The Pros And Cons Of Propaganda

Propaganda and misdirection has become a worldwide political strategy. Harold Lasswell's propaganda theories seemed to carry the weight of real world proof, the world had been submerged by a devastating world war, The War to End All Wars in fact, yet global turmoil continued to rage. These conflicts were infused with worldly and apparently successful propaganda. Yet there was an opposition. One outstanding critic of propaganda theory was philosopher John Dewey. These two scholars have different views on propaganda; firstly Lasswell feels that Propaganda was an essential tool that had to be used to effectively manage modern social orders, especially when they are in deadly competition with other nations that rely on propaganda to mobilize their

230). Dewey did brilliant when it came to restoring the media. He said that newspapers needed to do more than just telling about current happenings on the bulletin boards. He even issued a challenge to journalists to do more to stimulate public interest in politics and world affairs to motivate people to actively seek out information and then talk about it with others. Newspapers should serve as vehicles for public education and debate. They should teach critical thinking skills and structure public discussion of important issues. The main idea, as Dewey once said, “We live exposed to the greatest flood of mass suggestion humanity has ever experienced.” Speaking from personal experience, having been born and raised inside this propaganda system, and still obviously living inside it, I have come to realize that even the most independent minded among us vastly underestimates how mentally conditioned we all are. Most people are no more consciously aware of this mental domination than they are aware of gravity. It’s like the air we breathe. (Degraw, 2003). He simply believes that the elites use propaganda as a tool to brainwash the masses and to dominate them politically and also