Anti PC-Strategies. How Actors of the Political Right Use the Concept of Political Correctness to Maintain Power and Influence the American Public

Examination Thesis , 2020 , 83 Pages , Grade: 1,0

American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography

This paper first examines and looks into the definitions, development and sources of political correctness as a cultural concept, which has significantly been coined in a certain direction since its first occurrence. Beforehand, as a framework and to put it into a sociological relevant perspective, Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour and their findings about the connection of language, society and their mutual influence will be discussed. Furthermore, putting theory into practice, three speeches of three different politicians representing anti-PC-strategies via three different sorts of media will be analysed. Moreover, respective repercussions in society will be outlined and associated with results of the analysis.

"Political Correctness belongs in the dustbin of history", Alice Weidel, faction leader of the far-right populist German party AFD enthusiastically demanded on the nationwide party´s conference in 2017. This statement made her and her party´s position regarding political correctness perfectly clear. When it comes to the emotional debate about being pro or anti political correctness, it seems to be that the far-right parties across Europe and many conservative politicians in the United States have similar attitudes to this topic.

The urgency of exploring and revealing strategies which connect PC and far-right propaganda and thereby coin a dangerous cultural narrative, can be observed for instance in Germany in respect of the predominantly anti-muslim blog Politically Incorrect News (PI news), which is under surveillance of the Bavarian constitution protection and counts 10.000 daily visitors in 2017. The blog´s operators describe their site as against mainstream, pro-American and pro-Israeli, and in a constant battle for the German constitution against the ´ideology´ of multiculturalism.

Now, the United States of America have been functioning and still work in many diverse realms of cultural and respective political changes as a blueprint and virtually as a forecast for developments in Europe. This has been and still is the case with political correctness as a phenomena, which seems to be a connecting piece of society and politics. Consequently, examining and understanding PC and anti-PC as a presumed strategy of politicians of the right means tracing it back to its origins in the U.S.. Eventually, analysing its effects and consequences can possibly provide an idea how to counteract the difficulties which it also causes in Europe.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Sociological perspectives
2.1. Pierre Bourdieu's “Language and symbolic power”
2.2. Bruno Latour's “Power of association”

3. The attempt of defining PC and anti-PC

4. The controversial development of PC - a weapon in Culture War?

5. American public discourse and the population's perception of PC

6. Political rhetoric, propaganda and its characteristics

7. George Bush Sr.'s speech at Michigan University in
7.1. Speaker and historical context
7.2. Speech content analysis
7.3. Fact checking: Threat by speech codes on universities?
7.4. Aftermath - the economic profit of PC and its spread

8. Propaganda 2.0 - the role of new media

9. Brian Kemp's YouTube video “So conservative” in
9.1. Speaker and temporal context
9.2. Video speech analysis
9.3. Fact checking: Threat by undocumented immigrants?
9.4. Aftermath
9.4.1. Study effects of anti-PC-campaigning
9.4.2. The medium YouTube in general and the video's resonance in particular

10. Donald Trump's tweet in
10.1. Speaker and political context
10.2. Twitter, Trump and PC - a dangerous connection
10.3. Tweet analysis
10.4. Fact checking: Threat by banned immigrants
10.5. Aftermath
10.5.1. Respective reactions on Twitter
10.5.2. Trump's speech - climax of anti-PC evolution?
10.5.3. The “Trump effect” - theory and beyond

11. Conclusion and outlook

Works Cited

Appendix

1. Introduction

“Political Correctness belongs in the dustbin of history”¹, Alice Weidel, faction leader of the far-right populist German party AFD enthusiastically demanded on the nationwide party's conference in 2017. This statement made her and her party's position regarding political correctness perfectly clear. When it comes to the emotional debate about being pro or anti political correctness, it seems to be that the far-right parties across Europe and many conservative politicians in the United States have similar attitudes to this topic.

The niece of the French Front National leader Marine Le Pen, Marion Merchal-Le Pen even accused “massive immigration, Islamic lobbies and political correctness [...] [transforming France to] the little niece of Islam, and the terrorism is only the tip of the iceberg”². Naming political correctness in the same breath as massive immigration and suspicious Islamic lobbies, which belong to the most popular far-right beliefs to talk about, is pointing out how important this particular phrase is, when setting up their public relations campaigns. Marine Le Pen lamented over traditional conservatives in her country who are “paralysed by their fear of confronting political correctness”³, and in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, who is the leader of the far-right populist party PVV, proudly announced that “the people of the West are waking up. They are throwing off the yoke of political correctness.”⁴ PC⁵ is framed and defined here as a peril of the freedom of speech, and even preventing politicians to do their job properly. To the interview question why she wanted to throw away political correctness, Weidel answered that the language corridor of public discourse should be opened up and widened, and not exclude certain ways of politics.⁶ At the same time, she sued the German TV channel NDR, and in particular the satire show Extra3, for insulting her with the word Nazi slut in the context of making fun of her demand to end political correctness. However, freedom of speech does not appear as a right to be conceded everyone.

The urgency of exploring and revealing strategies which connect PC and far-right propaganda and thereby coin a dangerous cultural narrative, can be observed for instance in Germany in respect of the predominantly anti-muslim blog Politically Incorrect News (PI news), which is under surveillance of the Bavarian constitution protection⁷ and counts 10.000 daily visitors in 2017⁸. The blog's operators describe their site as against mainstream, pro-American and pro­Israeli, and in a constant battle for the German constitution against the 'ideology' of multiculturalism⁹.

Now, the United States of America have been functioning and still work in many diverse realms of cultural and respective political changes as a blueprint and virtually as a forecast for developments in Europe. This has been and still is the case with political correctness as a phenomena, which seems to be a connecting piece of society and politics. Consequently, examining and understanding PC and anti-PC as a presumed strategy of politicians of the right means tracing it back to its origins in the U.S.. Eventually, analysing its effects and consequences can possibly provide an idea how to counteract the difficulties which it also causes in Europe.

