Propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is the relatively deliberate manipulation, by means of symbols (words, gestures, flags, images, monuments, music, etc.), of other people’s thoughts or actions with respect to beliefs, values, and behaviors which these people (“reactors”) regard as controversial.
The elements of deliberateness and manipulativeness distinguish propaganda from merely casual communication or the “free” exchange of ideas. These elements also distinguish propaganda from education: whereas the propagandist presents a prefabricated argument or a single set of symbols, the educator aims to present “all” sides of an issue and leaves mainly to the audience the decision concerning the truth (if any) of the claims presented and the values (if any) at stake. Inasmuch as some communicators and some audiences regard as controversial what others regard as self-evident truth, it follows that under some conditions one man’s “propaganda” may be another man’s “education.”
The term “propaganda,” in most of its modern usages, apparently derives from the shortened name, “the Propaganda,” of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagation of the Faith), a standing committee of cardinals in charge of missionary activities of the Roman Catholic church since 1622. Hence, to many Catholics the word may have, at least when referring to ecclesiastical utterances, a responsible and respectable connotation that it lacks in many other contexts.
Something similar is the case, in communist circles, at least, when the term “propaganda” is used with the special definition and meanings given it by Lenin in a collection of writings published in 1929 as Agitation und Propaganda. In that book, which continues to furnish much of the basis for communist reasoning and practice on the subject, Lenin distinguished between (1) “propaganda,” which he defined as the reasoned use of arguments from philosophy, history, and science to influence the educated and reasonable few, and (2) “agitation,” by which he meant the use of emotional slogans, “Aesopian” parables, and half-truths to influence the uneducated, the semieducated, and the unreasonable. Thus, to the disciplined communist who follows in his Agitprop activities the theory and rules laid down by Lenin, the use of “propaganda” in Lenin’s sense is highly commendable and unqualifiedly honest.
A related term is “propaganda of the deed.” This means the performance of a nonsymbolic (e.g., coercive or economic) act, not primarily for its military or economic effects but primarily for the symbolic effect it presumably will have on some reactor—for instance, staging the public torture of a criminal for its presumable deterrent effect on others or giving economic “foreign aid” with more of an eye to influencing a recipient’s opinions than to building his economy.
Diplomatic negotiation, legal argument, commercial bargaining, and advertising obviously are likely to include considerable elements of both “propaganda” and “propaganda of the deed” as here defined.
History
No doubt propaganda has existed ever since primates have been sufficiently articulate to use it. Artifacts from prehistory and from early civilizations give evidence that dazzling raiment, mystic insignia, and monuments were used to advertise the purported majesty and supernatural powers of early rulers and priests.
In Western civilization, the systematic design of propaganda and of counterpropaganda appears to have begun in the Greek city-states about 500 B.C., with the codification of “rhetoric,” a set of tricks of argumentation deduced in part from the actual practice of successful lawyers, demagogues, and politicians. Such teachers as Plato and Aristotle, and certain of the Stoics, compiled the rules of rhetoric with two aims: not only to make their own arguments more persuasive but also to immunize “good” citizens against the use of logical fallacies and emotional terms by “bad” lawyers and demagogues, and to point out the possible dangers of following irrational leaders. So well did the Greek rhetoricians do these jobs that they have been studied and quoted for over 2,500 years. Aristotle’s Rhetoric was emphasized in higher education throughout the Middle Ages and even after the Renaissance, and it is often drawn upon today in classes in public speaking and logic and by many sophisticated propagandists and counterpropagandists.
In other civilizations, a number of parallel developments appeared after 400 B.C. Thus, Kautilya, purportedly chief minister to the Indian emperor Chandragupta Maurya, counseled in his Artha??stra (“Principles of Politics”) the use by princes of prudent and often deceptive wording in their diplomacy and in their public utterances, especially in times of war and preparation for war. Like modern propagandists, Kautilya was much preoccupied with techniques for sowing fear, dissension, and confusion in the opponent’s ranks (psychological warfare) and for showering blandishments on allies without becoming excessively dependent upon them. [SeeKautilya.]
Parallel advice can be found in The Art of War by the early Chinese theorist Sun Tzu. The use of “good” and truthful rhetoric and “proper” forms of speech and writing was urged by Confucius in his Analects as a means of persuading men to live the good life—a Platonic admonition deliberately echoed as a legitimating device (under the name of “brainwashing”) by the present-day rulers of Communist China.
The spread of Christianity, like that of all other religions, has of course been due very largely to a mixture of earnest conviction and the deliberate use of propaganda. Recent scholarship points out the striking extent to which the legend of the Jewish messiah has been reshaped in the course of the centuries, beginning with the earliest writers of the Gospels and Epistles, who apparently made numerous changes and invented details that seemed calculated to engage the attention and influence the actions of non-Jews as well as Jews and that bore only an allegorical relation to historic fact. In other major religions—for instance, in the recasting of the legends of the Hindu epic Mah?bh?rata, of Gautama Buddha, of the ancestral Japanese Sun Goddess, and of the life and relatives of Muhammad—a parallel mixture of faith, conviction, and propaganda can be found. Undoubtedly a similar mixture has been involved in the spreading of every major political doctrine or “ism.”
