Here are some of the sources I've found over the years in researching propaganda.
The first is Edward Bernays' 1928 book Propaganda,
This short read at 168 pages, is quite chilling in its foretelling of how propaganda works in the West today. Bernays speaks of an ‘Invisible Government’ of men that control our society from the shadows, and he goes on to explain how to apply and promote propaganda in our everyday institutions; from our politics, media and even into propagandizing our education systems. It can be found online in PDF form for free if you wish to save a few bucks, and it makes quoting from the book easier.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. -- Edward Bernays
The next book is Walter Lipmann’s Public Opinion,
Walter Lipmann’s book is about 300 pages long, and can also be found online for free. Lipmann’s book, which I’m currently reading has some astonishing insights into how and why human’s stereotype each other, and how those stereotypes are used by the Propagandist to keep citizens divided.
The final book on this list is, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, by Edward S. Herman, and Noam Chomsky. It's about 300 pages long, and mostly about the how the Media operates to push propaganda through repetition and omission. I personally found it to be a bit depressing, but it's also seriously eye opening.
To finish out this article I offer two videos, The first is a short twelve minute watch,
and the second is a long, but very interesting 4 hour documentary by the BBC. The Century of the Self was originally offered in 4 one hour segments, and is probably best watched that way for busy people. It actually focuses more on public relations, but my opinion is it also relates to propaganda as well…
These are all good sources of research into the methods and applications of Propaganda. What I find disturbing about all of them is how long this information has been publicly available, and yet Propaganda has become so pervasive in our society. In essence we’re being told, “Yep… we’re the Invisible Government and we’re going to control you, the Bewildered Herd... here’s how we’re going to do it… and there’s not a damn thing you can do about.”
a final thought,
"Propaganda works by tricking people into believing a lie, then relying on their unwillingness to admit error to imprison them there." -- Michael Rivero
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