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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. The propagandist has a specified goal or set of goals. To achieve these
he deliberately selects facts, arguments, and displays of symbols and presents
them in ways he thinks will have the most effect. To maximize effect, he may
omit pertinent facts or distort them, and he may try to divert the attention of
the reactors (the people whom he is trying to sway) from everything but his own
propaganda. (see also persuasion)
Comparatively deliberate selectivity and
manipulation also distinguish propaganda from education.
The educator tries to present various sides of an issue--the grounds for
doubting as well as the grounds for believing the statements he makes, and the
disadvantages as well as the advantages of every conceivable course of action.
Education aims to induce the reactor to collect and evaluate evidence for
himself and assists him in learning the techniques for doing so. It must be
noted, however, that a given propagandist may look upon himself as an educator,
may believe that he is uttering the purest truth, that he is emphasizing or
distorting certain aspects of the truth only to make a valid message more
persuasive, and that the courses of action that he recommends 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 or social propaganda.
"Education" for one person may be "propaganda" for another.
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 dirty 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 Communism,
the term propaganda has yet another connotation, associated with the term
agitation. The two terms were first used by the Marxist Georgy Plekhanov and
later elaborated upon by 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 twinned them in
the term agitprop. Today every unit of a Communist
party must have an agitprop section, and to the Communist, the use of propaganda
in Lenin's sense is commendable and honest. Thus, a standard Soviet manual for
teachers of social sciences is 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 is called Bloknot
agitatora (The Agitator's Notebook). (see also Leninism)
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 propagandist and perhaps his backers are made known to
the reactor, and covert propaganda, in which the source is secret or disguised.
Covert propaganda might include such things as unsigned political
advertisements, 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.
Still another related concept is that of
brainwashing. This 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 has been widely used in sensational journalism
to refer to such activities (and to many other activities) when they have
allegedly been 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.
The 20th-century propagandist with money and
imagination can use a very wide range of signs, symbols, and media to convey his
message. Signs are simply stimuli--"information bits" capable of
stimulating, in some way, the human organism. These include sounds, such as
words, music, or a 21-gun salvo; gestures (a military salute, a thumbed nose);
postures (a weary slump, folded arms, a sit-down, an aristocratic bearing);
structures (a monument, a building); items of clothing (a uniform, a civilian
suit); visual signs (a poster, a flag, a picket sign, a badge, a printed page, a
commemorative postage stamp, a swastika scrawled on a wall); and so on and on.
(see also semiotics)
A symbol is a sign having a particular meaning
for a given reactor. Two or more reactors may of course attach quite different
meanings to the same symbol. Thus, to Nazis the swastika
was a symbol of racial superiority and the crushing military might of the German
folk; to some Asiatic and North American peoples it is a symbol of universal
peace and happiness. Some Christians who find a cross reassuring may find a
hammer and sickle displeasing and may derive no religious satisfaction at all
from a Muslim crescent, a Hindu cow, or a Buddhist lotus.
The contemporary propagandist can employ
elaborate social-scientific research facilities, unknown in previous epochs, to
conduct opinion surveys and psychological interviews in efforts to learn the
symbolic meanings of given signs for given reactors around the world and to
discover what signs leave given reactors indifferent because, to them, these
signs are without meaning. (see also public opinion
poll)
Media are the means--the channels--used to
convey signs and symbols to the intended reactor or reactors. A comprehensive
inventory of media used in 20th-century propaganda could cover many pages.
Written media include letters, handbills, posters, billboards, newspapers,
magazines, books, and handwriting on walls and streets. Among audiovisual media,
television may be the most powerful for many purposes. Television
can convey a great many types of signs simultaneously; it can gain heavy impact
from mutually reinforcing gestures, words, postures, and sounds and a background
of symbolically significant leaders, celebrities, historic settings,
architectures, flags, music, placards, maps, uniforms, insignia, cheering or
jeering mobs or studio audiences, and staged assemblies of prestigious or
powerful people. Other audiovisual media include public speakers, motion
pictures, theatres, marching bands, mass demonstrations, picketing, face-to-face
conversations between individuals, and "talking" exhibits at fairs,
expositions, and art shows. (see also mass media)
The larger the propaganda enterprise, the more
important are such mass media as television and the press and also the
organizational media--that is, pressure groups
set up under leaders and technicians who are skilled in using many sorts of
signs and media to convey messages to particular reactors. Vast systems of
diverse organizations can be established in the hope of reaching leaders and
followers of all groups (organized and unorganized) in a given area, such as a
city, region, nation or coalition of nations, or the entire world. Pressure
organizations are especially necessary, for example, in closely fought sales
campaigns or political elections, especially in socially heterogeneous areas
that have extremely divergent regional traditions, ethnic and linguistic
backgrounds, and educational levels and very unequal income distributions.
Diversities of these sorts make it necessary for products to be marketed in
local terms and for political candidates to appear to be friends of each of
perhaps a dozen or more mutually hostile ethnic groups, of the educated and the
uneducated, and of the very wealthy as well as the poverty-stricken. (see also
minority)
The archaeological remains of ancient
civilizations indicate that dazzling clothing and palaces, impressive statues
and temples, magic tokens and insignia, and elaborate legal and religious
arguments have been used for thousands of years, presumably to convince the
common people of the purported greatness and supernatural prowess of kings and
priests. Instructive legends and parables, easily memorized proverbs and lists
of commandments (such as the Analects of Confucius, the Judaic Ten
Commandments, the Hindu Laws of Manu, the Buddhists' Eightfold Noble Path), and
highly selective chronicles of rulers' achievements have been used to enlist
mass support for particular social and religious systems. Very probably, much of
what was said in antiquity was sincere, in the sense that the underlying
religious and social assumptions were so fully accepted that the warlords'
spokesmen, the pharaohs' priests, and their audiences believed all or most of
what was communicated and hence did not deliberate or theorize very much about
alternative arguments or means of persuasion.
