Canned Orders over Loudspeaker

Bandy: May I have your attention please? This is your supreme overlord speaking.
Worker #1: Y-Yes! Supreme overlord!
Worker #2: You don't gotta say it if she can't see you.

— Dregs

One of the sure signs of fascism or totalitarianism is big TV screens, radios and loudspeakers (occasionally mounted on vehicles) and posters plastered all over the streets, with speakers blaring propaganda and messages from the Glorious Leader reminding his subjects to obey authorities, smile because they live under the best leader in the world, and report dissidents. This is different from having a PA system in a private location just broadcasting instructions to visitors or to the staff, because most of the time, people in free countries don't expect to have someone care about their actions and whereabouts at home, on the street, or in public transit.

La Résistance may or may not get the chance to hack into the system and broadcast a message of rebellion.

If this trope is Played for Laughs, then it may be an example of Megaphone Gag.

Related to Big Brother Is Watching. See also Propaganda Piece. Contrast Loudspeaker Truck, a passing vehicle makes a very loud noise to indicate awkwardness. There's also Intercom Villainy, which is when a villain will make passing comments or mock the heroes opposing them over the PA system they are using and give some personality to the what is happening on-screen.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Ergo Proxy, fellow citizens of Romdo are encouraged to consume and make waste.
• Father Cornello's radio broadcast in Fullmetal Alchemist has shades of this.
• The third part of Genocyber has the citizens of what is implied to be the world's last surviving city being ordered to increase their production by 20% or be incarcerated.

Comic Books

• In Achille Talon: Le Roi des Zôtres, this is used as part of a Zero-Approval Gambit: the cheap-ass record is supposed to sound like adoring crowds mindlessly repeating their leader's call to war, but starts skipping in the middle. Every listener easily recognizes it as a fake (one noting it must be at least forty years old) and revolts — All According to Plan.
• In V for Vendetta, unlike the movie (see below), the public address system is used for a nightly broadcast from the Voice of Fate (which V enjoys toying with, first driving the man who provides the voice insane, and later hijacking it for his own address). Later, after Finch reports that V is dead, the government wastes no time getting that news out over the public address system.

Fan Works

• Origins, the Republic Intelligence Service does this in areas they control. When Sarah stumbles on facilities in places nobody would think to look, a looped message issues warnings about violation of the law and resulting imminent boardings.
• Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged: It turns this trope into a tool for the apparently quite proactive Neighborhood Watch Committee. They constantly pass by mounted in a truck with loudspeakers to inform everyone of their inane announcements.
  "The Neighborhood Watch Committee would like to remind you that necrophilia is still illegal!"

Films — Animation

• Macross: Do You Remember Love?:
  • Though not really propagandistic, the civilians aboard the Macross are on the receiving end of a couple throughout the film, usually warning that the ship is under attack/about to transform and that it would be a very good idea to seek shelter or shelter in place.
  • A later sequence shows Admiral Global taking over the ship's civilian broadcasting network to announce the brokering of a peace treaty between the Macross and Vrlitwhai's^note Britai/Breetai's fleet.

