Propaganda: The language of systemic influence
20 What is Propaganda?
Introduction
Definitions
One of the most well-cited definitions is that propaganda is “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desires intent of the propagandist” (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2016: 7). But what does this mean, exactly? If one substitutes the word “teaching” for “propaganda” and “teacher” for “propagandist” it becomes clearer — for while teachers certainly want to shape perceptions and manipulate cognitions[1] and direct behaviour … all of that is what a teacher does, but hopefully most teachers seek to introduce or alter perceptions and encourage cognition(s) in an open-ended fashion, maybe seeking influence but not doing so in an unscrupulous or controlling manner. In that way, a teacher seeks to persuade, maybe inviting new ways of seeing and knowing, rather than pressuring audiences to see only one way or accept only one “truth”. Contrarily, “most of the definitions ascertain that propagandists aim to control the flow of information, deceive recipients, spread untruthful information … and intentionally misinform the public to benefit the sender over all others” (Lock & Ludolph, 2020, p. 105).
Propaganda — “Communication that (a) systematically misrepresents an issue (b) for the purpose of swaying others’ viewpoints and instigating action (c) in favor of some political goal” (Hahn et al., 2024, p. 64). It is a decidedly more manipulative form of communication than persuasion because propaganda exists strictly to promote a partisan point of view and prioritizes the interests of the sender over the receiver: “Propaganda is a form of communication that is different from persuasion because it attempts to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. Persuasion is interactive and attempts to satisfy the needs of both persuader and persuade” (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006, p. 13).
“Propaganda is a communicative phenomenon of an ideological nature that aims to attain, maintain or strengthen a dominant position over the receiver, so that the message sender’s future aims regarding political power are met” (Xifra, 2020, p. 141).
History
once upon a time …
but today…
While we think of propaganda as designed to convince people of specific untruths, much modern propaganda has a different aim. The”firehose strategy” is designed to leave the audience disoriented and despairing of ever being able to separate truth from falsehood. … In 2016, chess grand master Garry Kasparov summarized this approach in a post on Twitter: The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth” (Bergstrom and West, 2020, p. 32). This firehose strategy works to reinforce the sense that bullshit is pervasive around us. The reason for this is clear: “The strategy of creating ‘data smog’ or ‘information noise’—flooding the information environment with plenty of alternative and conflicting stories and information, some truthful, some not; some verifiable, some not; relevant or irrelevant—creates the illusion that nothing is as it seems, and it is difficult to search for the truth. In that case, nobody really cares about being caught telling lies, because the propagandist’s primary aim is not to build one’s own credibility or a coherent ideology as much as it is to persuade that the enemies lie” (Gregor & Mlejnková, 2021, p. 8).
Varieties
There are many types of propaganda. In a ‘classic’ sense, one way of making sense of them has been to describe their colour as a way to evoke the level of knowledge of (and trust in) the source.[2]
“White propaganda refers to unambiguous, openly identifiable sources in sharp contrast to black propaganda in which the source is disguised. Gray propaganda sits somewhere in between these classes with the source not being directly credited nor identified” (Bastos & Farkas, 2019, p. 1).
Within propaganda theory, gray propaganda refers to that which has an unidentifiable or whose source is difficult to identify, while black propaganda refers to that which claims to derive from within the enemy population (Bastos & Farkas, 2019, p. 3). In contrast to white propaganda, both black and grey propaganda use subterfuge to get the job done.
White Propaganda
White propaganda is still partisan information designed to persuade. It’s just that it’s designed to be transparent in its design. One clearly knows who or what is the source of the message and they do not conceal their agenda.
Thought to be the most gentle form, white propaganda’s main purpose is to convey transparent information through a “clearly Identifiable source (often government)” (Eldner, 2018, p. 913). The key difference with white propaganda compared to its counterparts is the information being conveyed is mostly true with a goal to “ convince the audience of the benefits or superiority of a particular idea, ideology, and/or group or individual” (Eldner, 2018, as cited in Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006, p. 913). [uh – Jowett & O’Donnell can’t be citing Eldner’s 2018 writing if they’re writing in 2006. Something is wonky here!
Black Propaganda
“Propaganda is ‘white’ where its source is known and the information is accurate. It is ‘black’ where it is credited to a false source, is misinformation, passes on lies and deceptions, and is based on emotion alone. In between, there is ‘grey’” (Moloney, 2006, p. 70).
Macnamara points out how an extreme sub-field of public relations (“Black PR” also known as “black-hat PR” and “negative PR”) functions as a form of black propaganda. It is “a process of destroying someone’s reputation and corporate identity. … [It] is all about professional smear strategies, industrial espionages, propaganda, and information hacking” and it is a globally widespread practice (2020, p. 103). A similar point is made by Leong Suying: “Worldwide, politicians, parties, governments and others hire “black PR” firms to manipulate online discourse” (Leong Suying, 2022, pp. 31-2).