As Paul Berman has stated in his collection of essays “Debating P.C.” in 1992 regarding the PC controversy: “And the longevity of this argument, the way it keeps reappearing in different forms, growing instead of shrinking, producing best-selling books about university education every couple of years, its international dimension, the heat and fury - all this should tell us that something big and important is under discussion.”¹⁰

Hence this topic has a strong and controversial current need to be analyzed, this paper first examines and looks into the definitions, development and sources of political correctness as a cultural concept, which has significantly been coined in a certain direction since its first occurrence. Beforehand, as a framework and to put it into a sociological relevant perspective, Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour and their findings about the connection of language, society and their mutual influence will be discussed. Furthermore, putting theory into practice, three speeches of three different politicians representing anti-PC-strategies via three different sorts of media will be analysed. Moreover, respective repercussions in society will be outlined and associated with results of the analysis.

For these purposes, methods of qualitative content and discourse analysis as well as the close reading technique will be deployed in this work. All in all, the hypothesis which this work seeks to prove is that actors of the political right use the concept of PC to maintain political and social power and influence public discourse for their benefit. By deconstructing their anti-PC strategies and comparing it with specific propaganda techniques, my work will illustrate how the American public is influenced, and eventually manipulated. Therefore, relevant politicians of the political right, namely George H.W. Bush, Governor Kemp and president Trump have been selected and will be treated in an evolutionary order concerning anti-PC strategies and their development.

What I want to emphasize at this point, is that actors of the political left also influence the American public and contribute to a heated-up debating culture in general. But particularly in terms of PC, the instrumentalization of the right seems to resonate more with the majority of the public, can consequently cause more effects, and will therefore be examined in the following chapters.

2. Sociological perspectives

To establish a common ground how to classify the connection of language, power, society and the individual and their great mutual influence, views of two sociologists concerning these topics will be sketched in the following. Therefore, the first perspective describing the interconnection of these fields was researched by Pierre Bourdieu, and the second one by Bruno Latour.

2.1. Pierre Bourdieu's “Language and symbolic power”

A sociologist who realized and acknowledged the power of language and the close connection with actual political power structures was Pierre Bourdieu. According to his studies, language cannot be separately examined without analysing the speaking person because it “is part of the complete habitus of a person”¹¹. Thus, every discourse is a product of a meeting of verbal habitus, which includes the technical competence of speaking as well as the social competence of speaking in a certain, characteristic way. Bourdieu now deduces that all relations of communication are relations of power, and underlines the interconnection of language and politics.¹²

For this purpose, he emphasizes the importance of language in general by reasoning that changing your life always means changing the way of how we speak about this life, and that social classes and hierarchies exist twice: in reality and in people's minds.¹³ Applied in practice, exchanging a word with a different word means changing the social perspective, and so the social world itself.¹⁴ Therefore, it is worth and significantly relevant to debate about the correct and morally acceptable use of words and the freedom of speech.¹⁵

In addition, he notes that in particular “the act of naming helps to establish the structure of the world”¹⁶, and this even more, the more people acknowledge it. But in this act, Bourdieu stresses that analysing language itself is far not enough because “the use of language [.] depends on the social position of the speaker”¹⁷ and thus, every statement is “destined to fail each time that it is not pronounced by a person who has the 'power' to pronounce it”¹⁸.

Now, it is crucial for the following work not only to analyze and examine the language itself, but as well taking into account the person who is using it and his position of power.

As a last crucial of Bourdieu's findings to mention, is the fact that talking about politics means talking about language because one specific political competence is the ability to express concrete problems of daily life in general terms. In fact, it means presenting a single incident or a single injustice as a collective event, which eventually concerns an entire social class.¹⁹ Moreover, what we define as correct description of social reality is and will always be object of political combats and discourse, and these fights are always about imposing a perspective of the social world on others, or more accurately, on those people who can justify the exercise und claims of power.²⁰ Bourdieu calls these battles of the professionals “the symbolic struggle for the conversation or transformation of the social world through the conversation or transformation of the vision of the social world”²¹. In this case, the professionals are the politicians as well as journalists and intellectuals, who choose topics of political and public discourse, in contrary of the laypersons. Eventually, Bourdieu suggests reflecting and scrutinizing this transmission of power from the laypersons to the experts over and over again²², and reminds that social regularities appear as probable linkages, which can only be fought against or even defeated by realizing and analysing them.²³

2.2. Bruno Latour's “Power of association”

The following sociological perspective of Bruno Latour can be directly applied and linked with the term PC. Therefore, Latour's findings concerning the power of associations will briefly be sketched and linked with PC established as a form of social norm.

Initially, he states that coming into power does not necessarily mean maintaining this power. Now, to ensure that power, Latour introduces the term of a black box, which stands for protecting existing associations by accumulating them. On this basis, additional associations are developed, and if they are stable enough the process repeats. To defend those operations of associations, alliances are made, which can be based on scientific, technological, civil, or in this case political power relations. Finally, these alliances work together as a group and fill more and more associations in the so-called black box until power is achieved by having created inevitable associations. At the same time, the black box gets more and more opaque due to the increasing amount and density of associations. The problematic point is reached here because the black box is closed now and is effective as something which is not questioned anymore. Even more, it is a completely legitimising basis for further associations.²⁴

According to Latour, it is nearly impossible to open that box again, and if, it will be a long-term and complex process because all countless associations have to be extracted, deconstructed by their meaning, and dissociated.²⁵

In terms of PC and anti-PC, this work aims to open this black box in terms of examining the forces and alliances which have contributed to create it, and the associations which finally are closely linked to its meaning.

3. The attempt of defining PC and anti-PC

Since PC is a concept which continually has changed in its meaning and form, defining the term and, thus the term anti-PC, in a scientific manner means comparing its definition over time and selecting its decisive features, which have stayed the same.

One of its first definitions in the Oxford Dictionary of 1997 says the following: “Conformity to a body of liberal or radical opinion on social matters, [.] and the rejection of language and behaviour considered discriminatory or offensive.”²⁶ On the one hand, there is a clear assessment since it has been defined as a liberal or even radical opinion, which also means a distinctive deviation from the norm, and on the other hand, the behaviour considered discriminatory leaves much space for interpretation. Merely one year later, this has significantly changed, as the following definition describes PC in 1998 as: “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize or insult groups or people who are socially disadvantaged.”²⁷ Here, the assessment has been omitted and discriminatory behaviour has been defined in a more clear-cut form. Nevertheless, stating the expressions and actions as perceived excluding, marginalizing, etc. still leaves the possibilities of interpretation what actually is discriminating or not. Additionally, the opposite of political incorrectness is not mentioned at all.