Remnants of election propaganda have been found on Roman ruins. Such writers as Quintilian and Quintus Cicero described campaign tactics. In early modern times Machiavelli underscored, like Kautilya and Sun Tzu, the effectiveness of calculated duplicity in politics and war. In Shakespeare, many characters display and discuss the principles of propaganda in concepts and language that a present-day behavioral scientist could hardly improve upon. Mark Antony’s funeral oration comes readily to mind; and such English aristocrats as the Duke of Buckingham (see Richard III, Act III) comment knowingly upon 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 Aristotle, however, only small advances in either the highly organized practice or the systematic theory of propaganda took place until the industrial revolution made mass production possible and thus opened the way for immensely high profits through mass marketing. As part of the modern trend toward well-calculated high-profit distribution, studies began to be made after about 1900 of the wants and habits of many types of consumers and of their susceptibility to alternative kinds of salesmanship, advertising, packaging, and publicity.
In the early 1930s, commercial “sample surveys” began to develop rapidly. Almost every conceivable aspect of opinion, attitude, belief, and behavior involved in “consumer motivation” has been investigated with respect to ever more refined subsamples of the populations of most major countries. At present, vast banks of such information are stored and processed in computer centers; they are used as a basis for increasingly precise “pinpointing” of commercial and other propaganda. Nationwide and international advertising campaigns cost billions of dollars annually and occupy a very large percentage of radio and television time and of newspaper, magazine, and billboard space in countries where this is permitted. It is generally believed that this investment also exerts strong influence over some or many of the noncommercial contents of these media. One consequence has been the evolution of efforts to hold the more Machiavellian advertisers in check through such devices as consumers’ unions, “truth-in-advertising” laws, and nonprofit publishing, radio, and television alongside (or to the exclusion of) the profit-making media. [SeeMarket research.]
Concurrently with the spread of commercial rationalism and the related outburst of commercial propaganda, the spread of social rationalism, of mass education, and of mass democracy since the eighteenth century has deepened awareness among the educated and some of the semieducated of the roles of fictions and utopian aspirations in social and political systems. Long ago, Plato pointed out the social functions of “the noble lie.” The extension of the suffrage to ever broader and ever more ignorant or ill-educated strata of the population in the past two centuries has brought enriched opportunities to observe the possibilities this offers for both the demagogic and the public-spirited propagandist.
One early observer was Jeremy Bentham. His Theory of Fictions, written near the end of the eighteenth century and a forerunner of the modern study of general semantics, emphasized the extent to which a careful choice of symbols can contribute to the respect and awe with which otherwise worthless individuals and institutions can be invested. The immense growth of nonrational forms of nationalism and of plebiscitary despotism throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was to reconfirm his view. [SeeBentham.]
Many subsequent writers, including Georges Sorel (1908), Vilfredo Pareto (1916), Lenin (1929; and other works), Karl Mannheim (1929–1931), and Harold D. Lasswell (1930; 1935; and other works) have explicitly or implicitly taken the position that men in the mass, and even men on high educational and social levels, often react more favorably to “utopian myths,” “Aesopian language,” and “nonrational residues” of earlier experiences than to sober analytic statements. Pavlov’s experiments with conditioned reflexes, and the Freudian and Neo-Freudian explorations of the unconscious mind, have tended to give strong support to this view.
Both democratic and authoritarian regimes of recent decades have reacted with varying mixtures of warmhearted acceptance and coldhearted cynicism to such modern elaborations of ancient insights. Military inventions and the spread of particularist nationalism and of attempts at democracy have caused recent wars, social revolutions, and counterrevolutions to reach proportions that called for mobilization of entire national populations. Hence, in World War I, and even more in World War II, each of the major contending governments made massive outlays for propaganda, both domestic and foreign, and much magic was attributed to various “propaganda techniques.” Since then, almost every large state has had its ministry of propaganda (or ministry of culture, enlightenment, or international information) or some functional equivalent—at least in wartime or when danger was acutely felt. Likewise it has had its official mechanisms for censorship, “information control,” or news management. The use of such agencies became prominent after World War ii and during the subsequent cold war.
Concurrently, nearly every significant political party, major pressure group, or mass movement has developed its own corps of specialized propagandists (some of them referred to as “lobbyists” or “legislative representatives”). Many are employed full time and have relatively high levels of skill, training, or both. Many such propaganda agencies possess or hire elaborate “research and intelligence” facilities to conduct (overtly and covertly) observations, opinion polls, and information polls among various strata of the elites, the middle classes, and the rank and file. Many kinds of data are tabulated concerning those contents of the press, films, television, and other media that reach the respective strata. “Symbol campaigns” and “image building” are conducted in mathematically calculated ways. The ancient art of rhetoric, practiced by a few skilled leaders, has become the modern quasi science of opinion management, employing armies of governmental, party, and pressure-group employees, including a wide range of real and purported psychoanalytic, psychological, and social scientists.
The means of controlling these opinion manipulators and “hidden persuaders” are sought with increasing concern by consumers who are aware of having been duped, and especially by politically conscious persons who fear the spread of regimes in whose operations deceptive propaganda may be combined with tight censorship to produce a nearly unbreakable control.
Trends in theory
Trends in the theory of persuasion, including the theory of propaganda, have conformed somewhat to various functions required by the social systems of given times and places, as perceived by the intellectuals concerned.
Thus, the rules of rhetoric were devised when Greek urbanism had evolved enough to support a considerable number of rival schools of politics, logic, and philosophy, which sought to settle conflicts by persuasion as well as by violence and commercial deals. Greek thinkers explored many facets of the relations of rhetoric to various forms and functionings of the city-state. In so doing, they defined certain rules of far more general applicability for distinguishing between the discourses—including propaganda—of logical, socially integrative communicators and those of the demagogues of a less respectable stripe.
