Chapter 23 Exercises: Domestic Propaganda in the United States

Exercise 23.1 — COINTELPRO: Operations, Organizations, Tactics

Type: Individual research and analysis Estimated time: 90–120 minutes Skills practiced: Primary source research, institutional analysis, pattern identification

Background

The FBI's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) ran from 1956 to 1971 and was exposed in part by activists who removed files from the FBI's Media, Pennsylvania field office and in part by the Church Committee's 1975-1976 congressional investigation. The COINTELPRO documents are now available through the National Security Archive and the FBI's own Freedom of Information Act reading room, making this one of the best-documented cases of government domestic propaganda and covert disruption operations available for public research.

Task

Using available primary source documents from the National Security Archive's COINTELPRO collection, the Church Committee Report (available through the Senate Historical Office), and relevant secondary scholarship, produce a research memo of approximately 800 words addressing the following questions:

  1. Organizations targeted: COINTELPRO operated against multiple organizations simultaneously. Identify at least five distinct organizations that were targets of COINTELPRO operations. For each, note the time period of targeting, the stated FBI rationale for targeting them, and whether that rationale was consistent with any evidence of actual criminal activity.

  2. Tactics documented: The chapter describes several specific COINTELPRO tactics: forged letters, anonymous media tips, leaking of personal information, infiltration by agents provocateurs. For at least three of these tactics, identify a specific documented operation — describe who was targeted, what the tactic involved, and what its intended and actual effects were.

  3. The propaganda function: COINTELPRO is sometimes described as a law enforcement program and sometimes as a propaganda program. Based on your research, which framing is more accurate, and why? In your analysis, draw on the definition of propaganda developed in Chapters 1-4 of this course.

  4. Legacy: The Church Committee recommended significant reforms of U.S. intelligence agencies' domestic operations. What reforms were actually implemented? In your assessment, what constraints on COINTELPRO-type operations currently exist, and how effective do you assess them to be?

Discussion Questions (for class)

  • What is the difference between an intelligence-gathering operation and a propaganda operation? Does COINTELPRO fit one category, both, or neither?
  • Who bears institutional responsibility for COINTELPRO — J. Edgar Hoover personally, the FBI as an institution, the attorneys general who authorized operations, the presidents who were aware of them?

Exercise 23.2 — The Five-Part Anatomy Applied to War on Terror Advertising

Type: Individual analysis Estimated time: 60–90 minutes Skills practiced: Primary source analysis, five-part anatomy application, emotional register identification

Background

Following the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government and various private organizations produced a substantial body of political advertising and public communication framing the "War on Terror" for domestic audiences. This includes official government public service announcements, military recruiting advertisements, political campaign advertising from the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, and issue advertising from private organizations. Many of these materials are available through the Internet Archive and through political advertising databases maintained by academic institutions.

Task

Select one political advertisement, public service announcement, or government communication from the 2001-2006 period related to the War on Terror, homeland security, or the Iraq War. Apply the five-part analytical anatomy to your selected source, producing a written analysis of 600-800 words.

Five-part anatomy:

  1. Source: Who produced this communication? What is their institutional identity and interest? What authority or credibility do they claim, and on what basis?

  2. Message: What is the explicit message? What is the implicit or operational message that goes beyond the explicit content? Is there a message about who belongs to the in-group and who belongs to the out-group?

  3. Emotional register: What emotions does this communication seek to activate? Identify the specific emotional appeals — fear, pride, solidarity, anger, grief — and describe the techniques used to activate each.

  4. Implicit audience: Who is this communication designed for? Be specific — not simply "the American public" but a more specific demographic, political, or psychological profile. What assumptions does the communication make about its audience's existing beliefs and fears?

  5. Strategic omissions: What relevant information does this communication fail to include? What context, evidence, or counter-argument would most effectively challenge the communication's framing, and why might its producers have chosen to omit it?

Synthesis: After completing the five-part analysis, write one paragraph connecting your analysis to the chapter's argument about the recurring pattern of U.S. domestic propaganda. Does your chosen advertisement fit the pattern? In what ways does it conform and in what ways does it differ?

A Note on Source Selection

You should choose a source you can access in its original form — video, print, or audio. Do not analyze a source you know only through description. If you have difficulty locating appropriate materials, the Living Room Candidate (presidential campaign ad archive), the Internet Archive's political advertising collection, and the Museum of the Moving Image's political advertising database are good starting points.

Exercise 23.3 — McCarthy's Propaganda Technique: A Psychological Framework Analysis

Type: Individual analysis, connecting to earlier course material Estimated time: 60–90 minutes Skills practiced: Cross-chapter synthesis, psychological mechanism identification, analytical writing

Background

Chapter 2 of this course introduced a framework of psychological mechanisms exploited by propaganda: fear appeals, authority appeals, social proof, scarcity/urgency framing, in-group/out-group activation, and cognitive dissonance induction. McCarthyism represents one of the most extensively documented cases of the systematic application of these mechanisms in American political history.

Task

Write an analytical essay of 700-900 words applying the Chapter 2 psychological framework to McCarthy's propaganda technique. Your essay should address the following:

  1. Authority appeal: How did McCarthy construct and deploy institutional authority? In your analysis, distinguish between legitimate authority (based on expertise, evidence, or accountability) and the form of authority McCarthy used. Why was congressional immunity specifically important to the authority appeal?