Further remarkable shifts have to be noticed in the definition of the term in 2015, since it depicts PC as: “(sometimes disapproving): the principle of avoiding language and behaviour that may offend particular part of groups”²⁸. Here again, a connotation at the beginning in brackets explains the way in which PC has been coined over time and is used sometimes, namely as an affront or accusation. This interferes with what Moira Weigel describes in her article “Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy” by constituting PC as an “exonym: a term for another group, which signals that the speaker does not belong to it.”²⁹

Another crucial change is the broader definition of the objects, who are now particular part of groups instead of exclusively minorities, or rather the socially disadvantaged. This opens up new forms of usage for all societal groups, no matter how powerful or large they are, which has to be stated here. The initial description of an imbalance of power, which PC originally provided when referring to members of predominant groups in a society offending members of minorities in the same society, has disappeared and with it a former crucial part of its meaning. Moreover, another amendment is that politically incorrect is defined first-time, namely in “failing”³⁰ to do what PC does. Since there is no describing adverb, this failing can be interpreted as a deliberate and conscious, or an unintentional and unconscious one. Here, the term of anti-PC comes into effect, as it will be referred to in this work, as not merely engaging against the concept and implementing of PC, but equally, being politically incorrect in a deliberate, often manipulative manner. Eventually, the impression remains that there is a high complexity and constant flux in defining PC. But that is not due to its difficult distinctive features, but because of its great social relevance of determining and deciding who has power and who has not, who belongs to the majority and who to the minority, and consequently which group has the right to rule over the other.

Nevertheless, literature definitions can be found, which focus on the sociolinguistic intention and dimension, which PC supporters permanently aim to achieve. These describe PC as a form of language criticism and a criticism of certain historical, social and situational conditions, which rigidify usages of verbal expressions. But this perspective mandatorily presuppose that the speaker is conscious of current language's norms and equally of the historic dimension of language.³¹ Therefore, semantic redefinitions are aspired in realms such as “race and ethnicity, disability, AIDS, disease, the canon, culture, curricula, gender and sexual orientation, xenophobia, the environment, animal rights, addiction, criminal behaviour and mental disorders”.³² Summarizing the goals of PC supporters, PC can be regarded as “process of normalization, meaning the attempts to “normalize” the other and integrate it into American culture at large”³³.

As a last dimension of the definition of PC and anti-PC, the political one has to be strongly emphasized. The different opinions of defining PC, or anti-PC, are the result of the term's political instrumentalization and its targeted occupation of the concept. PC has a specific practical value in triggering a certain appeal function and respective reactions within the listener.³⁴ That is why, it is important for the opponents, who represent the status quo and reject changes in language, to retain the power of defining PC, and thereby, “to discredit liberal endeavours to bring about societal reform.”³⁵ Taking this legitimate assumption into account, language criticism becomes social criticism, and reservations against a certain usage of language and words refer to reservations against the particular topic itself and social change in general, as it can be observed for instance with feminist language criticism, which often originates in reactions to the emancipation movement itself.³⁶

Finally, it can be established that “political correctness, and its obverse, political incorrectness, are more easily recognized than defined”³⁷, and that both emerge in various shapes and forms. Therefore, these definitions have to be applied in practise in order to accurately analyse their meaning and their equally relevant social impact regarding the individual context. This will be implemented in the second, practical part of this work.

4. The controversial development of PC - a weapon in Culture War?

PC in its very beginnings commenced as a praise and equally as a warning to behave and to think correctly, which meant abiding to the party's rules of the communist leaders and circles around Stalin, Lenin and Mao of the 1930's.³⁸ This self-affirmation of one's own identity and loyalty to the party welcomed bigotry and authoritarianism as positive political virtues.³⁹ But when the concept became familiar in the West by the new American Left adopting the phrase in the late 1960's, it evolved “into [.] an ironic phrase among wised-up leftist to denote someone whose line-toeing fervour was too much to bear”⁴⁰. The term's meaning had changed from an affirmative to a critical one, and had been used “sarcastically amongst leftists to criticize themselves for taking radical doctrines to absurd extremes”⁴¹. Moreover, some of the first ones protesting against PC have actually been a group of feminists, who had called themselves the Lesbian Sex Mafia and rallied “against fellow feminists who had condemned pornography and BDSM”⁴². The term had exclusively been used by the Left until the late 1980's and they had lost control over its usage as the Right took over.⁴³

Since the public discourse about PC has been and is coined by extreme emotionality⁴⁴, it is difficult to differentiate and to extract a neutral, solely scientific position and view. Therefore, several key issues have been selected to illustrate the debate in this paper, to explain the stated hypothesis in the second practical part of it.

In the late 1980's, a sudden media interest was triggered by academic disputes about curricula in public schools. The discussion about the Western Civilization Course at Stanford University, in consequence of which aroused the so-called Canon Debate, the implementation of speech codes at several universities and the aggravating fight over Affirmative Action. In line with these events, the Cultural Left held a conference at the University of California in Berkeley to “promote the inclusion of multicultural and feminist perspectives in the humanities”⁴⁵. However, the journalist Richard Bernstein commented in the New York Times the conference in his article “The Rising Hegemony of the Politically Correct” in 1990 the left academic's efforts to include minorities' perspectives in the canon as “a kind of 'correct'attitude towards the problems of the world”⁴⁶, “sort of unofficial ideology”⁴⁷ and, speaking for “conservatives and classical liberals alike [.| a growing intolerance, [and| a pressure to conform to a radical program”⁴⁸. This article caused a flood of conservative and liberal publications concerning PC and its alleged perils to universities and the whole American society. The editor of a conservative journal, Roger Kimball, published the bestseller “Tenured radicals: how politics has corrupted our higher education” in 1990, and was with Dinesh D'Souza's bestseller book “Illiberal Education: The politics of race and sex on campus” in 1991 amongst the conservative key pieces in the agitations against PC.⁴⁹ Furthermore, author Paul Berman's attempt to maintain or rather establish a balanced, objective debate on what is PC and what is not with his case book “Debating PC” in 1992, which was a collection of essays concerning PC and its respective topics such as multiculturalism, free speech, the canon or public schools, was not able to contribute.⁵⁰ A semantic shift in the meaning of PC had happened forced by conservatives, as Richard Feldstein, author of 1997's “Political Correctness: A response from the cultural Left” explains it: “Neoconservatives have crafted disparaging images of PC academics for public consumption that have nothing to do with the liberal and leftist origins of the term.”⁵¹ Thus, PC, and anti-PC, advanced to a political battle cry and dominated the domestic disputes in course of the Culture War⁵² because starting with criticizing language means entering the battlefield of values and parties, which intensifies the whole debate.⁵³

