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Propaganda? Yes, certainly, when quoted out of context to give a misleading impression – as in this particular case.
Bear in mind that it’s a before-and-after video documenting her conversion experiences. The remarks you cite – whether they appear in this video or not – faithfully represent Maria’s previous pacifist views before her tour of the Donbass region. In the interview she explains at length how she revised her opinions during the tour, eventually concluding that her pacifist stance was wrong and the Russian invasion is actually justified and justifiable.
The whole point of publishing and disseminating the video online is to encourage viewers to make the same transition. That’s exactly what Russian propaganda is designed to do.
In the video, Dougan helpfully explains how propaganda works: [3:43]
“But that’s the problem really, that the Western propaganda is emotional. […] And that’s how emotions work and that’s how the Western propaganda works. They show emotional pictures, tell emotional stories, and this switches off the analytic thinking and that’s what’s happening.”
However, doesn’t that also describe the technique being used in the video? i.e. showing scenes of devastation, with distraught people cursing the Ukrainians, while Maria narrates the harrowing tale of how she was compelled to change her views, accompanied by pained expressions of regret. Encouraging emotional identification with people in distress is designed to evoke sympathy, to switch off the analytic thinking, in order to drive viewers along the path – which Maria is so carefully laying out – from anti-war pacificism towards patriotic support of the Russian military invasion. The implication is that Russians are justified in bombing the hell out of Ukraine to (paradoxically) stop the people suffering.
Maria is careful to point out that the Ukrainians are essentially the same people as the Russians – ” It’s inseparable,” she says, “we are the same people. We grew up on the same movies, on the same music, on the same literature. We like the same food. We have the same cultural references.” In that case, they’ve notched up a heck of a body count of their own people! Which would kind of defeat the justification being offered.
Propaganda, indeed.
This particular case, Dawg, are my own words, printed with my own fingers, on March 2, 2024. I’m 100% guarantee it is said sincerely, opening my heart, describing what I feel. That is why I know it is definitely not propaganda.
You trust Western media more. And you make sure that pretty females with tits don’t make you be more supportive of their words. Well, I think I’ve got something for you. Filmed by CNN. I’m not sure about this female’s tits, but she’s definitely missing a leg and arm, so decide for yourself if she’s pretty.
At 7:50 in this video
Jimmy Dore: Eurppean leaders ADMIT Ukraine peace deal was a sham (YouTube)
The female appeals in Ukrainian to her Ukrainian president with a plea to stop the bombings. Do you find it propaganda?No, Tatyana, the pacifist quote is not propaganda – it’s the video, which starts with pacifist sentiments and ends with supporting the illegal Russian military invasion, that is the propaganda piece. Remember what I said about context.
Now we have another video to watch, presumably directly relevant. If it tugs the emotional heartstrings it could well be used as propaganda – depending on the context of course.
I didn’t neglect, Dawg, we’re still in the process determining your real criteria for detecting propaganda.
I described my feelings, that you call a pacifist quote, I posted it an hour AFTER this one:“You ask why I’m not going to protest this war…
People may underestimate the blessing of propaganda ? Actually, prepared people with the set of quick answers are indeed blessed. Unlike me. I have no TV antenna and only get my news on Internet, picking myself interesting topics. This site is my main place to get updates on politics. I find the community very informative and I appreciate the diversity of opinions.Back in December I commented asking Mr. Murray of his opinion on NATO-Russia proposed treaties. It felt dangerous already at that moment. Everyone realised that NATO will refuse talking and I expected I’ll be running somewhere with my family and my cats. This didn’t attract Mr. Murray, so I decided it’s not worth attention.
Better I watched TV!
Unfortunately, we mocked the very idea and didn’t expect Russia to attack Ukraine. The news pored on me like a storm and filled me with panic, pain and shame. I wish you never ever feel what I feel. I wake up of tachycardia and all day through I deal with nausea. It lasts all these days and I don’t know if it stop sometime.
