Democratic Persuasion

Semester and Year	FA 2012
Course Number	ELEC-GG2745
Section	001
Instructor	Stephen Duncombe
Days	Mon
Time	6:20 PM - 9:00 PM
Units	4.0
Level	G
Foundation Requirement

Notes/Restrictions

Open to advanced undergraduates with permission of the instructor (stephen.duncombe@nyu.edu).

Description

This course begins with the controversial premise that persuasion and propaganda are a necessary part of modern politics. With this approach we reject the simple project of critique and condemnation of propaganda and set for ourselves the far more difficult task of rethinking how one might create methods of mass persuasion that build democracy instead of undermining it and facilitate political discussion instead of closing it down. We begin by exploring the history of rhetoric and persuasion, and defining what we mean by propaganda. Next, we will study classic examples of propaganda produced by advertising agencies and totalitarian states. Then, as an extended case study, we will explore how photographs, speeches, architecture, murals, guidebooks and even material projects of the New Deal in the United States might suggest an alternative model of propaganda. Finally, we will use what we have learned to sketch out a set of principles for democratic mass persuasion. Authors, artists, and sites we will look at include Plato, Aristotle, Susan Sontag, Stuart Ewen, Walter Lippmann, Lizabeth Cohen, Michael Denning, Michael Schudson, Lawrence Levine, Alan Trachtenberg, Leni Riefenstahl, Joseph Goebbels, Edward Bernays, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, Pare Lorentz, Woody Guthrie, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Timberline Lodge, Bonneville Dam, and Coit Tower.

Syllabus

ELEC-GG2745

Course Type

Graduate Electives (ELEC-GG)