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OMISSIONBIair et a1 (2001: 58) desenk 01DlSSl0Il as the withholding of all references to relevantinfottrultion. Omission can also be used as a dehbetate way ofconcealing. Quotes out of context andhalf-truths are very hard to detect Politica1 examples of omission include cover-ups, censorship, bookburning,and managed news. Receivers, too, can omit: can "fiher out" or be closed minded orprejudiced. Omission then, is a deceptive communication strategy aimed at manipulating andconcealing,PERSUASIONGass and Seiter (2003: 34) and Williarns (1992.: 395) describe persuasion as the attempt toinfluence another person's beliefs, attitudes, or actions through connnunication. People usecommunication in order to persuade others to think in the way that they do or to act in the way thatthey do. Persuasion is more common than we may realise and is not confined to flamboyant examplesof advertising. One may want to persuade someone to loan one some money, or join ones dramagroup, or help one with repairing one's car. It is true that the word penmasion has a certain sense ofmanipulation - to get what one wants. In this sense we are all manipulators everyday.PRoPAGANDAPropag.mda in the broadest sense, according to Gass and Seiter (2003: 11), Laswell (1995: 13)and Sykes (19B3: 825), is the technique of influencing hurn= action by the manipulation ofrepresentations. These representations may take spoken, written, pictorial or musical form. Bothadvertising and publicity fall within the field of propag.mda. Gass and Seiter and Laswell then add thatmany official acts of legislation and administrntion can be seen as acts of propaganda, promoting theobjectives of the state. Propaganda, then, is manipulation by the spreading of subversive, debatable ormerely novel attitudes.SELF-DECEPTIONSelf-deception requires the self to be a deceiver. GoIeman (1998b: 23) states that the inattentionto painful truths shields us from anxiety. According to Gergen (1985: 228) intuitively modelling ourinsight on the deceiving ofothers, self-deception is to engage in an act, or be in a state, ofdeliberate andself-caused &lsehood Thus it is to have good reasons to believe something, and yet manipulate ourbelief system in such a way that we deny it, or - in the most rigorous account - affirm its opposite:thus, itis to believe something on good evidence and yet to refuse to avow iI:-30