Lesson Report:
# Title
**Defining Final Project Audiences: Propaganda Mechanisms, Radicalization, and Audience Anxieties**
This session focused on moving students from abstract discussion of propaganda toward a practical final-project task: identifying **who** a propaganda campaign affects and **which concrete anxieties** make that audience vulnerable. The instructor reviewed Haidt’s elephant/rider model, Bale’s backfire effect, and Booth’s early-stage radicalization framework, then used a workshop format to help students refine project topics by tracing propaganda susceptibility back to real, everyday fears and grievances.
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# Attendance
– **Students explicitly marked absent by name:** None mentioned in the transcript
– **Number of students explicitly mentioned absent:** 0
– **Note:** The instructor noted that not all expected students had submitted responses during class activities, but no absences were confirmed by name.
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# Topics Covered
## 1. Re-centering the final project around audience analysis
– The instructor opened by restating the **main goal of the project**: students are not just describing propaganda, but designing a response strategy for a **specific audience** vulnerable to that propaganda.
– The class picked up from Monday’s discussion about why people click deceptive or conspiratorial links online.
– A key framing point was reinforced:
– People who fall for propaganda are **not necessarily unintelligent or uneducated**.
– The more important question is **which psychological mechanisms** propaganda uses to deceive, emotionally hook, and redirect reasoning.
## 2. Review activity: Haidt’s “elephant and rider” and Bale’s “backfire effect”
– The instructor introduced a quick review of the two central theories students had previously used in workshop activities:
– **Haidt’s elephant and rider**
– **Bale’s backfire effect**
– To ground the review, the instructor presented a fresh example:
– Students were asked to imagine sitting at dinner with an uncle who insists that **the UN secretly controls the global food supply** and may be altering food with chemicals.
– The student in the scenario responds by showing reputable evidence from outlets such as Reuters/AP or scientific sources disproving the claim.
– Despite that evidence, the uncle rejects it.
### Activity instructions
– Students were asked to write **2–3 sentences in the chat** explaining why the uncle remains convinced, using either:
– Haidt’s elephant/rider model, or
– Bale’s backfire effect.
– The instructor gave a short timed writing window and then reviewed chat responses.
## 3. Student responses on emotion-first information processing
– The instructor highlighted **Mar Lar Seinn** and **Ismailova Kamilla Renatovna** as identifying the first layer of the explanation:
– **Ismailova Kamilla Renatovna** argued that propaganda “works because it triggers the emotion.”
– **Mar Lar Seinn** noted that words like “secretly” touch emotions first, meaning that the “elephant” reacts before reason.
– The instructor then asked the class to restate the central idea of Haidt’s analogy:
– What happens when people receive new information?
– Do they process it objectively first, or emotionally first?
### Student contribution
– **Ezgo Helen** gave the clearest oral summary:
– When new information arrives, people often respond first with how they **feel**, not with detached reasoning.
– By the time logical evidence is introduced, the original belief may already be emotionally anchored.
– That emotional anchoring helps explain why corrections can feel irrelevant or even threatening.
### Emotional vocabulary generated by the class
– The instructor asked what emotion the “UN controls the food supply” narrative would trigger.
– Students and instructor identified:
– **Fear** — contributed by **Ezgo Helen**
– **Anger** — contributed by **Kendirbaeva Kanykei Oskonovna**
– Distrust
– Doubt
– Anxiety
– The instructor emphasized that **fear/anxiety** are especially important because they help explain why a conspiracy claim can become persuasive before any rational verification takes place.
## 4. Bale’s backfire effect and the role of identity
– The instructor shifted from emotional priming to the **backfire effect**, asking why evidence can make a believer even more defensive.
– **Yousufzai Khadija** contributed that the uncle may believe, as the older person, that he knows better and therefore dismisses contrary evidence.
– The instructor reframed this contribution around the deeper concept of **identity** rather than age alone.
