EOTO: Smith-Mundt Act

 I am so glad that my group got randomly assigned to present on propaganda this week. I researched the Smith-Mundt Act and I feel so much more knowledgeable on the United States and their propaganda schemes. I will be totally honest, I was a little shocked and disappointed to learn that the United States takes place in propaganda, but I guess every country does it now. Today's blog post will be a special one all about the Smith-Mundt Act. 

The Smith-Mundt Act was passed in 1948 and the official name for it was the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act. This was first introduced by Congressman Karl E. Mundt and it was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. By passing this law, the U.S. Department of State had the basic legislative authorization for propaganda activities. What does that mean? It means that the U.S. Department of State could now communicate to audiences outside of the United States through broadcasting, face-to-face contacts, exchanges, books, movies, magazines, and other media. Congress funded these activities through appropriations. When this act was passed in 1948, it should've scared anyone outside of the United States. Essentially the U.S. passed a law stating that the U.S. State Department could lie to anyone outside of its borders. Scary stuff. 

Because of this act, the State Department could create an information service to disseminate abroad information about the United States and its people. This includes the President, Congress and all other government officials having something to do with matters affecting foreign affairs. The key to remember about this act is that it only allowed distribution of these materials outside of the U.S. This ensured that United States citizens would be immune to the propaganda of their own country. 

After this law was passed, Voice of America (VOA) was founded in 1942. This was a government-funded news service that showed its broadcasts of pro-American news stories around the world. The VOA was part of the United States Office of War Information (OWI), which was a controversial organization created for the distribution of wartime information. The OWI conducted psychological warfare overseas, using radio and print publications to demoralize the enemy. They also collaborated with Hollywood to develop propaganda films. These films were pro-American and really helped to boost support for war. 

Example of a pro-American propaganda film by Hollywood

 The Smith-Mundt Act was pretty much the same until 2013 when President Obama made some major changes to it. He signed legislation that made it possible for some materials created by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the nation's foreign broadcasting agency, to be disseminated in the U.S. This change eased restrictions for Americans to access government-funded media content upon request that was made for foreign countries. 

This modernization of the Act was very controversial amongst Americans. Half of the country thought that President Obama had signed a law allowing propaganda to be actively pumped into the United States, which is simply not the case. Even under the new revisions, it is still against the law for government-funded media to create programming and market to U.S. audiences. All that Obama did was make the content accessible to Americans. 

The Smith-Mundt law has a rich history and is still an active part of our lives today. It is important to be aware of it and know what exactly it is. Propaganda is not always recognizable so it is good to know if you have a chance to be exposed to it. The moral of this blog post is that you should always be careful about the information you consume, especially if it is from the government. This law only had to do with the U.S. State Department. That means that any other government department could be distributing propaganda. As United States citizens we still don't have access to the Pentagon's propaganda which is a haunting concept. Propaganda is a powerful tool and it is up to us citizens to be aware of it so it doesn't affect us. 

Privacy: The Common Goal That Brings Us All Together?

  I always hear that there is an overwhelming lack of privacy in the world, but I have never stopped to think about what that means. We are living in a world where the internet has been around for less than thirty years, however it is now a force that knows pretty much everything about everyone. Pretty scary, right? 

Google, Facebook and other popular sources get billions of dollars from advertising and creeping into your personal life. They have access to every email you send, every post on social media, and even every internet search. What does that mean for you? Well, it means nothing about your life is private. At any moment in time, someone could do their research on you and you would have no idea. The reason why this is so worrisome is because people practically live their lives online. We search the answer to any possible question that pops up in our mind and we tend to overshare on social media. 

One thing that is particularly scary when it comes to privacy is email. There is such a lack of privacy when it comes to electronic mail, that every email is public. You may think that it is not that big of deal, but think about it. You exchange emails ALL THE TIME. Every business exchange or even catching up and sharing personal details with loved ones. Private companies like Yahoo and Google have access to everything and they don't even need to tell you if they are looking at your emails. It is insane to me that people are unaware of this fact or don't seem to care. 

I watched a Ted Talk that talked about the privacy of emails. Well, the lack of privacy. Essentially the server has access to unlock your encrypted emails. It is crazy to think that even when people encrypt their emails and think they are protecting their privacy, they are not at all. There is a company called ProtonMail and it is a free encrypted email. This ensures that the only person that can unlock the encrypted data is the person who the email is sent to. It is not widespread, because it is expensive when you are trying to spread software like this and you can't use advertising. However, something amazing has been happening. The importance of privacy is bringing people together and people are donating to ProtonMail and keeping the company alive. 

I guess the moral of this post is that privacy is important and we can do our part to stop private companies from infiltrating our lives. We can support companies such as ProtonMail and be more aware about our digital footprint and who has access to it. It is crazy stuff we are talking about, but awareness to the problem is the first step. 

Diffusion of Innovation: Is Paper Money Becoming Outdated?

 

Money is at the center of everything we do. We are educated for 12 plus years in the hopes of getting a job that can fulfill our basic needs. Everything we do revolves around money. But how did we come to a point where we placed our worth around the value of a piece of paper? Relating the invention of paper currency through the lens of the Diffusion Theory, it is clear that the timeline of paper currency is spread out longer than most inventions and ideas would be. 

Paper currency was one of the biggest inventions to date because it changed the way we conduct things. Originally, humans would trade various objects to get what they wanted. This caused lots of inconsistency and the trading business had plenty of problems. 

The pioneers of paper currency were the Chinese. The first real use of paper currency popped up in the 11th century during the Song Dynasty. This was the innovators part of the diffusion of innovations. Only one part of the world was actively using this invention.

Pictured above is Jiaozi, which is the world's earliest form of paper currency

Since paper currency is a harder innovation to tackle, the early adopters, early majority, and late majority is hard to pin down. People saw how amazing it was in China and it spread throughout the Mongol Empire until it finally reached the United States in 1775. Yes, there is SO many years in between the origin of paper currency until 1775. The point is that paper currency was so innovative and useful that it keeps reaching its peak for years to come. Since we still have access to it and it is still prominently used today all over the world. 

What I can argue is that we are now finally reaching the laggards stage of this innovation. For years and years after the invention of paper currency, there was no other alternative. When people payed for things, they used paper currency. However, with the invention of credit and debit cards it is rare to see people pulling out cash to pay for something. It is pretty hard to tell for sure since paper currency is still used, but with digital forms of cash becoming more and more popular, I am willing to bet that when we look back at this time period years from now we will see that we are amongst the laggards of paper currency. Paper currency was an amazing invention and is still somewhat useful today, however, it is being severely overshadowed by paperless options of currency.

Today, my blog post was probably unconventional compared to others on this topic. However, I wanted to take this opportunity to apply this theory to an invention that is still relevant to the lives of everyone.