Showing results for "Lives in Science" in Elections & Political Process

My Life in Propaganda is Magda Stroińska’s personal account of growing up with communist propaganda in Eastern Europe. She compares the beliefs of her family with what she was taught at school, learning early on about double interpretations and ambiguities through language. Through her chosen field of linguistics, she analyzes ways in which propagandistic language, such as ‘doubletalk,’ Orwellian ‘Newspeak,’ ‘weasel words,’ and, more colloquially, ‘bullshit,’ is used to distort reality. The book demonstrates that democracy can never be taken for granted.

Conventional wisdom holds that John F. Kennedy was the first celebrity president, in no small part because of his innate television savvy. But as Kathryn Brownell shows, Kennedy capitalized on a tradition and style rooted in California politics and the Hollywood studio system. Since the 1920s, politicians and professional showmen have developed relationships and built organizations institutionalizing Hollywood styles, structures, and personalities in the American political process.

"Política e religião sempre andaram juntas: na Pré-história, na Antiguidade, desde sempre e até hoje, mesmo que sob formas não tão evidentes." "O cotidiano saturado de políticas permeadas pelas guerras culturais tem vocação beligerante contínua." "Seja lá o que for a ‘verdade’, ela nunca interessou à democracia na construção cotidiana do poder." "O homem comum não se preocupa muito com liberdade de expressão e troca facilmente qualquer regime por uma janta melhor. É um fetiche achar que o homem comum ama a democracia."