Films — Live-Action

• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension: There's a public address system inside the Yoyodyne facility that occasionally broadcasts brief messages and propaganda to the Red Lectroid workers.
• Best Seller: Subverted. In the opening, there's a political campaign truck driving through the streets blaring its message. It turns out to be full of robbers in rubber Nixon Masks heisting the police HQ evidence room.
• Carry On Behind: Major Leep sets up loudspeakers around Riverside Caravan Park to broadcast news to the guests and instructions to his staff. His announcement of this in his first broadcast is intercut with a montage of unimpressed guests smashing up or muffing the speakers so they won't interrupt their holiday.
• Chernobyl: Abyss: The Pripyat speakers broadcast the announcement that the city must be evacuated due to an explosion at the plant. The droning loudspeaker only heightens the tension as frightened townspeople board buses.
• Used for Black Comedy in Dredd. In the crime-plagued dystopia of Mega City One, a recorded voice cheerfully announces that the food court will be ready in half an hour, as an automated sweeper removes the blood and dead bodies for recycling.
• Used during the battle of Stalingrad by the Red Army as a means to bolster morale in Enemy at the Gates.
• The infamous "Leave the Bronx!" sequence from Escape 2000.
• In Fight Club, Tyler Durden delivers some over a bullhorn to the first class of Project Mayhem.
  Tyler Durden: Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
• Invasion of the Neptune Men's "DO NOT PANIC. DO NOT PANIC." gets lampshaded by Mike Nelson: "Yeah, right."
• Jonestown: While in Guyana Jim Jones had loudspeakers set up so the members of Peoples Temple would hear his voice constantly, no matter where in Jonestown they were. When he wasn't giving speeches himself, the speakers were playing recordings of his previous speeches.
• Mad Max. The unseen female dispatcher primly announces directives that bear little relevance to the brutal gang-plagued world the underfunded Main Force Patrol is trying to keep in line.
  The Captains of the Hall have asked that pursuit officers refrain from using the slang "Bronze" for the Main Force Patrol. The word is considered disrespectful, and citizens should be actively discouraged from its use.
• Mister Roberts: At regular intervals, an unseen crewmember laconically announces "Now hear this, now hear this" followed by Captain Morton's latest act of petty tyranny. This serves as a Chekhov's Gun for the Is This Thing Still On? moment, when the captain inadvertently broadcasts to the entire crew how he coerced Roberts into toeing the line.
• The film version of Nineteen Eighty-Four starring John Hurt features loudspeakers endlessly announcing production quotas that never seem to match the impoverished condition of the country. And of course there's the ubiquitous telescreens that double as surveillance devices, constantly broadcasting propaganda or the 'confessions' of those caught by the Thought Police. At the end of the movie after being broken in mind and spirit, we see the protagonist's public confession as well.
• Reform School Girls: The speaker tower in the middle of the compound is known as 'the Voice of God', as Warden Sutter uses it solely to broadcast moralistic religious homilies to the school.
• The Nazi propaganda tower in Saving Private Ryan.
  Capt. Miller: [repeating] "The Statue of Liberty is kaput." Well, that's disconcerting.
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country has a mundane example in the form of PA announcements aboard the Enterprise informing crewmembers to remain on watch due to the ship being outside of friendly territory.
• Underwater. When the Underwater Base is damaged the automated PA warnings are affected as well, so they vary between relevant information like "Structural failure is imminent!" or useless corporate PR like when everyone's staring at the giant undersea monster advancing on them: "Tian Industries: We have big things in store for you!"
• There are large loudspeakers all over London in V for Vendetta, which implies that the Norsefire government engages in this trope. They get used by the government a grand total of once in the very beginning, announcing that a "yellow-coded curfew is in effect". Otherwise, the only use they get is when V hijacks them to provide a soundtrack for his fireworks-laden bombings.

Literature

• In 86 EIGHTY-SIX, the Republic of San Magnolia's state-owned media broadcast falsely reports that the country's military is taking zero casualties against the Legion on a daily basis, and always ends each broadcast reminding the citizens to take pride in their nation's might and glory.
• According to The Accusation, the North Korean government has speakers located everywhere to blast propaganda 24/7. Even the Ohs' tiny farming village has one loud enough to be heard from their house.
• Brave New World has the standard version. The author's later Island (a positive counterpart) features a variant — trained parrots, which recite uplifting slogans.
• Charlie Wilson's War: After the Soviet Union pulls out of Afghanistan, the country collapses into Civil War involving widespread atrocities. The book presents the disturbing image of loudspeaker trucks for the US government's cross border program following in the wake of the mujahedeen armies, urging them to respect the human rights of the Afghans they were slaughtering.
• The telescreens from Nineteen Eighty-Four, which double as surveillance devices so you're not allowed to turn them off.