Grey Propaganda
Gray and Martin define grey propaganda as “situated between white and black propaganda, where there is not clear indication of origin or the origin is attributed to an ally, and where the truth of the information is uncertain.” (Gray, Martin, pp. 9).
Participatory Propaganda
“With technological advancement, the nature of propaganda has changed significantly from one-way communication through mass media channels directed at a passive audience to propaganda in a digital environment that allows for two-way communication without gatekeepers” (Lock & Ludolph, 2020, p. 104).
“It can be argued that besides black propaganda, the ‘big lie’ where the propagandist conceals his identity and spreads incorrect information, more and more gray and white forms of disinformation emerge in a digital environment” (Lock & Ludolph, 2020, p. 107).
Health Propaganda
Health propaganda can be understood as a combination of public relations and propaganda whose source is typically government communications. L’Etang notes how it is a practice that “has moved away from individual behavioral change” and now prioritizes health promotion as a “collective activity” (2006, p. 28), something borne out by countries and institutions everywhere in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (see Le & Block, 2023).
Corporate Propaganda
In an instance of possibly seemingly “turning [propaganda] into a pejorative for whatever we dislike” (Oddo, 2022, p. 422), it has also been used to explain the commercialization of culture and the attendant consequences for democratic life. According to Carey, ‘commercial advertising and public relations are the forms of propaganda common to a democracy’ (1995, p. 14). As corporate power has grown alongside democracy in the twentieth century, so too have we seen the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy, which is to say, inoculating the system of contemporary enterprise against criticism. Corporate propaganda identifies free enterprise with “every cherished value” and typifies attempts to regulate or intervene in the free market as “tyranny, oppression and even subversion” (p. 18). Indeed, one can find evidence of multiple organized campaigns characterized as “propaganda warfare for capitalism” (Carey 1995: 87-8, 105, 112-4; López, 2023, p. 163), directed against labour and environmental movements. Clearly, “hegemony is, along with ideology, an ontological pillar of corporate propaganda” (Xifra, 2020, p. 140).
Moloney suggests that part of corporate propaganda is the weak form of propaganda, PR propaganda. It is described as “always self-advantaging communication, making PR people ‘hemispheric communicators’, those who draw attention to the positive values and behaviours of the interest they represent and not the negative” (Moloney, 2006, p. 115).[3] As Xifra argued, “without necessarily falling into pan-propagandaism, public relations is propaganda, and corporate public relations is corporate propaganda” (2020, p. 143).
Lots more too…
our divisive public sphere is the result of what French social-psychologist Jacques Ellul calls “sociological propaganda,” which pervades the ideology, beliefs, and structure of society itself: “It is the penetration of an ideology by means of its sociological context” (63). [see Henderson & Braun, 11
Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. New York: Vintage, 1973.
Context & Connections
Backfire Propaganda
The authors of the article Backfires: White, Black and Grey talk about an outcome of propaganda called “backfire propaganda”, which they define as “sometimes the exercise of force backfires: it is counterproductive for the perpetrator, generating increased support for the target” (Gray, Martin, 7). In order for this backfire propaganda to be considered happening, there are two required fundamentals that need to happen: “(1) The actions in question must be perceived as unjust, excessive or a violation of some social norm, (2) Information about the actions must be communicated to receptive audiences” (Gray, Martin, 9). In other words, it must be a form of propaganda and the actions of the propaganda must be made known to the target. The second fundamental of backfire happens less often than the first.
Following the colors to indicate level of deception of propaganda, the authors outline white backfire, black backfire and grey backfire as well. On pages 9 and 10, these concepts are explained and defined. White backfire: “When perpetrators take action that can potentially backfire on them, without attempting to attribute it to anyone else”. Black Backfire: “A perpetrator takes an action designed to generate outrage against the target, by making the target appear to be the perpetrator of the attack”. Grey Backfire: “When an incident of unrelated or uncertain origin is treated as an attack by the target, which backfires against the target. The uncertainty surrounding the incident may be genuine or manufactured.” To simplify these further, white backfire means propaganda that backfires, but the perpetrators don’t try to blame someone else or hide where it came from; there is a level of transparency with this kind. Black backfire is means that the person or group creating the propaganda makes it seem as though someone else started it (the original intent wasn’t the actual propaganda but the deliberate curation of making someone else look like they started it to cause outrage towards them, not the actual propaganda victim). Grey backfire is more of a middle ground, basically the incident has uncertainty in the origin of the propaganda, whether that’s who the perpetrator is, the intent of the propaganda, or the messaging/ truthfulness of the propaganda. [BC-references below].