The systematic, detached, and deliberate
analysis of propaganda, in the West, at least, may have begun in Athens about
500 BC, as the study of rhetoric (Greek: "the
technique of orators"). The tricks of using sonorous and solemn language,
carefully gauged humour, artful congeniality, appropriate mixtures of logical
and illogical argument, and flattery of a jury or a mob were formulated from the
actual practices of successful lawyers, demagogues, and politicians. Relatively
ethical teachers such as Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle compiled rules of
rhetoric (1) to make their own arguments and those of their students more
persuasive and (2) to design counterpropaganda against opponents and also (3) to
teach their students how to detect the logical fallacies and emotional appeals
of demagogues. (see also Greece, ancient)
Early students of rhetoric also examined what
today's analysts would call the problem of source credibility--what a speaker
can say or do to convince his hearers that he is telling the truth, is well
intentioned, is public-spirited, and so forth. For example, an Athenian lawyer
defending an undersized man on trial for murder might instruct him to say to a
jury: "Is it likely that an undersized man like me, so often ridiculed for
being clumsy with a sword, would have attacked and killed this very tall war
veteran who is famous everywhere for his swordsmanship?" But a tall and
strong defendant might be told to invert the plea: "Would any man of my
unusual height, who is rather well known to have slain 300 Persians in sword
fights, have allowed himself to be drawn into a quarrel with this puny
man--knowing full well that a jury of reasonable Athenians would be inclined
from the start to hold me guilty if someone killed him?" So well did Greek
rhetoricians analyze the arts of legal sophistry and political demagoguery that
their efforts were imitated and further developed in Rome by such figures as Cicero
and Quintilian. Aristotle's
Rhetoric and similar works by others have,
indeed, served as model texts for Western scholars and students until this day.
There have been similar lines of thought in
other major civilizations. In ancient India, the Buddha, and in ancient China,
Confucius, both advocated, much as Plato had, the use of truthfulness,
"good" rhetoric, and "proper" forms of speech and writing as
means of persuading men, by both precept and example, to live the good life.
Toward 400 BC in India, Kautilya, a Brahmin
believed to have been chief minister to the emperor Candragupta Maurya,
reputedly wrote the Arthashastra (Principles of
Politics), a book of advice for rulers that has often been compared with
Plato's Republic and Machiavelli's much later work The Prince. Kautilya
discussed, in some detail, the use of psychological warfare, both overt and
clandestine, in efforts to disrupt an enemy's army and capture his capital.
Overtly, he said, the propagandists of a king should proclaim that he can do
magic, that God and the wisest men are on his side, and that all who support his
war aims will reap benefits. Covertly, his agents should infiltrate his enemies'
and potential enemies' kingdoms, spreading defeatism and misleading news among
their people, especially in capital cities, among leaders, and among the armed
forces. In particular, a king should employ only Brahmins, unquestionably the
holiest and wisest of men, as propagandists and diplomatic negotiators. These
morally irreproachable experts should cultivate the goodwill of their king's
friends, and of friends of his friends, and also should woo the enemies of his
enemies. A king should not hesitate, however, to break any friendships or
alliances that are later found to be disadvantageous.
Similar advice is found in Ping-fa
(The Art of War) by the Chinese theorist Sun-tzu,
who wrote at about the same time. "All warfare," he said, "is
based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using
our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy
believe that we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are
near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."
The spread of all complex political
systems and religions probably has been due very largely to a
combination of earnest conviction and the deliberate use of propaganda. This
mixture can be detected in the recasting in various times and places of the
legends of the Judaeo-Christian messiah, of heroes of the Hindu Mahabharata,
of the Buddha, of the ancestral Japanese Sun Goddess, of the lives of Muhammad
and his relatives, of the Christian saints, of such Marxist heroes as Marx,
Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, and even in the story of George Washington and the
cherry tree.
Scattered and sometimes enlightening comment on
political and religious propaganda has occurred in all major civilizations. In
ancient Greece and Rome there was much writing on election tactics. In
16th-century Italy, Machiavelli discussed, very much like Kautilya and
Sun-tzu, the uses of calculated piety and duplicity in peace and war. In
Shakespeare's plays, Mark Antony and the Duke of Buckingham display the
principles of propaganda and discuss them in words and concepts that anticipate
the present-day behavioral scientist (see Julius
Caesar, Act III and Richard III, Act
III). They refer to such propaganda stratagems as the seizure and monopolization
of propaganda initiatives, the displacement of guilt onto others (scapegoating),
the presentation of oneself as morally superior, and the coordination of
propaganda with violence and bribery.
After the decline of the ancient world, no
elaborate systematic study of propaganda appeared for centuries--not until the
Industrial Revolution had brought about mass production and raised hopes of
immensely high profits through mass marketing.
