Strategic Narratives in a Post-Fact World

The course examines relationships between truth, fact, propaganda and public relations in modern media. Theories of truth are discussed first focusing on the relationship between truth and value. It then discusses how values and beliefs are perceived in the times of post-truth. We will examine the fate of truth in the age of propaganda, explaining the history of propaganda, the various technologies of mass persuasion and manipulation. Among the great masters of propaganda, we will discuss the work of S. Eisenstein, L. Riefenshtal, Ch. Chaplin and other film directors. In our classes we will examine the theories of political myth, para-history, conspiracy, hate reproduction technologies, also concepts of total (deep) social engineering, partial social engineering. We will analyze the theoretical understandings of W. Lippmann, E. Bernays, J. Ellul, J. Lacan, N. Chomsky, M. Foucault and S. Žižek. We will also explain the state of post-truth in the context of modern information and hybrid wars.

Analyzing theories and cases of truth, conspiracy, propaganda, criticism of persuasion, hatred formation, and post-truth to gain knowledge and ability to critique lies and manipulation on their own.

Bachelor diploma, English language B2 level.

Aspects addressed in classes/workshops/readings: • Propaganda: Wille zur Macht: K. Marx, F. Nietzsche and M. Foucault. • Birth of industrial masses, industrial crowd politics and transformation of propaganda functions. The beginning of the era of propaganda. • Emotions as the main means of propaganda. Emotions against truth and facts. Emotions and values. • The birth and development of propaganda music as an manipulation of emotions. Examples: R. Wagner, D. Shostakovich, Hanns Eisler, et al. • Art and Propaganda: Manipulations of Emotional Intelligence. What is emotional intelligence? Manipulation of the meaning of life and philosophy as a servant of propaganda. • What is the difference between propaganda and Public Relations, public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, hybrid soft power? • Agitation as a means of persuasion. Interactions between agitation, mobilization and propaganda. Lenin on agitation. • Public Opinion and Propaganda: Consensus Engineering and Manufacturing: W. Lippmann, E. Bernays. Why the democracy of mass society needs propaganda? • Development of public relations technologies. • The history of propaganda before World War I. Religious Propaganda, American Revolution, Great French Revolution. • The beginning of the production of forms of hatred and the development of conspiracy theories: the falsification of Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Basics of critique of conspiracy theories. Consensus on hate production. • The development of propaganda during World War I. Evolution of forms of hatred and their mass application. Hate education. • The October Revolution in Russia and the Civil War: The Evolution of Classical Hate, Mobilization, and the Birth of the Gulag. The Gulag as an extension and assurance of civil war. • Soviet propaganda art. S. Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, M. Rome, M. Chiaureli • Propaganda and ritual: Mittings, demonstrations, mausoleums, funeral ceremonies. Lenin, Stalin's funeral. Analysis of other cases • Propaganda and agitation in the Spanish Civil War. G. Orwell. • Nazi propaganda and the idea of Volksgemeinschaft. L. Riefenstahl films. Total propaganda and total war. • Charlie Chaplin’s Cinematography: The Beginning of the Civil War Against Propaganda. • Propaganda and the Court: New Challenges to International Justice (Nuremberg, Holocaust, Court of Communist Crimes, Court of Racism ...). • Political myths and para-history • Propaganda during the Cold Cat: Titoism, McCarthyism ...) • The Chinese Cultural Revolution: Ideology and Artifacts. The phenomenon of revolutionary ballet and opera. • Criticism of Propaganda: Alienation of Political Action and Repressive Desublimation (H. Marcuze) • N. Chomsky and the critique of the current consensus production: manipulation of invisible filters, ceilings and walls, invisible powers. • Cultural hegemoy, dispositive, subaltern - as a critique of invisible forms of obedience in the research of A. Gramsci, M. Foucault and H. Babaha. • Birth, development of the society of the performance, prevalence of self-performance. The genesis of the post-truth society. • Psychoanalytic Theories of Running from Truth: Expelled and Humiliated Truth. How entertainment became infortainment. Information dopamine generation. • Ecological and Anthropocene Information Wars and Critique of the Instrumental Mind. Will we go beyond the age of propaganda?

Analytical thinking, idea and research questions generation, authentic solutions, creative product design, in-class participation.