But has it been a genuine debate with balanced forces merely using the power of convincing arguments on both sides? Nancy Baker Jones vehemently disagrees in her article “Confronting the PC “debate”: The politics of identity and the American image”, published in the journal of National Women's Studies Association in 1994. Since the “the political right took control of the terminology and the rhetoric of this discussion so early in the process”⁵⁴, she explains the occupation of this term out of political motives, which means in particular performing politics of identity because a “fundamental cultural shift”⁵⁵ has been happening. Politics of identity are not defined as “organizing solely around belief systems, programmatic manifestos, or party affiliation”⁵⁶, but this form of politics “typically aim to secure the political freedom of a specific constituency marginalized within its larger context”⁵⁷. Moreover, ratio on campus has in fact changed between 1960 and 1990, as the numbers of originally 90 percent of white students have decreased to 84 percent, and the one of originally 63 percent of male students have even dropped to 45 percent.⁵⁸ Out of the political right's perspective, the amount of critics respective the established views had increased, inheriting the danger of transforming originally 'special interests' into broadly accepted ones, which eventually can lead to acknowledging them as universal and neutral demands.⁵⁹

In addition, Baker Jones identifies three elements of PC discourse at that time, which are the following: “an “us versus them”-dichotomy”⁶⁰, divided into the supporters of the American society and into their enemies, who seem to work against the society as a whole. Secondly, these supporters are oppressed and the victims in this fight, and as last element, “those who are the enemy were once 1960s campus radicals.”⁶¹

The first two elements will be illustrated in detail by the two main opposing key works marking the beginning of the feud around PC, and constituting the tone how the debate has been set since then, repeating similar circumstances whenever the dispute is revived. They are John K. Wilson's “The Myth of Political Correctness: The conservative attack on higher education”, published in 1995, versus Dinesh D'Souza's “Illiberal education: the politics of race and sex on campus”, published in 1998. This juxtaposition in literature is suggestive of a balanced argument between forces, which have equal devices to fight, but which may not be the case. Wilson, as an independent author of several blogs and editor of several journals such as Democratic Culture, summarizes and comments on a mass of incidents, which had happened on American campuses, proving how the meaning of PC has been “turned into a mechanism for doing exactly what they charge is being done to them - silencing dissenters”⁶². What is important here, is that Wilson emphasizes that he does not deny that there are leftists who showed intolerance and would not hesitate to suppress conservatives, but these were isolated incidents which “paled in comparison with the far more common repression by the conservative forces who control the budgets and run colleges”⁶³.

Whereas D'Souza appeared to take an only one-sided perspective, since he had to cover his far- right past, starting as an editor at Dartmouth Review, when he harassed an African-American faculty member and wrote “a critique of affirmative action so racist in tone that it gained nationwide attention”⁶⁴, and filled his book “Illiberal Education” with chapters containing single anecdotes, which should victimize conservatives by tenured radicals and student activists, but can be regarded as only partly true and quoted out of context.⁶⁵ Eventually, D'Souza and others established the true victim of PC: “the oppressed conservative white male”⁶⁶.

Moreover, liberals such as C. Vann Woodward supported his popularity and supposed objectivity by reviewing him positively in the New York Review of Books without proving his evidence as Woodward had admitted afterwards that “the book turned out to contain some serious and irresponsible factual errors”⁶⁷. Although he corrected his review, D'Souza's good reputation was not affected, hence the correction did not cause as much media attention.

Another factor which obscured the discourse, was that previously cited Kimball, D'Souza and other right-wing publishers blamed their enemies to be political, whereas they claimed to be not. Concerning D'Souza, this claim has been proved wrong, latest when he published his book “The enemy at home” in 2007. This book accuses the Left to be an ally of Islamic terrorists surrounding Bin Laden to fight the Bush's administration. Another proof can found in 2014 when he pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation to a Republican Senate candidate.⁶⁸ Today, D'Souza is known as “far-right provocateur and key figure in US culture wars”⁶⁹ nationwide. But back in the 1990's his work was still recommended as one of the key works proving the point that PC had taken over to fight against the American society.

Another important circumstance to mention at the end of this topic which was significantly supporting the political right in the hijacking of PC, is a network of conservative donors. Those were for instance the Olin, Koch and Scaife families, who supported those right-wing publishers with great amounts of money, as Jane Mayer reports in her book “Dark money - how a secretive group of billionaires is trying to buy political control in the U.S.” in 2016 .⁷⁰ In fact, D'Souza obtained 30.000 $ from the Olin Foundation via the Institute for Educational Affairs to write “Illiberal Education”.⁷¹ Equally, Roger Kimball's book “Tenured radicals” had first been published as essays by New Criterion, for which he worked as an editor and “received a total of 1.425.000 $ from the Olin, Scaife and Bradley Foundations from 1984 to 1988”.⁷² Olin himself considers liberalism synonymous for socialism, and adds that “all of these academic trends”⁷³ required “”very serious study and correction””⁷⁴.

Consequently, the instance Wilson versus D'Souza appear to demonstrate that the PC debate does not stem from a balanced argument, since there are strong supporting factors for the Right as supportive liberals, obscuring public discourse by claiming not be political, and extremely powerful conservative donors, who fund the Right's effort to occupy the term PC as a tool to maintain social and political power.

In addition, it has to be emphasized that “there is no evidence that any academics today have been prevented from teaching or have been dismissed by the administration because of their perceived political views”⁷⁵, as John Anette assesses in his essay “The culture wars on American campuses” in 1994. Whereas what had actually been proved, is an increasing number of academics, whether left or right, having to deal with criticism from students and colleagues concerning their attitudes towards issues such as racism, sexism and ethnicity and “perhaps find themselves exercising self-censorship or meeting peer group pressure”⁷⁶.

