PSY 355 Psychology & Media in the Digital Age This page was last modified on October 24, 2024

Class 18: Fake News: Propaganda, Politics, and Media Manipulation • Part 2


The "Big Lie" (in German: große Lüge)

Overall Meaning

The big lie (German: große Lüge) is a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth primarily used as a political propaganda technique. Its origins come from Germany in the 1920s and has been used by political autocrats over the last century. "The German expression was first used by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf (1925) to describe how people could be induced to believe so colossal a lie because they would not believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". Hitler claimed that the technique had been used by Jews to blame Germany's loss in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff, who was a prominent nationalist political leader in the Weimar Republic

According to historian Jeffrey Herf (2005), the Nazis used the idea of the original big lie to turn sentiment against Jews and justify the Holocaust. Herf maintains that Nazi Germany's chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi Party actually used the big lie technique that they described – and that they used it to turn long-standing antisemitism in Europe into mass murder. Herf further argues that the Nazis' big lie was their depiction of Germany as an innocent, besieged nation striking back at "international Jewry", which the Nazis blamed for starting World War I. Nazi propaganda repeatedly claimed that Jews held outsized and secret power in Britain, Russia, and the United States. It further spread claims that the Jews had begun a war of extermination against Germany, and used these to assert that Germany had a right to annihilate the Jews in self-defense." (Wikipedia, 20241024, emphases added)


Historical Examples (Kurlansky, 2022)

1903-1905. Russia. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”

• "In 1903, portions of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were serialized in a Russian newspaper, Znamya (The Banner). The version of the Protocols that has endured and has been translated into dozens of languages, however, was first published in Russia in 1905 as an appendix to The Great in the Small: The Coming of the Anti-Christ and the Rule of Satan on Earth, by Russian writer and mystic Sergei Nilus."

• "Although the exact origin of the Protocols is unknown, its intent was to portray Jews as conspirators against the state. In 24 chapters, or protocols, allegedly minutes from meetings of Jewish leaders, the Protocols "describes" the "secret plans" of Jews to rule the world by manipulating the economy, controlling the media, and fostering religious conflict."

• "Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, anti-Bolshevik émigrés brought the Protocols to the West. Soon after, editions circulated across Europe, the United States, South America, and Japan. An Arabic translation first appeared in the 1920s."

• "Beginning in 1920, auto magnate Henry Ford's newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, published a series of articles based in part on the Protocols. The International Jew, the book that included this series, was translated into at least 16 languages. Both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, later head of the propaganda ministry, praised Ford and The International Jew." [All quotes from the Holocaust Encyclopedia at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]
  

1932-1933 USSR. Denial of the Holodomor (the Ukrainian Famine)

• A man-made famine engulfed Ukraine, among the most productive agricultural regions of Europe, in 1932-1933. Estimates many years later suggest that 3.5 to 5 million people in Ukraine alone starved to death. Their deaths were part of a larger famine affecting the whole Soviet Union from at least 1931.
  

• Members of the foreign press corps in Moscow tended as a group to accept the denial of such a famine by the Soviet government. Perhaps the most egregious example of denial came from the New York Times Moscow correspondent, William Duranty (shown later to have been particularly willing to turn a blind eye to any defect of the Soviet system). See newspaper report on the right.
  

• “[In 1933] Édouard Herriot, the three-time French prime minister and long-time mayor of Lyon, went on a high-profile tour of the USSR at the invitation of Soviet authorities. The French politician’s first stop was in Ukraine, where he attended official, stage-managed meetings and was taken to view Potemkin-style villages. While in Kyiv and in Kharkiv, Herriot praised conditions in the Soviet Union, making no reference to famine.” [A “Potemkin Village” is a staged scene whcih conceals from the viewer what is really happening.] https://holodomor.ca/resource/olgerd-bochkovsky-edouard-herriot-and-the-holodomor/
  
  
• “There was a large crowd at the Brotteaux train station to welcome Edouard Herriot to his city. On September 13, 1933, the irremovable mayor of Lyon and leader of the left-wing Parti Radical and former president of the Council (an equivalent to prime minister), was returning from an unusual trip. A few days earlier, he had crossed the USSR from Odesa to the Baltic sea at the invitation of the Soviet government. It was the first time since the 1917 October Revolution that a political leader of this stature had the opportunity to visit the homeland of communism, a land on which worrying rumors had been circulating for months.
  
  As soon as he got off the train, he was asked the question on everyone's lips: Was there a famine in Ukraine? Mr. Herriot's answer was anything but spontaneous: "I have crossed Ukraine. Well, I assure you that I saw it as a garden in full yield, a beautiful garden with black and fertile grounds covered on considerable expanses by magnificent harvests. You will tell me that they say this region is going through sad times. I cannot speak of what I have not seen. But I asked to be taken to places that were said to be suffering. Yet I saw only prosperity." [from Wieder, 2022]
  

The Radio to Spread "The Big Lie"

• "Radio was a big step forward for lying. Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest in Michigan whose antisemitic radio broadcasts were extremely popular in 1930s America, referred to the “Protocols” as evidence of a Jewish conspiracy. Coughlin was a pioneer in talk radio, spewing out lies on the radio with no one to contradict him.
  

