Percy:  In 1099 control of the Jezreel Valley changed imperial hands.   Here's the Quadrant up on the Big Screen.

Red:  Famous story.  The First Crusade...Catholic knights seize the Holy Land from the Muslims. 

Percy:  Yeah.  That famous story gives us our first opportunity to jump straight into a Dome.

Red:  You mean we have records of contemporaneous propaganda designed to influence people as part of the campaign?

Percy:  Well-stated. 

Red:  Well-parodied...

Percy:  Nice one.  Records of a live campaign give us two options for entering the Screen.  We can enter through the Armageddon Gateway into the imperial trade networks, or via the First Crusade Propaganda Portal.  We will do the latter to introduce our final mapping tool, the Tessera, which plots coordinates inside a state-like structure.  Let's first establish the Propaganda Portal through Screen F in 1099.   Recall the criteria for establishing whether a public information campaign is propaganda.  They are up here on the Big Screen.  Now read on your Tablet this widely-accepted recounting of the speech Pope Urban II gave in November 1095 that kicked off the First Crusade propaganda campaign.  

Red:  Pretty florid. 

Percy:  Yeah.  I suppose.  Shall we confirm if, for our purposes, his speech qualifies as propaganda?  

Red:   O.K.  Number one.  Is it a live binary story, of us versus them?  Yes.  But is there a change in a law or management of those laws?

Percy:  Let's assume yes and confirm when we deconstruct.  And number two?

Red:  Well, the First Crusade has meaning without grammar.  But did they call it the First Crusade?

Percy:  Good point.  Events rarely have set names when they start, so we go with the historical label unless or until we find another one.  Number 3?

Red:  The story certainly has the standard story components, who, what, where, when, why and how.  Shall we list them?

Percy:   Shortly.  How about numbers 4 and 5? 

Red:  Well the concept of the Crusade is paired with the Holy Land, and more precise.  And the story describes the past seizure of the Holy Land by Muslims, recent atrocities against Christians and the fear of their eradication in the birth place of their religion.

Percy:  This qualifies as a propaganda campaign.  And from it we can build the next set of tools, for mapping the Abstract Space inside a state Dome.  We will build the two-dimensional tools -- the Propaganda Frame, Matrix & Depth-of-Field -- here in the semi-cone room, then take them through the Screen into Abstract Space.  

Red:  Sounds like I better take a seat.

Percy:  It shouldn't take too long.  First, the Propaganda Frame.  A deconstruction of the Propaganda Portal along the lines of the 5W&H.  The Frame was inspired by the Dramatistic Pentad of Kenneth Burke, the American literacy critic who claimed all drama could be deconstructed into a set of five integrated components.  I consider propaganda a dramatic art, and likewise it can be deconstructed into five components.  Though because it is live, and non-fiction, they differ from Burke's.  You can read a Wikipedia summary of the Pentad on your Tablet.  Meanwhile, here are the Propaganda Frame's components on the Big Screen. 

Red:  Premise.  Spectacles.  Goals/Means.  Actors.  Setting.  So you deconstruct every propaganda narrative into these components?

Percy:  Yep.  Instinctively.  They are the decoding grammar, so to speak, of propaganda campaigns.  Let's now apply the Frame to the First Crusade, and learn a little more about those components.  See Sidebar: First Crusde Frame Components.

Red:  So these components also apply to today's campaigns?

Percy:  More like the reverse...I developed them from my direct experience in propaganda systems.  And am now applying them to history.  But like everything else in this dialectical exercise, they must be tested and refined.  Onto the next tool:  the Propaganda Matrix, which combines the Quadrant with the Frame to create a set of coordinates.  Here's the first two steps to building the Matrix on the Big Screen.  Note how the Quadrant's cap -- the Portal -- is gone.  We've entered the Screen through it, but now only need the propaganda concept for the dialectic. 

Red:  Meaning the campaign frame?

Percy:  Yep.  The Frame's components stretch through the light blue dot on the Quadrant. 

Red:  They are a little different than the five you had up on the Screen.

Percy:  Yeah.  There's a little flexibility here, so you can adapt to the context of the campaign.  The Premise creates the Frame, and is represented by the Quadrant.   We always divide the Actors into Instigator and Target, and put them on the ends.  Allows us to connect to other Tesserae when we start connecting the dots across space and time.  For the Spectacles I only use the Establishing because it's an actual event.  And I usually split up the Goal and Means.  Again, this is flexible.  But so far these six components work well.

Red:  And the red X's?

Percy:  They indicate that each component is linked to the campaign.  Which is self-evident, since we extracted them from the campaign.  This is the Matrix's propaganda baseline.  Every single one you construct will start like this.

Red:   O.K.  I think I get that.  And the next line goes through the Governing Interface.  Why no X's there?  

