Propaganda: How Ideas Spread
Like Duolingo, but for Propaganda: How Ideas Spread. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
54 levels across 4 sections, about 108 minutes end to end, roughly 22 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Foundations of Persuasion, Psychological Mechanisms, Techniques and Tactics, and Propaganda in the Digital Age. It assumes you already know the basics.
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Key ideas in Propaganda: How Ideas Spread
- Education prioritizes the development of critical thinking skills
- Propaganda prioritizes a specific behavioral or ideological outcome
- Propaganda uses simplification to bypass nuance
- Education uses multi-perspectival approaches to invite debate
- Factual accuracy does not preclude a message from being propaganda
- The methodology of delivery determines the propagandistic nature
- Intent of the communicator
- Manipulation relies on emotional triggers
- Enlightenment requires transparency regarding sources
- Structural differences in messages
- Education focuses on individual autonomy
- Propaganda seeks to control or direct the audience's thought process
- How the intent of the communicator changes the presentation of information
- Structural differences between messages inviting debate vs. demanding consensus
- Whether information can be educational and propagandistic simultaneously
- Criteria used to judge if a message is designed to enlighten or manipulate
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Propaganda: How Ideas Spread the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
In the smoke-filled room of learning, what is the ultimate goal of a teacher who isn't just a salesman for a single idea?
Get it right to open this lesson and 53 more in the app.
Where Propaganda: How Ideas Spread takes you
Unmask the psychological machinery behind mass persuasion and public opinion. Learn to identify the subtle techniques used by governments and media to shape the way we think and act.
- 1
Foundations of Persuasion
- Defining Propaganda vs. Education
- The History of State-Sponsored Messaging
- Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in Mass Media
- The Role of the Public Intellectual
- 2
Psychological Mechanisms
- Cognitive Dissonance and Belief Systems
- The Mere Exposure Effect
- Fear Appeals and Emotional Priming
- Groupthink and Social Identity Theory
- Confirmation Bias in Information Consumption
- The Illusion of Truth Effect
- 3
Techniques and Tactics
- Glittering Generalities and Name Calling
- The Bandwagon Effect and Plain Folks Appeal
- Card Stacking and Selective Omission
- 4
Propaganda in the Digital Age
- Algorithmic Echo Chambers
- Astroturfing and Fake Grassroots Movements
- Deepfakes and Synthetic Media
- Micro-targeting and Data Privacy
- Developing Media Literacy and Critical Thinking
4 sections · 18 units · 54 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Propaganda: How Ideas Spread is taught in the The Detective style: every fact is a clue. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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