Propaganda, obviously: How propaganda analysis fixates on the hidden and misses the conspicuous

Abstract

Propaganda analysis has long focused on revealing the rhetorical tricks and hidden special interests behind persuasion campaigns. But what are critics to do when propaganda is obvious? In the late 1930s the Institute for Propaganda Analysis faced this question while investigating the public politicking of A&P, then the largest retailer in the United States. While contemporary critics lambasted A&P for their secretive campaign, particularly their use of front groups, A&P used many relatively overt methods of propaganda to win political victories. Propaganda analysis then, as now, fixated on the concealed, failing to adequately critique conspicuous communicative power.