propaganda

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is a mass phenomenon... it must circulate in public, reaching and drawing together large numbers of individuals who are largely unknown to one another.

Propaganda is a mass phenomenon... it must circulate in public, reaching and drawing together large numbers of individuals who are largely unknown to one another. Personal exchanges among intimates often are constituted by a variety of rhetorical appeals, but this sort of persuasive communication is on an insufficient scale to be usefully examined as propaganda. And yet not everything that is disseminated widely in public lends itself to analysis as a piece of propaganda. Weather forecasts, for example, can reach thousands of people at once through radio, press, and Internet, but unlike other sorts of news, these forecasts usually carry only negligible persuasive force. Of course a weather forecast, or more likely a succession of forecasts, could be enlisted for propaganda purposes, as in debates concerning climate change.

is a matter of telling deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them.

The process of mass-media deception has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. . . To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies all this is indispensably necessary. George Orwell

is a soft weapon which if held in one's hands too long, will move about like a snake, and strike the other way.

Propaganda is a soft weapon... hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way. Jean Anouilh

is all lies, even when one is telling the truth.

All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth. George Orwell

is an integral feature of democratic societies and is dependent on the printing press, which increased the range and speed of information so that now an entire people could become the target of persuasion.

Propaganda is an integral feature of democratic societies. 'Invent the printing press and democracy is inevitable,' commented Thomas Carlyle. Hardly a ringing endorsement of popular government, Carlyle's statement rather concerns how the invention of moveable type increased the range and speed of information so that now an entire people could become the target of persuasion.

is defined less by the content than the network of information flow.

Analyzing propaganda requires paying as much attention to networks of information flow (how) as the content (what).. . . Paine's anonymously published pamphlet was compatible with the established idioms of religion, commerce, and science so that it was quickly sent flowing across large swaths of the population.

is less important in a consumer society where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion.

Propaganda in the ordinary sense of the term plays a less important part in a consumer society, where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion.

is more often concerned with self-justification than with convincing others.

Propaganda . . . serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others... and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda. Eric Hoffer

propaganda, n.Memes

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