Propaganda (by sarah)
I am starting to come to the opinion that propaganda material should be not banned but discouraged - people need to be informed of choices they do not need one opinion rammed so far down their throats that they can not think.
The way I would do this is by having a leaflet with the urls and library where abouts of the official material for each group/side/party. That way people can choose what to look at. There can bee a phone number for the house bound so that leaflets can be delivered for the parties they want to know more about.
Why do I feel this?
There were lots of leaflets and bill boards saying vote NO so much so that I struggled to keep the phrase out of my head - now I was prepared for this sort of thing but first time voters and much of the population probably didn't even notice the subliminal message sinking in. The YES campaign had similiar things I just didn't see as many. And to make it worse there was a vote NO leaflet in the polling booth which threw me so much I had to recheck I'd done the ballad correctly. Especially with having to put an x next to the choice you want - I always think eek I'm marking it wrong due to x being used to mark things as wrong on childrens homework.
Not everyone in the UK is literate and I've known people who assumed you put the x next to the one you don't want. But that is a differnet matter.
My point is that humans are highly suggestible creatures we are designed to live in groups with some sort of hirachy even if it is only in times of danger. Politicians like any leaders have to know how to tap into the getting people to do things systems it is part of their job. But the thing is with propaganda is that it becomes a game of money - which group can put out enough flyers, adverts and fuzzybugs.
Alaric asked me how having a website with all the information on it was different from a leaflet and I said the thing is you choose to look at the website with leaflets and TV they just sit there even if say they are on the scrap pile looking at you, getting their message to sink in.
Now the thing is I am looking for this sort of thing as just having a baby I know I am highly susceptable to being swayed (it's so you listen to the rest of the group on how to look after babies first time mothers are affected worse) this is why advitising is not supposed to target new mothers.
And yet all those little tricks Darren Brown knows for getting people to vote a certain way/pick a certain box are nothing compared to what the population receives with every election.
Of course the general issue here again is apathy and the fact that most people do not care or worse think they are not intelligent enough to understand or even worse that it doesn't matter what or how they vote everything will still continue to be crap for them. So the issue then is how to get the population motivated to vote without it being a war of money - ie those who can afford the most brain washing techniques win?
I don't really have an answer other than perhapse the leaflets should have been about using your right to vote rather than YES or NO.
Thu 5th May 2011 9:48 am 
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By Maurice Snell, Fri 6th May 2011 @ 11:05 am
It is disgraceful, if not illegal, to have a leaflet in the polling booth. I hope you complained and removed it....
By sarah, Fri 6th May 2011 @ 9:04 pm
I disappeared it - I just thought someone had left it there by accident initially but have since been told that it was illegally placed which I hadn't realised.
It was only once we left that I started to think it might have been left there on purpose :/