  2. Fear appeal: What specific fears did McCarthy's campaign activate? Be precise — not merely "fear of Communism" but the specific emotional content: fear of hidden threats, fear of being accused, fear of social exclusion, fear of institutional power. How did the form of fear McCarthy activated differ from a straightforward threat warning?

  3. Social proof and bandwagon: How did the loyalty oath culture, the naming of names, and the public nature of HUAC hearings function as social proof mechanisms? What was the effect of watching colleagues cooperate with the committee?

  4. Cognitive dissonance: McCarthy's technique required his targets and his audience to hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously — that the United States was a free democracy and that citizens could be professionally destroyed for political associations. How did his propaganda manage this dissonance? (Consider the concept of the "necessary exception" — the idea that a threat so severe justifies extraordinary measures.)

  5. Vulnerability and resistance: Based on your psychological analysis, who was most vulnerable to McCarthy's propaganda and who was most resistant? What factors — psychological, social, institutional — determined vulnerability and resistance?

Connection Question

Compare McCarthy's psychological technique to one other propaganda case studied in this course (from any chapter through Chapter 22). What mechanism is most similar across the two cases, and what accounts for that similarity?

Exercise 23.4 — Tracing the "Un-American" Framing Across Historical Periods

Type: Individual or pair research project Estimated time: 2–3 hours (outside class research + 45 minutes writing) Skills practiced: Historical tracing, pattern identification, argument construction

Background

The phrase "un-American activities" was used by HUAC as a formal designation and has recurred in American political rhetoric since at least the early twentieth century. The concept — the idea that certain Americans, by virtue of their political beliefs, associations, or identities, are not genuinely American — is even older. This exercise asks you to trace the concept across multiple historical periods.

Task

Select one of the following designated "un-American" groups from American history:

  • Socialist and labor organizers (approximately 1880-1940)
  • Japanese Americans during World War II
  • Civil rights activists in the civil rights era
  • Anti-Vietnam War protesters
  • Muslim Americans post-9/11
  • (With instructor approval) Another group of your choosing

Research how this group was framed as "un-American" during the relevant period, and write an analysis of 800-1,000 words addressing:

  1. The specific framing: What specific claims were made about this group's loyalty, values, or danger to American society? Who was making these claims — government officials, private organizations, media outlets?

  2. The techniques: Apply at least three of the propaganda techniques studied in this course to the framing of your chosen group. Be specific about the technique and provide documentary evidence.

  3. The consequences: What policy, legal, or social consequences followed from the "un-American" framing? Be specific — legislation, executive orders, law enforcement action, employment discrimination, social exclusion.

  4. The counter-narrative: How did members of the targeted group and their allies respond to the "un-American" framing? What counter-narrative resources did they deploy, and with what effect?

  5. The contemporary parallel: Without reducing current politics to historical metaphor, identify structural similarities between the historical framing you have analyzed and any contemporary political discourse you are aware of. What does the historical case help you see in the contemporary case?

Note on Sources

This exercise requires research beyond the course materials. You are expected to use at least three sources not assigned in this course. Academic databases (JSTOR, Project MUSE), the National Security Archive, digitized newspaper archives (ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Chronicling America), and primary source collections at your university library are all appropriate starting points.

Exercise 23.5 — Group Seminar: The "Real American" Framing Today

Type: Facilitated group discussion, followed by individual reflection Estimated time: 50-minute seminar discussion + 30-minute individual reflection Facilitator: Professor Webb will facilitate this discussion

Overview

This exercise moves from historical analysis to contemporary observation. Professor Webb will facilitate an open seminar discussion on a single question: Where do you see the "real American" framing being used in contemporary public discourse?

This is an analytically rigorous exercise, not a political debate. The goal is to apply the analytical tools developed in this chapter — the in-group/out-group mechanism, the loyalty test, the association with external threat — to current examples, with evidentiary specificity.

Before the Discussion

Come to class prepared with at least one contemporary example of what you believe may be a "real American" framing. For your example, be ready to describe:

  • The source (who is using the framing and in what context)
  • The specific content (what claims are being made about who is and who is not authentically American)
  • The target (who is being designated as outside or marginal to the "real American" in-group)
  • The historical parallel (which case from this chapter does this most resemble, and in what respects)
  • The evidence question (what evidence would you need to confidently conclude this is propaganda rather than political rhetoric that happens to use in-group/out-group language)

Discussion Structure

Professor Webb will open with a brief framing observation, then call on students for their prepared examples. The discussion will then pursue the following questions:

  1. Are all uses of "real American" language propaganda, or are some legitimate political rhetoric? How do we draw the distinction?
  2. Are there uses of in-group/out-group framing by political actors you agree with? How do you apply the same analytical standards to communications whose political conclusions you share?
  3. What is the relationship between the "real American" framing and the specific vulnerable populations identified in the chapter? Is there a pattern in contemporary targeting that parallels the historical pattern?

After the Discussion: Individual Reflection (300 words)

Write a 300-word reflection addressing: What did you find most difficult about this discussion? Were there moments when you found yourself resisting the analytical framework because of the political implications? How do you navigate the tension between political commitment and analytical objectivity in the study of propaganda?

These reflections will not be graded on their political content but on the quality of the analytical self-reflection they demonstrate.

Chapter 23 | Part 4: Historical Cases Propaganda, Power, and Persuasion