Propaganda

Propaganda is contriving conditions where people's critical resistances are so weakened and their freedom of choice so severely reduced as to make acquiescence all too likely. As distinct from education, it is a systematic attempt to influence people by reducing the amount of information available for discussion and encouraging them to act on impulse. Those to be persuaded are led to believe that only one line of action in a particular situation is possible.

Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.  (Joseph Gobbels)

Governments may use effective communications to encourage citizen health, family planning, and energy conservation; caution in the use of dangerous products; or advise of the need of civilian defence or war-time resistance against an aggressor. This type of propaganda, including persuasion to take advantage of educational opportunities, or to support international agencies and international cooperation and development activities, is beneficial.

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons… who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind. (Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928).