Researchers have also defined diffe

Researchers have also defined different types of propaganda (Steinfatt, 2009; Watt, 2000). These are white, grey, and black propaganda. White propaganda is produced when sources of evidence are attributed to the source. One could liken this to advertising or public relations practices where an organization is trying to highlight positive attributes while ignoring negatives. Grey propaganda occurs when sources of evidence are not immediately disclosed. This could come in the form of pamphlets or short-wave radio broadcasts used to discourage an enemy public. Lastly, black propaganda is characterized when the attributed sources are not the actual source. This occurs when messages are produced but are portrayed as coming from the enemy government or another entity. The differentiation of grey and black propaganda is in outright deception of the audience regarding the source (Watt, 2000).

Kenneth Burke

It has been acknowledged that Kenneth Burke drew upon, was influenced by, and responded to the propositions of the Institute of Propaganda Analysis and its ally Count Alfred Korzybski’s Institute for General Semantics. Korzybski’s departure from Ogden and Richards’s semantics is his assumption that education should place special emphasis upon teaching rulers and the public to use neutral language (Nicotra, 2009). It should be pointed out that the research by the IPA and the IGS quickly became unidentifiable from the other. To this end, arguments against either IPA or IGS were clearly a rebuke of both organizations.

There is debate as to how much Burke actually drew upon these intellectual traditions (Nicotra, 2009). Burke did at least respond to many of the arguments formed by these groups. Burke was also influence by the popular culture that these groups spawned. Skepticism of mass propaganda and an effort to use neutral language abounded in academic and popular writings. In this time after the “Great War” and with tensions rising once again in Europe, there was an emphasis upon inoculating the public against the contagion of propaganda. This view of propaganda was antithetical to the ideas of Bernays, Lippmann, and Lasswell. Burke, however did not believe that rhetors should aspire to use neutral language. He believed that “language is inextricably bound up with one’s view of the world” (Nicotra, 2009, p. 337). Burke, while still considering himself associated with semantics, developed rhetorical counterparts to propaganda analysis and general semantics that had a more positive view of language. Burke’s concept of identification took a positive approach in examining a rhetor’s persuasive approach. The implications of Burke’s identification were in clear opposition to that of general semantics’s concept of identification. Also, general semanticists viewed the intrinsic errors in language as negative attributes. Burke, however, saw a positive use of these errors in the concept of the comic frame. General semanticists saw naming of things as a negative because of the inherent flaws that result. Burke, on the other hand, saw naming as not merely a representational act but also a moral act. Thus, naming in itself and likewise persuasive rhetoric (propaganda) that draws upon this naming is not inherently a plague of society. The morality of these actions are what create evil not the techniques themselves (Nicotra, 2009).