Propaganda is the more or less systematic effort to manipulate other people’s beliefs, attitudes, or actions by means of symbols (words, gestures, banners, monuments, music, clothing, insignia, hairstyles, designs on coins and postage stamps, and so forth). Deliberateness and a relatively heavy emphasis on manipulation distinguish propaganda from casual conversation or the free and easy exchange of ideas. Propagandists have a specified goal or set of goals. To achieve these, they deliberately select facts, arguments, and displays of symbols and present them in ways they think will have the most effect. To maximize effect, they may omit or distort pertinent facts or simply lie, and they may try to divert the attention of the reactors (the people they are trying to sway) from everything but their own propaganda.

Comparatively deliberate selectivity and manipulation also distinguish propaganda from education. Educators try to present various sides of an issue—the grounds for doubting as well as the grounds for believing the statements they make, and the disadvantages as well as the advantages of every conceivable course of action. Education aims to induce reactors to collect and evaluate evidence for themselves and assists them in learning the techniques for doing so. It must be noted, however, that some propagandists may look upon themselves as educators and may believe that they are uttering the purest truth, that they are emphasizing or distorting certain aspects of the truth only to make a valid message more persuasive, or that the courses of action that they recommend are in fact the best actions that the reactor could take. By the same token, the reactor who regards the propagandist’s message as self-evident truth may think of it as educational; this often seems to be the case with “true believers”—dogmatic reactors to dogmatic religious, social, or political propaganda. “Education” for one person may be “propaganda” for another.

Propaganda and related concepts

Connotations of the term propaganda

The word propaganda itself, as used in recent centuries, apparently derives from the title and work of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagation of the Faith), an organization of Roman Catholic cardinals founded in 1622 to carry on missionary work. To many Roman Catholics the word may therefore have, at least in missionary or ecclesiastical terms, a highly respectable connotation. But even to these persons, and certainly to many others, the term is often a pejorative one tending to connote such things as the discredited atrocity stories and deceptively stated war aims of World Wars I and II, the operations of the Nazis’ Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and the broken campaign promises of a thousand politicians. Also, it is reminiscent of countless instances of false and misleading advertising (especially in countries using Latin languages, in which propagande commerciale or some equivalent is a common term for commercial advertising).

To informed students of the history of communism, the term propaganda has yet another connotation, associated with the term agitation. The two terms were first used by the Russian theorist of Marxism Georgy Plekhanov and later elaborated upon by Vladimir Ilich Lenin in a pamphlet What Is to Be Done? (1902), in which he defined “propaganda” as the reasoned use of historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and enlightened (the attentive and informed publics, in the language of today’s social sciences); he defined “agitation” as the use of slogans, parables, and half-truths to exploit the grievances of the uneducated and the unreasonable. Since he regarded both strategies as absolutely essential to political victory, he combined them in the term agitprop. Every unit of historical communist parties had an agitprop section, and to the communist the use of propaganda in Lenin’s sense was commendable and honest. Thus, a standard Soviet manual for teachers of social sciences was entitled Propagandistu politekonomii (For the Propagandist of Political Economy), and a pocket-sized booklet issued weekly to suggest timely slogans and brief arguments to be used in speeches and conversations among the masses was called Bloknot agitatora (The Agitator’s Notebook).

Related terms

Related to the general sense of propaganda is the concept of “propaganda of the deed.” This denotes taking nonsymbolic action (such as economic or coercive action), not for its direct effects but for its possible propagandistic effects. Examples of propaganda of the deed would include staging an atomic “test” or the public torture of a criminal for its presumable deterrent effect on others, or giving foreign “economic aid” primarily to influence the recipient’s opinions or actions and without much intention of building up the recipient’s economy.

Distinctions are sometimes made between overt propaganda, in which the propagandists and perhaps their backers are made known to the reactors, and covert propaganda, in which the sources are secret or disguised. Covert propaganda might include such things as political advertisements that are unsigned or signed with false names, clandestine radio stations using false names, and statements by editors, politicians, or others who have been secretly bribed by governments, political backers, or business firms. Sophisticated diplomatic negotiation, legal argument, collective bargaining, commercial advertising, and political campaigns are of course quite likely to include considerable amounts of both overt and covert propaganda, accompanied by propaganda of the deed.