Yet communication theory among the Greeks appears to have remained essentially particularistic, since it focused on the transactions within the social system of the individual city-state. Even after Aristotle collected and compared a great many citystate constitutions—indeed, even after the Roman conquest–the Greek imagination did not reach out far enough to evolve a coherent, empirical theory of intersystem (i.e., intercity-state, or supracitystate, or intercultural, imperial, international, or worldwide) social relations. Hence, it did not develop a corresponding cross-cultural theory of value conflicts or of the possible resolution of such conflicts through propaganda or other types of communication.
Even the later Greco-Roman Stoics, who did envisage a universalistic, polycentric system of justice and order under a tolerant system of pluralistic law, did not appear to visualize, much less to formulate explicitly, the intersystem communication processes that would be required to institute such a social order and keep it functioning. They dwelt on a highly abstract plane, among broad moral concepts such as justice, harmony, and “the good life.” They did not often descend from man in the abstract to men in specific social systems; hence they did not codify the full range of individual, cultural, and social differences among men that must be considered in order to form any lasting social system above the level of the city-state.
Imperial Rome, Byzantium, and early Islam, of course, were hardly hospitable to flights of naturalistic data-collecting or comparative social and psychological theorizing; nor were the Holy Roman emperors, the Christian churches, or the monarchs and barons and caliphs and sultans who dominated the assorted social systems of western Europe and the Middle East between the fall of Rome and the industrial revolution. Machiavelli, it will be recalled, circulated The Prince in secrecy, like many empirical investigators before and since.
For comparable reasons, and perhaps for other reasons as well, the growth of behavioral science was inhibited in the other major civilizations–China and India–during the same two-thousand-year period. It remained for the scientifically oriented investigators enjoying the degree of freedom of inquiry tolerated in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries to discover much more than the ancient Greeks had learned about details of the psychology and the sociopolitical applications of propaganda.
Present-day theory considers propaganda a special case of the theory of communication in general, which in turn has increasingly been treated as a subdivision of the general theory of social systems. The latter aims to study the full range of possible behaviors of all real and possible social actors, ranging from the individual acting exclusively on his own behalf, through the “dyad” (pair of people) and the small group (several people), to such large collective actors as interest groups (e.g., industrial or farmers’ unions or business associations) and territorial groups (towns, provinces, nations, international regions, and the world as a whole).
Contemporary analysts of communication (and therefore of propaganda) are aware that the world as a whole has become, to a considerable extent, a single, relatively manipulable social system of which all the surviving previous social systems are now subsystems. Most parts of the globe are now inhabited, highly interdependent economically and militarily, and so richly provided with newsgathering, telecommunications, and travel facilities that symbols of events occurring at any point on earth can be transmitted instantly and in detail to any other point.
On the other hand, contemporary social science also recognizes that the world system is not yet a community, if by “community” we mean a set of persons widely accepting a common culture (i.e., habitually receiving a common set of “information bits” and experiencing a common pattern of cognition and values). Hence, modern theory views the current state of the world social system as highly polycentric: the cultural patterns, and hence the economic patterns and political patterns, of its component subsystems are at once highly interdependent and highly diverse and often appear more or less incompatible. Yet the set of subsystems as a whole shows powerful though slow-moving tendencies to evolve, convulsively, toward global community, mainly through increases in population density and through partly planned and partly accidental diffusion of common sets of information bits.
Factors in propaganda
Confronted by the highly unstable global context in which he must operate, the sophisticated propaganda analyst employing present-day behavioral theory tends to formulate his problem as including at least 11 sets of factors. He asks:
(1) To what ends (i.e., to bring about what distributions of values), in (2) the present and expected states of the world social system and of (3) each of its subsystems (nations, lesser territorial groups, interest groups, etc.) with which the propagandist is concerned should (4) the propagandist or some agent of his distribute (5) what symbols through (6) what channels (media, such as press, radio, film, face-to-face contact, mass demonstrations, religious or cultural organizations, etc.) (7) to whom (e.g., elites, opinion leaders, middle classes, masses, customers, friends, opponents, neutrals), and (8) how can the effects of the propaganda be measured (i.e., how can one measure the value reallocations attributable to the propaganda as distinct from other causes)? In the present state of social science, this intricate question can of course be answered with only a moderate degree of confidence.
Once the propaganda campaign has begun, the propagandist, and also his opponents or counter-propagandists, will encounter at least three additional sets of factors: With respect to (9) what alternative value allocations and (10) by what means (e.g., counterpropaganda, censorship, coercion, or economic pressure) can the propaganda be neutralized or controlled, and (11) how can effects of such countermeasures be measured? These 11 sets of factors will now be discussed.
Ends (values)
When the problem is simply to acquire money for oneself or one’s group(s) by inducing others to buy a safe and useful commodity, the stating of ends is easy. When the commodity is of doubtful value or positively injurious (e.g., a dangerous drug or a weapon), the problem grows complicated. Where the problem is to convert multitudes to a new religion or a new social system, it may be extremely hard to specify just what redistributions are desired among large numbers of different sorts of persons, with respect to a large cluster of values such as prestige, income, “ease of soul,” military security, etc. Yet the propagandist can hardly proceed rationally unless he can tell at least himself what reallocations of these and many other values he is trying to bring about and what applecarts he is therefore willing to upset.