– **Turgunalieva Nazbike Baktybekovna** contributed that the uncle’s identity may interpret correction not as help, but as an attempt by “the system” to silence him.
– **Ezgo Helen** added that when a person feels challenged or attacked, they may hold their belief even more strongly.
### Instructor synthesis
– The instructor combined the theories in sequence:
1. A message first triggers emotion.
2. In this case, the emotional base is fear/anxiety.
3. Counterevidence then feels like a threat to self-concept or group identity.
4. The result is not persuasion, but **defensive entrenchment**.
## 5. Returning to Booth: radicalization as a gradual process
– The instructor then linked the theory review to the final project by revisiting **Booth’s six-step taxonomy of radicalization**.
– Students were reminded that the course had already read Booth earlier in the semester.
– The instructor asked: **What does it mean to become radicalized?**
### Student contribution
– **Shoguniev Imat Imatovich** defined radicalization in terms of moving toward **extremism** and more extreme political positions.
– The instructor affirmed this and then stressed Booth’s major point:
– People do **not** go from ordinary beliefs to extremism overnight.
– Radicalization begins with **“uncertainties and questions.”**
## 6. Interpreting Booth’s “uncertainties and questions”
– The instructor pushed students to explain what Booth means by this phrase.
– Some initial class responses remained too general, so the instructor clarified:
– Booth is not saying that radicalized people begin as irrational or evil.
– Instead, they often begin with **legitimate concerns about real problems**.
– To illustrate this, the instructor returned to an earlier class example about misinformation around food and health:
– A mother has a screaming baby.
– She lacks a strong support system.
– Her doctor gives her only a brief, unsatisfying answer.
– She has a **real problem** and **real uncertainty**.
– When she encounters a narrative saying the food supply is contaminated, that explanation speaks directly to her anxiety and gives structure to her confusion.
– This was used to reinforce a major project design principle:
– Students should **not frame their target audience as “crazy people.”**
– The more useful target for intervention is someone at **step one or two** of Booth’s model, not someone already at the final stage of committing harm.
## 7. Transition to project work: define the audience and identify their anxieties
– The instructor summarized the lesson’s main practical takeaway:
– The first step in the final project is to **define the audience** and **understand that audience’s anxieties**.
– Students were told that by this point they should have at least chosen a topic for the midterm/final project sequence.
### Activity instructions: Google Doc topic list
– The instructor opened a Google Doc and asked each student to:
– find a new line,
– write their **name**,
– state the **specific propaganda campaign** they are writing about.
### Clarification question
– An **unidentified student** asked whether they needed to fill in the subject/topic next to their name.
– The instructor confirmed: **yes**, students should include both their name and their topic.
## 8. Administrative clarification: citation format and length for the midterm
This was a substantial practical segment of the class.
### Citation format discussion
– An **unidentified student** asked whether, because ICP uses **APCA style**, the midterm needed references/footnotes.
– The instructor clarified:
– **Sources must be cited.**
– **Parenthetical in-text citations** are preferred/acceptable.
– A follow-up question asked whether students could do both footnotes and in-text citations.
– The instructor responded that students only need **one system**, not both.
– Another student pointed out that the written assignment instructions had mentioned **footnotes**.
– The instructor acknowledged this as a mistake in the prompt and corrected it:
– If a student already used **footnotes**, that is acceptable.
– If a student used **parenthetical citations**, that is also acceptable.
– The essential requirement is that claims are **properly sourced and traceable**.
### Length clarification
– Another **unidentified student** asked whether a paper that had reached **six pages** instead of the suggested four pages would still be acceptable.
– The instructor said yes:
– **Six pages is fine**
– Students should simply avoid going excessively over.
– The same student asked whether **1187 words** was acceptable.
– The instructor confirmed that it was.
## 9. Second audience-mapping task: work backward from propaganda to vulnerability
– After the logistics discussion, the instructor returned to the conceptual work and gave a second, more demanding task.
