Abstract
Every year, the American Government spends 400 million dollars to produce propagandistic
materials (including magazines, movies, and radio broadcasts for Voice of America), the average
American viewer watches 37,822 TV commercials, and the "top ten marketing research firms have
combined revenues" of over one billion dollars (Pratkanis and Aronson, 1992). Yet, a century ago,
propaganda and public relations were still marginal industries : these activities have witnessed a
soar in their use by governments, businesses, and private interests, and the trend seems to be for
even more development in the upcoming years (Chomsky 2002), so far as Pratkanis and Aronson
(1992) talk about an "age of propaganda".
As pointed out by Landrin (2008), "few analysis categories are as polysemic as the notion of
propaganda" : the term is often used "to evoke practices and technique [...] whose forms and
utilisations are historically variable" (ibid.). We shall here define it as the "systematic, widespread
dissemination or promotion of particular ideas, doctrines, and practices to further one's own cause
or to damage an opposing one" (Johnston 2003), and note that it is reckoned as a negative activity.
It is more difficult to define public relations, which is often described in relation to propaganda :
Moloney (2006) describes it as "weak propaganda", whereas Landrin (2008) characterizes it as the
private equivalent of propaganda.
