I hear it used all the time, but noticed I don’t know exactly what it means. The actual definition of it is very broad.
“The spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.”
However, this doesn’t quite feel like how the word is often used. I’ve only ever seen it used with a negative connotation. If I were to spread information about climate change for the planet, am I spreading propaganda?
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That definition is technically correct, but the general usage of the term has connotations of being psychologically manipulative in some way. Either through emotional appeals, flashy or exaggerated visuals, fearmongering, etc.
It is also notable that this is a very intentional action. If you happen to mention something about climate change, that’s less likely to be considered propaganda than if you printed out a bunch of fliers and posted them all over town.
There’s an implication that the information is false or misleading. At the very least it means that the intent of the message is to further some agenda rather than to educate or clarify.
humans tend to believe something if it is told to them enough. propaganda is a message that is indented to be believed by the population without any regard for truth. it’s just a tool for furthering an agenda.
Propaganda is not inherently bad, no. If you were spreading ideas about climate change to try to help the planet, yes, that would be propaganda and people would probably not argue that it’s bad. Propaganda has a bad reputation, though, because it’s *often* misleading or outright untrue. Even if it is true, it’s often intrusive or aggressive.
People don’t really like being told what to think. Propaganda *feels* manipulative…because it is. It might be manipulating you for a genuinely good cause that will improve your life and the world around you. It still *feels* icky.
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Yes, propaganda can be positive, for example a story about a politician behaving like an “average Joe” or being “heroic”.
And propaganda definitely can be about something you support, too, like “hey those carbon emissions make climate change worse.”
We become accustomed to using the term as an accusation, “don’t believe that it’s just propaganda”. But propaganda can be truth or lies or a mixture of both. The term basically mean “information that is shared in an effort to persuade.”
Propaganda is a form of information that is designed to persuade rather than to inform. It could have positive or factual claims, but it will typically leave out any inconvenient caveats that don’t serve the agenda, and it will typically misconstrue, exaggerate, or lie. If it’s frustrating to not be able to differentiate between “normal” advertising, news, and propaganda, well, your brain is working normally. Yeah.
It’s not completely ludicrous to label *most* of the mainstream information that bombards us daily as some form of propaganda. From claims that whatever politician literally killed babies, all the way down to ads for “sugar-free” tic-tacs made almost entirely of sugar (with a “serving size” below the technical threshold of legally considering something sugar free). It’s all a matter of manipulating truths, half truths, and outright lies to sell a product or an agenda.
Propaganda traditionally is political in nature though. Typically selling an agenda that serves the interest of the state or a political party.
Bullshit (a broad umbrella that propaganda sits under) is everywhere.
French’s mustard. They have a 20 oz bottle of mustard that has a really big notation on it that says “40% More,” and in smaller letters it also says “than our 14 oz.” Which is just math saying the bigger bottle is… bigger… It doesn’t mean that you are getting more for the same price as the 14 oz, it only means you are buying a bigger bottle. Which you can tell because it’s bigger, but because the claim that there’s “40% More” people think it’s a better deal. It probably is a better deal by weight, but most people aren’t going through 20 oz of mustard very fast.
If you spread information about climate change with the best of intentions, but use misleading information to motivate people to change to your point of view, “I’ve heard from some really smart people that if the world gets 1 degree warmer by the end of the century that killer clowns from outer space with kills is all” (but formulated in a way to make it believable) then yes, that would be propaganda. It’s information, true or not, spread with the intention of manipulating the psyche of the masses.
Think of television commercials, radio advertisements, etc. These work the same way as propaganda. Telling you their product is the best, whether or not that may be true.
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