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Propaganda: Power and Persuasion

Welch, David (2013) Propaganda: Power and Persuasion. British Library, 216 pp. ISBN 978-0-7123-5700-5. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:40702)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.

Abstract

Propaganda is all around us, used to promote a sense of common cause and belonging, change behaviour or influence ideas, as well as to mislead, deceive, even destroy. Perhaps the greatest and most sophisticated exponent of propaganda is the modern state. Using universal themes of conflict, public education, protest and leadership, this book, which accompanies a major new exhibition at the British Library, takes a close look at the range of propaganda used by different states - and their opponents. Over the last 100 years, increased literacy, multiplying media formats, methodologies and competing messengers have required ever greater effort to persuade and influence citizens, and the book's primary focus is the 20th and 21st centuries, taking a worldwide view. But it also puts propaganda into its historical context. Different strategies are highlighted - from appeals to hearts and minds, to dictat and the cult of personality, sloganeering and news management. Posters, books, films, stamps, cartoons, music, newspapers, statistics, games, social media and the web all feature. The book concludes with a look at how the explosion in social computing is influencing the way the state attempts to persuade and control its citizens.

Item Type: Book
Additional information: questionable eprint id: 31203; The volume was commissioned by the British Library to accompany its summer exhibition, 2013. In order to increase accessibility, the British Library committee decided not to include notes or a full sources list. The structure of the work is shaped by the exhibition which the author co-curated and also acted as historical adviser. The exhibition and the book consist of 6 sections intended to represent a theoretical and thematic analysis of propaganda from Ancient Greece to the present day. Welch was encouraged to deploy material from across the full range of the Library’s collections and identify key materials for loan from other sources. The exhibition and book were designed to reappraise the term propaganda and to demonstrate its importance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The target audience is the ‘intelligent reading public’ in order to challenge received perceptions associated with the term ‘propaganda’. Each chapter is thematic and consists of a number of historical case studies which are truly global in scope. The narrative is intentionally polemic and the historical documents are analysed critically. The scope and complexity of the study represents a synthesis of the author’s long experience as a specialist in political propaganda.;
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PE English philology and language
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English
Depositing User: Stewart Brownrigg
Date Deposited: 07 Mar 2014 00:05 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:15 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/40702 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Welch, David.

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