Changes in the world social system
Each act of propaganda—whether of commission or omission–is very likely to have effects of some sort in at least several parts of the global system. Furthermore, that system itself is inexorably evolving because of such factors as population growth, the invention and diffusion of new cultural sets and technologies, and the consequent emergence of new centers of cultural, military, and economic power. Social evolution, nowadays often very rapid, may decrease the feasibility of many sorts of propaganda–especially of the more simplistic, parochial, and particularistic varieties–and increase the feasibility of the more sophisticated, scientifically formulated, and universalistic. In general, the currents of social change, over the past four thousand years or so, appear to have been drifting, in step with the rising world population and rising educational levels, from smaller to larger social units. Concomitantly, the currents of cultural change apparently have been drifting from less rationality and scientism toward more, and from primary territorial-group loyalty and interest-group loyalty toward primary loyalty to world social unity. Is the propagandist, for the sake of his short-run or long-run ends, to swim with or against these mainstreams of history? If against, at what cost? If far ahead of his time, again at what cost?
Subsystems of the world system
In the past, there were many times and places when the propagandist could effectively ignore world-system requirements and employ such particularist symbols as “My country (or my family, tribe, race, religion, or business), right or wrong.” In the present and future states of the world system, this self-centered type of propaganda may be suicidal. Yet strident particularisms persist. The prudent propagandist has therefore to decide what mix or reconciliation of world-system and subsystem symbolism will best serve his purposes in particular places at given points in time. With the spread of high-capability weapons, the eventual choice, even in the relatively near future, may be between universalist coexistence and particularist nonexistence.
The choice may be easy to state in theory, but it is hard to make in practice, in view of the wide variety of particularist subsystems in the world and their frequent incompatibility both with one another and with the requirements of a world system.
Present-day social science, still much entangled in nationalistic and other small-scale preoccupations, is unclear as to details of the value consequences of promoting, in the present and proximate states of the world social system, adherence to any given set of positions; yet in every utterance the practicing propagandist is explicitly or implicitly making such value choices.
Use of agents
The use of innocent-looking agents or “front” organizations while the propagandist himself remains behind the scenes can maximize his prospects in two principal ways: (1) The agent(s) may seem to the audience to be much more credible or acceptable than the propagandist himself or the group(s) for which the latter speaks. Especially in areas where the propagandist is not very familiar with the language and customs, or where cultural, racial, religious, or nationalist attitudes would deny him a favorable hearing, the use of agents is inescapable. Some four-fifths of the employees of the United States Information Agency abroad, for example, are non-Americans; and Soviet propaganda abroad relies heavily on local communists as well as on personnel of the Soviet missions. (2) If a given propaganda stratagem fails in a pretest (a “trial balloon”) or in execution, the agent can, if necessary, be dismissed or even deliberately “scapegoated” while the principal behind the scenes attempts a new approach.
Since modern propaganda in its sophisticated forms requires so high a level of rationality and of familiarity with public affairs and behavioral sciences, the planning of major campaigns probably can best be entrusted to qualified intellectuals whose backgrounds include both knowledge of social science and “hard-nosed” experience with public affairs. However, such personalities may be viewed askance by many reactors. Hence it is important to select “front men” and “contact agents” with whom the intended audience is likely to feel rapport.
Choice of symbols
The propagandist aware of the findings of the behavioral sciences no longer has as much confidence as his counterparts from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century had in the ability of rational arguments or even of catchy slogans to influence human behavior. The evolution of psychoanalysis, clinical psychology, and experimental research on communication has made it clear that reactors’ responses are affected not only by the immediate input of symbols but also (and often more powerfully) by three other sets of forces: (1) the stored residues of, and associations to, previous inputs of related symbols, which often give the reactor a predisposition and capacity to ignore or to rationalize away the current inflow of symbols; (2) the economic inducements (gifts, bribery, commercial deals, etc.) or threats (job loss, boycotts, etc.) and the physical inducements (caresses, violence, protection from violence, or threats of violence) which the propagandist can apply in conjunction with his symbols; and (3) the coercive structures and processes in the surrounding social systems, which may either facilitate or inhibit the expression of whatever new thoughts or other behavioral impulses the current input of symbols may activate.
The sophisticated propagandist, therefore, attempts to take relevant economic and physical action in conjunction with the propagandizing at each stage of his campaign. He also tries to select his symbols in the light of the findings of all the behavioral sciences, from psychoanalytic studies of the stored-up and unconscious reactions of particular sorts of individuals and groups through the psychology, sociology, economics, and politics of international relations and of the emerging world social system. There is substantial agreement today in psychology on what Lasswell has termed the “triple-appeal principle.” This principle holds that sets of symbols are likely to be most persuasive if they appeal simultaneously to three components of the individual reactor’s personality. That is, the propagandist tries to offset the resistances due to previous information inputs by presenting the thoughts and acts he desires to induce as if they were: (1) rational, advisable, and expedient (psychoanalytically, this is an appeal to the ego); (2) pleasurable (an appeal to the id); and (3) moral (an appeal to the superego). Within any collectivity, the “mix” of these components varies from individual to individual; and in large collectivities it varies from subculture to subculture and from stratum to stratum. The propagandist tries to adjust his appeals accordingly.
