this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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Edward Bernays wrote the book on it, as well as Walter Lippman[1]. And subsequently so have Michael Parenti[1][2] and Noam Chomsky[1].
From the first one
Sounds like it's referring to any marketing or public communications from any company government or individual. I'd qualify that as overly broad.
In some languages “advertising” and “propaganda” are the same word, and not for nothing. Bernays worked in both advertising and politics. It’s the same set of tools whether its to sell cigarettes or war.
Would all rhetoric (persuading people) be propaganda? I think that makes the word useless.
Rhetorical exchange between two people is one thing, mass persuasion is quite another, though they are not entirely unrelated.
So would any speech to a bunch of people be propaganda? What makes something propaganda?
it's not useless if it describes something.
It's describing all communication, good and bad. This conversation we're having right now would be propaganda.
You're trying to influence someone's understanding of the term propganda, which makes it propganda.
And you're communicating, which makes your comment propaganda. Or is it only propaganda when it's to political ends?
turns out, everything is political, so, yes, it's all propaganda.
So I think that definition is useless, since there's nothing that isn't propaganda.
have you read Foucault?
You want to summarize?
no.
Than why'd you bring it up?
I wanted to see if it was worth continuing this conversation
You thought I'd have read it?
I thought if you had read it this might be a worthwhile conversation.
And yet you continue
this hasn't been a conversation for hours
Should I set up a bot, we can just trade trivialities back and forth forever?
I'd define propaganda as misconstruing the truth towards political ends. If it's commercial ends rather than political, it's false advertising. If it's not misconstruing, then it's advertising or public communications. Just to set a baseline.
I can't find what your sources are defining as propaganda from a brief look, let's compare to my definition.
it doesn't need to be misconstrued. the best propaganda imho is totally true and in context. spreading it with some kind of political goal is still propaganda.
Cool, I wouldn't call that propaganda, but we can work with that.
Do the Captain America movies have an irl political goal? What would it be?
I haven't seen them, but I do know they work with the pentagon, so my guess is they aim to legitimize American hegemony and military spending
I have seen them, and the government is the bad guy, with the overreach of public surveillance being major topic. You'll need to be more specific, but that would probably entail watching them.
I have no interest though. do you have a point?
It doesn't seem to fit with the criteria of being for political ends, so it wouldn't be propaganda.
not having seen it, I obviously can't tell you what is messages are.
So I don't think it should be on this list, and I guess you don't disagree.
I'm confident it is propaganda, but not having seen it, I don't know what politics it is pushing.