All in all, “the first period—1989-1995—marked PC's debut as a topic of public discourse.”⁷⁷ The attention had been retracted in the second period from 2014 by now, and had had a severe impact on the presidential campaign in 2016.⁷⁸

In 2015, journalist Jonathan Chait published the article “Not a very PC thing to say” in New York Magazine in which he determines a new peak of PC occurrences in the United States because it has spread beyond academic realms and “has attained an influence over mainstream journalism and commentary beyond that of the old”⁷⁹. As equally in the previous work of D'Souza described, Chait uses extrapolated anecdotes to conclude a broad danger of PC. He undermines the serious threat coming from PC with evidence such as that in “a growing number of campuses, professors now attach “trigger warnings” to texts that may upset students, and there is a campaign to eradicate “microaggressions,” or small social slights that might cause searing trauma”⁸⁰, which, of course can be a subject of discussion, but pales in comparison for instance with the incidents of “blackface and casual misogyny, who were just as corrosive to black and female humanity in 1998 as they are in 2015”⁸¹. Moreover, he uses Baker Jones' two elements of PC culture, the dichotomy and victimization of the real supporters of American society, as he determines PC without a doubt as “a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate”⁸². Without leaving space for any differentiation, he clearly defines the enemies of the people, and with them their tool, the overwhelming appearances of PC. Drawing a conclusion from his statements, being anti-PC does not mean probably hurting people's, in particular minorities', feelings, but fulfilling a civic duty in the fierce battle against radicals. Additionally, another repeating pattern occurs, namely that liberals, such as Chait, support agitations against PC by appearing as more objective authorities and using the platform of a neutral magazine.

In conclusion, the development of PC cannot verifiably be called a debate, since there is no impression of balanced forces arguing, but rather the political right, under the guise of Culture War, occupying a Left's term with negative connotation and coining it to be considered as a threat to the American society. The original meaning of actually helping the American society by creating more equality concerning language had been obscured and contorted with the help of conservative donors, willing liberals, and the performed impression of being not political.

5. American public discourse and the population's perception of PC

Now, why PC is still, or rather again, a topic of high interest and resonance in public discourse?

A LexisNexis data research shows the appearances of the term PC in American print media as follows: in 1987 three times, in 1991 761 times, and in 1994 2.648 times, staying on that high level until 2004 with 2.853 times.⁸³ It shows a sudden extreme increase and a constanly high occurrence of PC contributions which influences and holds an equally high public interest due to the large media coverage.

Furthermore, taking into account “the impulse toward polarization in contemporary public discourse”⁸⁴ in American society and the fact that “although alternate voices exist, and may even be in the majority”⁸⁵, these voices are not the loud ones to be heard, and hence an “eclipse of the middle”⁸⁶ can be observed. This form of public discourse is “intensified and institutionalized by the very media by which that discussion takes place”⁸⁷. The reasons, means and instruments of the media are multiple and various. A sensational and emotional public debate is a good example for the fact that it is “more likely [...] to capture the attention than are methodical and reflexive arguments”⁸⁸. Additionally, as soon as new voices are raised, there is a trend to classify them in one of the political parties' line in the sense of: “If they are not for us, they must be against us.”⁸⁹ Consequently, new thoughts and ideas are instantly eliminated by having to be categorized into one of the two poles. Another difficult factor is the fact that public discourse used to be a discussion from elites⁹⁰ back in the 1990's. That is vividly illustrated by the PC debate which actually started on campus and was performed by highly educated intellectuals at the beginning. But this has changed by the 2010's, when ordinary people have received a voice in public discourse through social media, in addition to digital journalism which has given access to news extremely quick and easy. Therefore, stories about PC and in particular anti-PC, can help to gain more likes on social media or a greater readership for online newspapers because they are perfect click baits. Not only do they incite outcries, or, respective anti-PC, outcry at the outcries of others, but they additionally deal with identity. This means that everyone can contribute own experiences without having to do a thorough research before publishing a tweet, post or article about it.⁹¹

This raises the question of what the American public actually thinks about PC today? According to the most recent report “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America's Polarized Landscape” in 2018, studying the public's climate, scholars such as Stephen Hawking and Tim Dixon amongst others found out that a clear majority of Americans of 80 percent “believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.”⁹² This 80 percent of Americans include, against previous assumptions, young people, precisely 79 percent under the age of 24, and also non-whites as for instance 82 percent of Asians and 87 percent of Hispanics, rejecting PC. Consequently, the aversion does not depend on ethnicity or age.

Whereas, the factors which actually can predict the support of PC are income and education. “83 percent of respondents who make less than $50,000”⁹³ refuse PC, but only “70 percent of those who make more than $100,000”⁹⁴ do so. In terms of education, the report says that 87 percent who have never attended college think of PC as a big problem, while merely 66 percent of the ones who have a postgraduate degree agree with the concept.⁹⁵

Furthermore, considering the fact that a definition of what precisely PC is, varies and requires certain background knowledge, and since the questions in the survey have not defined the exact term of PC for the participants beforehand, it can only be vaguely assumed what sort of behaviour or language the same respondents call actually PC and why most of them dislike it. In different extended interviews and focus groups, participants expressed the fear of social sanctions when “having a lack of familiarity with a topic, or an unthinking word choice”⁹⁶, but this clearly does not fit with being anti-PC in a deliberate and conscious way.

Now, on the one hand, the previously cited report mentions further crucial figures, when it comes to certain groups liking or disliking PC, in particular in respective of an individual's political field. In fact, 97 percent of strong Republicans constituting PC as a severe problem, while on the contrary, only 30 percent of progressive activists regard it as one. Finally, 60 percent of traditional liberals oppose PC, which is still significantly less than the Republicans do.⁹⁷ Summarized, the feature of being a Republican determines more than any other examined socioeconomic factor that one strongly disapproves PC.

But on the other hand, the findings in the report confirm that the traditional Conservatives rather account for only 33 percent of the wing segments, together with Progressive activists and devoted Conservatives, and thus, do not belong to the so-called Exhausted Majority of the population, who are in fact Traditional Liberals, Passive Liberals, Politically Disengaged and Moderates. Moreover, the report constitutes that the connecting elements of this Exhausted Majority of 67 percent are being more ideologically flexible, supporting political compromise, being fatigued by U.S. politics and feeling forgotten, not merely neglected, in political debate.⁹⁸ Now, since the debate about PC helps polarization and the eclipse of the middle in public discourse, it can be assumed that most Americans who are exhausted of Culture War reject PC as it is recognized as intensifying and as a tool of political polarization.

