Report R4.5 Propaganda and Research Seminar Leaders: C. D. Kuruvilla and Madhavi Latha Nandi, FPM Scholars, XIMB cdkuruvilla[at]yahoo.co.in, madhavinandi[at]yahoo.co.in Propaganda is a specific type of communication to influence decision making by appealing to an individual's emotions. It is usually partisan and does not provide the complete picture. It includes the use of persuasive techniques, in writing, speech, music, film, or other means, that seek to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behaviour of a group for the benefit of the person or organisation using it. Propagandists try to put across an idea, good or bad, rather than allow others to discover the truth through reasoned argument and persuasion. Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995), a pioneer in the field of public relations wrote, "The only difference between propaganda and education, really, is the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don't believe is propaganda" (Bernays, as quoted in Propaganda, 2006). Research on controversial topics, such as the impact of genetically modified crops, is bound to have its own set of critics and proponents. Researchers need to uphold the quality of research and ensure that their findings clearly indicate the conditions of their validity. Propagandists cite research findings to further their cause and influence decisions. They use several devices to further their objectives. The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, USA, has classified those devices as mentioned below. Each has a specific objective and is used under a given set of circumstances as mentioned below. (i) Name-calling: seeks to elicit judgement from an audience without allowing them to examine the evidence. (ii) Glittering generalities: appeals to emotions of love, generosity, and goodness. (iii) Transfer: appeals to emotions of love and hate and seeks to transfer approval through the use of symbols. (iv) Testimonial: use of testimony from authority to further economic, political, and social causes. (v) Plainfolks: seeks to win over confidence by developing an association with the individual. (vi) Card stacking: uses censorship to distort information to get a desired reaction. (vii) Bandwagon: seeks to influence the audience to follow the crowd. Public policy is usually framed after some research. Researchers need to ensure the credibility and dependability of their findings. As a researcher, one needs to be familiar with the available literature and avoid methodological errors. Research publications become more credible through peer review. Credibility is also enhanced when the results are subject to public scrutiny and eventually approved by the research community. In an issue of PLoS Medicine, a noted epidemiologist wrote, "There is increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims" (Ioannidis, 2005). According to him, the probability that a research finding is indeed true depends on "the prior probability of it being true (before doing the study), the statistical power of the study, and the level of statistical significance." He notes the high rate of non-replication as a sign of the findings being false. Armstrong (1982) has suggested that research which challenges existing beliefs is less likely to be published and often criticised for methodological problems. The case of Phelan (2003) is an illustration of this. Despite winning the award for the best conceptual paper at the Academy of Management meeting in 2000, Phelan enountered rejection by several journals, including the journal that awarded the conference prize. Propaganda in Academia Chomsky and Herman (1988) proposed a propaganda model that focuses on the inequality in the distribution of wealth and power and its multilevel effects on mass-media. According to them there are five filters applied to media stories that control output: (i) The size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms: The enormous cost of building a news gathering mechanism prevents the free flow of information. (ii) Advertising as the primary income source of the mass media: The media houses are financially dependent on the government and business houses for revenue from advertisements and practice restraint in negative reporting. (iii) The reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and "experts" funded and approved by these agents of power: Hence the media seeks to develop good relations with its clients. (iv) "Flak" as a means of disciplining the media: The media tends to develop self-correcting checks to ensure that they do not antagonise their stakeholders, i.e., various government and business establishments. (v) "Anti-communism" as a national religion and control mechanism: There was tendency in the United States to dismiss individuals as communists if they raised controversial issues. Using the model to explain some aspects of business education, Phelan (2003) suggested five factors that could be considered as filters that serve to filter or de-radicalise the output of business schools: (i) Career path of academics: the award of the doctorate is dependent on the approbation of senior faculty members by doctoral students and hence doctoral students refrain from undertaking research which do not fall in line with the preferences of the research guides. (ii) Compensation: faculty who lack administrative support are denied access to discretionary income by conducting seminars and undertaking other academic work. (iii) Recruitment and endowment issues: critical attack on corporations in research papers damages the school's reputation with recruiters (iv) Advisory boards: organisational members are dissuaded from researching contentious topics. (v) Data sourcing: inability of researchers to gather data on controversial topics from corporations. Often the topics of research are guided by the preferences of funding institutions rather than those of researchers. It is the researchers' responsibility to ensure that their findings are not influenced by the funding institutions. This will enhance the credibility of research in general. References Armstrong, J. S. (1982). Is review by peers as fair as it appears? Interfaces, 12, 62-74. Retrieved Nov 12, 2006, from http://129.3.20.41/eps/get/papers/0502/0502058.pdf Chomsky, N., & Herman, E. S. (1988). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. Retrieved November 7, 2006, from http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20031209.htm Institute for Propaganda Analysis. (2006). Wikipedia. Retrieved Nov 12, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Propaganda_Analysis Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2005). Why most published research findings are false? PLoS Medicine, 2(8), Article e124. Retrieved November 12, 2006, from http://medicine.plosjournals.org/ Phelan, S. E. (2003). A propaganda model of business school behavior. Retrieved November 6, 2006 from http://www.unlv.edu/Faculty/phelan/Research/Propaganda.pdf Propaganda. (2006). Wikipedia. Retrieved Nov 12, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
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