What is the difference between propaganda and persuasion?

It depends on whose definition of propaganda you use. In Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics (2018), social scientists Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts define propaganda as communication designed to manipulate a population’s beliefs or attitudes to steer its behavior toward a political goal. They deliberately exclude marketing, even though it shares many of the same practices. Their approach builds on Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell’s Propaganda and Persuasion, which argues that persuasion aims to meet the needs of both persuader and audience, while propaganda advances the propagandist’s aims whether or not they serve the audience.

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The philosopher Jason Stanley draws the line differently. For him, propaganda is defined by the message’s relationship to an ideal, such as health, science, or freedom. Persuasive arguments that give an audience reasons to weigh are not propaganda, nor are purely emotional appeals. An ad is propaganda when it presents itself as embodying an ideal and then advances that ideal through nonrational means or works against it, corrupting that ideal. Stanley’s own example is an ad that uses images of healthy rock climbers to sell an unhealthy drink. Ads that only build memory structures, like a jingle or a repeated logo, borrow no ideal and fall outside his definition.

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Read our full analysis here: Is Advertising Propaganda?

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