Identifying Propaganda In the News
We aim at identifying propagandistic techniques in news articles.
We provide you with a news article and a flowchart to guide you through the identification of propaganda techniques.
The definition of each technique is shown when hovering on the name of the technique in the flowchart. Click on a technique to open a new page with further descriptions and examples.
You are free to annotate single words, phrases, or sentences, but we encourage you to select the minimal amount of text in which the propaganda technique appears.
Let us look at an example, which includes four propaganda techniques
- Name calling: the democrats are being called "babies"
- Black-and-white fallacy: obstruction vs progress
- Loaded language: stupid, petty, killing
- Exaggeration: killing a grandma, stomaching the presence of a person
Use the flowchart as your guide to spot propaganda. Try to get familiar with it. The diamonds will direct you until you end up in a specific technique.
The character between brackets in each technique of the flowchart is the hotkey to select the technique in the annotation software (e.g., if you select a text and press "l" it will be flagged as "loaded language")
TIPS:
- First and foremost: save your progress from time to time to get sure it is not lost (File -> Save)
- Some sentences might be tricky. Please try to select the right technique(s)
- Your emotions have nothing to do with the articles, as you are requested to spot propagandistic techniques, not their message: try to distance yourself from the contents and avoid being biased.
- One text fragment may include more than one technique at the same time
When ready, click here to start annotating articles.