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It's annoying that the word “propaganda” has ended up meaning “PR efforts I don't like”. There was once an era when propaganda was a normal word.
by TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
It's annoying that the word “propaganda” has ended up meaning “PR efforts I don't like”. There was once an era when propaganda was a normal word.
- jakelazaroff 4y agoOkay, but this is propaganda in the original sense of the word.
- groestl 4y agoAFAIK propaganda is used with a positive connotation as well. It's just debatable if you interpret a specific act of propaganda as positive or negative, depending on the objective of the message.
- azubinski 4y agoDespite this particular story which is probably a "matryoshka" of propaganda inside a propaganda inside... you are one step away from discovering the reason for the frequent appearance of Chekhov and Dostoevsky in HN :)
- groestl 4y agoPlease forgive my ignorance, but I don't understand (probably because of my lack of knowledge wrt Chekhov and Dostoevsky), yet I want to. At the risk of giving away the joke, could you explain your point to me?
- Johnny555 4y agoWhen did propaganda not mean "PR efforts I don't like", especially government PR efforts? Wikipedia says: The term began taking a pejorative or negative connotation in the mid-19th century, when it was used in the political sphere Do you long for the days of the 1850's?
- lostlogin 4y agoI heard a great definition of propaganda recently. It’s a British person having a good look.
- hn_go_brrrrr 4y agoI don't get it.
- elemenopy 4y agoIt sounds like "proper gander", where gander means "a look".
- tialaramex 4y agoIn case people are wondering, the analogy is to the appearance of a goose (the male goose is a gander) when it cranes its neck to look at something, and you can't use it in many places "look" fits, it's specifically an action so you can "take a gander" or "have a gander" but you don't just "gander" and the appearance of something is not its "gander".
- thepostman0 4y ago(Ganda means to look)