What propaganda techniques did you use to design this poster?
In my campaign, “Say No to Trump, Say No to Napoleon!” I am using three propaganda techniques: appeal to celebrities/authority, fear, and hyperbole. Propaganda techniques are used to influence an audience’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviours.
By appealing to celebrities/authority, I have drawn a poster of Napoleon from Animal Farm in the image of Donald Trump. Trump is both a celebrity and someone of authority. Trump has had a negative response from many American citizens, as well as many other people around the world. Trump is similar to Napoleon because they are both corrupt and terrible leaders. Napoleon is corrupt because he breaks laws to his advantage. Napoleon is so corrupt that he would execute someone else’s life if they get in his way. Trump is popular in a negative way because of his corrupt leadership and Napoleon is the same. Because we are all familiar with Donald Trump, I used his image and combined that with Napoleon’s image. Using an image we are all familiar with, allows us to attach ourselves more easily.
I also used fear as a technique because fear evokes a scared emotion. Instilling fear in the audience, allows the audience to choose the opposition. In this case, many people fear that Trump may continue to president for a few more years. More so, many of the animals fear having Napoleon continue on being the leader. This encourages the fearful audience to choose other leaders, rather than Trump or Napoleon. In the case of Animal Farm, the fear of this poster encourages the audience to choose Snowball.
Thirdly, I used “hyperbole” as another technique. Napoleon’s image is exaggerated to look like the image of Trump, a leader who is corrupt and cruel.
“Say No to Trump, Say No to Napoleon!” slogan helps the audience realize how horrible Napoleon is in Animal Farm because the audience knows how terrible Trump is as a president. This slogan also uses the same three propaganda techniques.
What could I have done better?
Because I did this project on my own, I didn’t get the chance to discuss details about the book. I enjoy having conversations about characters and plots while i’m reading the book. I also wasn’t able to bounce ideas about my campaign poster with others. I like seeing other people’s ideas and I didn’t get a chance to do that either.
On another note, this was the first time I purchased both a copy of the book as well as the audio version. I really enjoyed listening to the story and I was able to listen to parts over again if I needed to. As a musician, I know that I’m definitely an auditory learner. I didn’t realize that I could use audio books as another way to read a book. In the future, I will use audio books for any novel that I have to read for school because I felt that I didn’t struggle as much as I have in the past.