dissemination of ideas and information for the purpose of inducing or intensifying specific attitudes and actions. Because propaganda is frequently accompanied by distortions of fact and-or by appeals to passion and prejudice, the word is often used to refer to information that is false or intentionally misleading, but in a more general sense, in which the word is used in this article, “propaganda” need not involve false, distorted, or even exaggerated claims. In this sense, a lawyer's brief is as much propaganda as a billboard advertisement. The essential distinction lies in the intentions of the propagandist to persuade an audience to adopt the attitude or action he or she espouses.

Propaganda may be disseminated by or for individuals, businesses, ethnic associations, religious organizations, political organizations, public relations firms, and governments and political candidates at every level. Thousands of special-interest groups disseminate propaganda. Among such groups are patriotic and temperance societies, fire-prevention and traffic-safety committees, leagues promoting conservation or the prevention of cruelty to animals, labor unions, and chambers of commerce. No matter what its objective, propaganda attempts to persuade through rational or emotional appeal or through the organization of personal opinion. Efficient use of the communication media is central to these efforts.

Religious Propaganda.

One of the earliest uses of the word propaganda was in connection with religious missionary activity. A notable propagandist was St. Paul, who established the first Christian churches in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. Christianity was spread beyond the Roman world by such evangelists as St. Augustine, the first archbishop of Canterbury, who introduced it into Britain, and by St. Boniface, who converted Germanic tribes. In modern times Roman Catholic missionary activity has been conducted around the world by secular priests and members of religious orders. By skillful propaganda members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) were able in the 17th century to reclaim for the church large areas of central Europe that had been lost to Protestantism during the Reformation. In 1622 Pope Gregory XV (1554–1623) established the Congregation of Propaganda to direct these activities of the Roman Catholic church. Protestants have been equally zealous in spreading their doctrines. The Protestant reformers of the 16th century were effective propagandists, and missionaries have carried the Protestant faith to every part of the world. See also MISSIONARY MOVEMENTS,.

Political Propaganda.

Propaganda for distinctly political ends is as old as history. The Bible, for example, relates that the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 705–681 bc) attempted to terrify the Kingdom of Judah into surrendering by the use of threatening propaganda (see 2 Kings 18–19). Julius Caesar wrote the Gallic Wars to enhance his reputation in Rome and to speed his rise to power.

The quality of the propaganda literature of the American Revolution is outstanding. Before the Revolution the letters circulated by the patriot Samuel Adams and such pamphlets as Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson sought to inform and unify American opinion in the quarrel with Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, was a masterpiece of rational propaganda intended to crystallize public opinion at home and justify the controversial American cause abroad. During the period when that cause seemed closest to military defeat, the radical writer Thomas Paine wrote a series of pamphlets titled The Crisis, which rallied and sustained American morale for the long struggle. After the war, when controversy raged over the adoption of the federal Constitution, the articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, and known collectively as The Federalist (see FEDERALIST, THE,), explained the new constitution and persuaded Americans to ratify it (see CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES,). The Federalist was also an effective propaganda instrument among the citizens of the new American nation.

Literary Propaganda.

Propaganda by individuals has sometimes taken literary forms. Many classics of philosophy, history, religion, and economics, as well as novels, poems, and plays, have been written in part with propagandist intent. The histories of the French author Voltaire, the pamphlets of Martin Luther, and the works of Karl Marx are examples. Propaganda for social justice was carried on by the British statistician Charles Booth and by the American social-settlement worker Jane Addams. In American literature, an outstanding novel of propaganda is Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe. By her depiction of black slavery in the South, Stowe contributed to the growth of the abolitionist movement before the American Civil War.

Wartime Propaganda.

Massive modern propaganda techniques began with World War I. From the beginning of the war, both German and British propagandists worked hard to win sympathy and support in the U.S. German propagandists appealed to the many Americans of German descent and to those of Irish descent who were traditionally hostile to Great Britain. Soon, however, Germany was virtually cut off from direct access to the U.S. Thereafter British propaganda had little competition in the U.S., and it was conducted more skillfully than that of the Germans. Once engaged in the war, the U.S. organized the Committee on Public Information, an official propaganda agency, to mobilize American public opinion. This committee proved highly successful, particularly in the sale of Liberty Bonds. The exploitation by the Allies of President Woodrow Wilson's FOURTEEN POINTS, which seemed to promise a just peace for both the victors and the vanquished, contributed greatly toward crystallizing opposition within the Central Powers to continuation of the war.

After World War I propaganda achieved great importance as an instrument of national policy in the totalitarian state. Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union deliberately molded public opinion through government propaganda agencies. In Germany, Adolf Hitler established the extremely powerful ministry of propaganda headed by Paul Joseph Goebbels. Completely dominating all public utterances in Germany, this agency instigated the so-called war of nerves. Before each new aggressive move by Germany, as, for example, against Czechoslovakia in 1938, the German press and radio publicized alleged evidence of persecution of German minorities in the victim country. Incidents were manufactured and exploited to justify German intervention, and the German war machine was depicted as invincible. The technique proved effective in dividing populations, weakening the power of the victim to resist, and causing its allies to hesitate. As the European crisis intensified, German agents in France spread propaganda of defeatism. Through books, pamphlets, and venal newspapers and in the legislature and the army, they encouraged dissatisfaction with the government, distrust of allies, and fear of German military power. These divisive efforts hastened the collapse of French resistance when the German army finally struck in May 1940.