Toward the beginning of the 20th century, researchers began to undertake studies
of the motivations of many types of consumers and of their responses to various
kinds of salesmanship, advertising, and other marketing techniques. From the
early 1930s on, there have been "consumer
surveys" much in the manner of public-opinion
surveys. Almost every conceivable variable affecting consumers' opinions,
beliefs, suggestibilities, and behaviour has been investigated for every kind of
group, subgroup, and culture in the major capitalist nations. Consumers' wants
and habits are beginning to be studied in the same ways in the socialist
countries--partly to promote economic efficiency and partly to prevent political
unrest. Data on the wants and habits of voters as well as consumers are now
being gathered in the same elaborate ways in many parts of the world. (see also
market research)
Large quantities of such information on
consumers and voters are stored and statistically processed by computers and are
drawn upon for nationwide and international advertising campaigns costing
billions of dollars annually. Such advertising--including political
advertising--occupies a very high percentage of radio and television time and of
newspaper, magazine, and billboard space in countries where it is permitted. By
conservative estimates $140,000,000 was spent in the U.S. presidential election
of 1952, $155,000,000 in that of 1956, $175,000,000 in 1960, and $200,000,000 in
1964. On paid media the Republican Party was estimated to have spent more than
$23,000,000 and the Democratic Party over $25,000,000, for their presidential
and vice presidential candidates in 1984. Critics have argued that advertising
expenditures on such a scale, whether for deodorants or presidents, tend to
waste society's resources and also to preclude effective competition by rival
producers or politicians who cannot raise equally large amounts of money. A
rising tide of consumer resistance and voter skepticism is leading to various
attempts at consumer education, voter education, counterpropaganda, and
proposals for regulatory legislation. (see also political
science)
As far back as the early 1920s, there developed
an awareness among many social critics that the extension of the vote and of
enlarged purchasing power to more and more of the ignorant or ill-educated meant
larger and larger opportunities for both demagogic and public-spirited
propagandists to make headway by using fictions and myths, utopian appeals, and
"the noble lie." Interest was aroused not only by the lingering horror
of World War I and of the postwar settlements but also by publication of Ivan
Pavlov's experiments on conditioned reflexes and of analyses of human
motivations by various psychoanalysts. Freud's
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the
Ego (1922) was particularly relevant to the study of leaders, propagandists,
and followers, as were Walter Lippmann's Public
Opinion (1922) and The
Phantom Public (1925). (see also political
power)
In 1927, an American political scientist, Harold D. Lasswell,
published a now-famous book, Propaganda Technique in
the World War, a dispassionate description and analysis of the massive
propaganda campaigns conducted by all the major belligerents in World War I.
This he followed with studies of Communist propaganda and of many other forms of
communication. Within a few years, a great many other social scientists, along
with historians, journalists, and psychologists, were producing a wide variety
of publications purporting to analyze military, political, and commercial
propaganda of many types. During the Nazi period and the period of World War II
and the subsequent cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, a great many
researchers and writers, both skilled and unskilled, scholarly and unscholarly,
were employed by governments, political movements, and business firms to conduct
propaganda. Some of those who had scientific training designed very carefully
controlled experiments or intelligence operations, attempting to quantify data
on appeals of various types of propaganda to given reactors.
In the course of this theory building and
research, the study of propaganda advanced a long way on the road from lore to
science. Today several hundred more or less scholarly books and thousands of
articles shed substantial light on the psychology, techniques, and effects of
propaganda campaigns, major and minor.
In recent decades, nearly every significant
government, political party, special-interest group, social movement, and big
business firm in the advanced countries has developed its own corps of
specialized researchers, propagandists, or "opinion managers"
(sometimes referred to as information specialists, lobbyists, legislative
representatives, or vice presidents in charge of public relations). Some have
become members of parliaments, cabinets, and corporate boards of directors. The
most expert among them sometimes are highly skilled or trained, or both, in
history, psychiatry, politics, social psychology, survey research, and
statistical inference.
Many of the bigger and wealthier propaganda
agencies conduct (overtly and covertly) elaborate observations and opinion
surveys, among samples of the leaders, the middle strata, and the rank and file
of all social groups, big and little, whom they hope to influence. They tabulate
many kinds of data concerning those contents of the press, films, television,
and organizational media that reach given groups. They chart the responses of
reactors, through time, by statistical formulas. They conduct "symbol
campaigns" and "image-building" operations with mathematical
calculation, using quantities of data that can be processed only by computers.
To the ancient art of rhetoric, the "technique of orators," have been
added the techniques of the psychopolitical analyst and the media man and the
know-how of the administrators of giant advertising agencies, public relations
firms, and governmental ministries of information that employ armies of analytic
specialists and "symbol-handlers."
It is a commonplace among the highly educated
that men in the mass--and even men on high educational and social levels--often
react more favourably to utopian myths, wishful thinking, and nonrational
residues of earlier experiences than they do to the sober analysis of facts. The
average citizen who may be aware of being duped is not likely to have enough
education, time, or economic means to defend himself against the massive
organizations of opinion managers and hidden persuaders. Indeed, to affect them
he would have to act through large organizations himself and to use, to some
extent, the very means used by those he seeks to control. The still greater
"curse of bigness" that may evolve in the future is viewed with
increasing concern by many politically conscious people.
The contemporary propagandist employing
behavioral theory tends to analyze his problem in terms of at least 10
questions:
1. What are the goals of the propaganda? (What
changes are to be brought about? In whom? And when?)
2. What are the present and expected conditions
in the world social system?
3. What are the present and expected conditions
in each of the subsystems of the world social system (such as international
regions, nations, lesser territories, interest groups)?
4. Who should distribute the propaganda--the
propagandist or his agents?
5. What symbols should be used?
6. What media should be used?
7. Which reactors should the propaganda be aimed
at?
8. How can the effects of the propaganda be
measured?
9. By what countermeasures can opponents
neutralize or suppress the propaganda?
10. How can such countermeasures be measured and
dealt with?
In the present state of social science, this
10-part problem can be solved with only moderate confidence with respect to any
really major propaganda campaign, even if one has a great deal of money for
research. Yet if the propagandist is to proceed as rationally as possible, he
needs the best answers that are available.
Goals are fairly easy to define if the
propagandist simply wants to sell a relatively safe, useful, and simple good or
service. When the propagandist aims to convert great numbers of people to a
religion or a new social order or to induce extremely dangerous collective
action like a war or revolution, however, the definition of goals becomes highly
complex. It is complicated further by problems about "means-goals" or
intermediate goals: probably the campaign will have to go on for a long time and
will have to be planned in stages, phases, or waves. The propagandist may find
it hard to specify, even to himself, exactly what beliefs, values, or actions he
wants to bring about, by what points in time, among different sorts of people.