Practice Part

6. Political rhetoric, propaganda and its characteristics

A public sphere belongs to a democracy's constitutional basic equipment, and thus, a public discourse in which opinions are treated as free to change and to develop presents a condition for political competition. Topics of public discourse are practical questions of community life and social coexistence, which include normative questions of social claims and demands, as well as collective values and aspirations. Now, the impact of public discourse is given in a democracy, as it creates mandatory decisions for the whole society and thus, the public opinion has to be taken seriously. If political actors want to enforce their political interests, they have to ensure, however, the influence of public discourse in their sense and in favour of them.⁹⁹

Therefore, rhetorical abilities are central to unify majorities on political goals, actions and persons throughout internal and external group representations, processes of establishing certain norms, sanctions and regulations of information amongst others.¹⁰⁰ From the very beginning, the ancient rhetoric, which emerged in Greece in the 5th century, was closely linked to the political development from tyranny to democracy. Then, the speech was the most important form of expressing thoughts and perspectives in public and persuading people to take decisions and implement actions. In ancient times, rhetoric was a theory of plausible argumentation, which means acknowledgement and validity due to correctness in pragmatic arguments.¹⁰¹ As part of the training for oral lecture within religious education, homiletics served in the late antiquity, but classic rhetoric gained final importance in the European development to parliamentarianism.¹⁰² Compared to feudalism in the medieval times or the absolutism in the modern era, where the practice of political rhetoric considerably decayed, political rhetoric has been and still is practised today, taught and fostered in nations with restricted governance, sovereignty of the people and respective political debates.¹⁰³

Nevertheless, deficits in the rhetoric culture of politics, in form of propaganda, exist and respective rhetoric devices will be applied in the following case studies.

To highlight the importance of all varieties of propaganda and to establish a work base, it has to be stated that, according to Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, it is propaganda, which transforms language into a tool and a machine. It paradoxically fixes the people's conditions of social injustice by bringing them into motion, which means inciting outrage, hate or fear in humans.¹⁰⁴

In “How Propaganda works” from Jason Stanley, he emphasizes “the distinctive danger propaganda poses in liberal democracies is that it is not recognized as propaganda” ¹⁰⁵, and consequently, the fact that democracies have to cope with is “figuring out which apparently nonpropagandistic claims are in fact propaganda”¹⁰⁶.

Originally, the term propaganda stems from the Latin word propagare, which means “to spread plants to a new location”¹⁰⁷, and has been crucially coined by the German Reich propaganda minister Goebbels, who determined: “We have made the Reich by propaganda.”¹⁰⁸

In this work, it will be referred to it, as Stanley establishes the classical sense of propaganda, which “is the manipulation of the rational will to close off debate”^[109]. By doing that, “it bypasses any sense of autonomous decision”¹¹⁰. These statements show the fact that it is “designed to influence people's thoughts and actions”¹¹¹ and can be considered as “one-sided or biased communication”¹¹². Moreover, the former Institute for Propaganda Analysis, shortly IPA, published seven indications to help analyzing propaganda in 1937, which received popularity nationwide and are still being utilized in new studies as a theoretical framework.¹¹³ Because those criterions will be applied in the following case studies, the seven characteristics will be illustrated in the next paragraph.

The first device is called Name Calling and means that the speaker “conjures hate or fear by attaching unattractive labels”¹¹⁴, thereby he or she is able to “make audiences reject and condemn the idea without examining the evidence”¹¹⁵. The second one is named Glittering Generality and means that the propagandist links his or her agenda with “"virtue words" such as "truth, freedom, honor [.. ,|”¹¹⁶. Again, a closing off of debate can be achieved by appealing to the audience's emotions and to a concept of a highly valued good, whose positive meaning is shared by the vast majority of individuals¹¹⁷. Furthermore, the next and third point is simply called a Transfer, which is a technique of connecting two independent subjects with the result of describing something positively by carrying over “the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect”¹¹⁸. As a typical instance it is used for “identification between a political project and the audience's reverence for national or religious symbolism”¹¹⁹. The fourth device, Testimonial, is the technique of linking an idea, program or person with a respected or rejected person, and consequently the latter persons are the ones who decide the assessment of that idea, program or person as good or bad.¹²⁰ Moreover, the next characteristic is named Plain Folks, which is a preferred method of elites "to establish an identity with ordinary Americans”¹²¹ by using specific language or acting in a certain way. It should convince the audience that the speaker is only operating for their benefit. Card Stacking has to be mentioned next, explaining the technique of revealing useful and concealing inconvenient facts for the speaker's agenda, presenting only selected worst or best examples of a case, and even spreading falsehoods to obscure and bias the audience's perspective. The ultimate propagandistic method is named Band Wagon, here the propagandist wants to convince the audience that his or her side is the winning side and “have people “follow the crowd””¹²², but this technique will not be applied in the following.

Eventually, as a final rhetoric, propagandistic factor contributing to the analysis in this work and closely interrelated with the method of Name Calling, the creation of an enemy image will be sketched briefly . Within democracies there should not be enemies, but only political adversaries or dissidents, who should be treated with respect, listened to and be shown a willingness to compromise. However, the reality often looks different, since creating and maintaining a strong image of the great enemy is often useful for many actors in the political realm. It renders own, conscious information and orientation as well as differentiated thinking unnecessary, and equally, seduces to a clear-cut distinction in evil and good, simplifies complex political actions and conflicts, strengthens the internal group cohesion and allows a certain external release of aggression. According to Kurt and Kati Spillmann, there are seven characteristics of the enemy image, of which two have been selected to be relevant for this wor, since they are represented in the following case studies. The first one is deindividuation, which means that everyone who belongs to the other group must be the enemy, and the second one is rejection of empathy, which prevents members of the own group from having human emotions and applying ethnical criteria for and on members of the other group, and even considers these actions as dangerous.¹²³

[...]

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¹ cf. Dbate. “So denkt Alice Weidel (AfD) über "Politische Korrektheit". 26.04.17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDNHliUH0OI. Web. 25.01.20.