Live-Action TV

• Arrowverse:
  • Arrow:
    • When the Arrowcave gets a PA system, Felicity jokingly announces over it: "This is your overlord, Felicity Smoak..."
    • As required for any brainwashing-enforced utopia, the residents of the HIVE Underground City in Season 4 have to listen to this trope.
  • Legends of Tomorrow: In "The One Where We're Trapped on TV", the Fates have rewritten history so Earth is a Nineteen Eighty-Four-type dystopia.
    Loudspeaker: The Fates are always watching. Relinquish free will. The world is perfect.
    Gary: [wearing sandwich board saying THE WORLD IS WRONG!] The world is wrong! Can't you people see? None of this is how it should be!
• Babylon 5: In "Intersections in Real Time", at one point the interrogator leaves Sheridan alone overnight with a loudspeaker that speaks the following statement in the interrogator's own voice:
  Interrogator: [repeating over loudspeaker] You will cooperate with the State for the good of the State and your own survival. You will confess to the crimes of which you have been accused. You will be released and returned to society a productive citizen if you cooperate. Resistance will be punished, cooperation will be rewarded.
• The Barrier: The streets of Madrid have many loudspeakers. Recurring messages includes reminders to not drink water from unsanctioned wells, to social distance in all but name (implcitly because of story's iteration of The Plague) or that the curfew is coming up.
• Blake's 7:
  • "The Way Back" opens with a security camera panning over drugged and docile citizens walking zombielike through white-painted corridors to the cheerful sound of muzak and a voice announcing various government directives.
  • In "Redemption", our heroes are captured by the computer-controlled dystopia that built the Liberator. Despite not being in the Federation they have all the standard tropes of a sci-fi dystopia: black-clad Faceless Goons, bases that look like British nuclear power stations, and this trope calling on guards to capture and eliminate a group of rogue slaves (it serves a foreshadowing when one of these slaves turns up to help them).
  • In "Killer", as a Synthetic Plague sweeps through a Federation base, tannoy speakers announce that the situation is under control and everyone is to remain at their post, after a scene where people are shown fleeing in panic and dying in the corridors.
  • In Season 4, the Terran Federation has spread its empire due to Government Drug Enforcement. In "Warlord", secret resistance video shows Federation citizens with zombie-like expressions and numerals stamped on their foreheads, moving listlessly up and down elevators while a soothing voice tells them, "You are cared for. You are loved." The voice continues even when the guards get bored and start shooting people for fun.
• Chernobyl uses the real audio of the order to evacuate Pripyat after the titular disaster, beginning with "Vnimanie, vnimanie" (attention, attention). Loudspeakers mounted on military vehicles drive through the city, announcing to the populace that they need to take a few days' worth of luggage for a "temporary evacuation", which ended up being permanent as the town was too irradiated to be safe for human life for the foreseeable future. The ominous announcement is also used in the show's trailer.
• While Community's loudspeaker announcements are usually basically the kind of announcements you'd get in a community college with as much craziness as Greendale, when a social rating app leads to Greendale becoming a dystopia straight out of 1970s science fiction, so do the loudspeaker announcements.
  The Dean: Tranquillity is Advancement. A Happy Three is a Future Four.
• Daredevil (2015): In "Blindsided", a prisoner disguised as a guard helps Matt Murdock get out of prison in the middle of a riot. "Code 33... Code 33... Code 33... Lockdown is now in effect!" sounds throughout the scene until Matt finally exits the prison to the outside.
• Doctor Who:
  • This trope is omnipresent in "The Macra Terror". Bonus points for half of the canned orders being in the form of catchy, earworm-style jingles! Of course, the other half are straight-up Big Brother Is Watching You...
  • In "The Age of Steel", an unpleasantly angry voice can be heard over the Cyberconversion factory's PA system:
    "Chamber 5 now open for human upgrading. Chamber 7 now open for human upgrading. Chamber 12 now closed for sterilisation. All reject stock will be incinerated."
• The Expanse: Used for the Silent Credits of "Remember the Cant" after Havelock is attacked and left for dead (though he survives). There's just the murmur of the crowd and a voice announcing over and over: "This is a Star Helix security directive. Curfew is now in effect on Medina Level. Unauthorised personnel will be detained or arrested on sight."
• El internado: Las Cumbres: After gym class at the Boarding School of Horrors, a recording reminds the students that a five-minute shower is required and that good personal hygiene is a sign of respect to oneself and others.
• Non-villainous example in M*A*S*H, via various loudspeaker announcements from whoever was being the Communications Officer (usually not Radar but the similar-voiced Todd Susman). This also happens in the 1970 film, to the point where it's even employed in place of closing credits!
• The Mirror Universe in The Middleman has giant screens broadcasting propaganda messages from FatBoy Industries.
• The Prisoner (1967) has the eternally cheerful PA announcer (Fenella Fielding) announcing public events and giving dire warnings of possible rain showers. Occasionally (as in "The General"), the PA system is given over to other propaganda voices.
• Raised by Wolves (2020): A flashback to the war devastating Earth has a siren and a female voice announcing: "This is an emergency broadcast. Oxygen levels have made this zone inhospitable to human life. Evacuate to the nearest Green Zone until further notice."
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • This always seems to be happening on Cardassia Prime. According to the Star Trek Novel 'Verse, a permit is required to not have them playing in any public space, such as a restaurant. They even play them in mess halls aboard Central Command starships.
  • In the episode "Civil Defense", Sisko, O'Brien and Jake are working in one of the old ore-processing centers when O'Brien accidentally triggers a leftover Cardassian program designed to put down a Bajoran workers' insurrection. Dukat repeatedly pops up in pre-recorded videos telling the "workers" to surrender before they get killed. Sisko attempts to surrender, initially resulting in another pre-recorded message from Dukat praising the decision; however, they are unable to supply the proper Cardassian security codes to confirm their "surrender", resulting in yet another pre-recorded message from Dukat lamenting their choice as the program releases a lethal gas into the ore processing chamber. The program eventually sends out a pre-recorded distress signal, which the real Dukat receives. He transports onto the station, gloats about their impending doom, and tries to transport back out; the transport fails, and one final pre-recorded message plays, this time from Dukat's then-superior in the Cardassian government. The message excoriates Dukat for trying to flee the station, revokes all of his security codes, and encourages him to die like a Cardassian. Dukat's phrase "ATTENTION BAJORAN WORKERS" has become a meme in Star Trek fan circles.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Yesterday's Enterprise", an Alternate History is created where the Federation is at war with the Klingon Empire. This trope is heard with the Reveal Shot that Ten Forward has turned into a soldiers mess.
  Now hear this. Fleet formation briefing in main war room at fifteen hundred hours. Doctor Joshua Campbell, report to station ops. Ensign Toms, please forward combat information. Ensign Thomas to CIC.