Very large and firmly held complexes of values are involved, such as prestige,
peace of mind, income, and even life itself or the military security of entire
nations or regions--even, in modern times, the annihilation of all mankind. In
such a situation, a mass of intricate and thorny value dilemmas arises: Is
military or revolutionary victory worth the price of economic ruin? Can a
desired degree of individual liberty be achieved without too much loss of social
equality? Is a much quicker achievement of goals worth a much greater amount of
human suffering? Are war crimes to be committed in order to win a battle? In
short: What is the propagandist willing to risk, for what, across what periods
of time?
Under modern conditions, each act of propaganda
is apt to have effects in several parts of the world. Some of these may
boomerang unexpectedly against the propagandist himself unless he can visualize
the global system and its components and anticipate the problems that may arise.
The global system, moreover, is inexorably changing. As population, trade,
travel, education, and technology evolve, new centres of political, cultural,
and economic power emerge. This social evolution, extremely rapid in current
times, tends on balance to limit the use of more simplistic and parochial kinds
of propaganda and increases the need for more sophisticated, scientifically
formulated, and universalistic (world-oriented) types. If, for example, there
is, as some theorists argue, an evolution everywhere from less rationality and
scientism toward more and from the primacy of particularistic loyalties toward
the primacy of a universalistic loyalty, is the propagandist to use appeals that
resist such trends or accept them? If he resists, what is the cost? If his
appeals are far ahead of his time, again what is the cost? (see also social
change)
In many times and places in the past, the
propagandist could profit handsomely by ignoring the welfare of a nation or the
world and appealing to extremes of religious, racial, political, or economic
fanaticism. This paid off very well, in the short run at least, within many
subsystems. Today, however, this kind of propaganda can prove to be useless and
even dangerous. The prudent propagandist has therefore to decide what mix of
universalistic and particularistic symbolism will best serve his purposes at
given times in given places. The choice is never an easy one: parochial or
class-conscious or national groups may be aroused to the highest passions; and
they are numerous and diverse and often highly incompatible with one another and
with the imperatives of the nation or the world.
The use of seemingly reputable, selfless, or
neutral agents or so-called front organizations, while the propagandist himself
remains behind the scenes, may greatly improve his prospects. If the authorities
are after the propagandist, seeking to suppress his activities, he must stay
underground and work through agents. But even in freer circumstances, he may
wish someone else to speak for him. The propagandist, for instance, may not
speak the reactors' language or idiom fluently. He may not know what they
associate with given symbols. Or their cultural, racial, or religious feelings
may bias them against him and thus tend to deny him a favourable hearing. In
such cases the use of agents is inescapable. Thus, subsidizing a native news
commentator or lecturer in a foreign country or furnishing propagandistic music
for use by a foreign broadcasting station may be more effective than conducting
one's own broadcasts. (There are exceptions, however. Many surveys have shown,
for example, that news broadcasts by the British Broadcasting Corporation are
considered by various foreign audiences to be more truthful than broadcasts
originating in their own countries.) Furthermore, if the propaganda fails or is
exposed for what it is, the agent can be publicly scapegoated while the real
propagandist continues to operate and develop new stratagems. The
prince, said Machiavelli, may openly and
conspicuously bestow awards and honours and public offices; but he should have
his agents carry out all actions that make a man unpopular, such as punishments,
denunciations, dismissals, and assassinations.
A complicated modern campaign on a major scale
is likely to be planned most successfully by a collective leadership--a
team of broadly educated and skilled people who have had both practical
experience in public affairs and extensive training in history, psychology, and
the social sciences. The detachment, skepticism, and secularism of such persons
may, however, cause them to be viewed with great suspicion by many reactors. It
may be important, therefore, to keep the planners behind the scenes and to
select intermediaries, front men, Trojan horses, and "dummy leaders"
whom the reactors are more likely to listen to or appreciate.
Contemporary social-psychological research,
dating from Freud's Group
Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, makes clear the wisdom of
traditional insights concerning the supreme importance of leadership in any
group, be it the family, the nation, or the world social system. The rank and
file of any group, especially a big one, have been shown to be remarkably
passive until aroused by quasi-parental leaders whom they admire and trust. It
is hard to imagine the Gallic wars without Caesar, the psychoanalytic movement
without Freud, the Nazis without Hitler, or the major Communist revolutions
without Lenin and Mao Tse-tung and their politburos. These leaders were real,
not dummies invented and packaged by image makers from an advertising agency or
public relations firm. In the age of massive opinion researches, however, and
with the aid of speech coaches and makeup artists and the magic impact of
television, it has become increasingly possible for image makers to create front
men who can affect the votes and other behaviour
of very large percentages of a national audience. As one knowledgeable
participant phrased it in 1970:
There are now four essential ingredients to a
professionally managed political campaign: political polls, data processing,
imagery, and money. The polls discover what the voter already believes, and data
processing interprets and analyzes the depth of voters' attitudes. After that,
an image of the candidate is tailored to meet the voters' demands and desires,
and the whole package is then sold by massive expenditures of money in the
advertising media, particularly television.
The candidate has become relatively unimportant
as long as he can be properly managed. The candidate must be bright enough to
handle the material furnished to him, but not too intelligent, because there is
always the danger that an intelligent candidate may come up with unpopular or
controversial ideas of his own, and thereby destroy a carefully contrived
campaign strategy. [Excerpt from a public address by Zolton Ferency, chairman
and gubernatorial candidate of the Democratic Party of Michigan, June 1970.]
Probably this is an overstatement, but it
conveys the flavour of a great deal of contemporary political propaganda. Yet a
dummy leader invented by an image maker may not always be invulnerable to
counterpropaganda by a real leader, if one should turn up. Even a giant,
expensive television campaign may not be able to conceal from all reactors the
differences between a dummy and a bona fide leader with high political skills--a
Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, or a Jawaharlal Nehru--whose voice and
gestures express a genuine and spontaneous concern for public policy and a
determination to "wear no man's collar," and who goes in for great
numbers of face-to-face appearances that demonstrate that he has no need for a
voice coach and a makeup artist.