² NBC News: Anna Schecter. “Far-right French politician Marion Marechal-Le Pen condemns Muslim immigration in CPAC speech”. 23.02.18. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/far-right-french- politician-marion-marechal-le-pen-condemns-muslim-n850451. Web. 25.01.20.

³ The Guardian: Moira Weigel. “Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy“. 30.11.16. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom- enemy-donald-trump. Web. 25.01.20.

⁴ The Nation: Sebastiaan Faber. “Why the Dutch Are Drawn to Right-Wing Populist Geert Wilders”. 21.02.17. https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-dutch-are-drawn-to-right-wing-populist-geert-wilders/. Web. 25.01.20.

⁵ In the following work, the abbreviation “PC” will be used instead of the long form “political correctness”. Although there are recommendations to avoid the abbreviation since it is often occupied with a negative connotation, it has been established in respective academic publications, and will be used in this work, as well.

⁶ cf. RP Online: Kristina Duntz und Gregor Mayntz. “Weidel beklagt „hysterische Eskalationskultur“. 01.10.18. https://rp-online.de/politik/deutschland/alice-weidel-afd-kritisiert-hysterische-eskalationskultur aid- 33370755?token=ABn6eaZeQ EswhOSCOAo zKAktbNb3lfkQ%3D%3D. Web. 25.01.20.

⁷ cf. Bayerisches Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz. „Situation in Bayern - Michael Stürzenberger und Umfeld“. 19. https://www.verfassungsschutz.bayern.de/weitere aufgaben/islamfeindlichkeit/situation/index.html. Web. 25.01.20.

⁸ cf. Zeit Online: Christian Staas. „Political Correctness- vom Medienphantom zum rechten Totschlagargument. Die sonderbare Geschichte der Political Correctness“. 19.01.17. https://www.zeit.de/2017/04/politicial- correctness-populismus-afd-zensur. p.3. Web. 25.01.20.

⁹ cf. Politically Incorrect News. “Leitlinien”. http://www.pi-news.net/leitlinien/. Web. 25.01.20.

¹⁰ Berman, Paul. “Introduction: The debate and its origins”. Debating P.C. - the controversy over political correctness on college campuses. Ed.: Paul, Berman. New York: Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1992. p. 5. Print.

¹¹ Bourdieu, Pierre. “Language and symbolic power”. Ed.: John B. Thompson. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991. p. 41. Print.

¹² cf. Bourdieu, Pierre. “Die verborgenen Mechanismen der Macht - Schriften zu Politik und Kultur 1“. Ed.: Margareta Steinrücke. Hamburg: VSA-Verlag, 1997. p. 81. Print.

¹³ cf. ibid. p. 20.

¹⁴ cf. ibid. p. 84.

¹⁵ cf. ibid. p. 28.

¹⁶ Bourdieu. Language and symbolic power. p. 105.

¹⁷ Ibid. p. 109.

¹⁸ Ibid. p. 111.

¹⁹ cf. Bourdieu. Verborgene Mechanismen der Macht. p. 28.

²⁰ cf. ibid. p. 25.

²¹ Bourdieu. Language and symbolic power. p. 181.

²² cf. Bourdieu. Verborgene Mechanismen der Macht. p. 13.

²³ cf. ibid. p. 173.

²⁴ cf. Papilloud, Christian. „Von Assoziologie zur Soziologie der Relation - Bruno Latours Assoziationsbegriff“. Sociologia Internationalis. Vol. 51 (2) (2013). p. 213. Web.

²⁵ cf. ibd. p. 214f.

²⁶ Hughes, Geoffrey. “Political Correctness - a history of semantics and culture”. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. p. 13. Print.

²⁷ Pearsall, Judy et al. (Eds.:). “The New Oxford Dictionary of English”. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. p. 1435. Print.

²⁸ Hey, Leonie; Holloway, Suzanne et al. (Eds.:).“Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English”. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. p. 1187. Print.

²⁹ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom- enemy -donald-trump.

³⁰ Hey. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. p. 1187.

³¹ cf. Wierlemann, Sabine. “Political Correctness in den USA und in Deutschland“. Philologische Studien und Quellen. Eds.: Anne Betten; Hartmut, Steinecke; Horst Wenzel. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag GmbH & Co, 2002. p. 202. Print.

³² Hughes. Political Correctness - a history of semantics and culture. p. 58.

³³ Manske, Ariane. “Whose canon is it anyway?”. Cultural encounters - American studies in the age of multiculturalism. Eds.: Mario Klarer; Sonja Bahn. Tübingen: Stauffenberg Verlag Brigitte Narr GmbH, 2000. p. 209. Print.

³⁴ cf. Wierlemann. Political Correctness in den USA und in Deutschland. p. 201.

³⁵ Manske. Whose canon is it anyway. p. 200.

³⁶ cf. Wierlemann. Political Correctness in den USA und Deutschland. p. 203.

³⁷ Hughes. Political Correctness - a history of semantics and culture. p. 9.

³⁸ cf. ibid. p. 62.

³⁹ cf. Hildebrandt, Mathias. „Multikulturalismus und Political Correctness in den USA“. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2005. p. 72. Print.

⁴⁰ Hughes. Political Correctness - a history of semantics and culture. p. 5f.

⁴¹ Wilson, John K. “The myth of Political Correctness - the conservative attack on higher education”. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995. p. 4. Print.

⁴² https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom- enemy -donald-trump.

⁴³ cf. Hildebrandt. Multikulturalismus und Political Correctness in den USA. p.74.

⁴⁴ cf. Wierlemann. Political Correctness in den USA und Deutschland. p. 204.

⁴⁵ cf. Hildebrandt. Multikulturalismus und Political Correctness in den USA. p. 75.

⁴⁶ New York Times: Richard Bernstein. “The rising hegemony of the politically correct”. 28.10.1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/28/weekinreview/ideas-trends-the-rising-hegemony-of-the-politically- correct.html. Web. 26.01.20.

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ cf. Hughes. Political Correctness - a history of semantics and culture. p. 67f.

⁵⁰ cf. Ibid. p. 66.

⁵¹ Feldstein, Richard. “Political correctness: a response from the Cultural Left”. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. p.1. Print.

