I need to clarify a few points of my topic. I am really interested in learning how the psychology of propaganda like classical conditioning and other techniques affect the viewers. I am also interested in how this affects war and the world around people living in a time of war and how these people act differently due to the effects of propaganda. I think that propaganda acts almost like a product that an organization or political party is trying to sell the public. The person behind the image or video wants to persuade the viewer and use this information to change the world around them by manipulating their views of the environment that surrounds them.
Orientalism is correlated to the topic of the psychology of propaganda because they can both be seen in media and entertainment in the world today. This topic that really interests me and I could see myself writing my research paper with Orientalism in mind. I'd like to specifically focus on the Middle East, since I myself am Middle Eastern and conflicts in the Middle East and America seem to be very relevant to what is happening today in the world. These events include the conflicts in Syria and the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
I would like to discuss racism toward Middle Eastern people and how the main idea of "Us vs Them" in Orientalism is seen not only on a political level but also on a social level. I am really interested in researching how political news and ideologies have affected people's personal lives. How politics affects the way that "we", Americans, view "them", the Middle East, and how this effect is very biased and can be false at points.
This falsification of the Middle East is seen in entertainment outlets like the television show Homeland. The show depicts the Middle East in a light that Edward Said critiques in his book, Orientalism, as how Western countries view other countries like the Middle East. The show makes the streets of Beirut seem to be very bleak and the people more conservative than the actual vibrant streets of Beirut that are more akin to the western world. This indicates that Americans need to learn more about the Middle East and that people of the Middle East or what many view as "the other" are not very different from people living in America.
In the news we only hear the views of the American politician or the patriotic news anchor but I think that it's important to hear the views of the people being exposed to this information from the cookie-cutter, white-picket-fence family to the newly immigrated family from a foreign country. I think that these perspectives are very important and more reliable than a candidate who is trying to run for president or a news station with a political agenda.
Work Cited and Consulted
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979. Print.
