Propaganda

Category: Fields of research

Propaganda refers to planned and prolonged communication that uses persuasion, psychological coercion, and manipulation of the audience to change their attitudes, so they start to feel, think, and act in a way the creator of the propaganda desires. Elements of propaganda are: 1) the group that is disseminating propaganda, 2) the target audience of propaganda, 3) the medium of propaganda, 4) methods of propaganda, and 5) expected effect(s) of propaganda.

Groups that spread propaganda are those who either already have political power or are striving to achieve political power. Some examples of groups that spread propaganda include governments, interest groups, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, organized religions, and revolutionary movements. The target audience of propaganda can be the whole society, or, in the case of political parties and other ideologically driven organizations and movements, those segments of the population that are susceptible to the ideas of the propagandists. Most of propaganda is done through linguistic media - speeches, newspaper articles, leaflets, and books, although other types of media are also frequently used in propaganda: photographs, movies, videos, music, monuments, currency, flags, parades, sport, and other symbols. The goal of any propaganda is for the audience to change their attitudes in accordance with the will of the creators of propaganda. The best case for the group that disseminates propaganda is that the audience does not perceive that they are subject to the coercion of propaganda. To achieve this goal, the groups that engage in propaganda use euphemisms such as “education”, “information”, “public relations,” “public affairs,” and “public communication” to hide their true intent.

Propaganda communication sometimes uses true statements, although more often, it uses partial truths, lies, and statements that are hard to assess their factuality. The main goal is to suppress the propaganda’s recipient’s ability to properly evaluate the truthfulness of the message. Manipulation of emotions is another main tool of propaganda.

History of Propaganda

Psychological coercion and manipulation have existed for millennia in human societies, but the organized propaganda truly started in the modern age. The proliferation of printed books, newspapers, pamphlets, and other media for printed words allowed for fast and widespread dissemination of propaganda messages. The event that showed the power and insidiousness of propaganda was World War I. Governments engaged in this “total war” developed propaganda bureaus to mobilize public support for the war. Official propaganda of belligerent states in World War I stirred nationalistic and patriotic sentiments, while using wild exaggerations of atrocities to demonize the enemy and portray them as barbaric savages.

After the war, advertising and public relations professions proliferated in the US and other developed democratic countries. In the US, Edward Bernays, known as the “father of public relations,” published books such as Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928), and introduced the core principles of propaganda and public relations. To combat the nefarious influence of propaganda Institute for Propaganda Analysis was formed in 1937 in the US. On the other hand, the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, nazi Germany, and other fascist and authoritarian governments and movements also developed their propaganda machines to propagate their ideologies and militaristic attitudes.

History of Propaganda Research

Carl von Clausewitz, Vilfredo Pareto, Georg Simmel, and Gustav Le Bon pioneered the study of propaganda. Gustave LeBon warned of a coming age of “mass society.” He feared that the “herd” (an uninformed public) would destroy society, so he encouraged the elites to manipulate and control the masses.

Robert Michels, in Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (1911), presents the famous "iron law of oligarchy", the view that all political parties are controlled by a small number of people who are at their top. Michels believes that political parties have a dual nature and purpose. Parties are spontaneous associations that combine propaganda and agitation in order to gain political power.

Walter Lippmann, in his book Public Opinion (1922), introduced a groundbreaking critique of how democratic societies form opinions and make decisions. Lippmann argues that individuals do not perceive the world directly but instead construct a “pseudo-environment”—a mental image shaped by media, stereotypes, and personal biases.: People respond not to reality itself, but to their internalized version of it, which is often distorted, thus creating a pseudo-environment. To manage complexity, individuals rely on simplified mental shortcuts, in the form of stereotypes, which can mislead and reinforce bias. Mass communication doesn’t just inform—it frames and filters reality, shaping public perception and enabling the “manufacture of consent” in "bewildered herd."

Joseph Schumpeter, in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), posits that modern societies are complex and differentiated, and different groups have different interests around which they fight, so the common good can't exist in those societies. Different groups, in modern democratic societies, are fighting for power and votes, and at the same time, they are carrying out political propaganda to which ordinary citizens are very susceptible. Topics and solutions that are the subject of political controversy were imposed on voters by politicians and not the other way around. In that sense, the popular sovereignty and rationality of the voters are a complete illusion. There is great political inequality between ordinary citizens and those with political and economic power - capitalists and corporations have economic power, politicians have their organizations and propaganda, unions have the power to lobby and negotiate, state bureaucracy controls the work and goals of state bodies, and the like.