Music

• Negativland's song "Christianity Is Stupid" takes the piss out of a terrible Christian propaganda film (see it here) by Sampling a sermon by Rev. Estus Pirkle. The preacher describes what he thinks the U.S. would be like under totalitarian Commuist rule, with loudspeakers constantly blaring "Christianity is stupid! Communism is good! Give up!". The remix repeats these words obsessively and completely out of context over a musical backing of insistently pounding drum machines and ominous Heavy Metal guitars. Conceived and produced by the late Richard Lyons after he found an album by Pirkle in a thrift shop, it was later used to create one of the group's more massive scandals.
• "Shut Up, Be Happy", the intro to Ice-T's The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just Watch What You Say, samples the mock-dystopian announcements from Jello Biafra's "Message from Our Sponsor" over the riff of Black Sabbath's self-titled song. "SHUT UP. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO THINK, OR DEPRESSION MAY OCCUR." Here's the 2020 Updated Version for the Coronavirus era.
• A variation occurs in "Kilroy Was Here", the opening movie for Styx's Caught in the Act Live concert. Here, a holographic projection of Dr. Righteous' face gives an "uplifting speech" during a rock-burning bonfire.
• Used by The Protomen. "WE HAVE CONTROL. WE KEEP YOU SAFE. WE ARE YOUR HOPE."
• In Utata-P's Hatsune Miku song "This is the Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee", a lot of the chorus is they line "BEING HAPPY IS YOUR DUTY" repeated over and over. They'll kill you if you don't comply.
• Pink Floyd's The Wall: "We are waiting to convene at 1:15 outside Brixton Town Hall, where we shall be waiting..."

Radio

• One episode of The Navy Lark has periodic announcements made on the ship's comm for Leading Seaman Riddle to report to the bridge, which leads to the joke near the end when the announcer realizes that he is Leading Seaman Riddle.

Tabletop Games

• In Paranoia, Friend Computer has always used the PA system set up throughout Alpha Complex to efficiently broadcast timely and pertinent official messages and mandatory quarter-hourly morale enhancement to the citizenry. The introduction of personal data devices to each citizen merely makes this system more perfect. Naturally, these messages are always useful and coherent and are never bizarre, unworldly gibberish, nor does a Troubleshooter's personal data device ever deliver such messages when he is trying to sneak somewhere, and anyone claiming that such things take place is a traitor and should be executed.

