The way in which I teach my classes about propaganda is that it
is usually used by an established government, to sway public opinion behind a certain policy, or
by a group seeking to remove a government from power, such as the Sons of Liberty and the Boston
"Massacre" (five people were killed). So propaganda is usually government related. The US
government had an entire official agency dedicated to propaganda to motivate Americans to support
World War I involvement.
Yellow Journalism, such as that of the
Gilded Age and the early 20th century, was lying or exaggerating to the public in a similar way,
but for a different motive: profit.
And then there's "Muckraking"
(as described by President Teddy Roosevelt), where Progressive authors and activists around 1900
exaggerated their stories of suffering and disaster to motivate public opinion towards reforms.
This would include Upton Sinclair's novel, The
Jungle.
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