• But the great master of radio lying was Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. “It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have without the radio,” he once said. He distributed radios to the public. Having one of these official radios was a sign of being a good Nazi, not only because they were decorated with swastikas, but because they were only capable of picking up Nazi Party frequencies." (Kurlansky, 2022)

Other Nazi Propaganda

The cover of the Der Giftpilz, an example of the Nazis’ anti-Jewish, antisemitic propaganda, written by Ernst Hiemer and published by Julius Streicher, a leading Nazi and the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer. Meaning “The Poisonous Mushroom”, this book is aimed at “Aryan” German children and alludes to how, just as it is difficult to tell a poisonous mushroom from an edible mushroom, it is difficult to tell a Jew apart from a Gentile.

To manipulate the public’s attitude toward Hitler, Goebbels engineered a propaganda campaign (now known a the “Hitler Myth”) to make Hitler appear heroic and also kind-hearted, family-oriented and friendly. As part of this campaign, Hitler was often pictured playing or talking with children and mothers. This illustrated photobook, with a number of Adolph Hitler portraits, was compiled in 1935 and edited by Heinrich Hoffmann, Reich reporter of the NSDAP, with forwards by Baldur von Schirach, youth learder of the Third Reich

Do we hear about the "Big Lie" in 2024?

Here is a headline story online at NBC News on October 25, 2024

This news report notes the following:

• "Well-funded conservative groups are systematically deploying the manufactured threat of noncitizen voting to pump up their base, to file restrictive federal and state voting measures and purge tens of thousands of voters from the rolls, and to flood the courts with lawsuits that plant doubt about the security of the upcoming election, opening the door to delays in the certification of results. It has been the hot topic of congressional hearings, million-dollar ad buys, right-wing media, domestic disinformation projects and campaign rallies."
  
  
  
  
  
  

• "Noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal. It is also incredibly rare: One study of jurisdictions with large populations of noncitizens in 12 states named by Trump as hubs of illegal voting found an estimated 30 incidents of suspected — not proven — illegal noncitizen voting among 23.5 million votes in 2016, or 0.0001%. Many other organizations — including a libertarian think tank — have also debunked the claim. Meanwhile the only nonpartisan research to support it, a 2014 peer-reviewed paper that found up to 14.7% of noncitizens were voting, has been roundly rejected by the scientific community.*" [*rejected because the sample size was far too small to make the extensive claim of illegal noncitizen voting.]
  

• "The fresh popularity of an old lie is in large part due to a new crop of online influencers. Noncitizen voting dominates the election rumors tracked by the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. YouTubers manufacture evidence for these rumors with videos that are promoted by well-funded conservative groups and recirculated in right-wing media. In many cases, the creators are online strivers finally tapping into a hungry audience — and a new frontier for disseminating political propaganda.
  
  “This is the attention economy,” said Danielle Tomson, research manager at the Center for an Informed Public. “There is a very consolidated and dedicated community of people who are interested in rumors about election fraud, about noncitizen voting, and about border insecurity.”
  

Hitchens’ Razor* (named after the late Christopher Hitchens)
 

•  There is an old Latin phrase that comes from the philosophy of reasoning and logic. In Latin it reads: “Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.”

• The English translation is simple: What is asserted or claimed to be true gratuitously (that is, without reason or proof) can be denied (as true) gratuitously (that is, without reason or proof).

• In claiming something as true, the burden of proof lies with the person who makes the claim. If that person doesn’t accept this principle and continues to make claims without evidence, his or her claim may be rejected without evidence.

* Hitchens used this principle to argue against religious beliefs. But, without getting into that area of disagreement, we can apply it in many other aspects of life.

Other Social Media Examples (taken from Central Washington University Libraries Fake News site)

Case 1: Disney and Lowering the Drinking Age to 18

On August 20, 2022, a TikTok video was posted, claiming that Disney World was going to lower the drinking age to 18. It was stated that Disney World was battling the Florida government in court to get a resort exemption, which would allow anyone 18 and older to drink on property. The TikTok video acquired millions of views in just a couple days. This story was also posted on facebook, instagram, and Twitter. Shortly after, the story made it on ABC 10 News.

However, The Walt Disney Company did not seek a resort exemption to lower the drinking age to 18 years old, in Disney World, Florida.. Upon further exploration of the original site of the claim itself, their About page actually bluntly admits that they only write fake stories about Disney Parks.

Another example: Regarding the January 6, 2021 Riot at the Capitol, It was claimed that the U.S. Capitol police gave the protesters an "okay" to enter the Capitol. No. This didn’t happen.

Case 2: Covid-19 Is Associated with Wearing Masks.

In October 2020, posts on social media and articles were published claiming that a new CDC study found the majority of those infected with COVID-19 ‘always’ wore Masks. This claim was further elevated on October 15, 2020, a town hall broadcast by NBC, interviewed U.S. President Donald Trump. During this interview Trump stated, "But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it." Trump's source for this claim was the new study published by the CDC. Find the full transcription of this interview online. This information was ultimately, misinterpreted. The CDC's tweet addressing the misinformation said, "People w/ and w/o #COVID19 had high levels of mask use in public. Even for those who always wear a mask, there are activities where masks can’t be worn, like eating or drinking. People w/COVIE-19 were more likely to have eaten in a restaurant (Oct. 14, 2020, 2:00 PM)

References

Herf, J. (2005). "The "Jewish War": Goebbels and the antisemitic campaigns of the Nazi propaganda ministry. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 19, 51–80. https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dci003

Kurlansky, M. (2022, September 11). Op-Ed: A history of the ‘Big Lie’ from Plato to TikTok. Los Angeles Times (online). Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-11/the-big-lie

Wieder, T. (2022, May 12) Ukraine: The suppressed tragedy of the great famine of 1932-1933. Le Monde (online). https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/05/12/ukraine-the-suppressed-tragedy-of-the-great-famine-of-1932-1933_5983239_4.html