Research from the clinic also suggests the relative effectiveness of choosing vocabularies and symbols and of casting the propagandist (or his agents) in roles, analogous to those associated with parents or parent substitutes (foster parents, uncles, aunts, schoolteachers, priests, witch doctors, political heroes, gods, goddesses, etc.), under whose influence the reactors have undergone many of their most formative, emotion-laden, and strongly sanctioned experiences. It is easy to sense the appeal of such familistic symbolisms as “the fatherland,” “the mother country,” “the Mother Church,” “the Holy Father” “Mother Russia,” “Uncle Sam,” or “Uncle Ho Chi Minh.” The propagandist who can seize the emotional initiative and maintain a virtually parental or divine ascendancy (charisma) can arouse both the animosities and the consciences of his followers and of neutrals by “satanizing” the aims and associates of his opponents while idealizing or deifying his own objectives and allies.
Reactors growing up in different social groupings, or in the same groupings at different times, are bound to have at least somewhat differently structured egos and superegos. Hence, the contribution that psychoanalysis and psychology in their generalized forms can make to the propagandist is not sufficient by itself. Furthermore, even those reactors who already have the attitudes the propagandist desires them to have may be prevented from acting upon these by counterpressures from the particular social groupings or social systems affecting them. It would be difficult, for instance, to act openly upon communist leanings in a totalitarian fascist country, or vice versa. Hence, the propagandist must adapt his symbolism not only to the reactors’ conscious and unconscious impulses but also to the lines of action that are open to them.
Propaganda is likely to be most effective if its contents include encouraging references (direct or implied) to all those actions that are feasible for the reactor and that the propagandist wishes him to perform, and if the contents include deterrent references to acts the propagandist wishes the reactor to inhibit (or, in some cases, no references to the latter, lest “ideas be put into the reactor’s head”). The structuring of propaganda contents around such action concepts increases the probability that the propagandist will be realistic in his demands upon the reactor and that the reactor will not be left with the feeling, “I agree with this message, but just what am I supposed to do about it?” Where military or political secrecy or surprise is important to the propagandist, he will be inclined to state his action demands obliquely or deceptively : in some cases opponents can use systematic analysis of the content of propaganda to infer the propagandist’s secret or unconscious intentions and probable future actions. [SeeContent analysis.]
Much more could be said about the selection of symbols. One especially intriguing question for our epoch should be raised: Can behavioral research discover, and will influential propagandists be willing to employ, universalistic symbolisms that can reduce interpersonal and intercollectivity destructiveness to levels that might make possible a viable world social order?
Channels of propaganda
A comprehensive list of media that a propagandist might use would be many pages long. It would include newspapers, magazines, radio, television, film, handbills, posters, billboards, speechmaking, whispering and rumormongering campaigns, flags, street names, monuments, commemorative coins and postage stamps, Rhodes, Fulbright, and Soviet Friendship scholarships, awards and prizes, the composition of novels, plays, comic strips, poetry, and music “with a message,” and all human groupings from the dyad and the family through advertising and public relations firms, churches and temples, pressure groups, parties, and “front organizations” to the propaganda organizations (overt and covert) of nations, international coalitions, and universal international organizations.
Since World War ii there has been a strong drift, in the practice of propaganda, away from attempts to “saturate” mass audiences with large quantities of simplified slogans. The new trend is toward the far more discriminating choice of those media to whose messages the intended reactors are thought to be especially receptive. This focus upon “placing the shots” instead of indiscriminately bombarding the reactors is due in part to findings of behavioral research.
Numerous controlled observations and experiments on the “media habits” and “source preferences” of given reactors have established two views: (1) most persons tend to resist messages that reach them through media they do not especially trust and enjoy; (2) the most effective media, as a rule, for messages other than the simplest of commercial propaganda are not the impersonal mass media but rather those “reference groups” with which the individual feels strongly identified and in which he feels that he is at home and is surrounded with a certain degree of intimate emotional response and personal protection. First and foremost of these is, of course, the family. But many other organizations may perform quasifamilial functions—for instance, the small club of cronies, the church, the trade union, the businessmen’s luncheon club, the clique or gang, the communist cell. If the propagandist can influence the leadership of such a reference group, he may establish a “social relay point” that can vastly amplify the meaningfulness and acceptability of his message—far more effectively than a huge number of broadcasts, leaflets, or billboards, and at much lower cost. Hence, a great deal of research has been devoted in recent years to the identification of such reference groups. One important stratagem is the programming of mass media contents (e.g., newspapers or broadcasts) in such ways that instead of using scattergun techniques on undifferentiated mass audiences they carry material that is considered likely to interest specified reference groups (and especially the elites and “opinion leaders” among these) and to be relayed by them, in their own ways and on their own initiative, to other sets of reactors.
Audiences
Since propaganda deals by definition with controversial matters, its ultimate audiences, whether reached by direct or indirect media, can be ranged into three groups: (1) those who are initially predisposed to react as the propagandist wishes, (2) those who are neutral or indifferent, and (3) those who are antagonistic. It is advisable in many cases to include symbolism and to select media appropriate to many positions along this continuum.
Recent research tends to indicate that the most dependable result of propaganda is likely to be an increase in the resolve or the efforts of those who are already the propagandist’s friends. No matter how great the volume or symbolic intensity of propaganda, neutrals and opponents are likely to be little affected unless the propaganda is reinforced by relevant nonpropaganda transactions or other events. For example, propaganda that aims to induce loyalty to a given regime among a landlordridden population that is experiencing the modern “revolution of expectations” may have to be reinforced by delivering as well as promising land and tax reform and bona fide physical protection.
