mass-communication-theory

conditioning, our basic needs. . . . As Secretary of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis,
I can assure Mr. Smith that I have not heard of any students demanding authoritarianism
as a means of dealing with propaganda, but I do know for a fact that the
educational program has caused many thousands of teachers and students to have a
surer faith in the present and ultimate values of the scientific method and democratic
practices. (Miller, 1941, pp. 657–659)
Miller also defended the effectiveness of the Institute’s efforts to combat Fascism,
racism, and class hatred. He shared many of Smith’s views about why propaganda
is effective, but he remained convinced that propaganda could best be
defeated by teaching students to understand how propaganda works—not by using
democratic propaganda to oppose bad or undemocratic propaganda:
In the task of combating the unscientific theories of racism, which Hitler and Goebbels
have utilized so effectively to create class hatreds, the Institute may be doing its best
work. No student, once he has gone through the recommended educational program of
the Institute, is likely to succumb to propaganda causing him to hate Jews as Jews and
Negroes as Negroes. This approach does immunize students against propagandas inciting
to hatred based on racial and religious differences. The process of scientific analysis
in combination with a faith which holds fast to the values of democracy is the most
powerful instrument for combating the wave of Ku Klux Klanism that is developing
rapidly as a result of war tensions. (Miller, 1941, p. 664)
Who won this debate? Did Miller manage to persuade other elites that education
was the best strategy for dealing with propaganda, or did Smith’s views win
out? About the time that Miller’s article appeared, the Institute for Propaganda
Analysis published a newsletter entitled “We Say Au Revoir.” It announced that it
had been persuaded that for the good of the war effort, it should cease all activities.
You will read much about these “democratic propaganda” campaigns such as
the Why We Fight films in later chapters. And even when World War II ended and
other wars—the Korean and the Cold—began, the Institute for Propaganda Analysis
never reopened, and John Dewey’s calls for education were similarly marginalized.
The task of defending democracy was handed over to Lasswell and his
colleagues. The “science of democracy” ushered in an era of propaganda-for-good,
or democratic propaganda.
MODERN PROPAGANDA THEORY
Chapter 4 The Rise of Media Theory in the Age of Propaganda 91
Consider the Hippler and Sproule characterizations of propaganda from earlier in
this chapter: simplify a complex issue and repeat that simplification; use covert,
massively orchestrated communication; and use tricky language to discourage reflective
thought. Some contemporary critical theorists argue that propaganda conforming
to these rules is alive and well today and that it is practiced with a
stealth, sophistication, and effectiveness unparalleled in history. They point to a
number of “natural beliefs” that have been so well propagandized that meaningful
public discourse about them has become difficult if not impossible. Political discourse
and advertising are frequent areas of modern propaganda study, and the
central argument of this modern propaganda theory is that powerful elites so thoroughly
control the mass media and their content that they have little trouble imposing
their Truth on the culture.
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