COMS 361 - Lecture 8, Horizontal Propaganda in the 21st Century

Horizontal Propaganda

The presidency of Barack Obama can be viewed as an example of horizontal propaganda in the 21st century. Governments often use the personal approach to communicate what they are doing for us and how our money is being spent for the public good. On January 20, 2015, the State of the Union Address was delivered to the joint houses of the United States Congress. The President of the United States, Barack Obama, gave an overview of what the American government had accomplished in 2014 and what lay ahead in the next 12 months. The address was given in a room of over 400 Republican and Democratic representatives, 100 U.S. senators, and members of the U.S. supreme court. In addition, the address was televised and published online for all citizens to view

The President and the People (State of the Union)

The State of the Union is a century-old practice that tends to evoke partisan reaction from members of both the Republican and Democratic parties who are present. The speech is continuously interrupted with cheers and standing ovations by those who agree with what is being said, or by silence and cynical applause by those who do not agree with the country’s leadership. The format has been described as a pro-forma event, a partisan spectacle, reflecting the seemingly never-ending political polarization in American politics. It would seem the underlying value of the event is to maintain transparency in a democratic state, an act that was reformulated by Obama. This State of the Union was followed two days later by the live-streaming of an interview with two popular YouTubers. The interview was live-streamed on the official White House page and hosted by the director of Google News Lab who monitored viewers’ responses during the broadcast.

Social Media as a Direct Conduit for Horizontal Propaganda

In this example, Obama reaches out to the world of social media. Early in his presidential campaign, he set himself apart from other politicians by targeting the ‘millennial generation’ through the clever use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. As president, he continued to reach out to the younger generation though ongoing meetings with popular YouTube content creators. In turn, popular YouTube influencers reached out to their followers for questions and concerns to be addressed by the government. YouTubers could then take these concerns directly to the president. One heated reaction against President Obama’s new social media propaganda tactic came after a press conference at the White House when members of the traditional press corps chastised the president for agreeing to be interviewed by what they saw as a ‘fringe group’ while ‘professionals’ were denied journalistic access. This contrast reflects the traditional methods of information transmission relied upon by previous generations, and newer approaches that cut through the layers of gatekeepers and respond directly to social media users. Indeed, despite this shift in the methods of engagement, both the old and new means of information transmission through media can be considered propaganda in their attempts to control messages and reinforce beliefs. This shift from older to newer forms of propaganda can be described as a shift away from vertical propaganda towards horizontal propaganda

Why Horizontal Propaganda?

Horizontal propaganda assumes that the population contributes to the propaganda system. Propaganda, as stated earlier in the course, has two fundamental principles: all propaganda elicits a ‘Yes’ (an agreement or reinforcement) to what is presented, and all propaganda leads to action. The approach by President Obama relies on the idea that propagated principles have a much better chance of being seen when immediate messages such as YouTube interviewers are used as stimulus. In stark contrast, the State of the Union is disseminated, then dissected by political experts, adding another layer of interpretation and ‘authority’ which arguably hampers the direct experience of the intended audience. In sum, one speaks directly to the people to whom the address is intended.

Horizontal propaganda stems from a vertical initiative which, in this case, is the president’s objective. But the vertical initiative needs to merge with the audience for whom the propaganda is meant in order for propaganda to be effective. This merger permits the vertical message (top-down) to achieve a far greater reach among people for whom the message is intended. This process (top-down) flips into a horizontal configuration when YouTubers (non-experts) ask questions generated and formulated by the target audience.

“Talking to the People”

The paradigm of “talking to the people” via platforms like YouTube is unprecedented, showing a cunning understanding of how social media functions. But it also raises some more important questions, for example: Which Youtubers are selected? Who is involved in the selection process? Are YouTubers truly free to ask questions? If these interviews are different from traditional interviews (CNN, for example), how so? What do you think President Obama gained by incorporating these mediatized horizontal propaganda strategies? Look again at portions of the interview and note the questions asked and the answers given. Select the button to access the video