Everything old is new again. One of the advantages of being a venerable organization is that your ancestors have already taken a go at issues and problems recurring today.

Propaganda Review,, was a Media Alliance magazine that explored techniques of manipulation, our vulnerability to them, and a society obsessed with the engineering of consent.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it

So, with the generous help of William Bowles, we are embarking on the project of excavating as much of Propaganda Review as we can in order to make it available for a bit of context in today’s “fake news” debate.

In this first edition, you’ll hear from:

• Noam Chomsky on Orwell and totaliarianism (“If a government can’t control people by  force, it had  better control  what they think.“)
• Nina Eliasoph on Oliver North and Iran-Contra (“It’s hard enough to brush my teeth in time for work. When am I gonna think about Oliver North?”)
• David Levi-Strauss on Photography and Propaganda (“As Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1931, the tremendous development of photojournalism has contributed practically nothing to the revelation of the truth about the conditions in this world. On the contrary, photography in the hands of the bourgeoisie has become a terrible weapon against the truth.”). 
• John Carlisle on the Persuasion/Manipulation Loop in Political Polling. (“Reagan is  governing America  by a new strategic doctrine – the  permanent campaign.”)
• Marcy Darnovsky on why a Propaganda Review? (“Television puts deodorant and death  on equal footing  and turns both into  entertainment.”)
• Jay Rosen on the techniques employed by the entertainment industry (“As a form of propaganda,  entertainment’s  strategy is to  convert the  passivity of the  audience into  the image of its opposite.“)
• Marina Hirsch’s Notes from an Advertising Addict. (“I’m a couch potato and proud of my roots.”)

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