> What surprises me is that when these propaganda programs become more well known, people are still hesitant to believe that in some form they are still happeni

> What surprises me is that when these propaganda programs become more well known, people are still hesitant to believe that in some form they are still happening, the single most important thing that defines good propaganda is that it's invisible to those under its influence.. It used to be a lot "worse" back in the pre-Internet days when people generally watched a couple of channels and more or less got their info from news-papers. In a sense all these information bubbles are illustrating how much we are being targeted because we realize that we're not actually agreeing on anything - but again we only see how the targeting works on "the other camp" rarely on us. the rift going across (Western) society can largely be attributed to how propaganda has changed (forced to be more targeted and aggressive) and how the old forms of white/black info-ops which had massive reach no longer do their job. companies can now play too - no need to be a nation state to get disrupted by a guy in a Max Headroom mask. everyone can be both actor and spectator It's so strange to me as a non-American when I see a flag wielding citizen somewhere in the news, or normal people display their pride for their home country by talking about "taking a knee", or when they say "he/she is un-American" etc ... or somebody on LinkedIn who considers themselves "patriot" and mentions this in their profile. This "pride" is unheard of where I come from and if such a person would be transported into my home country suddenly speaking my language but with that behavior they would look very out of place. various names of great thinkers on propaganda float around but Jacques Ellul is by far the most articulate. He also has a section on Propaganda in his other (earlier) "The Technological Society"[2] which is his magnun opus IMO. Both the most underrated books I've had the pleasure to read in this past decade. (I think it was reading Ellul what ultimately radicalized Ted Kaczinsky e.g. helped him come to the conclusion that society is borked beyond repair). [1] Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512 https://archive.org/details/Propaganda_201512 [2] https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSociety https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci...