Propaganda

A Chinese propaganda poster featuring Mao Zedong.

“	To attract people, to win over people to that which I have realised as being true, that is called propaganda. In the beginning there is the understanding, this understanding uses propaganda as a tool to find those men, that shall turn understanding into politics. Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right.	„
	~ Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister of Nazi Germany.

Propaganda is defined as the dissemination of information, especially in a biased nature, for the purpose of promoting or injuring a political institution, cause or point of view. "Propaganda" is a derogatory term.

Because information could be interpreted in different narratives and information in the same narratives could be understood by people with different views, propaganda does not necessary mean disseminating fake information, despite fake information could be used as propaganda.

Despite definition of the word "propaganda" is likely widely accepted, there is no dissemination of information which is widely defined as propaganda. While certain narratives may be considered as "propaganda" in a group, they may be considered as "the truth" in another group.

Propaganda and Censorship

Propaganda and Censorship are broad categories of information manipulation methods. Propaganda is to promote certain narratives and censorship is to restrict certain narratives. Censorship could prevent certain propaganda from being challenged. Propaganda could convince people to accept and support censorship.

Propaganda Techniques

Historical Negationism/Denialism

Historical Negationism (also called Denialism) is the act of denying an event that affected millions of lives, especially famines and genocides.

It is a tactic used by the government to convince the citizens that the event was a hoax. The government will even hide all evidence of an event by destroying the evidence.

Misinfomation/Fake News

Popular with conspiracy theorists, this tactic is used to make stuff up, or create a lie. This is used in defamation.

Censorship

If the Government see's something that they view as going against their values, they will either heavily edit it, or even ban it.

Rage Farming

This is common with far-right YouTubers, they would make videos on a daily basis and portray the situation as evil. They would use coded/dogwhistle words like "Woke" and use it to their advantage to fuel up their base.