Images are everywhere. To take one example, most of us carry cameras around in our
pockets, use them apparently indiscriminately and then broadcast the images we capture
openly around the world. These images, by virtue of the fact that they are broadcast,
represent a thing to which the image creator intends to draw our attention. Just as the image creator seeks to show their audience something, so too does the educator, using pedagogical reduction, and the propagandist, via propagandistic reductions. This thesis will argue that image, pedagogical reduction, and propaganda are interlinking concepts resembling a Russian doll-like conceptual framework: both pedagogical and propagandistic reductions are particular instances of image, and propaganda is an even more particular instance of a pedagogical reduction. From this, it can be suggested that propaganda is pedagogical and, indeed, that pedagogy has the potential to be propagandistic. This is achieved by setting out definitions of image, pedagogical reduction, and propaganda before linking them together by examining the similarity in the process of creation and, using Barthes’ concepts of studium and punctum, the relation between the image and its audience. The resulting argument will, I hope, inspire further discussion on the themes contained within; most notably the value that comes from juxtaposing a notion of education with a similar concept holding pejorative connotations. By exposing the similarities between pedagogy and propaganda, we can delineate the differences as the qualities that distinguish good education from bad propaganda.
| Date of Award | 16 Jan 2023 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Awarding Institution | - University Of Strathclyde
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| Supervisor | Karsten Kenklies (Supervisor) & David Lewin (Supervisor) |
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