Video Games

• Alice: Madness Returns has some mad orders broadcast in the factory levels of the first chapter.
• BioShock features corny "Rapture Reminder" Public Service Announcements and messages like, "Andrew Ryan asks: Are you a man, or a slave?" being broadcast over Rapture's PA system. BioShock 2 has Sofia Lamb using the PA system to broadcast similar messages.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • In Batman: Arkham Asylum, Joker takes over the PA system along with the rest of the island. He does the same in the prequel Batman: Arkham Origins, this time in Blackgate Prison.
  • Various rules are spoken out throughout Batman: Arkham City by Dr. Hugo Strange throughout your time in the city, including the countdown to Protocol 10. Once Protocol 10 is initiated and Strange is later killed by Ra's al Ghul, the announcements stop.
• Beyond Good & Evil: The leader of the Alpha Section on the floating screens in the market. He even comments on your missions, claiming responsibility for benefits and blaming you for damages.
• Borderlands:
  • In Borderlands, all of the major arms manufacturers seem to enjoy doing this (particularly Atlas and Jacobs, who have both featured prominently in DLC).
  • Hyperion-controlled locations in Borderlands 2 tend to have this; the content of the recordings vary depending on where you are and whether the area is populated mostly by robots or people (yes, they speak canned orders over PA to robots; don't think too much about it, it's cool). Mostly it's delivered by an automated voice, although sometimes it's a recording of Handsome Jack instead, and in Lynchwood it's always the Sheriff or Deputy Winger.
    Overlook: Hyperion is proud to announce the size of your bi-yearly medicine shipment has [doubled]! Congratulations on your [second] bottle of aspirin.
    Robot-controlled locations: "A dying puppy". "A baby in tears". If the previous statements elicited any emotional reaction, please report to your supervisor for summary destruction.
    Wildlife Exploitation Preserve: Exercise caution when unloading slag barrels. The life you save may be more monetarily valuable than your own.
    Lynchwood: A few of you have learned that Handsome Jack is my boyfriend. If you think I'm just a pretty face who got this town as an anniversary gift, you know where to find me.
    Opportunity: Hey kids, do you know what your mommies and daddies gave up to live here in Opportunity? Literally nothing! You're paid to be here! I provide all the food and protection you need. Remember, we should all love our parents, but love me more.
  • Parodied in a quest of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! wherein an unfortunate female announcer is saying ridiculous stuff (like "booty salads") because she just sits in a dark room and reads what's she's given, and who's giving her stuff is some bored Dahl soldier Mooks. Naturally, in true Borderlands fashion, she hires you to kill them.
• City of Villains:
  • The arrival area of Grandville, capital of the Rogue Isles, has large screens with Lord Recluse giving a rousing speech on his philosophy.
  • Whenever the players visit the Axis Earth/Council Empire dimension in instanced missions, the streets are lined with loudspeakers. However, they are broadcasting motivating military drumbeats instead of propaganda.
• Chinese Speaker Towers in Command & Conquer: Generals. They heal friendly units who hear them. You can even install them on the Overlord tanks and Helix choppers to turn them into pseudo-Medics.
• A secondary Objective early in the Crysis spinoff campaign Warhead has the player character, Psycho, tasked with blowing up a mobile radio jammer the North Koreans are using to spam instructions to surrender to the American Marines. At that point in the campaign, you don't have any anti-vehicle guns, so you can accomplish it by stacking landmines under it and setting them off with a grenade.
• The player can build their own loudspeakers in Cult of the Lamb, which increase the work speed of any follower close by.
• In Deus Ex, there are prominent screens displaying propaganda slogans in a data entry office of a prestigious biotechnology company.
• In Dishonored, not only are there canned orders over loudspeaker, but you also hear one of the main villain's announcements. One of the Low Chaos options you have is to make the guy playing the recordings switch them out and play a rather revealing message that shows the main villain for what he really is. You can also assassinate the voice of the recordings and they will be replaced by a different person in later missions.
• In The Division 2, the enemy factions will set up propaganda loudspeakers that you can attack and seize to replace with friendly propaganda.
• In Propast of Dreamfall Chapters the loudspeakers continually tell people to stay home and connected to the Dreamachine.
• Enclave Eyebots roam the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3, blaring propaganda and patriotic music from the Enclave radio station (while zapping raiders, vicious wild animals, and rampaging robots to build the people's trust).
