\u00a0 \u00a0The answers were numerous and creative. I pointed out loopholes in the emerging responses, encouraging them to critically evaluate their strategies and improve them. The students came up with a host of advertising ideas.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0We can use Instagram, other social media, get known faces to promote our cause; we could write songs carrying our message and put them to catchy tunes, we could do awareness theatre; strict laws about plastic usage and littering must be implemented\u2014the police should uphold them and not be swayed by bribes; direct action in the form of planting more greenery in the school with club logo on the pots, etc. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 Following this buzzing discussion, I read out an excerpt on guidelines for effective advertising that earned positive feedback from the students. When I shared that I had replaced the word propaganda<\/strong> with advertising<\/strong> when reading out the excerpt and that the excerpt belonged to Adolf Hitler\u2019s Mein Kampf<\/em>, there was a brief uncomfortable silence as the implications of that settled in. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Using this excerpt as a corridor to a brief discussion of propaganda in Nazi Germany, I shared a selection of propaganda material with the students: from contemporary \u2018news videos\u2019 of Indian politicians to anti-women\u2019s suffrage posters, WWII US recruitment posters depicting Germany as a Caliban-esque figure, posters tapping into psychological insecurities to encourage men\u2019s recruitment to the army, to even a Walt Disney Donald Duck-starring cartoon<\/a> on the same. We spent the rest of the class taking apart these materials treating them as advertisements\u2014noting editing similarities between the \u2018news video\u2019 and typical WWE matches, depiction of \u2018us\u2019 and \u2018other\u2019 in the posters, to differing portrayals of women\u2014autocratic for putting the demand for the right to vote over fulfilling their \u2018societal duties\u2019 of wife and mother; representative of the USA\u2014fair, blonde, fragile and being kidnapped by a \u2018monstrous\u2019, obvious non-white representation of Germany, as ‘perks of the job’ in posters for war recruitment, among others.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/0318da2.netsolhost.com\/pwarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/b705983c1a384debd63b1472885862ac.jpg\")
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