The link to the earlier material about “strategic bullshit” is obvious. As Schudson claimed, “advertising is propaganda, and everyone knows it” (2013, p. 4). A lot of strategic bullshit can be understood as “corporate propaganda” and indeed, “the lines separating advertising, public relations, and public diplomacy (terms often regarded as neutral) from the pejorative term propaganda (which usually implies deliberate intent to manipulate or deceive) can be hard to discern” (Jack, 2017, p. 6). As Herman noted, propaganda can be framed as “their lies” (1992, p. 167) whereas public information can be understood as “our lies” (1992, p. 168),[4]
References
Bastos, M., & Farkas, J. (2019). “Donald Trump Is My President!”: The Internet Research Agency Propaganda Machine. Social Media + Society, 1–13.
Carey, A. (1995) Taking the Risk out of Democracy: Corporate propaganda versus freedom and liberty. A. Lowrey (Ed.), UNSW Press.
Gray, T., & Martin, B. (2007). Backfires: White, Black and Grey. Journal of Information Warfare, 6(1), 7-16. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26503465?sid=primo&seq=3
Gregor, M., & Mlejnková, P. (2021). Explaining the Challenge: From Persuasion to Relativisation. In M. Gregor and P. Mlejnková (Eds.), Challenging Online Propaganda and Disinformation in the 21st Century (pp. 3-41). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58624-9_1
Hahn, L., Schibler, K., Lattimer, T. A., Toh, Z., Vuich, A., Velho, R., Kryston, K., O’Leary, J., & Chen, S. (2024). Why we fight: investigating the moral appeals in terrorist propaganda, their predictors, and their association with attack severity. Journal of Communication, 74, 63–76. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqad029
Herman, E. S. (1992). Beyond hypocrisy: Decoding the news in an age of propaganda. South End Press.
Jack C. (2017). Lexicon of lies : Terms for problematic information. Data & Society. Retrieved from https://datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataAndSociety_LexiconofLies.pdf
Jowett, G., & O’Donnell, V. (2006). Propaganda and persuasion (4th ed.). Sage.
Le, T. L., & Block, E. (2023). When communist propaganda meets western public relations: Examining Vietnam’s government pandemic communication. Public Relations Inquiry, 1–35. DOI: 10.1177/2046147X231218310
Leong Suying, D. (2022). Deep fakes and Disinformation in Asia. In M. Filimowicz (Ed.), Deep fakes: Algorithms and Society (pp. 23-49). Routledge.
L’Etang, J. (2006). Public relations and propaganda: conceptual issues, methodological problems, and public relations discourse. In: J. L’Etang & M. Pieczka (Eds.), Public Relations: Critical Debates and Contemporary Practice (pp. 23–40). Routledge.
Lock, I., & Ludolph, R. (2020). Organizational propaganda on the Internet: A systematic review. Public Relations Inquiry, 9(1), 103–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X19870844
López, A. (2023). Gaslighting: Fake Climate News and Big Carbon’s Network of Denial. In K. Fowler-Watt & J. McDougall (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Media Misinformation (pp. 159-178). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11976-7
Moloney, K. (2006). Rethinking Public Relations: PR Propaganda and Democracy (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Oddo, J. (2022). Propaganda. In J. Fahnestock & R. A. Harris (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Persuasion (pp. 422-438). Routledge.
Schudson, M. (2013). Advertising, the uneasy persuasion. Routledge.
Xifra, J. (2020). Public Relations and Corporate Propaganda. In P. Baines, N. O’Shaughnessy, & N. Snow (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Propaganda (pp. 137-151). Sage. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526477170.n10
- Maybe manipulate seems a little "heavy-handed" but manipulate as a synonym for influence certainly works. ↵
- Deemed problematic because of its racial connotations, this distinction between clearly identifiable (white), unclear or unidentifiable (grey) and disguised and deceitful (black) has nonetheless been deeply ingrained in propaganda studies and has been effectively used to analyze different types of information warfare throughout the 20th century" (Bastos & Farkas, 2019, p. 3). ↵
- Contrary to those who have commented on black PR, Moloney argues that public relations is ‘white’ or ‘grey’ propaganda (2006, p. 71). ↵
- This is demonstrated by events (and interpretations thereof) that are happening as I write this: The 2024 Oscars prompted accusations of propaganda from both sides of the current Israel-Hamas conflict: We see it on X/Twitter:
And we see it on YouTube:
In this vein, propaganda is clearly the information of the other side that one wishes to denigrate. Lobbing the term propaganda at one's enemy is also, I suggest, a form of information warfare. I note, ironically, that hopefully, now, this is "perfectly clear", but Herman notes that this can also mean "somewhat murkier now than previously" (1992, p. 163). (!!) ↵
Feedback/Errata