• Final Fantasy X: The Al Bhed's (the rebellious tech-using faction) home is attacked while you're present, and you have to fight your way out while a loudspeaker keeps repeating something in the Al Bhed language. It's not pro-regime propaganda (they're the ones attacking), but it's no less annoying.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: This is the way Mike Toreno communicates with Carl during missions. It's quite amazing how he manages to have a loudspeaker just where a plane-dropped package fell, despite it being carried away by wind quite a bit.
• Half-Life 2:
  • The usual orders from Overwatch to the Civil Protection troops (which are transmitted over loudspeakers for everyone else to hear) are often mixed up with short motivational speeches and warnings of the consequences of resisting Combine rule. Episode 1 hints that Overwatch is some sort of AI, as damage to the Citadel causes her to malfunction, issuing gibberish orders in the same stilted monotone and repeating phrases over and over. By Episode 2 she's been replaced with a new system who speaks in a terse, colder tone.
  • Doctor Breen's "Breencasts" certainly fit as well, since they praise the regime of "Our Benefactors". Sure enough, La Résistance hacks them at one point, and Dr. Kleiner begins broadcasting a message of hope, rebellion, and whatever else happens to come to mind at the moment of recording, including a very sesquipedalian recap of events thus far in the storyline and urgings to take advantage of the collapse of the Combine suppression field to, ahem, do your part for the re-population of humanity. Which is unfortunate, since it's supposed to be brief evacuation notice.
• Halo Infinite: One of the objectives you can fulfil is the destruction of Banished Propaganda Towers, which broadcast messages from a Grunt communications officer. Their propaganda messages are a mix of the communications officer giving some insight into life in the Banished's forces and demoralising remarks towards the scant UNSC remnants still on the ring. As the player progresses, these reports gradually devolved into hilariously transparent attempts to cover up the Master Chief's dismantling of the Banished's garrisons and leadership.
• Improbable Island: On the FailBoat, a recorded voice of the Watcher blares every minute, reminding the battered and bruised contestants that they won't be leaving until either they succeed at retraining (earning the Watcher's favor by defeating monsters below decks) or the day ends, and until they do, the contestants back on the island are stealing their spotlight.
• Jak II: Renegade does this; Baron Praxis spends most of the game "motivating" the populace over the city's public address system. Occasionally he addresses Jak specifically, probably to the confusion of everybody else.
• Baby Panau's broadcasting vans in Just Cause 2. Absent from the rest of the game; however, not even the bases have a PA system, just alarms.
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2: Kang has loudspeakers allowing him to broadcast his thoughts to the entirety of Chronopolis, including telling someone who beat his high score at a video game that he hates them, or asking the citizens to throw stuff at the Avengers. Everyone, including the NPCs, acknowledge how annoying they are, and a sidequest involves smashing the loudspeakers.
• Mass Effect:
  • The Trope Namer is Mass Effect 2, in which you hear Jedore, a Blue Suns officer, doing this during the mission on Korlus. None of your team members are impressed, and one of them inevitably serves up a Lampshade Hanging. Here is a list of all the squad reactions to hearing the loudspeaker for the first time (including characters that you shouldn't have at that point in the game). Even the henchmen get in on it after a while, noting it'd be more helpful if their boss came out and fought instead of yelling at them.
  • In Mass Effect 3, as you storm through Grissom Academy, the Cerberus commander in charge for attacking the facility and abducting the last few students remaining attempts to demoralize and sway the students over the intercom. You can shut him up if you find and shoot the generator powering the computer that's hijacked the academy's PA system, which then allows Kahlee Sanders, the level's Mission Control, to do a heroic version of this trope.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda has three separate examples.
    • During the side mission "Dissension in the Ranks", they find canned orders sowing discontentment and treason through the ranks of the kett. Ryder tries to track down the source of the signal, only to find that they were intentionally led to a bunker with a communications system set up by the Primus, the kett's second-in-command. The Primus wants to help Ryder take down the Archon (for her own benefit) and will attempt to strike a deal. Alternatively, should the player leave this mission till after taking down the Archon, the mission plays out differently — Ryder finds many Archon loyalists executed, and messages from the Primus detailing her plan of action is now that she's in charge: Kill any remaining Archon loyalists, then call home for backup.