It was always like “ours are doing something to stop the conflict, while I mind my own life”. I spend my time watching jewelry lessons on YouTube, instead of following the events in Ukraine. So, apalled, I had to catch up, learning what’s going on and what is said from both sides, and how it is possible on Earth that Russia hits Ukraine.
For me, going to protest this war is impossible, Andrew. I live very near the Ukrainian border. I myself have Ukrainian ancestry. I watched A LOT of evidence of what they were doing to Russians in Ukraine and I myself tracked a case of utter hypocrisy – a person pretending to gather money for charity, sending it to kill Russians, a Ukrainian in London. No doubt she was also advocating among her London friends and colleagues, spreading the image of Ukrainian victim.
A girl from Donetsk who fled from there long ago sits in the next workshop. I asked why she did’t tell me. You know, the answer was they don’t want to be a burden, or make more inconvenience, or bring negativity. They are happy already to flee the war.
I haven’t seen girls in London or Kiev protesting the war in Donbass. They all believed they were doing the right thing staying home and funding the war. Now, I believe I do the right thing staying home.— SNIP —
[ Mod: You reproduced an entire article from Craig, including BTL comments with corrupted HTML, which amounted to over 2,500 words. It has been pruned to tidy the thread. You are welcome to link to the article instead. ]Thanks, moderator, for the correction. it was an accident, sorry.
Dawg, for me, Maria’s thoughts clearly matched my own experience, so I find it true.
While you started talking about propaganda. I see a commentator throws in the thesis that Maria is the blogger’s girlfriend, and you pick it up and develop it, saying that the blogger hides this connection. You don’t give us proof. Let’s leave the veracity of this assumption to your conscience. Abstract from your personality, someone enters a discussion with the suggestion of a romantic connection, along with “pretty female with tits emotes”. Could it be the poisoning of the well?The woman in the CNN video is definitely not the blogger’s girlfriend. Also, the video is not produced by pro-Russian bloggers. Do you have another logical trick to declare this as propaganda?
While you have a good understanding of how propaganda affects people, your assessment is irrelevant here. You are showing undeserved cruelty towards sincere expression of feelings and honest reporting of events.
One more thing, Daug, about the logic we use to evaluate information:
Critical thinking can be “strong,” that is, unbiased and truth-seeking. But it also happens to be “weak”. This classification was proposed by Richard Paul, and he defined the weak type as follows:
this is the thinking of a pseudo-intellectual who does not seriously think about the ethical consequences of his actions. The bearer of this mindset is often highly educated, but uses his knowledge to pursue unjust and selfish goals.
So if you want to have a proper understanding of what is going on around you, knowledge of logic is necessary but not sufficient. You also need to be able to question your own beliefs, and this can be excruciatingly painful. You need to think about the consequences of your expressed thoughts, which means taking responsibility.When were you in Donbass Tatyana?
Dougan is a pro-Russian blogger. You’ve only got to look at the rest of the content of his Youtube channel to realise that. Maria is Dougan’s girlfriend and has been working for him as a translator for some years.
“Aug 18, 2022 3:00 p.m
John Marc Dugan is a very fascinating character. He is American and has lived in Moscow for six years. I met him on journalist trips to the Donbass and we became friends. [ … ]John has a girlfriend who is an outspoken opponent of what she has called “Russia’s war of aggression against sovereign Ukraine.” She took part in unauthorized demonstrations against the Russian military invasion in Moscow, for which she was taken away by the police and fined.
I met them both in Rostov-on-Don, when I was just coming from Donetsk, on their way to Donetsk.”
Anyway the whole story is a joke. Dougan clearly controlled what she would’ve seen. I’m reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1931 in response to claims of widespread starvation and oppression. Stalin fooled him into thinking that everything was perfect in the workers’ paradise, that people had freedoms they didn’t and that everyone was well fed.
