We Are Not Immune To Propaganda
Speaking, as we were, of foxes:
Propaganda has been on my mind for a few days now. As we get ever-deeper into what the Wall Street Journal called “the dumbest trade war in history”, I’ve seen a sudden flurry of Chinese-origin messaging on social media (especially TikTok). A lot of it is hilarious, engaging, politically insightful… and fairly obviously propagandistic.
The best propaganda is media-literate, entertaining, and has a solid core of truth. That’s why Russian propaganda has always been so unconvincing. Basically, the Russians never figured out how lie well enough to cover up how grey and terrible and bloody their shit was. 20th-century Chinese propaganda had the same problem. But this is a new century now, and although China still has plenty of authoritarian badness to lie about by omission, it also has plenty of shiny nice things to hold up for comparison when it decides to talk smack about the USA. It also has a social media culture at least as skilled as ours at sharing, spreading, and repackaging memes in engaging and organic ways. I’ve learned a lot about Chinese propaganda recently, and it’s been a surprisingly fun trip!
Art is by GlassShine.
Similar Sex Blogging:
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=33881
What kind of times are we living in when the ErosBlog is already getting political. :-)
Bad ones, for certain. It’s never a main focus here, but it always feels a bit “off” to just carry on pretending that nothing at all whatsoever is wrong when the world is entirely on fire.