Propaganda and News (1)

Information communicated by government and intended to promote political beliefs is propaganda.

In the twentieth century, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein's Iraq made propaganda a prominent feature of their public life. Today, North Korea and Iran, for instance, carry on the tradition of fascist propaganda. In unfree societies, dictators use propaganda to reinforce citizen obedience to the official political party.

Propaganda can also be broadcast by a government to the citizens of another country, in opposition to that country's government and its political doctrines. The U.S., for instance, maintained "Radio Free Europe" for nearly 50 years after the end of the second world war. Radio Free Europe broadcast news and other information to the citizens of states of eastern Europe, such as Poland, East Germany, and Hungary, which were controlled by the Soviet Union.

Propaganda is not limited to unfree nations. In the United States, governmental policy research, such as research for environmental impact reports and United States Department of Agriculture research on food and pesticides, occasionally provoke suspicion among political opponents that the research might be propaganda.

Suspicion that research is propagandistic does not mean that the research actually is propagandistic. Such suspicion always exists in free democracies, because statutory policy is created and administered within the context of political competition, and, therefore, political controversy. The practical success or failure of controversial policies will naturally be construed as proof of political assessments of the policies. Given the use of propaganda by totalitarian societies, charges of propaganda are powerful political weapons; the existence of the charges does not, however, prove that politicians in government are deliberately promoting propaganda.

In this series of articles, we shall discuss propaganda, trying to organize different forms of propaganda into useful categories. We shall examine alternative definitions of propaganda. Finally, we shall look at the claim that private broadcast media, such as newspapers and television news, are spreading propaganda.