Conclusions: Propaganda, Hate and the Power of Radio

Abstract

In the preface and opening chapter I set out to examine the development, nature, content and role of propaganda, highlighting examples of where propaganda evolves into forms of incitement to hatred. The objective was to try to delineate between different forms and uses of propaganda to be able to find a workable definition of hate propaganda. In the historical chapters and case studies, it has been demonstrated that popular perceptions of propaganda as a tool used only by those with evil intent or by the ‘enemy’ (however defined) but not by those with a more righteous cause is inaccurate and leads to a skewed picture of what propaganda is and how it works. It is a much wider phenomenon in communication than just the manipulative definition that took hold in the middle of the 20th century, notably following the First World War and then with the rise of fascism and communism in Europe. Propaganda is an integral part of political and social life and is inherent in many forms of human communication. Propaganda in its developed forms stresses ‘the control of opinions and through them the actions of men’ (Jowett and O’Donnell, 2006, p. 73). It is primarily concerned with the management of opinion and the use of significant symbols to achieve this (Lasswell, 1971, pp. 9 and 13). It operates on a spectrum from the well-intentioned (such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service in the 1980s and 1990s seeking to provide its audience with the news and comment necessary for them to make informed decisions about the world around them), through the clearly manipulative forms of propaganda used within modern polities in the form of media owned by groups of individuals seeking to use that media for their own political or economic ends, to propaganda in societies with more (or even heavily) restricted media and public opinion networks where propaganda often takes the place of competing opinion or free dissemination of news and comment.