Identifying propaganda has always been a problem. The main difficulties have involved differentiating propaganda from other types of
persuasion, and avoiding a
biased approach. Richard Alan Nelson provides a definition of the term: "Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for
ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels." The definition focuses on the communicative process involved – or more precisely, on the purpose of the process, and allow "propaganda" to be interpreted as positive or negative behavior depending on the perspective of the viewer or listener. Propaganda can often be recognized by the rhetorical strategies used in its design. In the 1930s, the Institute for Propaganda Analysis identified a variety of propaganda techniques that were commonly used in newspapers and on the radio, which were the mass media of the time period. Propaganda techniques include "name calling" (using derogatory labels), "bandwagon" (expressing the social appeal of a message), or "glittering generalities" (using positive but imprecise language). With the rise of the internet and social media, Renee Hobbs identified four characteristic design features of many forms of contemporary propaganda: (1) it activates strong emotions; (2) it simplifies information; (3) it appeals to the hopes, fears, and dreams of a targeted audience; and (4) it attacks opponents. Propaganda is sometimes evaluated based on the intention and goals of the individual or institution who created it. According to historian
Zbyněk Zeman, propaganda is defined as either white, grey or black. White propaganda openly discloses its source and intent. Grey propaganda has an ambiguous or non-disclosed source or intent.
Black propaganda purports to be published by the enemy or some organization besides its actual origins (compare with
black operation, a type of clandestine operation in which the identity of the sponsoring government is hidden). In scale, these different types of propaganda can also be defined by the potential of true and correct information to compete with the propaganda. For example, opposition to white propaganda is often readily found and may slightly discredit the propaganda source. Opposition to grey propaganda, when revealed (often by an inside source), may create some level of public outcry. Opposition to black propaganda is often unavailable and may be dangerous to reveal, because public cognizance of black propaganda tactics and sources would undermine or backfire the very campaign the black propagandist supported. The propagandist seeks to change the way people understand an issue or situation for the purpose of changing their actions and expectations in ways that are desirable to the interest group. Propaganda, in this sense, serves as a corollary to censorship in which the same purpose is achieved, not by filling people's minds with approved information, but by preventing people from being confronted with opposing points of view. What sets propaganda apart from other forms of advocacy is the willingness of the propagandist to change people's understanding through deception and confusion rather than persuasion and understanding. The leaders of an organization know the information to be one sided or untrue, but this may not be true for the rank and file members who help to disseminate the propaganda. , commissioned by
Martin Luther. Title: Kissing the Pope's Feet. German peasants respond to a papal bull of
Pope Paul III. Caption reads: "Don't frighten us Pope, with your ban, and don't be such a furious man. Otherwise we shall turn around and show you our rears."
Religious Propaganda has often been used to influence opinions and beliefs on religious issues, particularly during the split between the
Roman Catholic Church and the
Protestant churches or during the
Crusades. The sociologist
Jeffrey K. Hadden has argued that members of the
anti-cult movement and
Christian counter-cult movement accuse the leaders of what they consider cults of using propaganda extensively to recruit followers and keep them. Hadden argued that ex-members of cults and the anti-cult movement are committed to making these movements look bad. Propaganda against other religions in the same community or propaganda intended to keep political power in the hands of a religious elite can incite religious hate on a global or national scale. It could make use of many propaganda mediums. War, terrorism, riots, and other violent acts can result from it. It can also conceal injustices, inequities, exploitation, and atrocities, leading to ignorance-based indifference and alienation. During the
Cold War, the United States and the United Kingdom, launched covert and overt campaigns to encourage and strengthen
Islamists in the Middle East, North Africa, and southern Asia. These
Islamists were seen as a hedge against potential expansion by the
Soviet Union, and as counterweight against
nationalists and
socialists that were seen as a threat to the interests of the Western nations. In 1957, President
Eisenhower gave approval to a policy that included doing "everything possible to stress the 'holy war' aspect", and sending weapons to the Saudi-led conservative monarchies to counteract socialist
Arab nationalists.
