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→History of the term
Today, propaganda is anything under the above headings employed to advance any religious or political cause, or to damage an opposing cause. But the word ''propaganda'' now has a decidedly negative connotation. Whatever is spread must not merely be in support of one cause or in opposition to another, but must also be ''false, misleading, and/or out of its proper context.'' Or, if what is spread is true, then it is spread in a ''manner unbecoming a truthful witness.'' As such, it includes [[Logical fallacy|logical fallacies]], ''unsubstantiated'' rumors, and other sayings that the teller/spreader knows, or ought to know, are lies. It also includes modes of presentation that, through negligence, recklessness, knowledge, or intent, give offense, especially to the holders of contrary views.
Today, propaganda is anything under the above headings employed to advance any religious or political cause, or to damage an opposing cause. But the word ''propaganda'' now has a decidedly negative connotation. Whatever is spread must not merely be in support of one cause or in opposition to another, but must also be ''false, misleading, and/or out of its proper context.'' Or, if what is spread is true, then it is spread in a ''manner unbecoming a truthful witness.'' As such, it includes [[Logical fallacy|logical fallacies]], ''unsubstantiated'' rumors, and other sayings that the teller/spreader knows, or ought to know, are lies. It also includes modes of presentation that, through negligence, recklessness, knowledge, or intent, give offense, especially to the holders of contrary views.
Writing in 1928, Edward Bernays said, "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic societies. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country...It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda. In the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine. Judged by this definition we can see that in its true sense, propaganda is a perfectly legitimate form of human activity any society. Whether it is it be social, religious or political which is professed of certain beliefs and sets out to make them known, either by the spoken or written words, is practicing propaganda.
"Propaganda becomes vicious and reprehensive only when its authors consciously and deliberately disseminate what they know to be lies, when they aim at effects with which they know to be prejudicial to the common good....
"It was, of course, the outstanding success of propaganda during the war [WWI] that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind. The American government and numerous patriotic agencies developed a technique which, to most persons accustomed to bidding for public acceptance, was new. They not only appeal to the individual by means of every approach, visual,
graphic, and auditory to support the national endeavor but they also secured the cooperation of key men in every group. Persons whose mere word carried authority to hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. They thus automatically gained the support of fraternal, religious, commercial, patriotic, social, and local groups whose members took their opinion from their accustomed leaders and spokesmen, or from the periodical publications which they were accustomed to read and believe. At the same time, the manipulators of patriotic opinion made use of mental cliches and the emotional habits of the public to produce mass reactions against the alleged atrocities, the terror, and the tyranny of the enemy.
"It was only natural after the war ended that intelligent persons should ask themselves whether it was not possible to apply a similar technique to the problems of peace....
"Small groups of persons can and do make the rest of us think what they please about given any given subject. But they are usually proponents or opponents of every propaganda, both of whom are equally eager to convince the majority.
==Positive and negative propaganda==
==Positive and negative propaganda==