[January 29, 2016] In the study of military conflicts, history teaches us about the impact of “disguised information” on the outcome. More commonly referred to as propaganda, a number of governments and militaries have benefited from its use. Interestingly, U.S. presidential candidates have been accused of using it in their election campaigns.
This short series on propaganda is intended to focus on the role of leadership in propaganda. While the information presented here is not a summary of its historical use, I have nevertheless intentionally drawn from those findings and have referenced many of the documents that may be of value.
Propaganda is controversial in its definition and in its employment as a tool to persuade people; for reasons I’ll return to later. In its most basic sense, propaganda is a form of communication, biased or misleading, and aimed at influencing a targeted population.1 The very nature of its underhandedness explains its negative association.
Still contentious today is the leadership role necessary to ensure propaganda effectiveness. The central tenant of any successful campaign is that it must be used in a highly centralized manner and is best delivered using all means of communications. This calls for strong leadership to execute its nefariousness, often found among dictators.
The concept of propaganda is viewed suspiciously because of its association with governments and politics. Some of the most notorious people in history have used communications (e.g., radio, television, theater, etc.) to mislead their citizens. For example, Joseph Goebbels, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, and Kim Il Sung are a few of the 20th Century’s most successful (and destructive) propagandists.
Are U.S. presidential candidates using propaganda as one of their playbook methods of being elected to the nation’s highest elected office? Perhaps a good argument could be made that they do. I will argue that they do use it but only in the mildest manner. An educated public is the inoculation to effective propaganda and the U.S. is lucky in that respect.
In the next Parts to this series, I will use examples to illustrate the fundamentals of propaganda and show how it has affected nations and how it they are similar to uses today. [Don’t forget to “Like” the Leader Maker at our Facebook Page.]
———————
- A more workable definition: “Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, Sage Publications, Inc., 1992.