Mass Persuasion: The Social Psychology of a War Bond Drive (1946) is a pioneering study by Robert K. Merton on media influence and public opinion. The book analyzes a real-life mass communication event: Kate Smith’s 18-hour radio marathon on September 21, 1943, which raised $31 million in war bond pledges from over 23 million listeners. It explores how emotional appeals, celebrity influence, and cultural context shaped public response. Research methods included in-depth interviews (3–4 hours each), polling surveys, and content analysis of Smith’s broadcasts. Key findings were: Listener predisposition and social context played major roles in persuasion. The personality of the speaker (Kate Smith) significantly affected outcomes. The campaign’s success was tied to symbolic messaging and shared national sentiment during wartime. Merton raises concerns about the moral implications of using emotionally charged media techniques for political or commercial manipulation.

In the book Dialectics of Enlightenment (1947), co-written by Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno, the authors explore the history of bourgeois society and culture, primarily in the context of the Enlightenment ideas of science and humanism. The Enlightenment was a period in which the preconditions of "totalitarianism" emerged because the principles of positive science were applied to exert control over society. These principles led to the spread of ideas and practices of order, control, and domination, while at the same time eliminating mythical thinking and subjectivity. In the modern society of advanced capitalism, mass culture spreads conformism and controls social consciousness as the main reason for this development. They called this form of control over the masses "culture industry." The culture industry dominates all forms of mass culture; the mass media sell artistic values as commodities; democracy is characterized by parties that control the masses through their programs and propaganda; consumer products are standardized and eliminate the need for individual consumer tastes. In Western culture, as a consequence of the Enlightenment, the instrumental form of formal rationality dominates, and the goal of that rationality is to achieve control over human action and society through dehumanized science and technology. Capitalist societies, through the culture industry and dehumanized science and technology, destroy any real opposition by either assimilating or neutralizing it. In these societies, all models of social communication become monolithic and lead to cultural indoctrination. Modern society is becoming an iron cage of total administration, consumerism, and resignation.

In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Hannah Arendt views Stalinism and Nazism as related systems and explains their rise through anti-Semitism and imperialism. She sees racism and unlimited expansionism as the main supports for imperialism. She attributes the rise of totalitarianism to the disintegration of the nation-state. Arendt believes that the main features of totalitarianism are propaganda and terror, as well as the transformation of social classes into the masses.

Jacques Ellul’s book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1962) was published during the Cold War's height and amid a rapidly transforming technological landscape. Ellul’s work peels back the layers of modern society to expose the mechanisms and psychological processes that make propaganda not only effective, but inescapable. Far from viewing propaganda as merely political manipulation or wartime misinformation, Ellul argues that it is a systemic and essential function of technological society — a force that shapes not only opinions, but the very way people think and feel.

At the heart of Ellul’s thesis is a bold redefinition of propaganda. For him, propaganda includes all organized, systematic efforts to shape the attitudes and behaviors of masses — whether by governments, corporations, educators, or even artists. He distinguishes between political propaganda, which seeks to mobilize people for specific actions or ideologies, and sociological propaganda, a subtler and more pervasive type that conditions individuals to accept the norms and myths of a given society. Sociological propaganda is especially insidious because it operates not through argument, but through the ambient conditions of life — the slogans in advertisements, the clichés of entertainment media, the educational system, and the structure of economic life. Ellul insists that even democratic societies, which outwardly appear to celebrate free thought and debate, are deeply reliant on this type of propaganda to maintain cohesion and control. Contrary to the image of the rational, autonomous citizen, Ellul sees the modern person as fragmented, overwhelmed by information, and desperate for meaning in a complex world. In this context, propaganda offers a kind of psychological security. It simplifies reality, organizes the chaos of modern life, and provides a sense of identity and belonging. Ellul emphasizes that propaganda works best not by targeting the ignorant, but by influencing the educated and informed. The person who reads newspapers, listens to the radio, watches the news, and believes themselves politically engaged is, paradoxically, the most vulnerable. This is because propaganda does not rely on lies so much as on selective truths and repeated messaging that shape the interpretation of facts, not their factuality. In a media-saturated society, constant exposure to curated information builds a framework through which all other data is interpreted — often without the subject's awareness.

