Healthy Influence – Persuasion Blog

Matt Armstrong at MountainRunner shared a PDF of a new DoD policy regarding use of the terms, “propaganda” and “strategic communication.”  Here are the new definitions.

Propaganda is:  “1. The systematic propagation of information, ideas, or rumors reflecting the views and interests of those advocating a doctrine or cause, deliberately spread for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, movement, or person. 2. The material disseminated as part of such an effort. Propaganda is designed for political effect and selects information with little concern for truth or context. In common usage “propaganda” implies misrepresentation, disinformation, and the creation of ambiguity through omission of critical details. Communication activities designed to educate, persuade or influence do not, by themselves, constitute propaganda.”

Strategic Communication is: “Focused processes and efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable to advance national interests and strategic objectives by coordinating actions and information synchronized with other elements of national power.  Strategic communication is addressed throughout the planning process at all levels – from tactical to strategic – and aligns regional or functional end states with broader policy goals.”

The definition of SC strikes me as useful, clear, and operational.  I could work with it and from it.  The definition is noncontroversial, but its application may be (how far does Congress and the White House want DoD go with SC).

The definition of propaganda, however, describes activity that is already on the books as prohibited.  It further makes propaganda include all of the activities of SC and distinguishes between the two on the basis of a “good-bad” evaluative response (i.e. good SC versus bad propaganda).  Finally, when applied to the communication of nongovernmental actors like Bernie Madoff, Enron, and several Wall Street firms, the definitions would have us call it propaganda rather than fraud.

And, the definition of propaganda is a straw man.  Who in their right mind would try to compete in the information marketplace doing the defined activities?  Only fools, zealots, or elitists would deliberately misrepresent, disinform, or ambiguate when other free sources of information are easily available.  You don’t need to make something like this prohibited, illegal, unethical, or in any way institutionally accountable.  The marketplace will take care of it.

Finally, this definition of propaganda decapitates the word from a long and well developed body of research, analysis, and comment that viewed propaganda as, essentially, totalitarian government communication (message/processing) and communications (channel/reception).  The single largest discriminating attribute of old school approaches to propaganda is the absence of meaningful competition in the information marketplace of a society.  The old school definition points to a specific, observable process and outcome.  It is identifies a dangerous opponent.

This looks like the work of a camel committee with a camel clearance process.  You need to get the sign off of different units at different times under different conditions and if clearance fails on the first pass you get caught in an Alice In Wonderland rabbit hole of remeeting, rewriting, and reclearing; a dance that is not repeating, but worse, spiraling with every new criticism, concern, or catch until you’re in the Lateral Arabesque.  You spin with goal-directed energy, but you’re always moving sideways like a determined  tornado that can’t quite hit the trailer park.  And it only ends with dumb luck, kindness from strangers, or the arrival of a newbie in the clearance chain.  The horror, the horror . . . I still awaken in a cold sweat with clearance nightmares.

So, SC looks fine.  Propaganda, however, rolls on like obscenity.  You know it when you see it, but no one can define it.  Like the image at the top of this post.  Is this propaganda, obscenity, both, or neither?  You can view more images like this here.   And PsyWarrior has interesting images that test the intersection of propaganda and obscenity with the Home Front Warriors series produced by Germany during WWII.  Hubba-hubba.

P.S. And, if only to acknowledge Ecclesiastes, please consider this prior definition of “propaganda” from the US Department of . . . War.