IMVHO the author miss a point: there is no single actor, even in already developed and strong regimes. Any actor run it's own propaganda, sometime positive some

IMVHO the author miss a point: there is no single actor, even in already developed and strong regimes. Any actor run it's own propaganda, sometime positive sometimes negative, sometimes both: yes, that's another commonly ignored point, sometimes there are campaigns apparently against those who pay the campaign. People change slowly in general and there are many ways to force a change, sometimes the change have some positive aspects for all, not only negative etc the world is vast. Another point is that we do not know really the mass of the population, we see and know a certain set of cohorts, but not the whole, PRs know better especially in surveillance capitalism era. So some campaigns are stupid but for a certain cohort distant from us and not necessary marginal such stupid campaign works. Why making apparently negative campaigns? Because their target goes behind the campaign itself, for instance a government know of a looming crisis, simulating a political crisis now, a quick one, that put some expendable inside the actual government in a bad position, saving others, then bring up a new government by their adversaries that inevitably fell in the looming crisis is a classic. You wait few years and you opponent have a ruined reputation for far more years to come. Another is just play victim, sacrificing a subordinate sold as disloyal to avoid taking the fault, just saying "my very terribly fault was having trust a disloyal, criminal, evil man hidden in my staff". Also people have no memory, most do not remember nothing longer than few years in the past, so repeating the same scheme means creating an illusion of a change while effectively something change but the rest remain absolutely the same.