– Students were asked to:
1. Imagine the type of person **most likely to be affected** by their chosen propaganda campaign.
2. Then take “a few mental steps backwards.”
3. Identify the **initial anxieties, doubts, or legitimate complaints** that may have started that person on the path toward believing the narrative.
– Students were instructed to write **1–2 sentences** in the Google Doc.
## 10. Live workshop of student topics and audience analysis
The remainder of class became a guided workshop in which the instructor read student topics aloud and helped refine them from broad abstraction to more concrete audience analysis.
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## 10A. Shoguniev Imat Imatovich: pro-Kremlin biolabs disinformation in Sub-Saharan Africa
– **Shoguniev Imat Imatovich** proposed a topic related to **countering pro-Kremlin “biolabs in Ukraine” disinformation in Sub-Saharan Africa**.
– The instructor responded positively to the specificity of the region and topic but asked for more:
– What anxieties would make a resident of Sub-Saharan Africa likely to attach themselves to a narrative about biolabs in Ukraine?
– The instructor’s emphasis here was methodological:
– Regional specificity alone is not enough.
– Students must identify the **concrete local fears** that make a distant geopolitical narrative resonate.
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## 10B. Ismailova Kamilla Renatovna: biological weapons in Ukraine supported by the West
– **Ismailova Kamilla Renatovna** described her topic as propaganda about **the creation of biological weapons in Ukraine with support from the West**.
– She suggested that the affected person is **someone concerned about the future**.
– The instructor agreed only partially and pushed for narrower phrasing:
– “Concerned about the future” is too broad, since nearly everyone is concerned about the future in some way.
– The project needs **specific anxieties** rather than general unease.
– This became an example of the distinction between:
– a useful starting idea, and
– a sufficiently precise audience profile.
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## 10C. Azimshoev Ofarid Asalbekovich: pro-Kremlin disinformation on Telegram
– **Azimshoev Ofarid Asalbekovich** proposed **countering pro-Kremlin disinformation on Telegram**.
– The instructor immediately flagged the topic as **too broad**, noting that Telegram contains countless pro-Kremlin messages every day.
– He asked Ofarid to identify a **single narrative** rather than a whole ecosystem.
### Student contribution
– Ofarid replied that people who believe such disinformation often:
– already trust Russian media,
– support Russia,
– or do not carefully check information.
### Instructor refinement
– The instructor asked what underlying concept tied this together and prompted the class with the initial letter “I.”
– **Yousufzai Khadija** supplied the key term: **identity**.
– The instructor used this to show that these narratives often succeed not just because of ignorance, but because they reinforce an identity-based worldview.
### Narrowing the claim
– Ofarid then gave a more specific example:
– the claim that **Russia invaded Ukraine only to defend itself from NATO expansion**.
– The instructor accepted this as a usable narrative, while still pushing for the next step:
– What concrete anxieties make someone receptive to that framing?
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## 10D. Samatbekova Elaiym Samatbekovna: ethno-nationalist propaganda targeting teenagers in Russia
– **Samatbekova Elaiym Samatbekovna** presented one of the most developed responses:
– She proposed **countering ethno-nationalist propaganda targeting teenagers in Russia**.
– She argued that teenagers are at a stage of **self-questioning and identity development**.
– She added that they live in an environment of multiple nationalities, backgrounds, and beliefs, and may try to separate “I” from “them.”
– In cities such as Moscow, she argued, everyday contact with migrants may intensify feelings of **uncertainty, competition, and difference**.
### Instructor response
– The instructor praised the specificity and asked for an example of the kind of propaganda she meant.
### Student contribution
– **Shoguniev Imat Imatovich** supplied the example **“Russia for Russians”**, describing anti-immigrant and especially anti-Muslim activism.
### Further elaboration
– The instructor then asked Elaiym to unpack the terms she used:
– uncertainty about what?
– competition for what?
