Propaganda is a form of communication that is primarily intended to influence the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors of a large audience. It is typically associated with the selective presentation of information, emotional appeals, and persuasive techniques designed to shape public opinion. While propaganda is often linked to political contexts, it can also appear in advertising, media, and other forms of mass communication. Scholars such as Edward Bernays have emphasized the role of propaganda in modern society as a tool for shaping public perception and managing collective behavior.

Historical development

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The use of propaganda dates back to early forms of mass communication, including print media, religious messaging, and political campaigns. It became especially prominent during the 20th century, particularly in times of war, when governments used propaganda to influence public opinion and maintain support for national efforts.

In the early 20th century, the development of modern public relations further expanded the use of propaganda techniques. Edward Bernays, often considered a pioneer in this field, argued that shaping public opinion was a necessary function in complex societies.

Over time, propaganda has evolved alongside media technologies. From newspapers and radio to television and digital platforms, the methods and reach of propaganda have continued to expand, adapting to changes in how audiences consume information.

Propaganda model

The propaganda model, developed by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, provides a framework for understanding how media content can be shaped by institutional and economic factors. According to this model, mass media serve to communicate messages that support the interests of dominant social and political groups.

The model suggests that information is filtered through several factors, including ownership, advertising, sourcing, and ideological pressures. These filters influence which stories are reported and how they are presented, ultimately shaping public perception.

The propaganda model is widely discussed in media studies as a way to analyze bias, power structures, and the role of media in society.

To explain the close associations between media and propaganda, Richard Alan Nelson observed propaganda as a form of persuasion with intention with the aid of controlled transmission of single-sided information through mass media.^[1] Mass media and propaganda are inseparable. Mass media, as a system for spreading and relaying information and messages to the public, plays a role in amusing, entertaining and informing individuals with rules and values that situate them in social structure.^[2]

Propaganda creates conflicts among society's differing classes. In a media engulfed society, mass media is the main platform and output for carrying out acts of propaganda and for pushing forward agendas. Various amounts of modern media can be used to supply propaganda to its intended audience such as, radio, television, films posters handouts music smartphones, just to name a few.^[3]

Origins

Spoken forms of propaganda can exist in an oral-biased society.^[4] "Propaganda" has a negative connotation in a modern political context. Despite that, the word entered language with religious origins. Pope Gregory XV established an institution for spreading the faith and addressing a series of church affairs, which is namely the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Further, a College of Propaganda was set up under Pope Urban VIII to train priests for missions.^[4]

Throughout history, propaganda has always been evident in momentum social movements such as American independence, the French Revolution,^[4] and especially during wartimes. Wartime propaganda is often demanded for shaping public opinions to gain more allies on an international level, as well as calling for citizens to make a contribution and sacrifice to the war on a domestic level. Propaganda was used in the media when the thirteen colonies were trying to separate from Britain. One example from this time period is the Boston Massacre. After this event, the colonists began putting forms of propaganda into the newspapers in an attempt to get more people to rebel against the British.^[5]

Governments during the First World War devoted massive resources and huge amounts of effort to producing material designed to shape opinion and action internationally.^[6] As Clark claimed,^[7] posters in wartime with some visual codes are powerful tools to make people adapt to the new conditions and norms arising from the wars and to accommodate the needs of the war. During the Second World War, the power of propaganda came to the extreme, under the horrors of Nazi Germany. And since then, the word carries more negative connotations than neutral.^[8]

Psychological effects

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Propaganda often relies on psychological mechanisms to influence individuals. These include emotional appeals, repetition, and the use of persuasive language designed to shape perception and memory.

Research in psychology suggests that individuals may be influenced by propaganda through cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias, where people are more likely to accept information that aligns with their existing beliefs.

Emotional messaging can also play a significant role, as fear, anger, or hope may increase the effectiveness of persuasive communication. These techniques are commonly used in both political messaging and advertising.

Social media

With the widespread use of social media platforms, they have become powerful tools for propaganda. Propaganda is promoted on social media by dozens of governments.^[9] The Economist reported that in 2020, 81 countries waged "organized disinformation campaigns", up from 27 in 2017.^[10] Another element that makes social media effective for sharing propaganda is that it can reach many people with little effort and users can filter the content to remove content they do not want while retaining what they would like to see.^[11] This ease of use can be used by ordinary people as well as government agencies and politicians, who can take advantage of the platforms to spread "junk" news in favor of their cause.^[12]

In the digital age, propaganda has expanded significantly through social media and online platforms. Information can spread rapidly across networks, often reaching large audiences in a short period of time.

