Propaganda, Humor, and Identity

An uprising of anti-choice billboards in Atlanta has renewed dialogues about an old argument that abortion providers target women of color. While anti-choicers have been getting off on this holocaust fantasy for decades, does it still smell fresh to the massive majority of Americans who are not generally conscious of the ins and outs of anti-/pro-choice fads?

I pored over blog discussions to try to get a glimpse of how this latest incarnation has fared in public opinion, but of course I could only find stale blah-blah from both sides. What do the billboards mean to the millions of women and families who are not personally, politically or professionally embroiled in the abortion debates? I doubt that both sides only intend to antagonize each other, so pro-choicers and anti-choicers alike presumably want to impact this massive middle. So what effects does this type of media--in this case, propaganda--have?

Let me make clear, I don't want to study the effectiveness of various propaganda strategies of each side in terms of reducing unplanned parenting or preventing abortions. That is a significant and massive topic, but it is not quite what I am thinking about.

As a media studies student, I want to explore how media helps us determine who we are and who we belong with--identity. In the case of pro-choice and anti-choice media, how do we use (by consuming, creating and spreading) various propaganda--like these billboards--to understand ourselves and those around us?

Furthermore, what about media that grows outside of the sloganized pro-/anti-choice debate? What about "dead baby jokes", which became popular (to my utter delight) when I was finishing college in 2003? Is this brand of humor an attempt to reject both pro-choice and anti-choice propaganda? What power and pleasure does someone get from this humor? As for me, I was flipping off the women's studies crones who were grading my thesis as well as the hyper-controlled phraseology of my Planned Parenthood career. What might my clinic coworkers think about my dead baby jokes? In reverse, what would my college friends think of the different but equally barbaric humor my coworkers and I employed to survive the emotional drain of our work? And God forbid Planned Parenthood Federation of America should find out that their clinic staff in Colorado Springs were laughing it up at the potential expense of "the mission"? Can I belong to all three groups, college friends, clinic staff, and international NGO? Do I have to hide one part of my identity in order to honor another part?

Okay, back to the billboard to wrap it up with some questions. What happens when different people see the billboard? What happens when two people see it at the same time and share their reaction? Do they identify with each other further because they react similarly to this bit of media? Do they disagree with each other and discover a split they weren't aware of before? What are the consequences of discovering this bond or this split?