– **Samatbekova Elaiym Samatbekovna** explained that the uncertainty may involve:
– whether Russia is “only Russian” or fundamentally multiethnic,
– and whether youth belong fully to one national identity or a more plural civic identity.
– She also framed competition in terms of **hierarchy and power**.
### Additional class contribution
– The instructor referenced **Harzu Natalia** as also raising the idea of **competition for power** in the chat.
### Instructor grounding in Booth’s framework
– The instructor then pushed the analysis away from abstract identity conflict toward more concrete everyday fears:
– possible job loss,
– future opportunity loss,
– fear that immigrants may “take our jobs,”
– fear for children’s economic future.
– This was one of the clearest examples of the day of the instructor modeling how to move from:
– ideology and identity,
– to lived, material anxieties.
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## 10E. Turgunalieva Nazbike Baktybekovna: pro-Kremlin disinformation about Ukrainian refugees in Lithuania
– **Turgunalieva Nazbike Baktybekovna** proposed **countering pro-Kremlin disinformation targeting Ukrainian refugees in Lithuania**, especially the claim that refugees are a **social and economic burden**.
– She identified the likely believer as a **Lithuanian citizen, mostly Russian-speaking**, who is angry that Ukrainian refugees are “living on their money.”
### Student elaboration
– Nazbike explained that propaganda portrays refugees as being supported by Lithuanian taxpayers:
– state resources are going to them,
– they receive money/help/housing,
– and this framing is used in multiple Baltic states.
### Instructor refinement
– The instructor asked what exactly “living on their money” means.
– Nazbike clarified that the narrative says taxpayers’ money is being redirected to support refugees’ living needs.
### Instructor synthesis
– The instructor then translated this into a more fundamental audience anxiety:
– the person works hard,
– pays taxes,
– struggles to support their own family,
– and feels it is **unfair** that outsiders are getting help they themselves do not receive.
– He emphasized that this is precisely the kind of **legitimate everyday grievance** Booth wants analysts to identify before a person becomes radicalized.
– This exchange was one of the strongest class examples of tracing propaganda appeal back to:
– labor,
– family provision,
– fairness,
– and perceived unequal treatment.
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## 10F. Mar Lar Seinn: “Love Jihad” campaign in India
– **Mar Lar Seinn** presented a topic on the **“Love Jihad” campaign** in India, defined as propaganda claiming that Muslim men lure Hindu women into relationships or marriage for the purpose of conversion.
– Seinn suggested that:
– Hindu communities fear being controlled or attacked by another identity group.
– Politicians use this theme to gain trust and support from the Hindu majority.
### Instructor response
– The instructor asked Seinn to go beyond the broad idea of identity threat and specify the underlying fear.
### Student elaboration
– Seinn connected the issue to:
– the historical legacy of Hindu-Muslim conflict,
– the effects of British rule and partition,
– and fear that the Muslim population might grow in influence and eventually dominate politically or socially.
### Instructor synthesis
– The instructor acknowledged that **historical violence and conflict** can serve as a legitimate source of anxiety.
– At the same time, he noted that the project still requires an even clearer statement of the **concrete fear** that would cause an individual to accept this specific narrative.
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## 10G. Gulobov Ruslan Sodikovich: “Ukraine is a Nazi state”
– **Gulobov Ruslan Sodikovich** proposed work on **countering the “Ukraine is a Nazi state” disinformation narrative**.
– He identified the audience broadly as:
– people in Russia or Russian-speaking communities abroad,
– and politically extreme audiences vulnerable to propaganda.
### Instructor response
– The instructor agreed that these groups may be exposed to the narrative but said the answer remained too high-level.
– He challenged Ruslan to identify:
– what fears made those audiences politically extreme or vulnerable in the first place,
– rather than simply naming the demographic categories.
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## 10H. Musaev Timur Arsenovich: media propaganda and national identity narratives in the Russia-Ukraine war
– **Musaev Timur Arsenovich** proposed a broader topic on **media propaganda and national identity narratives in the Russia-Ukraine war**.
