Simulation Overview · MBA / PGDM

The aipuria Times

Overview & Learning Objectives

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Overview

Propaganda Wars

Propaganda Wars is a newsroom simulation for management students. Playing the incoming editor of The Jaipuria Times, learners face a rival broadsheet that publishes manipulative editorials on business, policy, and sustainability topics. Across three editions, students must detect the manipulation techniques in play, then compose a counter-editorial that rebuts the argument on evidence and reasoning — not slogans.

Each edition is generated live from the student's own choices — career focus, industries, and two ideology probes on the role of markets and the role of the individual. That means every session is tuned to the learner, and no two editorials are identical. All cases are fictional and screened against content-policy guardrails; the simulation never comments on real politics, religion, or named public figures.

Students are scored on a 10-mark rubric: Depth of Engagement (/5) and Clarity & Insight (/5). Faculty see attempts, best score, and AI-assisted qualitative feedback on a live dashboard. Each faculty chooses whether to use the best of the last 3 attempts or thebest of all attempts; both values are shown for transparency.

Subject Mapping

Business Communication & Media Literacy

The simulation is designed as an applied module inside a Business Communication or Media Literacy course in a two-year MBA / PGDM programme. It slots naturally into units on persuasive writing, audience analysis, framing, and source evaluation, and can also be used as a cross-listed activity in CSR / Sustainability electives because every case is anchored to a UN SDG.

Written communication under time pressure
Critical reading of business & policy commentary
Framing, tone, and rhetorical structure
Ethics of persuasion in a professional newsroom
SDG-linked case reasoning across functional areas

Learning Objectives

By playing Propaganda Wars, students can:

1.Identify the four core propaganda techniques — Bias Injection, Evidence Manipulation, Repetition, and Targeting — inside real-looking editorial writing.
2.Read persuasive business and policy commentary critically, separating verifiable evidence from loaded framing, cherry-picked statistics, and emotional appeals.
3.Compose a clear, structured counter-editorial that directly rebuts a manipulative argument using evidence, tone control, and precise language.
4.Apply frameworks from Business Communication & Media Literacy — audience analysis, framing, source credibility, and rhetorical structure — under time pressure.
5.Reflect on how personal ideological instincts (market vs. state, individual vs. collective) shape susceptibility to propaganda in professional contexts.
6.Practise responsible communication aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across industries such as finance, marketing, HR, operations, and technology.

Suggested Session Plan

90 minutes · one classroom

0 – 10 min	Faculty intro: what propaganda looks like in business writing. Reveal BERT framework.
10 – 55 min	Students play up to three editions. Each edition = read → detect techniques → write counter-editorial.
55 – 75 min	Newsroom debrief: faculty pulls the dashboard, discusses best counter-editorials and common blind spots.
75 – 90 min	Reflection: link back to Business Communication learning outcomes and SDG context.

Prerequisites: none. Class size: 20 – 80. Devices: 1 laptop per student. Duration: single 90-min class, or split into 2 × 45-min blocks.

Included Materials

Everything a faculty needs to run the simulation

Student Playbook

How to play, scoring rules, integrity policy.

Faculty Playbook (confidential)

Facilitator notes, dashboard walkthrough — faculty only.

Mechanism Handbook (confidential)

Full mechanism, editorial roles, classroom rules.

Overview PDF (downloadable)

One-page overview for LMS / academic office.

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