The phenomena of propaganda and counter-propaganda in the system of sociological knowledge
Authors: Dortseva E. V. 
Published: April 2024

The article is devoted to a detailed sociological analysis of the phenomena of propaganda and counter-propaganda, which are the main tools for managing information, controlling public opinion, behavior, and the system of views and ideas of people. In the process of the formation of an electronic digital society, propaganda changes, but its essence, goals and objectives remain essentially unchanged. Modern propaganda is a complex and multifaceted socio-political phenomenon of undoubted interest for many humanities and social sciences, primarily psychology and political science, but it is especially relevant for sociology.

             The author analyzes and compares the approaches of two outstanding theorists, pioneers of propaganda – G. Lasswell and E. Bernays. Thus, the priority for introducing the term “propaganda” into wide scientific circulation belongs to the American political scientist and social thinker Harold Lasswell, who developed an effective model for organizing propaganda” during the First World War. Propaganda is a “war of ideas about ideas”; it refers exclusively to “the control of opinion by means of significant symbols, or, more specifically, although less precisely, by means of stories, rumors, reports, pictures and other forms of social communication”. According to another prominent theorist, Edward Bernays, “the mechanism of large-scale dissemination of ideas is propaganda in the broad sense of the word – as a set of organized efforts to introduce a particular belief or theory”.

             The article identifies two main approaches to the interpretation of the term propaganda, different in scope, as well as in semantic and value content. The first of them is broad and value-neutral, and the second is narrow and quite ideological. In this approach, the prevailing emphasis is on the class nature of propaganda, the targeted introduction, through its tools, of the attitudes and values of a particular (usually ruling) class or its ideology into the mass consciousness. The author emphasizes that the phenomenon of propaganda implies a targeted communicative process of transmitting to a specific audience, with the help of special means and methods, certain (often constructed) information that can influence its opinion, attitudes, and ultimately its worldview and subsequent behavior. To create a clearer idea of the phenomenon of propaganda is possible by highlighting its essential characteristics, which are outlined in this article. An integral element of propaganda is counter-propaganda – a specialized area of ideological activity, the content of which is to expose the goals, methods and arguments of hostile propaganda, and to neutralize ideological sabotage.

             At the first stages of scientific analysis of propaganda, it was often interpreted as a homogeneous activity combining various elements of socio-political and cultural life. At present, this interpretation seems simplistic, given the ever-increasing variety of materials disseminated through propaganda. Thus, in practice there is an increasingly clear differentiation of types of propaganda on various grounds, which the author analyzes in detail. Particular attention paid to the category “sociological propaganda”, which some researchers do not always consciously and legitimately operate. It is more appropriate to talk about social propaganda or cultural propaganda, the nature of which is significantly different from political propaganda.

             The article outlines the subject field of sociological analysis of the phenomenon of propaganda both within the framework of general and special sociological theory – the sociology of propaganda, and outlines its promising directions in the electronic and digital era.