The propagandist must realize that neither
rational arguments nor catchy slogans can, by themselves, do much to influence human behaviour.
A reactor's behaviour is also affected by at least four other variables. The
first is the reactor's predispositions--that is, his stored memories of, and his
past associations with, related symbols. These often cause the reactor to ignore
the current inflow of symbols, to perceive them very selectively, or to
rationalize them away. The second is the set of economic inducements (gifts,
bribery, pay raises, threats of job loss, and so forth) which the propagandist
or others may apply in conjunction with the symbols. The third is the set of
physical inducements (love, violence, protection from violence) used by the
propagandist or others. The fourth is the array of social pressures that may
either encourage or inhibit the reactor in thinking or doing what the
propagandist advocates. Even one who is well led and is predisposed to do what
the propagandist wants may be prevented from acting by counterpressures within
the surrounding social systems or groups of which he is a part. (see also attitude)
In view of these predispositions and pressures,
the skilled propagandist is careful to advocate chiefly those acts that he
believes the reactor already wants to perform and is in fact able to perform. It
is fruitless to call upon most people to perform acts that may involve a total
loss of income or terrible physical danger--for example, to act openly upon
Communist leanings in a totalitarian fascist country. To call upon reactors to
do something extremely dangerous or hard is to risk having the propaganda
branded as unrealistic. In such cases, it may be better to point to actions that
the reactor can avoid taking--that is, to encourage him in acts of
passive resistance. The propagandist will thereby both seem and be
realistic in his demands upon the reactor, and the reactor will not be left
with the feeling, "I agree with this message, but just what am I supposed
to do about it?"
For maximum effect, the symbolic content of
propaganda must be active, not passive, in tone. It must explicitly or
implicitly recommend fairly specific actions to be performed by the reactor
("buy this," "boycott that," "vote for X,"
"join Group Y," "withdraw from Group Z"). Furthermore,
because the ability of the human organism to receive and process symbols is
strictly limited, the skillful propagandist attempts to substitute quality for
quantity in his choice of symbols. A brief slogan or a picture or a pithy
comment on some symbol that is emotion laden for the reactors may be worth ten
thousand other words and cost much less. In efforts to economize symbol inputs,
the propagandist attempts to make full use of the findings of all the behavioral
sciences. He draws upon the psychoanalysts'
studies of the bottled-up impulses in the unconscious mind; he consults the
elaborate vocabulary counts produced by professors of education; he follows the
headline news to determine what events and symbols probably are salient in
reactors' minds at the moment; and he analyzes the information polls and
attitude studies conducted by survey researchers.
There is substantial agreement among
psychoanalysts that the psychological power of propaganda increases with use of
what Lasswell termed the triple-appeal principle. This principle states that a
set of symbols is apt to be most persuasive if it appeals simultaneously to
three elements of an individual's personality--elements
that Freud labelled the ego, id,
and superego. To appeal to the ego, the skilled
propagandist will present the acts and thoughts that he desires to induce as if
they were rational, advisable, wise, prudent, and expedient; in the same breath
he says or implies that they are sure to produce pleasure and a sense of
strength (an appeal to the id); concurrently he suggests that they are moral,
righteous, and--if not altogether legal--decidedly more justifiable and humane
than the law itself (an appeal to the superego, or conscience). Within any
social system, the optimal blend of these components varies from individual to
individual and from subgroup to subgroup: some individuals and subgroups love
pleasure intensely and show few traces of guilt; others are quite pained by
guilt; few are continuously eager to be rational or to take the trouble to
become well informed. Some cautious individuals and subgroups like to believe
that they never make a move without preanalyzing it; others enjoy throwing
prudence to the winds. There are also changes in these blends through time:
personalities change, as do the morals and customs of groups. In large
collectivities like social classes, ethnic groups, or nations, the particular
blends of these predispositions may vary greatly from stratum to stratum and
subculture to subculture. Only the study of history and behavioral research can
give the propagandist much guidance about such variations. (see also Freud,
Sigmund)
A propagandist is wise if, in addition to
reiterating his support of ideas and policies that he knows the reactors already
believe in, he includes among his images a variety of symbols associated with
parents and parent surrogates. The child lives on in every adult, eternally
seeking a loving father and mother. Hence the appeal of such familistic
symbolisms as "the fatherland," "the mother country,"
"the Mother Church," "the Holy Father," "Mother
Russia," and the large number of statesmen who are known as the
"fathers of their countries." Also valuable are reassuring maternal
figures like Queen Victoria of England, the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese Sun
Goddess. In addition to parent symbols, it is usually well to associate one's
propaganda with symbols of parent substitutes, who in some cases exert a more
profound effect on children than do disappointing or nondescript parents:
affectionate or amiable uncles (Uncle Sam, Uncle Ho Chi Minh); lively aunts (la
belle France, Britannia, the Spanish Communist leader La Pasionaria, and
Kuan-yin, the Chinese Goddess of Mercy); admired scholars and physicians (Karl
Marx, Dr. Sun Yat-sen); politico-military heroes and role models (Abraham
Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Mao Tse-tung, "the wise, mighty, and fatherly
Stalin"); and, of course, saints (Joan of Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, the Buddha). A talented and well-symbolized leader or role model
may achieve a parental or even godlike ascendancy (charisma) and magnify the
impact of a message many times.