    • During Jaal's Loyalty Mission, Jaal's former friend-turned-Absolute Xenophobe, Akksul, has anti-alien propaganda blaring over speakers through his base. Ryder's team lampshades how annoying the repeated message is and that, knowing the type of person Akksul is, there's probably no way of turning it off.
    • The mission to the Archon's ship has a kett blaring out angry instructions over the loudspeaker as Ryder and their team massacre their way through the ship. They eventually stop when Pathfinder Zavin Raeka introduces herself to the guy via her guns.
• In NieR: Automata, the Council of Humanity gives occasional uplifting broadcasts from their moon base, urging the Android forces to continue the fight against the alien-built Machines occupying Earth. By the middle of the game, you learn that humans are long extinct and the "Council of Humanity" is a sham put up by Androids' leadership to keep their army from falling into despair. Then you play through an operation that becomes an absolute fiasco, and get to hear one of the "encouraging" Council of Humanity messages while your character is limping away to find a quiet place to die, just for a bit of salt in the wound.
• Persona 5 has a variant of this in one of the final dungeons in the game: Shido's canned speeches campaign slogans over loudspeaker.
• The spin-off sequel, Persona 5 Strikers, has a case that happens in the real world with Sapporo Central mayoral candidate Mariko Hyodo. Whenever the player explores Sapporo during the day, they can occasionally hear her campaign promotion being played over a loudspeaker.
• Portal: Aperture Science CEO Cave Johnson made numerous recordings to automatically play as his valued test subjects navigated Aperture's Enrichment Spheres, offering his characteristic brand of encouragement. In the Lab Rat tie-in comic, it looks like even after Cave's death, the company modified speakers to issue orders in his voice.
• In a couple of spots in [PROTOTYPE 2], a soothing voice reminds the citizens of the Green Zone that Gentek is their only hope for a cure, which is almost ready anyway, and at least they're not in the Red or Yellow Zones.
• The Rainbow Six Siege map "Border" includes looping audio complete with the memetic line "Do NOT attempt to board the helicopter!" Choosing to shoot out the speakers or not is a gameplay decision, since the sound can cover up some of the quieter operators' movements.
• Red Faction:
  • The EDF have... let's see... the Voice of Mars, an almost unnoticeable military announcer (usually drowned out by explosions or gunfire) for base PAs, the obviously-canned "Get out of the vehicle and you will not be harmed!" vehicle PAs, and finally another civilian announcer for the curfew timer and other minor notifications, such as asking civilians to report suspicious activity. After a sector is liberated, the announcements change to friendlier (and often pro-Red Faction) announcements.
  • The first game has Ultor using the mines' PA system to boss miners around.
• In SimCopter, you can broadcast canned orders over your helicopter's loudspeaker by pressing the F-keys. These range from "Heavy traffic in this area. Use alternate routes." to "Get out of here now, before you all die. Or Worse!!" to "I'd like a room with a shower please."
• In the Sniper Elite franchise, Nazi loudspeakers loudly broadcast orders and propaganda. In some of the games, they are loud enough to muffle gunfire.
• In Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, during the mission in Seoul, North Korean troops have set up a series of loudspeakers that are blaring poorly-translated propaganda. Sam can shoot up the loudspeakers as a bonus objective, and will eventually find the broadcasting station by a command vehicle on the way to his primary objective, allowing him to permanently deal with that annoyance.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. features a few.
  • A military roadblock in the Cordon, at the south end of the Zone, mixes warnings for the general populace to stay away from the dangerous Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and a drunken officer yelling at his troops.
  • The other factions - namely, the militaristic Duty and the anarchistic Freedom - spew propaganda to encourage neutral stalkers to join. It's most notable in Clear Sky, the second game.
• StarCraft II has Dominion holoboards on the first mission, which seem to be loudspeaker but with a hologram of the Emperor saying his own propaganda lines. A later mission on Korhal displays the classic loudspeakers.
• Federation Starbases in Star Trek Online have a pool of PSAs that play randomly over the PA, just audibly enough to remind players that, "unaccompanied tribbles are an environmental hazard," or that "starship traffic has right of way". One of them is, "security to the transporter room," intoned with a complete lack of urgency.
• System Shock 2: Xerxes is the Von Braun's onboard computer. It continually broadcasts prerecorded messages — all keyed in by Captain Korenchkin, both before and after becoming controlled by The Many. See if you can tell which is which!
  This is Xerxes. Tri-Optimum reminds you that there are only one-hundred-sixty-three shopping days until Christmas. An extra work cycle just twice a week will give you the spending money you need to make this holiday a very special one.
  