Rashid Khalidi observes that during the
Arab Cold War, the wave of the
socialist Arab Nationalists "seemed to place the United States and its allies in a highly unfavorable position. To this apparently unbalanced situation,
Saudi Arabia brought the powerful ideological weapon of Islam." According to some estimates, between the 1960s and 2016, Saudi Arabia funnelled over USD 100 billion into funding schools and mosques all over the world with the mission of spreading puritanical
Wahhabi Islam. According to
political scientist Alex Alexiev, the impetus for the
international propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism by Saudi Arabia was "the largest worldwide
propaganda campaign ever mounted".
David A. Kaplan described it as "dwarfing the
Soviets' propaganda efforts at the height of the Cold War." In 2018,
Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of
Saudi Arabia, said that "investments in mosques and madrassas overseas were rooted in the
Cold War, when allies asked Saudi Arabia to use its resources to prevent inroads in Muslim countries by the
Soviet Union."
Wartime portrays the
Boston Massacre in a way that he hoped would make Americans angry and support the
Revolutionary War.In the
Peloponnesian War, the Athenians exploited the figures from stories about
Troy as well as other mythical images to incite feelings against
Sparta. For example,
Helen of Troy was even portrayed as an Athenian, whose mother
Nemesis would avenge Troy. During the
Punic Wars, extensive campaigns of propaganda were carried out by both sides. To dissolve the Roman system of
socii and the Greek
poleis,
Hannibal released without conditions Latin prisoners that he had treated generously to their native cities, where they helped to disseminate his propaganda. The Romans on the other hand tried to portray Hannibal as a person devoid of humanity and would soon lose the favour of gods. At the same time, led by
Q. Fabius Maximus, they organized elaborate religious rituals to protect Roman morale. Most propaganda efforts in wartime require the home population to feel the enemy has inflicted an injustice, which may be fictitious or may be based on facts (e.g., the sinking of the passenger ship by the German Navy in World War I). The home population must also believe that the cause of their nation in the war is just. In these efforts it was difficult to determine the accuracy of how propaganda truly impacted the war. In NATO doctrine, propaganda is defined as "Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view." Within this perspective, the information provided does not need to be necessarily false but must be instead relevant to specific goals of the "actor" or "system" that performs it. Propaganda is also one of the methods used in
psychological warfare, which may also involve
false flag operations in which the identity of the operatives is depicted as those of an enemy nation (e.g., The
Bay of Pigs Invasion used
CIA planes painted in
Cuban Air Force markings). The term propaganda may also refer to false information meant to reinforce the mindsets of people who already believe as the propagandist wishes (e.g., During the First World War, the main purpose of British propaganda was to encourage men to join the army, and women to work in the country's industry. Propaganda posters were used because regular general radio broadcasting was yet to commence and TV technology was still under development). The assumption is that, if people believe something false, they will constantly be assailed by doubts. Since these doubts are unpleasant (see
cognitive dissonance), people will be eager to have them extinguished, and are therefore receptive to the reassurances of those in power. For this reason, propaganda is often addressed to people who are already sympathetic to the agenda or views being presented. This process of reinforcement uses an individual's predisposition to self-select "agreeable" information sources as a mechanism for maintaining control over populations. Propaganda may be administered in insidious ways. For instance, disparaging
disinformation about the history of certain groups or foreign countries may be encouraged or tolerated in the educational system. Since few people actually
double-check what they learn at school, such disinformation will be repeated by journalists as well as parents, thus reinforcing the idea that the disinformation item is really a "well-known fact", even though no one repeating the myth is able to point to an authoritative source. The disinformation is then recycled in the media and in the educational system, without the need for direct governmental intervention on the media. Such permeating propaganda may be used for political goals: by giving citizens a false impression of the quality or policies of their country, they may be incited to reject certain proposals or certain remarks or ignore the experience of others. arm-in-arm with
Uncle Sam symbolizes the British-American alliance in World War I. as a "
British Bulldog" In the Soviet Union during the Second World War, the propaganda designed to encourage civilians was controlled by Stalin, who insisted on a heavy-handed style that educated audiences easily saw was inauthentic. On the other hand, the unofficial rumors about German atrocities were well founded and convincing. Stalin was a Georgian who spoke Russian with a heavy accent. That would not do for a national hero so starting in the 1930s all new visual portraits of Stalin were retouched to erase his and make him a more generalized Soviet hero. Only his eyes and famous moustache remained unaltered.
