Piers Robinson is an expert on propaganda.
He is also a political scientist and co-director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, convenor of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media and an associated researcher with the Working Group on Propaganda and the 9/11 Global ‘War on Terror’.
All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.
Adolf Hitler
What is propaganda?
Propaganda is the spread of biased or misleading information to influence public opinion and shape beliefs, often used by governments, organisations or individuals with specific goals.
It can also be subtle and right under our noses without us noticing, as behavioural psychologicist Patrick Fagan argues.
Propaganda takes pretty much any form. If there is communication, then there is propaganda.
Piers focuses on the ‘fog of war’ which is, in essence, the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations.
In other words, just like soldiers struggle to see through fog on the battlefield, we struggle to figure out what is true in the information war.
For example, what actually happened when Russia invaded Ukraine?
Is CNN reporting the truth or is RT reporting the truth?
And if the truth is ‘somewhere in the middle’, then where is that?
Conversation
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
Noam Chomsky