Research from the Pew Research Center indicates that a large portion of the public now consumes news through social media, increasing the potential for exposure to persuasive and misleading content.

Digital environments also allow for targeted messaging, where content can be tailored to specific audiences. This has raised concerns about misinformation, echo chambers, and the amplification of biased or unverified information.

Music

Music has always played a major role in popular culture. Political ideology is often spread through media; however, the use of music reaches an extremely wide and varying audience. According to Manzaria and Bruck, the point of propaganda is to "Persuade people's attitude, beliefs, and behaviors".^[41] Music of all genres is constantly being used to portray a political view, shed light, or bring validity to a subject the author, or artist, feels is worth venturing. Propaganda through modes like advertisement and campaign, while effective, will only reach a small group of the desired recipients.

A form of music that focuses the most on propaganda is the patriotic and war music from any one country. With songs like "Slavic Woman's Farewell", "Over There", "God Bless the USA", "Fortunate Son", and Jimi Hendrix's cover of the American national anthem, these songs are designed to provoke an emotion of either respect and patriotism for your country, or rebellion and disgust at your country's actions. To quote the Chicago Tribune, patriotic songs are designed to, "make us feel good about our country even when our country does something we believe is wrong."^[42]

According to Putman, musical propaganda has a great deal to do with the audience.^[43] Each musical genre can reach a specific demographic within a few minutes, along with the propaganda intertwined. Purfleau brings a more social view to the concept of politically motivated music, stating that musical propaganda is "the basis for a certain kind of political art that aspires to contest the contemporary economic and social order".^[44] Purfleau's approach to understanding musical propaganda explains the timeless manner by which music has been used to portray viewpoints. Though music is not always the first media thought of when contemplating propaganda, it is an extremely effective mode and has proved to influence popular culture throughout human history.

Manufactured consent

Edward S. Herman's and Noam Chomsky's book titled Manufacturing Consent tackles this notion as Chomsky uses the analogy of a media machine that divide methods used by media into five different filters, including how media works through ownership, advertising, media-elite, flack and an agreed upon common enemy. The relationship between viewer and broadcaster- consumer and producer in the context of media, has been explored since the beginning of mass communication. This has been carried out not only arguing how the invention of the television changed the make-up of households, but also how news outlets and the Internet have become powerful tools in pushing propaganda and selected information on consumers. Manufactured spaces in media create "information bubbles" through mechanisms such as algorithmic capitalism. They seek to control the ideologies of consumers by bombarding them with information that is leaning to one side whilst depriving them of objectivity. Mass media is selective and influential in its content shared to consumers.^[45]

Ownership looks at how people in power and those affected by information brought to the media seek to either destroy it or "spin" it around to maintain self-image and power. Media outlets need consumers to attract advertisers. These two filters are dependent on the media elite and flack to function due to the fact that the media elite are journalists and other people with access to platforms that are essentially hand picked due to the fact that they play by the rules set by the owners with regards to how and what information is shared. Flack on the other hand are those Chomsky proposes to be defamed by those in power or not even given access to a platform simply because their information is too critical or that it threatens ownership, advertisers and revenue in general. The use of having a common enemy is one most identified in politics and can be described as a scapegoat used to justify decisions made by people in power. Hence, the basic concept of Herman's and Chomsky's idea is that these filters illustrate how media can be selective about information and why they are motivated to do so.^[45]

With that said, the danger behind filtered information is highlighted in the sense that it creates "ideological polarization", a phenomenon within a society that has "dominated both popular and academic debates".^[46] A truly simplified example of this phenomenon would be the political system in the United States and the "self placement" between Democrats and Republicans; the key word in this context being self-placement, as society is grouped and divided into two schools of thoughts. This black-and-white fallacy is the backbone to the polarization effect observed in society's thinking.

Advertising

See also

• Brian Timpone
• History of propaganda
• Media bias
• Media manipulation
• Political music
• Propaganda techniques

References

Further reading

• Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. Trans. Konrad Kellen & Jean Lerner. New York: Knopf, 1965. New York: Random House/ Vintage 1973
• The Techniques of Propaganda
• Defining Propaganda II
• Media's Use of Propaganda to Persuade People's Attitude, Beliefs and Behaviors Archived 2020-10-06 at the Wayback Machine
• The Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford