Propaganda is “information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.” It has a long history and has developed a lot since its beginning.
Propaganda isn't an issue that we only see today, propaganda has been fed to people since the dawn of man. One of the oldest dated propaganda is about 500 B.C; Persians fed their people propaganda and applied it to warfare.
Propaganda seems to be more of an issue among the people today, the simple fact is, the public does not want to be fed lies by their government. During World War I President Wilson hired Lippman and Bernays to attempt to convince the public that it would be beneficial to join the war, this event was known as the Creel Commission. Propaganda was also used in World War II, in a similar way.
Today the Iraqi war is happening, and there is plenty of propaganda in this war. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf had the Iraqi public convinced that they were winning the war, obviously they eventually realized they were being mislead by his propaganda, and not to happy with that I assume. It is even said that the American military is using propaganda in Iraq to justify their reasons for being their.
Today Propaganda is used everywhere and in many interesting ways; it's in our media, our video games, on the internet, its everywhere. During the early eighties their was a group against rock music, they claimed it made children suicidal and violent, and they protested the music, it obviously could not have been the music that caused their children to be that way, it's the parenting, mothers created this propaganda as an excuse for improper parenting. Another common subject filled with propaganda is cannabis, most people only here false negative facts about cannabis, cannabis is actually relatively harmless, even good for you.
Propaganda has a long history and a wide range of uses, and it is very powerful. Personally, I do not believe its right to lie to the public in a sad attempt to protect us from this very real world we live in.