– He described the target audience as the general public and noted that both sides construct identity to legitimize themselves and delegitimize the opponent.
### Instructor response
– The instructor said the topic was still too broad to produce an effective digital hygiene toolkit.
– He asked Timur to choose:
– one propaganda campaign,
– or one national identity narrative,
– rather than trying to address the war’s media discourse in general.
– The instructor also pointed out that ordinary users are not thinking in abstract strategic terms about “identity construction”; students need to specify what **fear, need, or uncertainty** pulls people toward a particular message.
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## 10I. Ezgo Helen: AI deepfakes in Armenia’s 2026 elections
– **Ezgo Helen** proposed **countering AI-driven deepfake disinformation in Armenia’s 2026 elections**.
– She identified the likely audience as:
– Armenian voters who rely on social media,
– especially undecided or institution-skeptical individuals.
– She argued that Russian networks use AI deepfakes to:
– discredit pro-Western leaders,
– create confusion about credibility and political claims,
– and encourage people to share unverified content.
### Instructor response
– The instructor said the analysis was promising but again pressed for sharper specificity:
– uncertainty about what exactly?
– fear of what exactly?
– This reinforced the day’s repeated message that audience analysis must identify **specific emotional triggers**, not only general distrust.
## 11. Closing diagnosis and preview of next class
– Near the end of class, the instructor summarized what the workshop had revealed:
– students generally understand the **philosophical/theoretical level**,
– but many are still working **several layers of abstraction too high**.
– He said Monday’s session would continue with the concept of **audience**, and he plans to bring **clearer examples** showing how to work backward from a propaganda campaign to the concrete people and emotions involved.
## 12. Final reminders and course logistics
– The instructor gave a final reminder that the **midterm is due at 23:59** and that students **must submit it to pass the course**.
– He also said he would post the **video reflection journal** on eCourse immediately after class and that it would be **due next Wednesday**.
– **Yousufzai Khadija** asked about **groups for the final project**.
– The instructor responded that **groups will be assigned on Monday**.
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# Student Tracker
– **Ismailova Kamilla Renatovna** — Identified emotional triggering as central to propaganda’s effectiveness and shared a topic on biological weapons in Ukraine supported by the West.
– **Mar Lar Seinn** — Explained that emotionally loaded words like “secretly” activate the emotional “elephant” first and presented a project topic on the “Love Jihad” narrative in India.
– **Ezgo Helen** — Clearly summarized emotion-first information processing, identified fear as the key emotion in the conspiracy example, and shared a topic on AI deepfake disinformation in Armenia’s 2026 elections.
– **Kendirbaeva Kanykei Oskonovna** — Contributed “anger” as a relevant emotional response in the conspiracy scenario.
– **Yousufzai Khadija** — Connected the backfire effect to identity, referenced status/authority in belief resistance, and asked about final-project groups.
– **Turgunalieva Nazbike Baktybekovna** — Explained how pro-Kremlin narratives portray Ukrainian refugees in Lithuania as a taxpayer burden and helped articulate the fairness anxiety underneath that message.
– **Shoguniev Imat Imatovich** — Defined radicalization as movement toward extremism, proposed a topic on pro-Kremlin biolabs disinformation in Sub-Saharan Africa, and supplied “Russia for Russians” as an example of ethno-nationalist messaging.
– **Azimshoev Ofarid Asalbekovich** — Proposed a topic on pro-Kremlin Telegram disinformation and narrowed it to the NATO-expansion justification narrative after instructor prompting.
– **Samatbekova Elaiym Samatbekovna** — Offered a detailed audience analysis of teenagers in Russia vulnerable to ethno-nationalist propaganda, emphasizing identity formation, uncertainty, and competition.
– **Harzu Natalia** — Contributed to the discussion of competition/power dynamics within anti-immigrant or ethno-nationalist narratives.