There are literally thousands of written,
audiovisual, and organizational media that a 20th-century propagandist might
use. All human groupings are potential organizational media, from the family and
other small organizations through advertising and public relations firms, trade
unions, churches and temples, theatres, readers of novels and poetry,
special-interest groups, political parties and front organizations to the
governmental structures of nations, international coalitions, and universal
organizations like the United Nations and its agencies. From all this variety of
media, the propagandist must choose those few media (especially leaders, role
models, and organizations) to whose messages he thinks the intended reactors are
especially attentive and receptive. (see also public
relations)
In recent years the communications revolution
has brought about a massive, worldwide proliferation of school systems and of
facilities for news gathering, publishing, broadcasting, holding meetings, and
speechmaking. At present, almost everyone's mind is bombarded daily by far more
media, symbols, and messages than the human organism can possibly pay attention
to. The mind reels under noisy assortments of information bits about rival
politicians, rival political programs and doctrines, new technical discoveries,
insistently advertised commercial products, and new views on morality,
ecological horrors, and military nightmares. This sort of communication overload
already has resulted in the alienation
of millions of people from much of modern life. Overload and alienation can be
expected to reach even higher levels in coming generations as still higher
densities of population, intercultural contacts, and communication facilities
cause economic, political, doctrinal, and commercial rivalries to become still
more intense.
Research has demonstrated repeatedly that most
reactors attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to cope with severe
communication overload by developing three mechanisms: selective attention,
selective perception, and selective recall. That
is, they pay attention to only a few media; they fail (often unconsciously) to
perceive therein any large proportion of the messages that they find
uncongenial; and, having perceived, even after this screening, a certain number
of unpleasing messages, they repress these in whole or in part (i.e.,
cannot readily remember them). The contemporary propagandist therefore tries
to find out: (1) what formative experiences and styles of education have
predisposed his intended audiences to their current "media
preferences"; (2) which of all the publications, television shows, leaders,
and role models in the world they do in fact pay attention to; and (3) by which
of these they are most influenced. These topics have thus become the subjects of
vast amounts of commercial and academic research. (see also memory)
In most cases, reactors are found to pay the
most attention to the publications, shows, leaders, and role models with whose
views they already agree. People as a rule attend to communications not because
they want to learn something new or reconsider their own philosophies of life
but because they seek psychological reassurance about their existing beliefs and
prejudices. When the propagandist does get their attention by putting his
message into the few media they heed, he may discover that, to hold their
attention, he must draft a message that does not depart very far from what they
already want to believe. Despite the popular stereotypes about geniuses of
politics, religion, or advertising whose brilliant propaganda converts the
multitudes overnight, the plain fact is that even the most skilled propagandist
must usually content himself with a very modest goal: packaging a message in
such a way that much of it is familiar and reassuring to the intended reactors
and only a little is so novel or true as to threaten them psychologically. Thus,
revivalists have an a priori advantage over spokesmen of a modernized ethic, and
conservative politicians an advantage over progressives. Propaganda that aims to
induce major changes is certain to take great amounts of time, resources,
patience, and indirection, except in times of revolutionary crisis when old
beliefs have been shattered and new ones have not yet been provided. In ordinary
periods (intercrisis periods), propaganda for changes, however worthy, is likely
to be, in the words of the German sociologist Max Weber, "a slow boring of
hard boards."
For reasons just indicated, the most effective
media as a rule (for messages other than the simplest of commercial advertising)
are not the impersonal mass media like newspapers and television but rather
those few associations or organizations (reference groups) with which the
individual feels identified or to which he aspires to relate his identity. Quite
often the ordinary man not only avoids but actively distrusts the mass media or
fails to understand their messages; but in the warmth of his reference groups he
feels at home, assumes that he understands what is going on, and feels that he
is sure to receive a certain degree of emotional response and personal
protection. The foremost reference group, of course, is the family. But many
other groups perform analogous functions--for instance, the group of sports
fans, the church, the trade union, the alumni group, the clique or gang, the
Communist cell. By influencing the key members of such a group, the propagandist
may establish a "social relay" channel that can amplify his message.
By concentrating thus on the few, he increases his chances of reaching the
many--often far more effectively than he could through a plethora of mass
meetings, paid broadcasts, handbills, or billboards and at much lower cost.
Therefore, one important stratagem involves the combined use of mass media and
reference-group channels--writing up materials for such media as news releases
or broadcasts in ways designed specifically to reach certain groups (and
especially their elites and leaders), who can then relay the messages to other
sets of reactors.
The audiences for the propagandist can be
classified into: (1) those who are initially predisposed to react as the
propagandist wishes, (2) those who are neutral or indifferent, and (3) those who
are in opposition or perhaps even hostile.
As already indicated, propaganda is most apt to
evoke the desired responses among those already in agreement with the
propagandist's message. Neutrals or opponents are not apt to be much affected
even by an intensive barrage of propaganda unless it is reinforced by
nonpropagandistic inducements (economic or coercive acts) or by favourable
social pressures. These facts, of course, are recognized by advocates of civil
disobedience; their propagandists would contend that sloganeering and
reasoned persuasion must be accompanied by sit-ins and other overt acts of
passive resistance; they aim for a new climate of social pressure. These facts
are also significantly recognized by Communist regimes; by controlling all means
of production, they can offer great economic inducements or threaten people's
livelihood, thus making them a very attentive audience for propaganda. If these
copressures are applied too strongly, however, they may become so distasteful to
reactors that the associated propaganda will backfire.
The modern world is overrun with all kinds of
competing propaganda and counterpropaganda and a vast variety of other symbolic
activities, such as education, publishing, newscasting, and patriotic and
religious observances. The problem of distinguishing between the effects of
one's own propaganda and the effects of these other activities is often
extremely difficult.
The ideal scientific method of measurement is
the controlled experiment. Carefully selected samples of members of the intended
audiences can be subjected to the propaganda while equivalent samples are not.
Or the same message, clothed in different symbols--different mixes of sober
argument and "casual" humour, different proportions of patriotic,
ethnic, and religious rationalizations, different mixes of truth and the
"noble lie," different proportions of propaganda and coercion--can be
tested on comparable samples. Also, different media can be tested to determine,
for example, whether results are better when reactors read the message in a
newspaper, observe it in a spot commercial on television, or hear it wrapped
snugly in a sermon. Obviously the number of possible variables and permutations
in symbolism, media use, subgrouping of the audience, and so forth is extremely
great in any complicated or long-drawn-out campaign. Therefore, the costs for
the research experts and the fieldwork that are needed for thorough experimental
pretests are often very high. Such pretests, however, may save money in the
end.
