What is propaganda? Propagao in Latin means to extend, enlargen, and expand-increase.

Pro means forward … or to advance. ‘Pehg-‘ in Proto-Indo-European means “to attach”.

Thus in a simple sense, propaganda is simply to attach a certain idea to a certain medium, then to send it forth to others.

Why study propaganda?

Propaganda is interesting… because in a modern sense we tend to think of it like:

Intentionally misleading information sent out by governments to control the people.

However, if we think about propaganda in a very basic sense… there is no political angle. If anything, the original notion was relating to the ‘Congregatio de Propaganda Fide‘ (which was the congregation of propagating the faith of Christianity) established by Pope Gregory the 15th (1622) regarding foreign missions. The idea was the ‘propagate and spread the faith of Christianity to non-Christian nations’.

Propaganda in modern times

Technically, any technology or medium which fosters the spread of ideas or information is ‘propaganda’.