Government propaganda

Official information services provide news for national and international consumption. Information media used for government propaganda include radio, television, newspapers and journals, art and photographs, films and theatre. Government propaganda may be in favour of nationalism, war, racism, religious attitudes or any other policy or attitude needing popular support. More commonly, propaganda simply supports the economic, political and cultural status quo.

During 2020-2022, government propaganda was deployed across democracies on an unprecedented scale in order to gain compliance with the unorthodox and intrusive public health measures adopted during the COVID-19 event.  Many forms of “non-consensual persuasion” were employed, ranging from manipulated messaging designed to increase “fear levels” through to coercion. In the UK, for example, very early on behavioural scientists were providing advice to the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). This group, named the “Scientific Pandemic Influenza group on Behaviour (SPI-B)”, produced one document with “options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures” which include persuasion, incentivization and coercion.  In the section on “persuasion” it states that the "perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging".  The document also referred to using media to increase sense of personal threat.  Just as important as the aggressive promotion of official narratives was the suppression and censorship of those questioning authorities. Indeed, there is a case to be made that the most important part of any propaganda campaign is the drive to ensure that certain voices, claims and arguments either never see the light of day or otherwise remain contained within “fringe” or “alternative” circles. Part of this process of suppressing arguments and opinion involves superficially well-meaning attempts to manage what has been increasingly labelled as “misinformation” and “disinformation”.

These approaches were paralleled at the global level, for example by the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health (TAG).  The WHO describes in detail its involvement with social media and “big tech”: “WHO has been working closely with more than 50 digital companies and social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitch, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google, Viber, WhatsApp and YouTube, to ensure that science-based health messages from the organization or other official sources appear first when people search for information related to COVID-19. WHO has also partnered with the Government of the United Kingdom on a digital campaign to raise awareness of misinformation around COVID-19 and encourage individuals to report false or misleading content online. In addition, WHO is creating tools to amplify public health messages – including its WHO Health Alert chatbot, available on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Viber – to provide the latest news and information on how individuals can protect themselves and others from COVID-19.”