An alternative to controlled experimentation in
the field is controlled experimentation in the laboratory. But it may be
impossible to induce reactors who are truly representative of the intended
audience to come to the laboratory at all. Moreover, in such an artificial
environment their reactions may differ widely from the reactions that they would
have to the same propaganda if reacting un-self-consciously in their customary
environment. For these and many other obvious reasons, the validity of
laboratory pretests of propaganda must be viewed with the greatest caution.
Whether in the field or the laboratory, the
value of all controlled experiments is seriously limited by the problem of
"sleeper effects." These are long-delayed reactions that may not
become visible until the propaganda has penetrated resistances and insinuated
itself deep down into the reactor's mind--by which time the experiment may have
been over for a long time. Another problem is that most people acutely dislike
being guinea pigs and also dislike the word propaganda. If they find out that
they are subjects of a propagandistic experiment, the entire research program,
and possibly the entire campaign of propaganda of which it is a part, may
backfire.
Another research device is the panel interview--repeated
interviewing, over a considerable period of time, of small sets of individuals
considered more or less representative of the intended audiences. The object is
to obtain (if possible, without their knowing it) a great deal of information
about their life-styles, belief systems, value systems, media habits, opinion
changes, heroes, role models, reference groups, and so forth. The propagandist
hopes to use this information in planning ways to influence a much larger
audience. Panel interviewing, if kept up long enough, may help in discovering
sleeper effects and other delayed reactions. The very process of being
"panel interviewed," however, produces an artificial environment that
may induce defensiveness, suspicion, and even attempts to deceive the
interviewer.
For many practical purposes, the best means of
measuring--or perhaps one had better say estimating--the effects of propaganda
is apt to be the method of extensive observation,
guided of course by well-reasoned theory and inference. "Participant
observers" can be stationed unobtrusively among the reactors. Voting
statistics, market statistics, press reports, police reports, editorials, and
the speeches or other activities of affected or potentially affected leaders can
also give clues. Evidence on the size, composition, and behaviour of the
intermediate audiences (such as elites) and the ultimate audiences (such as
their followers) can be obtained from these various sources and from sample
surveys. The statistics of readership or listenership for printed and
telecommunications media may be available. If the media include public meetings,
the number of people attending and the noise level and symbolic contents of
cheering (and jeering) can be measured. Observers may also report their
impressions of the moods of the audience and record comments overheard after the
meeting. To some extent, symbols and leaders can be varied, and the different
results compared.
Using methods known in recent years as content
analysis, the propagandist can at least make reasonably dependable
quantitative measurements of the symbolic contents of his own propaganda and of
communications put out by others. He can count the numbers of column inches of
printed space or seconds of radio or television time that were given to the
propaganda. He can categorize and tabulate the symbols and themes in the
propaganda. To estimate the implications of the propaganda for social policy, he
can tabulate the relative numbers of expressed or implied demands for actions or
attitude changes of various kinds. The 1970 edition of volume 1 of the Great
Soviet Encyclopedia, for example, had no pictures of Stalin; in the
previous edition, volume 1 had four pictures. Did this mean that a new father
figure and role model was being created by the Soviet propagandists? Or did it
indicate a return to the cult of older father figures such as Marx and Lenin? If
so, what were the respective father figures' traits, considered
psychoanalytically, and the political, economic, and military implications for
Soviet policy? (see also Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, )
By quantifying their data about contents,
propagandists can bring a high degree of precision into experiments using
different propaganda contents aimed at the same results. They can also increase
the accuracy of their research on the relative acceptability of information,
advice, and opinion attributed to different sources. (Will given reactors be
more impressed if they hear 50, 100, or 200 times that a given policy is
endorsed--or denounced--by the president of the United States, the president of
Russia, or the pope?)
Very elaborate means of coding and of
statistical analysis have been developed by various content analysts. Some count
symbols, some count headlines, some count themes (sentences, propositions), some
tabulate the frequencies with which various categories of "events
data" (newspaper accounts of actual happenings) appear in some or all of
the leading newspapers ("prestige papers") or television programs of
the world. Some of these events data can be counted as supporting or reinforcing
the propaganda, some as opposing or counteracting it. Whatever the methodology,
content analysis in its more refined forms is an expensive process, demanding
long and rigorous training of well-educated and extremely patient coders and
analysts. And there remains the intricate problem of developing relevant
measurements of the effects of different contents upon different reactors.
Some countermeasures against propaganda include
simply suppressing it by eliminating or jailing the propagandist, burning down
his premises, intimidating his employees, buying him off, depriving him of his
use of the media or the money that he needs for the media or for necessary
research, and applying countless other coercive or economic pressures. It is
also possible to use counterpropaganda, hoping that the truth (or at least some
artful bit of counterpropaganda) will prevail. (see also censorship)
One special type of counterpropaganda is
"source exposure"--informing the audience that the propagandist is ill
informed, is a criminal, or belongs to some group that is sure to be regarded by
the audience as subversive, thereby undermining his credibility and perhaps his
economic support. In the 1930s there was in the U.S. an Institute for Propaganda
Analysis that tried to expose such propaganda techniques as "glittering
generalities" or "name-calling" that certain propagandists were
using. This countermeasure may have failed, however, because it was too
intellectual and abstract and because it offered the audience no alternative
leaders to follow or ideas to believe.
In many cases opponents of certain propagandists
have succeeded in getting laws passed that have censored or suppressed
propaganda or required registration and disclosure of the propagandists and of
those who have paid them.
