The dimensions of propaganda: German short-wave broadcasts to America.

Abstract

In order to correlate changes of opinion with changes in propaganda pressure, systematic methods of expressing variation in propaganda must be developed and used. With the construction of adequate dimensions comes the opportunity for intelligible parallel study of propaganda campaigns. German broadcasts were studied and some of them compared with British broadcasts when common topics were used as bases for the broadcasts. The following dimensions were found and are presented as tentative awaiting further study: dissolvent-unifying dimension, negative-positive dimension, the temporal dimension, personal-impersonal dimension, stratified-homogeneous dimension, authoritative-casual dimension, dimension of colloquiality, immediate-remote dimension, and dimension of repetitiousness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)