  This is Xerxes. Remember, replicator restrictions are in place for the good of all of us. All unauthorized database interactions will be dealt with to the utmost degree of the law.
  
  This is Xerxes. Can you not feel the glory of the flesh? Do you not yearn to be free of the tyranny of the individual?
• The Announcer in Team Fortress 2 will praise/berate the RED/BLU teams depending on their match progress.
• Warframe:
  • The Grineer deploy Regulator drones in certain tilesets that broadcast a constant stream of propaganda. The propaganda actually buffs nearby Mooks.
  • The Kuva Fortress, the seat of the Grineer's power, has video screens throughout that occasionally display broadcasts from the Worm Queen.
  • The Narmer faction, from The New War into the Veilbreaker questline, utilize propaganda drones in many of their maps. In fact, during a specific map, Kahl can activate these drones to lure away Narmer Deacons from his intended path.
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine has some in buildings that were not damaged too much by the Orks.
• One of the first puzzles in Zork: Grand Inquisitor involves turning up the volume on a propaganda-spouting loudspeaker in Port Foozle to drown out the sound of a burglar alarm.

Webcomics

• Dregs: Bandy often conveys orders with an intercom system set up throughout the entire sewer.
• Sleepless Domain: A system of flower-shaped loudspeakers is set up across the City, which is used to announce the beginning and end of the nightly curfew and the Magical Girls' shift.

Web Original

• SCP Foundation:
  • In the fan film SCP: Overlord, the voice of the leader of a New Age cult can be heard as the MTF team move in to investigate the Unknown Phenomenon. The recording continues even after they've shot the cult leader concerned, much to their annoyance.
  • SCP-1678 is a replica of Victorian London placed underneath the real London. It's intended to serve as an Apocalypse Bunker, a fact revealed from the pre-recorded propaganda message that plays whenever someone enters it. Other announcements play every hour, warning citizens to be vigilant about various SCP threats.

Western Animation

• In the Season 5 premiere of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the Mane Six are trapped in a cell where they are exposed to a loudspeaker repeating the villain's exhortations to give up their cutie marks and special talents.
• The intro narration to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) episode "Same as It Never Was" consists of one of these.

Real Life

• For one day in October 2010, a loudspeaker was set up in New York City and connected to a cell phone, so that random people all over the world could issue their own canned orders via loudspeaker.
• Some villages in China had speakers installed in private homes during the Mao era for this purpose. This is reportedly still the case today in North Korea. It is hard to verify whether North Korea has propaganda loudspeakers at homes (radio and TV seem to suffice for most) but they are commonplace around cities and workplaces. Truck-mounted speakers were also reported by travelers. There was also the infamous "Propaganda Village" just north of the South Korea border, so called because there used to be loudspeakers constantly blaring propaganda about how much better it is in the North. The South Koreans retaliated by drowning it out with cheesy pop music and the situation escalated until neither side could stand the racket anymore and they called a ceasefire.
• Transit hubs worldwide follow this trope, with pre-recorded messages in multiple languages — usually that country's official language(s), plus English if that isn't already included — reminding travelers not to leave luggage unattended and to report any suspicious activity to the authorities. Such announcements come in for a lot of mockery from frequent travelers, as "unattended luggage" is much more apt to be stolen long before it'll be reported.
• In Japan, ultra-nationalists occasionally drive around cities in vans decked out in the imperial sunburst, blaring propaganda from speakers.
• Some modern fire alarm systems work this way. An alarm chime sounds, followed by a pre-recorded polite message along the lines of "A fire has been reported in your area. Please evacuate immediately."
  • Done after a number of incidents where people died because they didn't know the alarm they were hearing was a fire alarm. A study done for British television showed that most department store shoppers hearing a standard fire alarm assumed it had nothing to do with them - many thought it was a warning that a shoplifter had been caught, while for others the alarm didn't even register.
  • In some areas, such as the American Midwest, the loudspeakers won't even bother with the canned orders, but will instead blast out a deafening siren across the landscape. These typically serve a single purpose, which the local population will be familiar with. In the case of the American Midwest, that would most often be tornadoes, with the siren warning the population to seek shelter immediately.
• Since the year 2000, this has been used in those parts of Israel that were bombarded almost daily by rockets launched from the Gaza strip. When a rocket is detected in the air, a recorded female voice comes on the loudspeaker and repeats in monotone: "Color Red. Color Red. Color Red", over and over. If you hear this, it means there's a missile heading for you. You have less than 15 seconds or so to get to the nearest shelter (if there is one), or risk being hit by the bomb or its shrapnel.
• Grocery stores, shopping centers and malls on occasion do something similar, whereby the PA system is used to announce sales, employment benefits or in general just tell the customer how great the store they are currently shopping in is.
• There you go.◊ PsyOps HMMWV: Canned orders over loudspeakers in the field. Damn things are loud, too. You'll hear one long before spotting it. Also useful for throwing parties.
• Some communities have electronic warning sirens that can also issue voice messages.
• In Ireland, announcements that smoking is illegal on buses are regular on Dublin Bus. Also, several hospitals have an oppressive loudspeaker at the door telling people not to smoke.
• Some cities have implemented traffic signs with prerecorded voices that tell which street is safe to cross and announce the countdown until it's not. While most only do this if the button is pressed, others are set to constantly do this around the clock.

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