Propaganda and Persuasion

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Propaganda and Persuasion

used to communicate an objective to an audience. That objective endeavors to reinforce or modify the attitudes, the behavior, or both of an audience. Many scholars have grappled with a definition of the word propaganda. Jacques Ellul (1965, p. xv) focused on propaganda as technique itself (notably, psychological manipulation) that, in technological societies "has certain identical results," whether it is used by communists or Nazis or Western democratic organizations. He regarded propaganda as sociological phenomena, not as something made or produced by people of intentions. Ellul contended that nearly all biased messages in society were propagandistic even when the biases were unconscious. He also emphasized the potency and pervasiveness of propaganda. Because propaganda is instantaneous, he contended, it destroys one's sense of history and disallows critical reflection. Yet, Ellul believed that people need propaganda because we live in mass society. Propaganda, he said, enables us to participate in important events such as elections, celebrations, and memorials. Ellul said that truth does not separate propaganda from "moral forms" because propaganda uses truth, half-truth, and limited truth. Leonard W. Doob, who defined propaganda in 1948 as "the attempt to affect the personalities and to control the behavior of individuals towards ends considered unscientific or of doubtful value in a society at a particular time" (p. 390), said in a 1989 essay that "a clear-cut definition of propaganda is neither possible nor desirable" (p. 375). Doob rejected a contemporary definition of propaganda because of the complexity of the issues related to behavior in society and differences in times and cultures. Both Ellul and Doob have contributed seminal ideas to the study of pro paganda, but we find Ellul's magnitude and Doob's resistance to definitions troublesome because we believe that to analyze propaganda, one needs to be able to identify it. A definition sets forth propaganda's characteristics and aids our recognition of it. Psychologists Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson (2001) wrote a book about propaganda for the purpose of informing Americans about propaganda devices and psychological dynamics so that people will know "how to counteract their effectiveness" (p. xv). They regarded propaganda as the abuse of persuasion and recognized that propaganda is more than clever deception. In a series of case studies, they illustrated propaganda tactics such as withholding vital information, invoking heuristic devices, using meaningless association, and other strategies of questionable ethics. They defined propaganda as "mass 'suggestion' or influence through the manipulation of symbols and the psychology of the individual" (p. 11), thus emphasizing verbal and nonverbal communication and audience appeals. Other scholars have emphasized the communicative qualities of propa ganda. Leo Bogart (1995), in his study of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), focused on the propagandist as a sender of messages: