean it isn't true or anything. But running an article in the news about how much milder the disease is, is still going to have an effect on how people respond to it.
I think you might be using too broad a definition of propaganda. The result of influencing opinion does not make something propaganda. Propaganda needs some intent to persuade or push an agenda.
The article might be propaganda, largely that depends on the motivations for writing and publishing it. But the fact that the content of the article might change people's opinions does not make it propaganda.
Nah.
A bar this article very easily clears. What to publish is a choice. A choice was made to publish this article, with obvious influence on opinion and action.
Nah. Intent a nonsense metric. We can bicker forever about intent. Because we cannot know anyone's mind.
Using intent as a metric gives a lot of propaganda a free pass. Because we can't prove intent.
So you just don't know what propaganda is, got it.
Oh sod off then, dickhead.
Nah.
That wasn't directed at you. But I guess I said "dickhead" and you figured it fit you.
It's not a free pass. Something doesn't have to be propaganda to be bad.
I didn't say it did? I didn't even say that propaganda is universally bad?
Sure, but propaganda has to have intent. The article itself cannot be propaganda without it. It may advance a claim of COVID being trivial, but those who advance it must bend the article in some way. What they say then is the propaganda.
The choice of what to publish at all, is intent. News outlets are not just firehoses of all facts. They choose what to publish.
There is no need for the article to be "bent" in any way.
So to you propaganda is a synonym for news, and that is simply incorrect.
No. Not a synonym. But the line between news and propaganda is not clear-cut. Especially in the case of a self-contained article. A news outlet may serve as a source of propaganda, based on the editorial decisions they make. The individual articles are still news, even as they serve as propaganda for their audience.
You've kind of arrived at the point while ignoring it.
Propaganda requires intent. You are correct that we can't know their intent directly, therefore we can only use evidence to try to determine the authors intent.
Admittedly I did not pick the article a part, but I saw no tell-tale signs of propaganda. It was primarily interviews with doctors. I saw no signs of manipulative wording, attempts at persuasion, or unsupported opinions of the writer.
While I can't definitively say this article is not propaganda, it probably isn't.
So it's not propaganda until you can provide good evidence that it is.
And editorial choice clears the bar for intent.
You are ignoring what I'm saying. You are trying to look at a single article for evidence of propaganda. But that isn't the whole picture.
A news desk picks what articles that they publish. If they publish a whole bunch of articles saying "the average case of covid has become more mild" that is furthering a specific viewpoint. If they instead publish articles about "people are still suffering from long-covid", that is furthering a different viewpoint.
And crucially, both "the average case of covid has become more mild" and "people are still suffering from long-covid" can be true. Both types of articles can be written with absolutely zero bias, and still serve as propaganda.
Ok, but now you are assuming intent of the news desk still without evidence. I get where you're coming from, but without actual evidence showing a clear organizational bias for a certain narrative, making that assumption isn't anymore valid than assuming the actual reporters intent.
And again, furthering a viewpoint does not make propaganda. Virtually all news is going to further one viewpoint or another, even if the organization and writer are 100% unbiased. Facts usually don't maintain a neutral ground on a topic.
You mean like how they and others keep publishing articles saying, or intimating, that COVID is less severe now even though there's really no evidence for that?
It's the fact they keep doing it that makes it propaganda.
Ironic considering you've presented no evidence to support that.
So your own comments here are propaganda? If everything published by choice is propaganda, then everything is propaganda, because everything is published by choice. Nobody just dumps a bunch of rocks on the keyboard and publishes whatever it types out.
No, they think propaganda influences opinion, but I don't think anything they've said has changed anyone's mind about anything.