Zhores Medvedev and
Roy Medvedev say his "majestic new image was devised appropriately to depict the leader of all times and of all peoples." Article 20 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits any propaganda for war as well as any advocacy of national or religious hatred that constitutes
incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence by law. Simply enough the covenant specifically is not defining the content of propaganda. In simplest terms, an act of propaganda if used in a reply to a wartime act is not prohibited.
Advertising Propaganda shares techniques with advertising and
public relations, each of which can be thought of as propaganda that promotes a commercial product or shapes the perception of an organization, person, or brand. For example, after claiming victory in the
2006 Lebanon War,
Hezbollah campaigned for broader popularity among Arabs by organizing mass rallies where Hezbollah leader
Hassan Nasrallah combined elements of the local
dialect with
classical Arabic to reach audiences outside Lebanon. Banners and billboards were commissioned in commemoration of the war, along with various merchandise items with Hezbollah's logo, flag color (yellow), and images of Nasrallah. T-shirts, baseball caps and other war memorabilia were marketed for all ages. The uniformity of messaging helped define Hezbollah's brand. In the journalistic context, advertisements evolved from the traditional commercial advertisements to include also a new type in the form of paid articles or broadcasts disguised as news. These generally present an issue in a very subjective and often misleading light, primarily meant to persuade rather than inform. Normally they use only subtle
propaganda techniques and not the more obvious ones used in traditional commercial advertisements. If the reader believes that a paid advertisement is in fact a news item, the message the advertiser is trying to communicate will be more easily "believed" or "internalized". Such advertisements are considered obvious examples of "covert" propaganda because they take on the appearance of objective information rather than the appearance of propaganda, which is misleading. Federal law specifically mandates that any advertisement appearing in the format of a news item must state that the item is in fact a paid advertisement. Edmund McGarry illustrates that advertising is more than selling to an audience but a type of propaganda that is trying to persuade the public and not to be balanced in judgement.
Politics can be found in television, and in
news programs that influence mass audiences. An example was the
Dziennik (Journal) news cast, which criticised
capitalism in the then-communist
Polish People's Republic using
emotive and loaded language. Propaganda has become more common in political contexts, in particular, to refer to certain efforts sponsored by governments, political groups, but also often covert interests. In the early 20th century, propaganda was exemplified in the form of party slogans. Propaganda also has much in common with
public information campaigns by governments, which are intended to encourage or discourage certain forms of behavior (such as wearing seat belts, not smoking, not littering, and so forth). Again, the emphasis is more political in propaganda. Propaganda can take the form of
leaflets, posters, TV, and radio broadcasts and can also extend to any other
medium. In the case of the United States, there is also an important legal (imposed by law) distinction between advertising (a type of overt propaganda) and what the
Government Accountability Office (GAO), an arm of the United States Congress, refers to as "covert propaganda." Propaganda is divided into two in political situations, they are preparation, meaning to create a new frame of mind or view of things, and operational, meaning they instigate actions. Roderick Hindery argues that propaganda exists on the political left, and right, and in mainstream centrist parties. Hindery further argues that debates about most social issues can be productively revisited in the context of asking "what is or is not propaganda?" Not to be overlooked is the link between propaganda, indoctrination, and terrorism/
counterterrorism. He argues that threats to destroy are often as socially disruptive as physical devastation itself. Since
9/11 and the appearance of greater media fluidity, propaganda institutions, practices and legal frameworks have been evolving in the US and Britain. Briant shows how this included expansion and integration of the apparatus cross-government and details attempts to coordinate the forms of propaganda for foreign and domestic audiences, with new efforts in
strategic communication. These were subject to contestation within the
US Government, resisted by
Pentagon Public Affairs and critiqued by some scholars. In the wake of this, the internet has become a prolific method of distributing political propaganda, benefiting from an evolution in coding called bots.
Software agents or
bots can be used for many things, including populating social media with
automated messages and posts with a range of sophistication. During the
2016 U.S. election a cyber-strategy was implemented using bots to direct US voters to Russian political news and information sources, and to spread politically motivated rumors and false news stories. At this point it is considered commonplace contemporary political strategy around the world to implement bots in achieving political goals. ==Techniques==