Summary
Propaganda usually means deliberate efforts to influence what people think and do for predetermined ends. In ‘Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes’ (French 1962, English 1965), the French sociologist Jacques Ellul argued it is far wider than posters and slogans, and sorted it into pairs: political or sociological, vertical or horizontal, agitation or integration.
The quieter half of each pair is the less familiar. Agitation propaganda stirs people to sudden action; integration propaganda reinforces a society’s norms and way of life over the long term. Its ‘sociological’ form is mostly undeliberate, carried by films, advertising and schooling. “The entire group, consciously or not, expresses itself in this fashion”, Ellul wrote.
Rationale
We keep Ellul as a caution. His integration propaganda is one account of how a dominant order comes to “feel natural or inevitable”; deliberate work on dispositions, ours included, could do the same for another.