A History of Modern Propaganda

A History of Modern Propaganda

Propaganda is a communicative technique that seeks to manipulate the opinions and attitudes of a targeted audience. It intends to change existing belief systems, value structures, and political positions in order to create specific attitudes toward a subject of public discourse in a manner favorable to the propagandist. Specific messages usually are linked to an overwhelming ideology (Bussemer, 2005). Propaganda is directed at a large number of people and thus is communicated by mass media. It can use different media genres, such as speeches, advertisements, editorials, articles, songs, or posters. Propaganda is a function of the political system and strives to gain or defend political power (Cunningham, 2008). It is ideological in the sense that it tries to “naturalize” specific, self-interested viewpoints and opinions to let them appear self-evident, logical, and in the public interest. Propaganda may, for tactical reasons, take the form of open public discourse or dialogue, but it is always directed toward a previously defined end that the propagandists carefully attempt to achieve. In this sense, it is always unidirectional communication (Ellul, 2006).

In this new understanding, propaganda became one of the most important concepts of the French Revolution. In analogy to the church's missionary work, the revolutionaries in Paris saw it as their duty to spread the ideals of the French Revolution to other European countries, thus raising widespread fear in conservative Europe about the agitating effects of secret and influential clubs. For the first time in history, propaganda was regarded as a technique, which could universally be employed for all political aims (Jackall, 2007). Fear of propaganda increased even further during the European uprisings in the year 1830, when conservative governments were convinced that the French were exporting their revolution by means of propaganda. This assumption was indeed more fitting in 1830 than in 1789, because by then propaganda had lost its negative connotation among European democrats (Sproule, 2007). While it gained a reputation as an effective instrument to propagate revolutionary ideas, the term lost its association with traditional propaganda agencies like the propaganda fide.

It was only logical that the strongest political power of the 19th century, the labor movement, soon discovered and developed the potential of propaganda. Early in their Paris exile, Karl Marx, Wilhelm Weitling, and Heinrich Heine fervently debated the impact of propaganda and its function for the promotion of communism (Thomson, 2007). In this discourse, Marx neglected the use of the term propaganda , because in his view it did not conform to his claim that communist ideology should be based on rational thinking and scientific accuracy. As a result, the labor movement was deeply split about how to use the concept of propaganda: while communists in the Soviet Union as well as in France and in Germany employed it excessively, social democrats avoided it and spoke rather about agitation. As a result propaganda gained very little momentum in the Western European labor movement, whereas in communist regimes it came under the influence of Vladimir ...