Measurement of propaganda effects
The problem of measurement is almost as broad as the field of behavioral research methodology. The modern world is seething with rival propaganda campaigns and counterpropaganda and with countless other symbolic transactions. The problem of disentangling the effects of one’s own propaganda from the effects of the other transactions is often insoluble. Yet it is occasionally possible to conduct research whose results can be viewed with moderate confidence.
Content analysis. Reasonably dependable quantitative evidence as to the contents of propaganda can be obtained by the method known as “content analysis.” The numbers of column inches of printed space or seconds of radio or television time that propaganda occupied can be tabulated. The symbols and themes it contained can be categorized, as already indicated, in terms of expressed or implied demands for actions of various types and in a number of other psychologically or socially significant ways. [SeeContent analysis.]
Intensive interviews. Fairly objective evidence as to the intensity and semantic significance of propaganda (i.e., the cognitive and affective associations it evokes in given reactors) can be gathered by extended intensive interviews (of a psychoanalytic or psychiatric type) with small, carefully drawn samples of the intended audience. If this audience is in a place where freedom of such inquiry is restricted (i.e., most of the world), the next best method is to interview any presumably informed persons who can be reached–e.g., refugees, expellees, or scholars concerned with the area. [SeeInterviewing.]
Extensive observations. Sometimes participant observers can be sent to the relevant places. Voting statistics, press reports, or the speeches and other actions of affected leaders can also give clues. Evidence on the size and composition of the intermediate (including “relay point”) audiences and the ultimate audiences can be obtained from extensive sample surveys, press reports, and leaders’ reactions. Where printed or telecommunications media are used, their readership or listenership figures can perhaps be obtained. If public meetings or demonstrations are involved, there may be observers’ reports. [SeeObservation.]
Experiments and panel interviews. Evidence that ensuing behavior of the audience—for instance, its vote for candidate X or its buying of product Y—is due in whole or in part to the propaganda and not to something else remains far from, conclusive, however, except in the rare situations where something like an experiment is possible. In some cases, matched groups can be compared—one of them exposed to the propaganda and the other not, or one of them exposed to version A of the propaganda and another to version B, and so on. In some cases, the propaganda reaching one group can be abruptly stopped or intensified and some of the presumably consequent reactions may be observed. However, there is always the possibility that it was not one’s own propaganda that brought about the changes, but someone else’s, or that the changes were caused by some unknown third factor or set of factors. There is also the problem of “sleeper effects”—long-delayed reactions that may not become visible until the propaganda has worked its way through or around resistances that it may encounter deep down in the reactor’s unconscious or until obstacles to expression of reactions (e.g., political policemen or suspected informers) have left the reactor’s environment. And there is the possibility that the propaganda may have “boomerang effects”—effects the opposite of those intended—or combinations of boomerang and desired effects. Research design that does not allow for all these possibilities is of doubtful evidential value. [SeeExperimental design, article onquasiexperimental design.]
In view of the extreme difficulty of tracing effects of propaganda upon reactors in their native habitats, a great deal of effort has been spent in recent years on strictly controlled experiments and repeated semi-intensive interviews (“panel interviews”) with small matched groups, with a view to establishing general principles of propaganda and persuasion. Among the many factors examined have been the relative credibility and acceptability, to given audiences, of different sources of information, advice, and opinion; the uses of different propaganda contents aimed at the same results; and the effects of different ways of arranging and presenting the same contents. However, reliance on such findings is notably limited by the fact that the behavior of reactors available for such testing may or may not be representative of the behavior of those actual audiences in whom the propagandist is interested. It seems probable that effects of propaganda among actual reactors can in most cases only be estimated, not “measured” scientifically, and that the most valid estimates are likely to be made by persons combining considerable training in the methods of social science with considerable direct experience among the reactors under analysis. [SeePanel studies.]
Opposition and social control
Once propaganda produces any effects it tends to evoke opposition. Opponents may try to offset it directly or to invoke community sanctions to bring it under control. Therefore, the propagandist has to estimate his opponents’ values and the steps opponents most probably will take. In different sorts of polities along the continuum from the democratic to the authoritarian, a variety of social controls over propaganda may be found.
By definition, a healthily functioning democracy is a polity in which opposition to propaganda is habitually expressed primarily through peaceful counterpropaganda. It is assumed that a variety of propagandists will compete vigorously in “the marketplace of ideas,” and it is hoped that the ideas best for the society will find the most takers in the long run. Prerequisites for such an outcome presumably include high levels of education, self-control, and civic spirit among the participants, and large amounts of freely available information, disinterestedly gathered and disseminated by relatively autonomous, uncensored newsgathering agencies.
In self-protection against secret or “unfair” propaganda by “hidden persuaders,” modern democracies sometimes require registration or even licensing of some sorts of propagandists by public authorities, and “plain labeling” of propaganda output. In the United States, for instance, periodicals using the second-class mails are required to publish frequent statements of their ownership, circulation, and other data. Likewise, all propaganda agents of foreign principals must file registration forms with the U.S. Department of Justice, where the interested public may inspect the data submitted about the agents’ and principals’ identities, activities, and finances. Such agents are also required to place on each piece of printed matter they circulate a label identifying the principal. This principle of “disclosure,” which appears so useful with respect to foreign agents, is not applied, however, to all domestic propagandists, although similar principles are applied to the registration of securities prospectuses and of certain types of political campaign advertisements and contributions. Many nations require similar “plain labeling” of securities prospectuses and paid political advertising, whether foreign or domestic in origin. In many countries, claims made in propaganda (including advertising) about the contents or characteristics of foods and drugs are also subject to registration and labeling.