Another term related to propaganda is psychological warfare (sometimes abbreviated to psychwar), which is the prewar or wartime use of propaganda directed primarily at confusing or demoralizing enemy populations or troops, putting them off guard in the face of coming attacks, or inducing them to surrender. The related concept of political warfare encompasses the use of propaganda, among many other techniques, during peacetime to intensify social and political divisions and to sow confusion within the societies of adversary states.

Still another related concept is that of brainwashing. The term usually means intensive political indoctrination. It may involve long political lectures or discussions, long compulsory reading assignments, and so forth, sometimes in conjunction with efforts to reduce the reactor’s resistance by exhausting him either physically through torture, overwork, or denial of sleep or psychologically through solitary confinement, threats, emotionally disturbing confrontations with interrogators or defected comrades, humiliation in front of fellow citizens, and the like. The term brainwashing was widely used in sensational journalism to refer to such activities (and to many other activities) as they were allegedly conducted by Maoists in China and elsewhere.

Another related word, advertising, has mainly commercial connotations, though it need not be restricted to this; political candidates, party programs, and positions on political issues may be “packaged” and “marketed” by advertising firms. The words promotion and public relations have wider, vaguer connotations and are often used to avoid the implications of “advertising” or “propaganda.” “Publicity” and “publicism” often imply merely making a subject known to a public, without educational, propagandistic, or commercial intent.

Social control of propaganda - Democratic control of propaganda

Different sorts of polities, ranging from the democratic to the authoritarian, have attempted a variety of social controls over propaganda. In an ideal democracy, everyone would be free to make propaganda and free to oppose propaganda habitually through peaceful counterpropaganda. The democratic ideal assumes that, if a variety of propagandists are free to compete continuously and publicly, the ideas best for society will win out in the long run. This outcome would require that a majority of the general populace be reasonably well-educated, intelligent, public-spirited, and patient, and that they not be greatly confused or alienated by an excess of communication. A democratic system also presupposes that large quantities of dependable and relevant information will be inexpensively disseminated by relatively well-financed, public-spirited, and uncensored news gathering and educational agencies. The extent to which any existing national society actually conforms to this model is decidedly an open question. That the world social system does not is self-evident.

In efforts to guard against “pernicious” propaganda by hidden persuaders, modern democracies sometimes require that such propagandists as lobbyists and publishers register with public authorities and that propaganda and advertising be clearly labelled as such. The success of such measures, however, is only partial. In the U.S., for instance, publishers of journals using the second-class mails are required to issue periodic statements of ownership, circulation, and other information; thereby, at least the nominal owners and publishers become known—but those who subsidize or otherwise control them may not. In many places, paid political advertisements in news publications or on television are required to include the name of a sponsor—but the declared sponsor may be a “dummy” individual or organization whose actual backers remain undisclosed. Furthermore, agents of foreign governments or organizations engaged in propaganda in the U.S. are required to file forms with the U.S. Department of Justice, naming their principals and listing their own activities and finances—but it is impossible to know whether the data so filed are correct, complete, or significant. In many Western industrial nations, similar registrations and disclosures are required of those who circulate brochures inviting investors to buy stocks and bonds. This principle of disclosure, which appears so useful with respect to foreign agents and securities salesmen, is not often applied, however, to other media of propaganda. (In the U.S. the disclosure of certain types of political campaign advertisements and contributions is required, but the requirement is easily circumvented.) In many countries, claims made in propaganda (including advertising) about the contents or characteristics of foods and drugs and some other products are also subject to registration and to requirements of “plain labelling.” In some places, consumer research organizations, privately or publicly supported, examine these claims rigorously and sometimes publish scientifically based counterpropaganda. In view of the apparently massive effects and the certainly massive expenses of political propaganda on the Internet and television, there are many movements afoot in democracies to limit expenditures on campaign propaganda and to require networks to give time free of charge for even the minor parties, especially in the weeks immediately preceding elections. There have also been movements to require that political propaganda be halted for a specified number of days before the holding of an election—the idea being that a cooling-off period would allow voters to rest and reflect after the communication overload of the campaign period and would prevent politicians and their backers from using last-minute slander and sensationalism.