– **Gulobov Ruslan Sodikovich** — Proposed a topic on the “Ukraine is a Nazi state” narrative and identified Russian/Russian-speaking audiences as key receivers.
– **Musaev Timur Arsenovich** — Proposed a topic on media propaganda and identity narratives in the Russia-Ukraine war, prompting instructor guidance on narrowing scope.
– **Uncertain student** — Asked whether the Google Doc required both name and topic entry.
– **Uncertain student** — Asked whether APCA format required references/footnotes for the midterm.
– **Uncertain student** — Asked whether both footnotes and in-text citations could be used.
– **Uncertain student** — Asked whether a six-page / 1187-word midterm would be acceptable.
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# Actionable Items
## Immediate / High Urgency
– **Midterm due by 23:59**; instructor stated submission is required to pass the course.
– Clarify to students that **either footnotes or parenthetical in-text citations are acceptable** for the midterm, due to mixed wording in the assignment instructions.
– Follow up with students whose topics remain **too broad or too abstract**, especially where a single narrative and concrete audience anxiety still need to be identified.
## Before Next Class
– Instructor plans to **continue the audience-definition exercise on Monday**.
– Instructor plans to prepare **clear examples** showing how to move from a propaganda campaign to the everyday anxieties of the vulnerable audience.
– **Final project groups** are to be **assigned Monday**.
## Administrative / Ongoing
– **Video reflection journal** to be posted on eCourse; due **next Wednesday**.
– Consider reviewing participation/attendance records, since the instructor noted fewer topic submissions than expected during in-class work.
Homework Instructions:
ASSIGNMENT #1: Video Reflection Journal on Audience and Anxiety
In this video reflection journal, you will reflect on today’s lesson by thinking more concretely about the audience for your project. Your goal is to move beyond broad ideas such as “identity” or “fear” and instead explain the specific, legitimate anxieties and uncertainties that make a person vulnerable to a particular propaganda narrative.
Instructions:
1. Go to the course page and open the Video Reflection Journal assignment that was posted after class.
2. Review your notes from today’s lesson before you begin your reflection. In particular, revisit the following key ideas:
– Haidt’s “elephant and rider” model
– Bale’s backfire effect
– Booth’s idea that radicalization begins with “uncertainties and questions”
– The class emphasis on defining the audience for your project and understanding that audience’s anxieties
3. Start from the propaganda topic you selected for your midterm/project. Use the same specific propaganda campaign or narrative you have been working on in class.
4. Identify the audience most likely to be affected by that propaganda narrative. In your reflection, describe this audience as specifically as possible rather than in broad or generic terms.
5. Work backward from the propaganda message to the audience’s earlier stage of vulnerability. Ask yourself:
– What real-world frustrations, doubts, or fears might this audience already have?
– What legitimate anxieties could make the propaganda message feel believable or emotionally compelling?
– What concrete everyday concerns come before more abstract ideas like identity, hierarchy, or belonging?
6. In your reflection, explain how the lesson’s theories help you understand this audience:
– Use Haidt to explain how emotions may be triggered before reasoning.
– Use Bale to explain how identity and defensiveness may cause people to reject correction.
– Use Booth to explain how vulnerability begins with genuine uncertainties and questions rather than instant extremism.
7. Make sure you focus on concrete anxieties rather than only abstract claims. For example, instead of stopping at “they are afraid for the future,” explain what specifically they may fear, such as economic insecurity, loss of status, distrust of institutions, social competition, safety concerns, or unfairness.
8. If helpful, use the examples discussed in class to guide your thinking, such as:
– the conspiracy example about the UN controlling the food supply
– the idea that people do not become radicalized overnight
– the importance of identifying the first step in the path toward vulnerability
9. Record your video reflection according to the format and submission requirements listed in the assignment post.
10. Submit your completed video reflection journal by next Wednesday.