See also: Communication | Public opinion | Public relations
Wikipedia: Propaganda (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda)
Propaganda, by its very nature is hard to define. Propaganda is information aiming to persuade with an emotional response, that spreads a particular social cause or aids a certain agenda. It does not have to be true, in fact, much propaganda is false, and aims to deliberatly deceive. Lying and ignoring facts can get one their way in the short term, but often reality catches up with offenders.
Propaganda is often used by politicans, governing authorities and business, to sway public opinion with promotional material. Public relations experts may use propaganda to change the perception of an organisation, community, situation, event, etc. Often propaganda will focus on certain facts, while forgetting others, which are strongly related. Such usage is designed to obscure, damaging the chances of others obtaining accurate knowledge.
Some propadanda is very extreme and dangerous. Big, fat whoppers are the lies that some people are able to to tell to many other people. Some people spread propaganda when they tell lies and spout myth and fallacy to the global forum on a regular basis. One of the differences between a lie and propaganda is that while some may just lie to strangers, family, friends or combination thereof, propaganda is targetted to mass communicate with whole communities spanning many social groupings. When propaganda is spread the reaction it creates may be gauged to gain feedback.
Distribution Examples
- Some literature
- Advertisements
- Ideological talk
- Religious and other zealotry
- Defamation
- Some social engineering exploits
- Politics or economical rhetoric
- Broadcasts and some journalism, mass media particularly television and radio and movies, like Bill O’Reilly (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,94702,00.html) at Faux News.
Related Topics
TakeDown.NET -> “Propaganda”