What is Propaganda?

"Whether the issue is health, consumer safety, environmental preservation or democracy and world peace, citizens today find themselves confronted by a bewildering array of paid propagandists paid to convince the public that junk food is nutritious, pollution is harmless, and that what's good for big business and big government is good for the rest of us.

"Unlike advertising, public relations is often hard to recognize. "The best PR is invisible," say industry insiders. To spin the news in favor of their clients, PR firms specialize in setting up phony citizens' groups and scientific "experts" who spin out contrived research using junk science." (from PRwatch at http://www.prwatch.org/#about).

A good explanation of how propaganda and PR work is to be found in the works of Noam Chomsky. An excerpt from his book on Media Control should be read.

The other side of propaganda if CENSORSHIP. Propaganda is positive; it gives you a story to believe. Censorship is negative; it keeps from you a story better left untold in the opinion of the censor. Take a look at the page on CENSORSHIP.

Relevant Links:

Disinformation: Propaganda
Propaganda and Politics


by Colby Glass, MLIS.

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