⁵² cf. Hildebrandt. Multikulturalismus und Political Correctness in den USA. p. 77.

⁵³ Wierlemann. Political Correctness in den USA und Deutschland. p. 205.

⁵⁴ Jones, Nancy Baker. "Confronting the PC "debate": The politics of identity and the American image". National Women's Studies Association Journal. Vol. 6. (3) (1994). p. 385. Web.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Identity Politics”. 23.03.16. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity- politics/. Web. 26.01.20.

⁵⁷ Ibid.

⁵⁸ cf. Jones. Confronting the PC “debate”. p. 386.

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ Ibid. p. 389.

⁶¹ Jones. Confronting the PC “debate”. p. 389.

⁶² Wilson. The myth of political correctness. p. 4.

⁶³ Ibid. p. 2.

⁶⁴ Jones. Confronting the PC “debate”. p. 387.

⁶⁵ cf. Wilson. The myth of political correctness. p. 16f.

⁶⁶ Ibid. p.16.

⁶⁷ Wilson. The myth of political correctness. p. 15.

⁶⁸ cf. New York Times: Daniel Victor. A look at Dinesh D'Souza, pardoned by Trump”. 31.05.18. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/us/politics/dinesh-dsouza-facts-history.html. Web. 26.01.20.

⁶⁹ The Guardian: Jason Wilson. “Dinesh D'Souza: far-right provocateur and key figure in US culture wars”. 31.05.2018. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/31/who-is-dinesh-dsouza-trump-pardon-profile- rightwing-provocateur. Web. 26.01.20.

⁷⁰ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom- enemy -donald-trump.

⁷¹ cf. Wilson. The myth of political correctness. p. 26.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Mayer, Jane. “Dark money - how a secretive group of billionaires is trying to buy political control in the U.S.”. London: Scribe, 2016. p. 100. Print.

⁷⁴ Ibid.

⁷⁵ Anette, John. “The culture wars on the American campus”. The war of the words - the political correctness debate. Ed.: Sarah Dunant. London: Virago Press, 1994. p. 5. Print.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ Kitrosser, Heidi. "Free speech, higher education, and the PC narrative."Minnesota Law Review. Vol. 101 (2016). p. 1998. Web.

⁷⁸ cf. ibid.

⁷⁹ New York Mag: Jonathan Chait. “Not a very PC thing to say”. 27.01.15. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/01/not-a-very-pc-thing-to-say.html. Web. 6.01.20.

⁸⁰ Ibid.

⁸¹ The Guardian: Lindy West. “Political correctness' doesn't hinder free speech - it expands it”. 15.11.15. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/15/political-correctness-free-speech-racism-misogyny- university-yale-missouri. Web. 26.01.20.

⁸² Chait. Not a very PC thing to say. Web.

⁸³ cf. Hildebrandt. Multikulturalismus und Political Correctness in den USA. p. 77.

⁸⁴ Hunt, James Davison. “Culture Wars - the struggle to define America”. New York: BasicBooks. p.159. Print.

⁸⁵ Ibid.

⁸⁶ Ibid. p. 160.

⁸⁷ Ibid.

⁸⁸ Hunt. Culture Wars. p. 160.

⁸⁹ Ibid.

⁹⁰ cf. ibid.

⁹¹ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom- enemy -donald-trump.

⁹² The Atlantic: Yascha Mounk. “Americans strongly dislike PC culture”. 10.10.18. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/. Web. 26.01.20.

⁹³ Ibid.

⁹⁴ Ibid.

⁹⁵ cf. Mounk. Americans strongly dislike PC culture. Web.

⁹⁶ Ibid.

⁹⁷ cf. ibid.

⁹⁸. cf. MoreinCommon. Hawking, Stephen et al.. “Hidden tribes: a study of America's polarized landscape”. New York: MoreinCommon, 2018. https://hiddentribes.us/. p.109. Web.

⁹⁹ cf Grieswelle, Detlef. “Politische Rhetorik - Macht der Rede, öffentliche Legitimation, Stiftung von Konsens“. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 2000. p. 34f. Print.

¹⁰⁰ cf. ibid. p. 33.

¹⁰¹ cf. ibid. p. 19.

¹⁰² cf. ibid. p. 76ff.

¹⁰³ cf. ibid. p. 80f.

¹⁰⁴ cf. Horkheimer, Max; Adorno Theodor W.. “Dialektik der Aufklärung”. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1969/2010. p. 270. Print.

¹⁰⁵ Stanley, Jason. “How propaganda works“. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2015. p. 47. Print.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid. p. 6.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid. p. 48.

¹¹⁰ Ibid. p. 49.

¹¹¹.Shamsiah Abd Kadir et al. “Emotion and techniques of propaganda in YouTube videos”. Indian Journal of Science and Technology. Vol. 9 (2016). p. 2. Web.

¹¹² Ibid.

¹¹³ cf. Sproule, Michael. “Authorship and origins of the seven propaganda devices: a research note”. Rhetoric and Public Affairs. Vol. 4 (1) (2001). p. 135. Web.

¹¹⁴ Ibid. p. 136.

¹¹⁵ Shamsiah. Emotion and techniques of propaganda in YouTube videos. p. 2.

¹¹⁶ Sproule. Authorship and origins of the seven propaganda devices. p. 136.

¹¹⁷ cf. Shamsiah. Emotion and techniques of propaganda in YouTube videos. p. 2.

¹¹⁸ Sproule. Authorship and origins of the seven propaganda devices. p.136.

¹¹⁹ Ibid. p.136.

¹²⁰ cf. Shamsiah. Emotion and techniques of propaganda in YouTube videos. p. 2.

¹²¹ Sproule. Authorship and origins of the seven propaganda devices. p. 136.

¹²² Ibid.

¹²³ cf. Grieswelle, Detlef. “Politische Rhetorik - Macht der Rede, öffentliche Legitimation, Stiftung von Konsens“. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 2000. p. 328f. Print.

• College: University of Würzburg
• Grade: 1,0
• Author: Jessica Ulrich (Author)
• Publication Year: 2020
• Pages: 83
• Catalog Number: V1348448
• ISBN (PDF): 9783346859211
• ISBN (Book): 9783346859228
• Language: English
• Tags: anti, pc-strategies, actors, political, right, concept, correctness, maintain, power, influence, american, public