Mission creep goes further down the rabbit hole in Ukraine. Leopard2 tanks seem to be on the way…..who knows if this is a prelude to EU/NATO boots on the ground?
With all the nuclear powers involved in this conflict, owning 95% of the world’s nuclear capacity between them, it’s time for an immediate ceasefire as a prelude to peace talks.Now we have some serious looking allegations of corruption in Ukraine, or is it just power politicking?
https://sonar21.com/if-you-cant-win-on-the-battlefield-get-the-media-to-publish-fantasy/
OK, Tatyana, here’s the reply I wrote on 18 January, but didn’t post. I wasn’t going to return to it because I thought you’d already reduced your own argument to absurdity, and you were contradicted by Pears Morgaine, but since you made a specific request under the Intolerance article, here it is:
==========
Tatyana> I see a commentator throws in the thesis that Maria is the blogger’s girlfriend, and you pick it up and develop it, saying that the blogger hides this connection.
No, what I actually said was that Dougan “covered up his relationship” to Lelyanova. I didn’t specify the nature of that relationship. If he only employs her as a translator, that’s a significant relationship because it means he’s paying her wages. (As Pears Morgaine has shown, someone who knew them very well described her as his “girlfriend”, so the claim has some corroboration. In any case, Lelyanova and Dougan certainly have a very close working relationship.)
My point was that Masha has great media appeal, which works on a subliminal level and thus is ideal for propaganda purposes (according to Dougan’s own description). In another video, with Dougan taking questions in a live stream, he voices his frustration that the online chat is filling up with comments and questions about Masha – how beautiful she is, what age she is, and so on. The halo effect is so strong that it dazzles the audience, even in a studio-based chat. That’s an example of speaking directly to the positive emotions while obscuring the logic. Patrick Lancaster just doesn’t have that same kind of appeal. The lovely Masha is much more effective at delivering a powerful reinforcement via non-verbal channels – at least, for people who aren’t alert to it. And that’s ultimately why this discussion thread is based on a video of her, rather than a more objective documentary-style news report of which there are thousands available on the internet.
Propaganda
Remember what I said about the importance of *context* in propaganda. You claimed to acknowledge that point, but you’ve shown no comprehension of it in practice.As an example of non-propaganda, you provided a link to … the Jimmy Dore Show!? Now, that’s comedy!! The transparent purpose of that show (which is rated on the Media Bias Chart as “most extreme left”, and “unreliable, problematic”) is to pump up the emotions of the audience on whatever issue Dore or his pseudo-lefty libertarian cronies have taken objection to that week: covid vaccines, anti-gun laws, Biden’s liberalism, etc. Dore’s schtick is to read a few sentences out of context then continually reinterpret them, progressively distorting their intended meaning until he finally throws his hands up in exasperation at the outrageous and ridiculous things he’s just said. He’s been riding the faux-left populist bandwagon all the way to the bank.
Aaron Maté (the guest host in that episode) uses the same method, albeit with less melodrama. He paraphrases and reworks statements into a form that the person who made the original statement would obviously not consent to. That’s not a legitimate analytical method. All it does is extract and amplify the analyst’s own preconceptions, stuffing them into someone else’s mouth.
That’s the *context* of the video you find so deeply emotionally affecting (which, as you say, hasn’t been produced by pro-Kremlin sources). There are many such examples of atrocities on each side, but of course you won’t see images or clips of any cases that might contradict the message that the show is trying to reinforce. (The same is true of the mainstream Western media.) Picking a vivid example and manipulating the context to reinforce a point, while obscuring potential doubts and contrary evidence, is how propaganda works. So, yes, the show itself uses the video as propaganda.
