1. Public Diplomacy, Propaganda and PSYOPS
Lecture 1
What is propaganda?

2. What is Propaganda?
Original meaning – to propagate the ‘faith’ -(Congregatio de Propaganda Fide – 17th Century)
Sowing seeds of thought to translate into action (or inaction)
Acquired pejorative meaning

3. ‘A Good Word Gone Wrong’ in the Great War of 1914-8
Atrocity propaganda
Lies and half-truths
A ‘black art’ ‘defiling the human soul’ at a time when the mind was only just becoming understood (psychology)
BUT - Better to persuade than perish?

4. What it is not Education …. But? COMPLETELY honest
It is not about ‘Truth’ or at best it is about competing truths
Confined to dictatorships/authoritarian regimes
Designed to benefit solely the source; it can benefit the recipient as well. But primarily the source.

5. Two Models (Chomsky notwithstanding)
The Totalitarian Model
The Democratic Model
‘The Big Lie’
Reliant on heavy censorship and enforcement (coercion)
One Party State
Media part of State (lapdog)
Educational system is indoctinational for the benefit of society (sic.)
‘The Strategy of Truth’
Light censorship/regulation
Persuasion
Multi-party competition
Media as Fourth Estate
(watchdog but….)
Education system teaches individual how to think for themselves

6. What is propaganda? It is a process of persuasion
It is on the spectrum of communication from who says what to whom, when, how and with what effect
It injects the question ‘why?’ into that spectrum
Therefore it is about intent

7. Intentions As a process, propaganda is value-neutral
As such, it is neither a ‘good’ nor a ‘bad’ thing
Value judgements like this are more appropriately directed as the intentions behind doing it
More useful to speak of ‘effective’ and ‘ineffective’ propaganda (results)

8. ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ Intentions?

9. Propaganda is something some one else does!!
‘Democracies only resort to propaganda in wartime’
‘Totalitarian regimes do it all the time’
We tell the ‘truth’; they tell lies
In fact we tell our ‘truth’ and they tell their ‘truth’
Whose ‘truth’ is right?
Better to talk about credibility

10. Propaganda – NATO definition
ANY INFORMATION, IDEAS, DOCTRINES OR SPECIAL APPEALS,
DISSEMINATED TO INFLUENCE THE OPINIONS, EMOTIONS, ATTITUDES OR BEHAVIOUR OF ANY SPECIFIED GROUP
IN ORDER TO BENEFIT THE SPONSOR, EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY

11. PROPAGANDA CATEGORIES
WHITE - overt, attributable to a definite source
BLACK - covert, deliberate deception where a false source is definitely implied
GREY - where a source is concealed and not acknowledged by the originator

12. COHESIVE PROPAGANDA CREATE GOODWILL PROMOTE FRIENDSHIP RAISE MORALE
STRESS COMMON INTERESTS
GAIN CO-OPERATION

13. DIVISIVE PROPAGANDA LOWER MORALE CREATE APATHY, DEFEATISM & DISCORD
PROMOTE DISSENTION, PANIC SUBVERSION, RESISTANCE, DESERTION, SURRENDER & DEFECTION

14. PROPAGANDA VARIANTS
INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC INFORMATION (Public Diplomacy/Cultural Diplomacy)
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE/OPERATIONS
INFORMATION WARFARE/OPERATIONS
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS/GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT
PUBLIC RELATIONS/SPIN DOCTORING
ADVERTISING/MARKETING (?)
PUBLICITY
NEWS? (‘the shocktroops of propaganda’)

15. PROPAGANDA PRINCIPLES
IS MOST EFFECTIVE WHEN
IT IS BASED UPON CREDIBLE TRUTH
PRESENTED IN AN ATTRACTIVE FORM
IT AROUSES A NEED
IT SUGGESTS SATISFACTION

16. ADDITIONAL PRINCIPLES
REFRAIN FROM RIGID DOGMATISM
AVOID ANTAGONISM
IDENTIFIES ITSELF WITH THE TARGET
EXPLOITS, WHEN OPPORTUNE, WEAKNESSES IN HOSTILE PROPAGANDA TO THE MAXIMUM

17. Key Propaganda Writers
Walter Lippmann & Harold Lasswell
Aldous Huxley & George Orwell
Hitler
Jacques Ellul
Noam Chomsky & Edward
Herman
R S Zaharna (on PD)
A Pratkanis