It is clear, then, that opponents may try to
offset propaganda by taking direct action or by invoking covert pressures or
community sanctions to bring it under control. The propagandist must therefore
try to estimate in advance his opponents' intentions and capabilities and invent
measures against their countermeasures. If he thinks that they will rely only on
counterpropaganda, he can try to outwit them. If he thinks that they will
withdraw advertising from his newspaper or radio station, he may try to get
alternative supporters. If he expects vigilantes or police persecution, he can
go underground and rely, as the Russian Communists did before 1917 and the
Chinese before 1949, primarily on agitation through organizational media.
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 newspapers 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. Finally, there has been an
increase in laws and customs requiring that equal space or time or a right of
reply be rendered all major contenders in political campaigns or even major
spokesmen differingon major issues of the day. In view of the apparently massive
effects and the certainly massive expenses of political propaganda on
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. (see also
American law, persuasion,
advertising)
In a highly authoritarian polity, the regime
tries to monopolize for itself all opportunities to engage in propaganda, and
often it will stop at nothing to crush any kind of counterpropaganda. How long
and how completely such a policy can be implemented depends, among other things,
on the amount of force that the regime can muster, on the thoroughness of its
police work, and, perhaps most of all, on the level, type, and distribution of
secular higher education. Secular higher education invariably promotes
skepticism about claims that sound dogmatic or are made without evidence; and if
such education is of a type that emphasizes humane and universalistic values, an
ignorant or unreasonable authoritarian regime is not likely to please the
educated for very long. If the educated engage in discreet counterpropaganda,
they may in the end modify the regime.
One of the most serious and least understood
problems of social control is above the national level, at the level of the
world social system. At the world level there is an extremely dangerous lack of
means of restraining or counteracting propaganda that fans the flames of
international, interracial, and interreligious wars. The global system consists
at present of a highly chaotic mixture of democratic, semidemocratic, and
authoritarian subsystems. Many of these are controlled by leaders who are ill
educated, ultranationalistic, and religiously, racially, or doctrinally
fanatical. At present, every national regime asserts that its national
sovereignty gives it the right to conduct any propaganda it cares to, however
untrue such propaganda may be and however contradictory to the requirements of
the world system. The most inflammatory of such propaganda usually takes the
form of statements by prominent national leaders, often sensationalized and
amplified by their own international broadcasts and sensationalized and
amplified still further by media in the receiving countries. The only major
remedy would lie, of course, in the slow spread of education for universalist
humanism. A first step toward this might be taken through the fostering of an
energetic and highly enlightened press corps and educational establishment,
doing all it can to provide the world's broadcasters, newspapers, and schools
with factual information and illuminating editorials that could increase
awareness of the world system as a whole. Informed leaders in world affairs are
therefore becoming increasingly interested in the creation of world-level media
and multinational bodies of reporters, researchers, editors, teachers, and other
intellectuals committed to the unity of mankind. (see also international
relations)
|
선전 (宣傳, propaganda)
여론에 영향을 줄 목적으로 사실·주장·소문·유언비어
등을 퍼뜨리는 행위.
사람들을 설득시키기 위한 조직적 노력인 선전은 매스
커뮤니케이션을 통하여 활발하게 이루어지는 방식이며,
여기에는 의도적으로 일방적인 주장을 대중들에게 전달하는
행위도 포함한다. 선전에서는 일방적인 주장의 형식이 매우
흔하게 사용되는데, 이것은 어떤 제안의 장점 또는 단점만을
강조하여 특정 이미지를 전달하거나 퍼뜨리려는 의도
때문이다. 선전 행위 그 자체는 아주 오래된 것이지만
선전이라는 용어는 비교적 현대에 와서 생긴 것으로서, 1622년에
로마 가톨릭이 선교사업을 수행할 목적으로 세운 '신앙전파(propagande
fide)의 성스러운 모임'에서 유래되었다.
선전 행위에서는 사람들의 신념과 태도를 조종할
목적으로 표어, 그래픽, 깃발, 기념조각물, 옷, 휘장, 우편
스탬프 디자인 등 다양한 상징이 폭넓게 사용되었다. 20세기에
들어오면서 과거에 선전의 주요도구였던 그림과 글자
매체가 라디오·영화·텔레비전 등으로 대체되면서 일반
대중들에게 더욱 생생한 선전 상징을 전달할 수 있게 되었다.
고고학적 증거에 의하면, 고대의 문명사회에서는 왕·귀족·사제
등의 위대함과 세력을 일반 사람들에게 알리기 위해 멋진
조상(彫像)·사원·궁전, 그리고 화려한 의상 등을 사용했던
것을 알 수 있다. 일반 청중들의 마음을 사로잡기 위해
연설이나 대중공청회에서 조직적이고 의도적인 선전을 한
것은 그리스인이 처음일 것이다. 세계적으로 거의 모든
위대한 종교들은 포교의 목적으로 선전을 사용했으며
복잡한 정치제도와 종교 체제가 보급될 수 있었던 것은
진정한 정치적·종교적 신념과 의도적인 선전이 결합되었기
때문이었다. 산업혁명이 일어나자 대중 상대의 마케팅과
홍보 전략을 통해 소비자의 소비행태와 구매동기를
자극하고자 새로운 선전 행위가 등장하게 되었다. 대기업과
무역회사들은 소비자의 기호를 잘 이해하고 자극하기
위하여 소비자의 행태와 심리에 대한 많은 자료를 축적했다.
정치가들은 자기 자신들과 정강정책에 대한 대중의 지지를
얻기 위해 이러한 마케팅 기술을 도입했다. 그러나
역기능적인 현대적 선전기술도 발생하게 되었다. 특히 20세기의
나치 독일 같은 전체주의 국가와 요시프 스탈린 치하의 소련
같은 나라가 대표적인 경우이다. 이러한 체제하에서는
사실상 모든 매스 미디어가 노골적으로 선전기관화하여
국가의 권위와 위력을 찬양하고 대중들에게 국가의 이상과
목표를 기꺼이 받아들이게 하는 일에 동원된다.
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