Putin has his own peculiar idea of what propaganda is. Consider the law he approved last month to criminalise “information advocating a denial of traditional family values” (the first version of the law – “protecting minors” – was introduced in 2013, before the Donbass conflict even started). What this means in effect is that anything that “raises interest in” non-traditional sexual relationships, portraying LGBT lifestyles in a positive way, is outlawed. That includes TV and movies about gay people, exhibitions with homosexual themes, and drag queen acts. The penalties are severe. Accordingly, there has been a mass shutdown of LGBT-friendly activities in Russia. (The BBC even claimed that the purpose of the law is to deflect attention from the military failures in Ukraine, but that sounds suspiciously like anti-Russian propaganda because they offer no evidence of a logical connection to the invasion.) I won’t even mention the media restrictions that apply in Russia regarding information about the Ukraine war (or “special military operation”, for Kremlin eyes). Both sides may be guilty of pushing propaganda, but only Russia has introduced legal penalties for anyone who dissents from it.
ok, Dawg, now I’ll tell you what I see.
You commented on Maria:Masha emotes /// her interview is equivalent to a Patrick Lancaster propaganda video (except with a prettier face and nicer tits ///
I’ve presented you with two pieces I’ve written by myself. The first you described as pacifist, the second – I hope you enjoyed my performance of over-dramatic emoting in the Intolerance topic. I made a conclusion on your ability to read emotions.
Then, you said
///the sites Dougan chose to visit were selected deliberately for a counternarrative purpose, because there is no attempt in that video to acknowledge any other reality on the ground///
I’ve linked a video by CNN, embedded in the Jimmy Dore’s show, but all you have to say is “it’s comedy”
Do a final test, Dawg.
Instead of Masha in Donbas, imagine a person, a Holokaust denier, who visited Auschwitz memorial and changed their mind. If you’re able to comment on such a person as an emoting propagandist with tits nicier than of other propagandists, you know who you are. And if your description of such a person would be made in a more polite manner and you would not label it propaganda, then I’ve got bad news for you too.
Anyway, don’t let me know of the result, I know it already.Tatyana, you’re still neglecting the key element of propaganda – *context* – as well as indulging in flagrant whataboutery.
“The woman in the CNN video is definitely not the blogger’s girlfriend. Also, the video is not produced by pro-Russian bloggers. Do you have another logical trick to declare this as propaganda?”
You’re referring to a 9-year-old CNN news report, produced by an accredited press organisation that was reporting both sides of the conflict. The report is embedded in (the context of) a podcast chiefly known for satirical comedy, where it is presented as apparent evidence for a political inference it really can’t support.
Why are you so keen to deflect from the topic of this discussion? We could play a game of “Is this propaganda? Is that propaganda?” endlessly, with no bearing on the video posted at the top. John Dougan’s video interview with (his close *ahem* friend and associate) Maria Lelyanova is obviously aimed at persuading pacifists and doubters to support the Russian army’s military invasion. Dougan uses the same kind of emotional button-pressing techniques that he himself attributed to Western propaganda:
“But that’s the problem really, that the Western propaganda is emotional. So, and you know this yourself, when you are afraid, when you are hating somebody, when you love somebody, you’re not ready for emotions. If we know this from many stories just in private life, when somebody is betraying you but you love the person, you are not able to listen to arguments. And that’s how emotions work and that’s how the Western propaganda works. They show emotional pictures, tell emotional stories, and this switches off the analytic thinking and that’s what’s happening.”
Dougan’s own output uses the same persuasive methods and so should be tarred with the same brush. And remember he admitted to being well versed in the manipulation of opinion via fake news: “There must be real news with real photos on the front of the site so the fake story blends in and becomes believable.” Those are important points that I think any viewer of the video should consider.
That’s the core topic of discussion here. (If you want to point to other things, you should first explain their implications for the argument.)
I appreciate and commend the sentiments expressed in the unattributed quotation that you later claimed authorship of. As I noted, it seems well aligned with Maria’s initial pacifist views. Have you, like her, changed your opinion on justifications for the invasion since you wrote it? If so, why?
Masha Lelyanova talks to George Galloway about her experience –
INTERVIEW: The Donbas war zone visit changed her life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LojWboQ6cEU&ab_channel=GeorgeGalloway
