Propaganda Society

Gerald Sussman is Professor of Urban Studies and Communication at Portland State University, where he teaches graduate courses in international community development, political economy, political communication, and media studies. His latest book is Branding Democracy: U.S. Regime Change in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe (Peter Lang, 2010). He is also the author of Global Electioneering: Campaign Consulting, Communications, and Corporate Financing (2005) and author or editor of three other books. Professor Sussman serves on a number of academic journal editorial boards as well as the Community Advisory Board of Portland, Oregon’s public broadcasting station, KOPB.

• Contents: Graham Murdock: Preface – Gerald Sussman: Introduction: The Propaganda Society – Robert W. McChesney/Inger L. Stole/John Bellamy Foster/Hannah Holleman: Advertising and the Genius of Commercial Propaganda – Doris Baltruschat: Branded Entertainment and the New Media Economy – Matthew P. McAllister: «Very High Art»: The Cultural Enhancement of Product Promotion in «Making-of» Videos about Advertising Campaigns – Tim Dwyer: Net Worth: Popular Social Networks as Colossal Marketing Machines – Massimo Ragnedda/Glenn W. Muschert: The Regime of Propaganda in a Neoliberal State: Berlusconi and the Italian Media – Sharon Beder: Corporate Discourse on Climate Change – Inger L. Stole: Cause Marketing as Commercial Propaganda: Neoliberal Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? – Michael Barker: Celebrity Philanthropy: In the Service of Corporate Propaganda – Robert Jensen: Pornography as Propaganda – Douglas Kellner: War Correspondents, the Military, and Propaganda: Some Critical Reflections – Edward Herman/David Peterson: Legitimizing Versus Delegitimizing Elections: Honduras and Iran – Lee Artz: The New Rhetoric of the Global War on Terrorism – Sue Curry Jansen: International Public Relations: Neoliberal Fixer and Diplomat Without Portfolio – Aeron Davis: Promotion, Propaganda, and High Finance – James F. Tracy: Covering Workers: News Media, Labor, and the 2008 Economic Crisis – Dominic Wring: Telling It Like It Is: The Focus Group as an Ideological Weapon – Patricia Mazepa: Direct from the Source: Canada’s Integrated System of State Propaganda – Gerald Sussman: Epilogue.

«In direct contradiction to received doctrine, immense resources are devoted by the powerful to undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices, and to undermine democracy by similar means – perceived necessities, if passivity and obedience are to be maintained. The incisive essays collected here draw the curtain aside from many of the devices employed to ensure that the general public, ‘ignorant and meddlesome outsiders,’ will ‘be put in its place’ and not interfere with those who have the right to rule, in the words of one of the most respected public intellectuals of the twentieth century, the progressive thinker Walter Lippmann, articulating the common elite understanding.» (Noam Chomsky)«The global communications revolution has made it possible for political and economic elites to rule through the use of propaganda and deception as never before in human history. ‘The Propaganda Society’ exposes the workings of the corporate media monopoly and its links to political control. It shows how public communication is now used to sustain the endless accumulation of capital and achieve social conformity with a global order based on vast inequalities in wealth and power. The varied contributions make clear that the level of ideological indoctrination and cultural manipulation that prevails in this era of crisis-ridden global capitalism has truly reached that of a totalitarian system. This book is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the machinations of power and domination in the twenty-first century.» (William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology, Global, and Latin American Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara)