COMPLETE BREAKDOWN OF A SINGLE PROPAGANDA ITEM
a. Source
(1) True source ("where does it really come from?")
(a) Release channel (“how did it come out?") if different from true
source without concealing true source
(b) Person or institution in whose name material originates
(c) Transmitting channel ("who got it to us?"), person or institution
effecting known transmission--omitting, of course, analyst's own
procurement facilities
(2) Ostensible source ("where does it pretend to come from?")
(a) Release channel ("who is supposed to be passing it along?")
(3) First-use and second-use source (first use, "who is said to have
used this first?"; second use, "who pretends to be quoting someone
else?")
b. Time
(a) Connection between second-use source and first-use source,
usually in the form of attributed or unacknowledged quotation;
more rarely, plagiarism
(b) Modification between use by first-use and second-use sources,
when both are known
(i) Deletions
(ii) Changes in text
(iii) Enclosure within editorial matter of transmitter
(iv) Falsification which appears deliberate
(v) Effects of translation from one language to another
(1) Time of events or utterance to which subject-matter refers
(2) Time of transmission (publishing, broadcasting, etc.)
(3) Timing of repetitions
(4) Reasons, if any are evident, for peculiarities of timing
c. Audience
(1) Intended direct audience ("in English to North America";
"a paper
for New York restaurant operators")
(2) Intended indirect audience (program beamed "in English to North
America" but actually reaching Hongkong and Singapore by deliber-
ate plan of the sender; "a paper for New York restaurant operators"
being faked and sent to Southeast Europe in fact)
(3) Unintended audience (a Guadalcanal native studying Esquire; your
aunt reading the Infantry Journal; a Chinese reading American
wartime speeches against the "yellow devils" of Japan)
(4) Ostensibly-unintended direct audience (such as an appeal to strikers
in very abusive-sounding language, sent to businessmen to build up
opinion against the strikers, or Hitler's use of the fake Protocols
of the Elders of Zion)
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