Other efforts made in democracies to provide public control over propaganda include laws concerning libel and slander; laws giving political candidates and legislators exceptional privileges and immunities in the field of free speech; and laws or customs requiring equal space or time in public media for all major contenders in political campaigns. In some cases there may be a legally guaranteed “right of reply,” sometimes at the propagandist’s expense, for any group or individual held to be seriously injured or exposed to injury by his propaganda.
Obviously, however, opponents’ reactions to propaganda need not be limited to disclosure or counterpropaganda. All manner of economic or physical inducements or punishments may be tried, even in democracies; and this is much more the case in relatively authoritarian polities. In the extreme case, the authoritarian regime aims to monopolize for itself all opportunities to engage in propaganda and will stop at nothing to prevent any kind of counterpropaganda. How long and thoroughly such a policy can be implemented depends, among other things, on the amount of force the regime can muster, the thoroughness of its internal intelligence and policing activities, and, perhaps most important of all, the level and distribution of secular higher education in the social system of which the regime is the polity.
The effects of steps taken to neutralize or suppress propaganda can, of course, be measured by the same methods as the effects of the propaganda, and such measurement is subject to the same caveats.
Bruce L. Smith
[See alsoAttitudes, article onattitude change; Brainwashing; Communication, political; Psychological warfare. Directly related are the entriesAdvertising; Communication, mass; Content analysis; Persuasion; Public opinion. Other relevant material may be found inPolitical participation; Socialization; and in the biographies ofHovland; Stouffer.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Bureau of Social Science Research, Washington, D.C. 1956 International Communication and Political Opinion: A Guide to the Literature, by Bruce L. Smith and Chitra M. Smith. Princeton Univ. Press.
Lasswell, Harold D.; Smith, Bruce L.; and Casey, Ralph D. 1935 Propaganda and Promotional Activities: An Annotated Bibliography. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Smith, Bruce L.; Lasswell, Harold D.; and Casey, Ralph D. 1946 Propaganda, Communication and Public Opinion: A Comprehensive Reference Guide. Princeton Univ. Press.
GENERAL WORKS
Bauer, Wilhelm 1929 Die öffentliche Meinung in der Weltgeschichte. Potsdam (Germany): Athenaion.
Deutsch, Karl W. 1963 The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control. New York: Free Press.
Doob, Leonard W. 1948 Public Opinion and Propaganda. New York: Holt.
Driencourt, Jacques 1950 La propagande: Nouvelle force politique. Paris: Colin.
Ellul, Jacques (1962) 1965 Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. New York: Knopf. ? First published in French.
Festinger, Leon 1957 A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Evanston, III.: Row, Peterson.
Freud, Sigmund (1921) 1955 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Volume 18, pages 67–143 in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth. ? First published in German.
Fromm, Erich (1941) 1960 Escape From Freedom. New York: Holt.
George, Alexander L. 1959 Propaganda Analysis: A Study of Inferences Made From Nazi Propaganda in World War II. Evanston, III.: Row, Peterson.
Hovland, Carl I.; Janis, Irving L.; and Kelley, Harold H. 1953 Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
Klapper, Joseph T. 1960 The Effects of Mass Communication. Glencoe, III.: Free Press.
Lasswell, Harold D. (1927) 1938 Propaganda Technique in the World War. New York: Smith.
Lasswell, Harold D. (1930) 1960 Psychopathology and Politics. New ed., with afterthoughts by the author. New York: Viking.
Lasswell, Harold D. 1935 World Politics and Personal Insecurity. New York and London: McGraw-Hill. ? A paperback edition was published in 1965 by the Free Press.
Lasswell, Harold D.; and Blumenstock, Dorothy 1939 World Revolutionary Propaganda: A Chicago Study. New York: Knopf.
Lasswell, Harold D.; and Leites, Nathan 1949 Language of Politics: Studies in Quantitative Semantics. New York: Stewart.
Lasswell, Harold D.; Lerner, Daniel; and Pool, Ithiel De Sola 1952 The Comparative Study of Symbols. Stanford Univ. Press.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F.; Berelson, Bernard; and Gaudet, Hazel (1944) 1960 The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. 2d ed. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
Lenin, Vladimir I. Agitation und Propaganda. Berlin: Verlag für Literatur und Politik, 1929. ? A selection from Lenin’s writings first published in Russian.
Lippmann, Walter (1922) 1944 Public Opinion. New York: Macmillan. ? A paperback edition was published in 1965 by the Free Press.
Mannheim, Karl (1929–1931) 1954 Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Harcourt; London: Routledge. ? First published in German. A paperback edition was published in 1955 by Harcourt.
Muste, Abraham J. 1940 Non-violence in an Aggressive World. New York: Harper.
Pareto, Vilfredo (1916) 1963 The Mind and Society: A Treatise on General Sociology. 4 vols. New York: Dover. ? First published as Trattato di sociologia generale. Volume 1: Non-logical Conduct. Volume 2: Theory of Residues. Volume 3: Theory of Derivations. Volume 4: The General Form of Society.
Personality and Persuasibility, by Irving L. Janis et al. Yale Studies in Attitude and Communication, Vol. 2. 1959 New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
Ranulf, Svend (1938) 1964 Moral Indignation and Middle Class Psychology: A Sociological Study. New York: Schocken.
