Is propaganda manipulation?

[FieldHound]

I expect it's a divisive subject but I'm interested in knowing what some of the for and against arguments are.

[The Idler]

Is information manipulation?
I certainly think fronts are manipulative.
Edward Bernays was the father of modern propaganda so you might wanna look into him
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Propaganda is, according to the google definition, "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view."

In History we categorise information as evidence when it is used as part of an historical explanation. Evidence is only referred to as information when it is not used as part of an historical argument.

In History, we also have the ideas of reliability and bias when analysing a source of evidence (i.e. some information that we will use to construct an historical argument). Bias is always very contentious when introduced as a concept in the History classroom because its everyday use tends towards the pejorative ("you're SO biased" etc.), whereas I think in the humanities it is essential to understand that bias is inherent in our person; we all have biases related to our cultural, social, economic, and political backgrounds. Our job isn't to discredit good History because somebody has this or that political or cultural viewpoint, but to judge their arguments and historical explanations on their merits, accounting for bias in a critical and constructive way.

I think the same can be said for propaganda. It is wholly unreasonable (nay, impossible) to provide an education using information without, according to the above definition, presenting a point of view, which in essence makes said presentation of information an exercise in propaganda.

I think that one of the tragedies of modern education is that students are expected to be, or forced into being, passive recipients of information that is given to them by a teacher or some other outlet (video, speech, textbook, worksheet etc.). This means that when students are presented with propaganda from a source that has a certain bias - be it a political, bias, a cultural bias or whatever - they are wholly incapable of either analysing the source based on its merits (and looking past the "it's biased" cop-out answer) or going further and critically analysing the effect of the author's bias on the source.

If we encourage recipients of education - be they school-children, mature learners or merely somebody attending a lecture, speech, debate, conference or whatever - to be more active participants in the process of information dissemination and sharing, to be more critical in their analysis of information that another source (A teacher, a video, a speaker, a lecturer etc.) presents to them, then I think that there is no reason to worry about presenting almost all our information to learners as propaganda - the test then being for that student to use their critical thinking skills to sort out the useful from the useless, in terms of evidence, and be able to create honest, accurate, high-quality explanations and arguments of events.

[Habermas]

Is convincing someone that Socialism doesn't involve the deaths of millions of people, propaganda? No, that is just providing valuable information.
Is a barrage of ads through tv propaganda? Yes of course.

It all depends on how you define it.

[Red Star Rising]

Is convincing someone that Socialism doesn't involve the deaths of millions of people, propaganda? No, that is just providing valuable information.
Is a barrage of ads through tv propaganda? Yes of course.

It all depends on how you define it.

Absolutely. I would add that the gross misrepresentation of communism in the american school system is definitely propaganda.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

People here are aware of the way in which the term "propaganda" is used in the socialist movement, right? "Agitation and propaganda" and so on? Just checking, because no one seems to be. Perhaps "propaganda" is one of those terms that will acquire a different meaning on RevLeft compared to the meaning assumed by actual socialist organisations, q.v. "centrism".

Anyway.

For socialists, propaganda is simply material meant to disseminate socialist ideas and slogans (as opposed to the more immediate scope of agitation). It's not the fault of the socialist movement that many people today revile anything overtly political and endow media with a magical ability to overwrite people's opinions.

[Red Star Rising]

People here are aware of the way in which the term "propaganda" is used in the socialist movement, right? "Agitation and propaganda" and so on? Just checking, because no one seems to be. Perhaps "propaganda" is one of those terms that will acquire a different meaning on RevLeft compared to the meaning assumed by actual socialist organisations, q.v. "centrism".

Anyway.

For socialists, propaganda is simply material meant to disseminate socialist ideas and slogans (as opposed to the more immediate scope of agitation). It's not the fault of the socialist movement that many people today revile anything overtly political and endow media with a magical ability to overwrite people's opinions.
True. This is especially evident in post-thatcher Britain. You can't even wave a union flag anymore without condemnation.

[bropasaran]

Depends on what is precisely meant by propaganda.

I would suggest this interesting video:

V8ke31HfhRU