Percy:  We move down the Quadrant to determine the level of the campaign.  Or what it seeks to change.   Many campaigns, particularly today, seek change in the government, those managers of the machinery of state.  But this one did not.  So no links.  Let's look at the other two Quadrant components on the Big Screen.

Red: Ah hah.  The orange Superstructure level lights up. 

Percy:  Yep.  The new law, a papal indulgence, is part of the campaign.   So all components connect to it. 

Red:  And then there's the trade infrastructure.  The Jezreel Valley.  But only half connect.  If that's an objective, why aren't we connecting all the components?

Percy:  If the propaganda campaign stated that the Pope was seeking to control the trade node, then we would connect everything.  But it stated that the objective, the Holy Land, is a spiritual place central to the faith of Christians.  It is an abstract objective connected to physical reality.  So we look for direct connections to trade.   And the Establishing Spectacle, Goal and Target all connect.  Does this make sense?

Red:  Yeah.  I think you are saying that trade-based objectives often lurk under faith-based campaigns.  I will need to build a few of these, though, to grasp the nuances.

Percy:  Absolutely.  We will be doing a lot of these.  The other two-dimensional tool is the Propaganda Depth-of-Field, which adds the time dimension behind the Screen.  Here we look for changes within the previous 25 years, from the bottom up.  Starting with the Trade Node and the Legal Superstructure up on the Big Screen. 

Red:  O.K.  I get it.  Plus a grid for context.   I think I see where you are taking this. 

Percy:  We look for objective changes at each level.  So in the Trade Node, it's change of state control.   And the last change in the Jezreel Valley was around 1073, when the Seljuk Turks...

Red:   The Frame's Target...

Percy:  Yep.  They seized the Levant then, from their base in Baghdad.

Red:   Different millennium, same game. 

Percy:  Appears so.  Now we look for changes in the Legal Superstructure of the Catholic Church. 

Red:  What changes?

Percy:  Well.  You need to set some parameters based on the Frame.  The First Crusade campaign sought to conquer Muslim-held lands on Mediterranean trade lanes.  So let's look there.  And we find two: the current papal indulgence.  And less than a decade earlier the promise of sin remission by Urban's predecessor, Pope Victor III, for a military action called the Mahdia Raid.  Take a minute or two to read about it on your Tablet.

Red:  Interesting...a precursor to the First Crusade?  And definitely looks like a key trade node.

Percy:  That's modern Tunisia, or ancient Carthage, on the African coast of the Strait of Sicily.  It dominates a strategic trade crossroads:  the long-distance shipping lanes from the western to eastern Mediterranean basins, and the shuttles from North Africa to Europe via Sicily and southern Italy.  That little passage from Wikipedia gives us a host of new actors to consider in our mapping. 

Red:  Genoa.  Pisa.  Normans.  And Mathilde of Tuscany.   We make note of them?

Percy:  Absolutely.  Writing is centered on the actions of humans.  So they are the connectors in our mapping of Abstract Space's energy networks.  Also be aware of the causality in the Wikipedia entry, that it had been "prompted by the actions of the Zirid ruler Tamim ibn Muizz."  

Red:  Right.  Ignore causality.  Just look for actors and objective events.  And that one little passage had loads to work with.

Percy:  All with hyperlinks.  The beauty of Wikipedia.  The Mahdia Raid connected lots of dots for me.  Now to the final two steps, the Theater's Governing Interface and Screen, up on the Big Screen.

Red:  So the Governing Interface is the Pope?  Why note those changes? 

Percy:  Stick with basics on the first pass.  The Pope is the titular authority, and we want to note when the Instigator's government changed in the period leading to the campaign.  Important clues. 

Red:  And what's an Anti-Pope?

Percy:  A rival claimant.  Clement III is the first, installed by Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, a German King who controlled northern Italy down to Rome.  

Red:  Looks like some solid string to follow there!

Percy:  Yep.  Finally we look at past propaganda campaigns connected to conquest of Muslim trade nodes. 

Red:  The Mahdia Campaign included propaganda.  I can see why you zeroed in on it.  And there was an aborted attempt to launch a Holy Land Crusade in 1074?  Huh.  That's right after the Seljuk Turks took it.  And also immediately after the crowning of a new pope, Gregory VII.

Percy:  Yeah.  The early 1070's look to be a pivotal period.   And you know who apparently was backing that attempt?

Red:  No.  Of course not.

Percy:  Mathilde of Tuscany.  She seems to be a key player.  We'll take special note of her as we cross into Abstract Space and start our mapping.  Now.  Let's put the First Crusade Propaganda Portal on the Big Screen, grab the Propaganda Frame, Matrix & Depth-of-Field -- and cross into 3-Space.