''How Propaganda Works'' is a 2015 non-fiction book by
Jason Stanley
Jason Stanley (born 1969) is an American philosopher who is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He has accepted an appointment at the University of Toronto based on what he describes as the deteriorating political situ ...
, published by
Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.
The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
.
Reviewer Martin van Tunen described the book as "a primarily philosophical investigation of the phenomenon of propaganda".
[Tunen, p. 144.]
According to the author, propaganda reduces
empathy
Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are ...
in people, which makes citizens okay with negative actions happening to others, and/or conceals why certain practices are done, and therefore makes it hard for citizens to think properly about the policies and how they work. Therefore, the author argues, propaganda reduces discourse of what should be reasonable.
[Bollinger, p. 502.]
The author argues that economic equality is necessary for the process of discussion in the democratic process to truly function. He also added that the beliefs in unequal societies like the pre-
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...
were,
[Swanson, p. 937.] in his own words "flawed", meaning that people who hold these beliefs cannot easily change them. Stanley argued that white Southerners wrongly believed their society was meritocratic by seeing slaves in poor conditions, when in fact the society created those conditions.
[Swanson, pp. 937-938.] The author argues that such ideologies are what characterizes propaganda.
[Bollinger, pp. 502-503.] Raphael van Riel of
Philipps-University Marburg
The Philipps University of Marburg () is a public university, public research university located in Marburg, Germany. It was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest sti ...
and the
University of Duisburg-Essen
The University of Duisburg-Essen () is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded 194th place in the world. It was originally ...
wrote that the work shows that propaganda can be used against democracy and is often done to hide the anti-democratic rationale behind it.
The author argues that a society with free speech and an unequal socioeconomic environment lacks stability.
[Bollinger, p. 502.]
The work includes ideas and argumentation from various experts of multiple fields, including epistemology, ethics, philosophy, psychology, political theory, and sociology. Renee Jorgensen Bolinger of the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
wrote that the wide variety of topics means that a non-academic reader may have difficulty digesting the book, even though the authors intended for the main audience to be a general one.
[
]
Content
Tunen stated that the first chapter discusses " this shallow academic state of" the academic study of propaganda.[
The sixth chapter argues that poor people often adopt the beliefs of the wealthy and powerful, even if said beliefs are harmful to poor people like themselves. The flawed beliefs are used to prevent the poor from challenging their own condition.][Min, p. 214.]
Reception
According to Bollinger, the breadth of concepts covered is "one of its greatest virtues".[
Eric Swanson of the ]University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
stated that it can be engaged with in many different ways, and described it as "brilliant, rich, and wide-ranging".[
]
See also
* '' How Fascism Works'', another book by Stanley
References
*
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Also at
Project MUSE
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Notes
{{reflist
External links
*
How Propaganda Works
' - Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.
The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
*
How Propaganda Works
' - At JSTOR
JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...
Princeton University Press books
2015 books