Propaganda is difficult to define, a majority of students agree that propaganda has to do

with any ideas or beliefs that have been purposefully distributed to the masses (What Are the
Tools of Propaganda). Although propaganda is used in controversial matters, it is also used to
help spread ideas and beliefs that are widely accepted and ideas that are no controversial. I
decided to do a piece of propaganda because felon disenfranchisement is an issue than has
information that can be represented in a visually stimulating way. I want to present this
information to a reader so that the reader is responsible for the evaluation of the ideas. The
newspaper author leaves it up to the reader for evaluation and criticism because a reader decently
supplied with facts and an understanding of provand methods can do their own job of separating
the truthful information from the misleading information (100 Years Of Propaganda: The Good,
The Bad and The Ugly).
Propaganda works to influence others to willingly accept the ideas without challenging
the readers own assertions. The device used to do this is suggestion and stimulation, these tools
will lead people to accept an idea even though there are no logical grounds to accept the idea.
A propagandist uses these tools by making broad and positive statements, presenting the
statements in easy to understand and familiar language. He/she may also avoid suggesting or
even reject the possibility of there being another side of the argument. The propagandist will also
use a subtler form of suggestion using hints, insinuations, or indirect statements (What are the
tools of Propaganda).
All of this information can be used to back the creditability of using propaganda to
present the information of the disenfranchisement of felons. Propaganda could even be abused in
order to influence my audience to sway in either direction. Although the power of propaganda

can be abused, the well-educated, qualified, honest reporter only desires to be a propagandist for
the truth (100 Years of Propaganda The Good, The Bad and The Ugly).
I chose to do propaganda because of how extensive my target audience is. as propaganda
is meant to convey ideas and beliefs to a wide range of audience. My audience is voters of
eligible age, primarily focusing on states where voting rights arent automatically restored, as
this contains six states the range of people this is designed to reach is a lot. These states are:
Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Virginia. The way their way to vote is restored
is by restoration by the Governor, or court action. Both of those methods cause for delays, and
sometimes an unfair ruling on their right to vote.
As for my piece of work I wanted to implant the idea of how important it is that we need
these voters, as our current turn out is low and every vote matters. I do this by first establishing
the generalized topic by making the eyes drawn to the vote pin. This first establish the topic, then
the next thing you will see is Let Felons vote as it is the largest text on the sticker. This further
refines the topic and the reader can then make their own connection to how the ad pertains to
felons right to vote.
The rest of the text was made smaller and more difficult to read from a distance. This is
for when the car may be stopped at a light, or in the parking lot where people can come up close
and read the specifics. The text at the top is meant to pull on the emotions of the reader by
playing on human morale. This is because generally discrimination is looked down on and by
mentioning it the reader will associate the distaste in discrimination with the idea.
The text behind the bars purposefully uses the number 6,000,000 in numerical format and
not text format. This is because the numerical value is more easily seen and understand, if the
reader see the number 6 followed by a word they are most likely to just remember the numerical

value and not the word proceeding it. The final piece of text on the sticker is the smallest most
dense, this is also purposefully done. The reason is because this will most likely be the last thing
the reader looks at, so I impose a critical question last as to stimulate the reader even after they
are done looking at it.
With the idea in the mind of the reader, my hope is that they will make their own
conclusions on what is right however the ad is trying to get the reader to vote for an
improvement. My goal is to getting the reader thinking about the issue even after they have
walked away from the bumper sticker. The methods of doing this are by using small text,
emotionally charged arguments, and the readers curiosity.

Works cited
Shapiro, Eliza. "If Convicted Felons Could Vote." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 7
Dec. 2012. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.
Stokoe, Claire. "100 Years Of Propaganda: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." Smashing
Magazine. Smashing Magazine, 18 June 2016. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.
"What Are the Tools of Propaganda?" What Are the Tools of Propaganda? American Historical
Association, n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.