Technology plays a central role in Ellul’s analysis. He sees modern propaganda as inseparable from the rise of mass media, especially radio, television, and print. These technologies allow for the rapid, repetitive dissemination of messages across vast populations. But more than that, they create a new type of human environment — one in which people are constantly bombarded by images, slogans, and opinions. Ellul calls this the “massification” of society, where individuals are no longer participants in discourse but passive receptors of opinion. He warns that technological society, in its quest for efficiency, inevitably turns to propaganda as a way of managing the psychological and social complexities it generates. As information multiplies, the need to process and interpret that information grows. Propaganda becomes a tool not only for control but for simplification — a kind of cognitive prosthetic that allows individuals to navigate an otherwise unmanageable world. He insists that awareness of propaganda’s mechanisms is the first step toward autonomy. The very systems designed to promote critical thinking are often themselves co-opted into propagandistic functions. Education does not free people from influence but often conditions them to accept certain forms of social organization as natural or inevitable. Autonomy, in Ellul’s view, does not mean freedom from influence; rather, it means cultivating a deep and persistent vigilance about how attitudes are formed and where ideas originate.

Noam Chomsky, in the books Manufacturing Consent (1988), Necessary Illusions (1989), Deterring Democracy (1991), and Letters from Lexington (1993), critically examines the relationship between US foreign policy, media, and propaganda. In Manufacturing Consent, he analyzes how the mass media manipulates public opinion and perpetuates the interests of those in power. The book, written by Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, was first published in 1988 and has since become a classic in the field of media studies. The book argues that the mass media in the United States and other Western countries operate as a "propaganda model," in which a small group of powerful corporations and individuals control the flow of information and shape public opinion to align with their own interests. This is achieved through a combination of censorship, self-censorship, and the creation of a "filter" that screens out information that is inconvenient or contradicts the dominant narrative. Chomsky highlights five of those types of filters: ownership, advertising, sourcing, "flak", and "anti-communism". One of the key components of the propaganda model is the "ownership" filter, which refers to the fact that a small number of large corporations control the majority of media outlets. These corporations have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and promoting policies that benefit their bottom line, and they use their control over the media to shape public opinion in their favor. Another important component of the propaganda model is the "advertising" filter, which refers to media outlets relying heavily on advertising revenue to survive. This leads to a bias in favor of content that is friendly to advertisers, and a reluctance to report on stories that might be seen as critical of their interests. The "flak" filter refers to how powerful individuals and groups can use their influence to shape the media narrative. This can include things like threats of legal action, pressure from advertisers, or even direct censorship. The "anti-communism" filter refers to how the media has been shaped by the Cold War, particularly in its focus on the threat of communism and its portrayal of the Soviet Union as an enemy of the United States.

In Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion (1993), Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson explore how persuasion infiltrates our daily lives—often without us realizing it. The authors distinguish between rational persuasion (where both sides of an argument are presented) and propaganda (which manipulates emotions and limits information). From political advertising campaigns, the book shows how emotional appeals, repetition, and simplified messaging have mass influence in shaping public opinion. It explains how psychological vulnerabilities such as cognitive biases and social pressures make people susceptible to manipulation. People often rely on superficial cues, like attractiveness or authority (peripheral processing), rather than deep analysis when making decisions (central processing).

References:

Adorno and Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment (2002, in German 1947);

Altheide, D. L. and Johnson, J. M. Bureaucratic Propaganda (1980);

Arendt. The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951);

Bernays, Edward. Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923);

Bernays, Edward. Propaganda (1928);

Cull, J. C., Culbert, D., and Welch, D. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present (2003);

Cunningham, S. B. The Idea of Propaganda: A Reconstruction (2002);

Ellul, J. Propaganda, The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1967);

Ewen, Stuart. PR!: A Social History of Spin (1996);

Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988);

Janowitz. Community Press in an Urban Setting (1952);