The propaganda aspects of World War II were similar to those of World War I, except that the war was greater in scope. Radio played a major role, and propaganda activities overseas were more intense. Both Germany and Great Britain again sought to sway American opinion. German propagandists played on anti-British sentiment, represented the war as a struggle against communism, and pictured Germany as the invincible champion of a new order in world affairs. German agents also gave their support to movements in the U.S. that supported isolationism. German propaganda efforts again proved ineffective, especially after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the evidence of German aggression was too clear, and American sympathies were increasingly on the side of Great Britain. After the U.S. entered the war, the Axis powers sought to weaken the morale of the Allied armed forces and civilian populations by radio propaganda. The British traitor William Joyce (1906–executed 1946) broadcast from Germany under the sardonic name “Lord Haw Haw”; the American poet Ezra Pound broadcast for the Fascist cause from Italy; U.S. forces in the South Pacific encountered Japanese propaganda on the radio; Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino (1916–2006), a native Californian of Japanese descent, later dubbed “Tokyo Rose,” was convicted by a U.S. court for participation in these broadcasts, and imprisoned, but the evidence against her was questionable and she was pardoned in 1977 by President Gerald Ford.

Allied propaganda efforts were aimed at separating the peoples of the Axis nations from their governments, which were solely blamed for the war. Radio broadcasts and leaflets dropped from the air carried Allied propaganda to the enemy. The official U.S. propaganda agencies during World War II were the Office of War Information (OWI), charged with disseminating information at home and abroad, and the Office of Strategic Service (OSS), charged with conducting psychological warfare against the enemy. At Supreme Headquarters in the European theater of operations, the OWI and OSS were coordinated with military activities by the Psychological Warfare Division.

Cold-War Propaganda.

In the period of the cold war, a marked conflict of interests between the U.S. and the Soviet Union following World War II, propaganda continued to be a significant instrument of national policy. Both the democratic and Communist blocs of states attempted by sustained campaigns to win to their side the great masses of uncommitted peoples and thereby achieve their objectives without resorting to armed conflict. Every aspect of national life and policy was exploited for purposes of propaganda. The cold war was also marked by the use of defectors, trials, and confessions for propaganda purposes.

In this propaganda war the Communist nations seemed initially to have a distinct advantage. Because their governments controlled all media, they could largely seal off their peoples from Western propaganda and from independent sources of news. At the same time, these highly centralized, authoritarian governments could plan elaborate propaganda campaigns and mobilize resources to carry out their plans. They could also count on aid from Communist parties and sympathizers in other countries. Democratic states, on the other hand, could neither prevent their peoples from being exposed to Communist propaganda nor mobilize all their resources to counter it; nor did they generally seek to limit public access to information. The apparent advantage to Communist governments eroded during the 1980s, as communications technology advanced. Inability to control the spread of information was a major factor in the disintegration of many Communist regimes in Eastern Europe at the end of the decade.

The U.S. Information Agency (USIA; see UNITED STATES INFORMATION AGENCY) was established in 1953 to conduct propaganda and cultural activities abroad; by the time Congress abolished the USIA in 1998, many of its functions had been transferred to the INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING BUREAU. In 1967 it was revealed that the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY had for many years covertly supported numerous American and foreign labor, student, and political organizations, such as Radio Free Europe, the efforts of which benefited U.S. foreign policies.

Other Propaganda.

The growing sophistication of propaganda techniques is evident in election campaigns; these include the propaganda of the deed (influencing public opinion by actions rather than words), the use of television, the manufacture of news by staged events, the skillful recruitment and use of opinion leaders, and the adjustment of appeals to group interest. The civil rights struggles of the 1950s and'60s benefited from the propaganda effects of protest marches, assemblies, picketing, sit-ins, and “freedom rides.” Large business corporations and commercial interests, such as railroads and oil companies, have also carried on extensive propaganda campaigns through advertising and other techniques to develop public support for legislation favorable to their interests.

Since the 1970s, various kinds of propaganda have become tools for such diverse special interests as antinuclear-energy groups, women's rights activists, proabortion and antiabortion forces, gun-control lobbies, adherents of capital punishment, senior citizen groups, and the conservative Christian movement. The technological advances of the mass media, especially those of the electronic media, are expanding the outlets available to propagandists and are likely to have a significant impact on propaganda efforts in the future.        H.L.C., HARWOOD L. CHILDS, M.A., Ph.D.

See also ADVERTISING,; PUBLIC OPINION,; PUBLIC RELATIONS,. For additional information on historical figures, see biographies of those whose names are not followed by dates.

For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography, sections 157. Propaganda, 158. Public opinion polling.