Teachers as Target Audience: Critical Discourse Analysis and Propaganda in Schools

Through an EcoJustice Education lens, this paper proffers a critical, cultural-ecological approach to propaganda analysis. Beginning with an exploration of the history of commercial and free market propaganda in schools, I position a recent climate skepticism publication as one text in a long pattern of discursive events intended to promote neoliberal market logic to teachers and students. Beyond a historical overview and literature review, the purpose of this paper is to present a framework for propaganda analysis based in a Foucauldian understanding of power-knowledge relations. This approach conceptualizes propaganda as phenomena with positive or negative intent, which can produce beneficial or harmful material consequences. In lieu of a list of criteria to identify and label propaganda, this paper focuses on the discursive circulation of power by examining what language gives power to and how dominant truth regimes deploy texts as weapons. A cultural-ecological analysis exposes the cultural roots of ecological (both social and environmental) injustices, by critiquing habits of mind and being that are articulated and reproduced through our representational and material systems. The existence of propaganda in professional development materials and school curricula demonstrates a need for critical media literacy in teacher development programs. Critical media literacy is a crucial skill for educators who are tasked with preparing students to responsibly consume knowledge and participate democratically in the digital age. This paper presents an example of a critical, cultural-ecological approach to propaganda analysis that demonstrates how knowledge and power reproduce and reinforce one another