Fake news or Propaganda – what’s the difference?

Definition: Fake news is a neologism often used to refer to fabricated news. This type of news, found in traditional news, social media or fake news websites, has no basis in fact, but is presented as being factually accurate.

Source: Cambridge English Dictionary

Definition: Propaganda represents information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people’s opinions.

Source: Cambridge English Dictionary

So, according to the dictionary definition, fake news is completely made-up whereas propaganda can contain an element of truth, albeit an element of truth that has been distorted out of all recognition.

However, how easy is it to tell the two apart in the modern internet era?

Propaganda: Key dates

We covered the history of Fake News in a recent blog (link), so let’s concentrate on a few key dates in the history of propaganda here:

c500BC: A philosophical beginning– there is no definitive ‘beginning’ to propaganda, so Ancient Greece seems as good a place to start as any. The Athenians made use of the (Olympic) games, the theatre, the law courts, festivals…etc for propagandising ideas and beliefs. Almost every ruler since the Athenians has used propaganda (in some form or other) to advance their own ideas or values.

1588: Two sides of a Spanish coin – the Spanish Armada represents one of the early examples of propaganda in writing. Just over 100 years earlier, Johannes Gutenberg had invented the printing press (1439) which revolutionised written communication…and hence propaganda.

By the time of the war between Britian (Elizabeth I) and Spain (Phillip II), pamphlets were published by the governments on both sides claiming victories in various conflicts. Sir Walter Raleigh complained bitterly that the Spanish claimed to have defeated the British at sea “in sundry languages, in print, great victories in words, which they pleaded to have obtained against this realm.”

1622: The term ‘propaganda’ enters common usage – Pope Gregory XV created the ‘Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith’ to spread and the word of the Catholic Church and to regulate its affairs in faraway lands.

A ‘College of Propaganda’ was subsequently set up under Pope Urban VIII to train priests for these missions. Hence, ‘propaganda’ began life as an honourable word, deserving of respect.

1939-45: Industrialised propaganda– hitherto, the manufacture of propaganda had been industrialised (printing) whereas the distribution of propaganda had been far less sophisticated. For example, In WW1, this often consisted of throwing pamphlets out of a balloon and hoping that the wind blew them in the right direction.

However, the dictators who had assumed power prior to WW2 (Hitler, Mussolini…etc) were acutely aware of the power of propaganda for shaping their policies and exerting control – this was a time when radio, cinema and mass printing production transformed the reach of propaganda and enabled it to be more precisely targeted and controlled.

Conclusion

Fake news can be propaganda, but propaganda is not fake news – it has some verifiable source as opposed to being completely made-up.

However, in contrast to its ‘honourable’ origins (to spread Christian beliefs), the word ‘propaganda’ nowadays carries negative connotations, whereby only one (often distorted) side of the argument is put forward in an attempt to influence or change people’s beliefs (note: fake news tends to be crafted for financial gain, to encourage people to click on a link).

It’s a murky old world out there to be sure, and with the amount of information we receive on a daily basis it can be difficult to sort fact from fiction, hence why we increasingly rely upon trusted news sources to do the sorting for us.

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