Siepmann, Charles (1950) 1956 Radio, Television and Society. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Sorel, Georges (1908) 1950 Reflections on Violence. Translated by T. E. Hulme and J. Roth, with an introduction by Edward Shils. Glencoe, III.: Free Press. ? First published in French as Réflexions sur la violence. A paperback edition was published in 1961 by Collier.
Speier, Hans (1929–1951) 1952 Social Order and the Risks of War: Papers in Political Sociology. New York: Stewart.
Tönnies, Ferdinand 1922 Kritik der öffentlichen Meinung. Berlin: Springer.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (1950) 1964 World Communications: Press, Radio, Television, Film. 4th ed. New York: UNESCO.
PROPAGANDA OF DIFFERENT NATIONS
Almond, Gabriel A. 1954 The Appeals of Communism. Princeton Univ. Press.
American Assembly 1963 Cultural Affairs and Foreign Relations. Edited by Robert Blum. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Barghoorn, Frederick C. 1960 The Soviet Cultural Offensive: The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Soviet Foreign Policy. Princeton Univ. Press.
Barghoorn, Frederick C. 1964 Soviet Foreign Propaganda. Princeton Univ. Press.
Barrett, Edward W. 1953 Truth Is Our Weapon. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
Carroll, Wallace 1948 Persuade or Perish. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Conference on Communication and Political Development, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., 1961 1963 Communications and Political Development. Edited by Lucian W. Pye. Princeton Univ. Press.
Dizard, Wilson P. 1961 The Strategy of Truth: The Story of the Usis. Washington: Public Affairs Press.
Great Britain, Independent Committee of Enquiry into the Overseas Information Services 1954 Summary of the Report. Cmnd. 9138. London: H.M. Stationery Office.
Hammond, Thomas T. (editor) 1965 Soviet Foreign Relations and World Communism. Princeton Univ. Press. ? Contains an annotated bibliography of 7,000 books in 30 languages.
Holt, Robert T. 1958 Radio Free Europe. Minneapolis: Univ of Minnesota Press.
Holt, Robert T.; and Van De Velde, Robert W. 1960 Strategic Psychological Operations and American Foreign Policy. Univ. of Chicago Press.
Houn, Franklin W. 1961 To Change a Nation: Propaganda and Indoctrination in Communist China. New York: Free Press.
Inkeles, Alex (1950) 1958 Public Opinion in Soviet Russia: A Study in Mass Persuasion. 3d printing, enl. Russian Research Center Studies, No. 1. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
Kirkpatrick, Evron M. (editor) 1956 Target: The World; Communist Propaganda Activities in 1955. New York: Macmillan.
Kirkpatrick, Evron M. (editor) 1957 Year of Crisis: Communist Propaganda Activities in 1956. New York: Macmillan.
Koop, Theodore T. 1946 The Weapon of Silence. Univ. of Chicago Press.
Lerner, Daniel 1949 Sykewar: Psychological Warfare Against Germany, D-D ay to Ve-Day. New York: Stewart.
Linebarger, Paul M. (1948) 1954 Psychological Warfare. 2d ed. Washington: Combat Forces Press.
Mendelssohn, Peter 1944 Japan’s Political Warfare. London: Allen & Unwin.
Schramm, Wilbur L. 1964 Mass Media and National Development: The Role of Information in the Developing Countries. Stanford Univ. Press.
Scott, John 1955 Political Warfare: A Guide to Competitive Coexistence. New York: Day.
Selznick, Philip (1952) 1960 The Organizational Weapon: A Study of Bolshevik Strategy and Tactics. Glencoe, III.: Free Press.
Stephens, Oren 1955 Facts to a Candid World: America’s Overseas Information Program. Stanford Univ. Press.
Thomson, Charles A. 1948 Overseas Information Service of the United States Government. Washington: Brookings Institution.
Whitton, John B. (editor) 1963 Propaganda and the Cold War: A Princeton University Symposium. Washington: Public Affairs Press.
Yu, Te-chi 1964 Mass Persuasion in Communist China. New York: Praeger.
LEGALITY, DIPLOMACY, SOCIAL CONTROL
IklÉ, Fred C. 1964 How Nations Negotiate. New York: Harper
Las Swell, Harold D. 1941 Democracy Through Public Opinion. Menasha, Wis.: Banta.
Martin, Leslie J. 1958 International Propaganda: Its Legal and Diplomatic Control Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Nicolson, Harold (1939) 1964 Diplomacy. 3d ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Whitton, John B.; and Larson, Arthur 1964 Propaganda Towards Disarmament in the War of Words. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana.
RECENT RESEARCH AND THEORY
Berelson, Bernard; and Janowitz, Morris (editors) (1950) 1966 Reader in Public Opinion and Communication. 2d ed. New York: Free Press.
Daugherty, William E.; and Janowitz, Morris (compilers) 1958 A Psychological Warfare Casebook. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Dexter, Lewis A.; and White, David M. (editors) 1964 People, Society and Mass Communications. New York: Free Press.
Lerner, Daniel (editor) 1951 Propaganda in War and Crisis: Materials for American Policy. New York: Stewart.
Schramm, Wilbur L. (editor) 1954 The Process and Effects of Mass Communication. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.
Society For The Psychological Study of Social Issues (1954) 1960 Public Opinion and Propaganda: A Book of Readings. Edited by Daniel Katz et al. New York: Holt.