---
title: About FRAME
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/about/
description: What FRAME is, how it scores propaganda by method rather than by side, and the rules it holds itself to.
section: About and doctrine
---

![Illustration: a dense, generic Cold War intelligence analyst's evidence wall of press photography, redacted reports and aerial reconnaissance imagery.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-evidence-wall.jpg)

About

# About FRAME

**FRAME** is the **Forensic Research Archive of Manipulation and Exploitation**, an open archive of propaganda maintained by AXIA Enterprises.

## Why we built this

Propaganda works best when nobody notices it. A 1915 recruiting poster and this week's wave of coordinated accounts lean on the same few moves: a fear, a flag, a crowd that seems to agree, an enemy with a face. Once you can name those moves, they lose much of their grip.

It is easy to spot propaganda from the other side and miss it from your own. So FRAME catalogues how a message works, not whose message it is, and applies the same tags, the same evidence standard and the same scrutiny to every country, party, movement and era. It takes no position on the causes behind the material it holds.

We also wanted the past and the present in one room. A wartime poster shows a technique plainly, with a century of distance. The watch briefs show the same technique still running today, faster and at larger scale. Seeing them side by side is the quickest way we know to learn the pattern.

So FRAME is built to be checked. Every image is public domain or openly licensed, every brief cites dated sources, and thin evidence is labelled as thin. It is free to read and free to reuse.

[![Remember Belgium — Enlist To-Day](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/remember-belgium-1915-640.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/remember-belgium-1915/)

From the collection: [Remember Belgium — Enlist To-Day](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/remember-belgium-1915/), 1915

## What is inside

[![I Want You for U.S. Army](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/i-want-you-for-us-army-1917-640.jpg)ArchiveThe collectionhistorical and modern propaganda images, each tagged with the techniques it uses. Every image is public domain or openly licensed, and its rights were checked against the institution that holds it.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/) [![Illustration, not an archive object: technique card for Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/technique-cards/card-stacking.jpg)ArchiveThe techniquesa fixed list of named methods, from the 1937 Institute for Propaganda Analysis devices to automated influence operations. Every tag in the archive comes from this list.](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/) [![AI-generated image of the Hollywood sign on fire](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hollywood-sign-fire-ai-2025-640.jpg)ArchiveWatch briefsshort, dated, sourced reads of propaganda as it happens. The list on the site is a live, ongoing watch running since 8 September 2026. It is a sensor, not the archive. The case studies are the historical vault.](https://propagandaarchive.org/briefs/) [!['Join us in a victory job' (Australian Department of National Service)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/join-us-in-a-victory-job-australia-1943.jpg)ArchiveCampaign dossierslong reads on patterns that outlast a single cycle.](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/) [![Oro alla Patria: handing in gold wedding rings in Milan, 1935](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/oro-alla-patria-milan-1935.jpg)ArchiveCase studiesillustrated, sourced walk-throughs of propaganda and of efforts to counter it, from royal inscriptions of about 1274 BC to campaigns of 2026, grouped by period and subject.](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/) [![She May Look Clean—But](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/she-may-look-clean-but-1943-640.jpg)ArchiveThen and nowa historical and a modern example of the same technique side by side, with who was behind each and where they are alike and where they differ.](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/) [![時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900-640.jpg)ArchiveMap and timelineevery dated object, brief, campaign and case study placed on a world map and a timeline. A separate technique map shows which techniques turn up together in the same brief.](https://propagandaarchive.org/history-map/) [The rulesScore methods, not teams.A technique is a technique regardless of faction, and an archive that only studies the other side is itself a stacked deck. The same standard applies to every side, country and era, including the ones a reader may agree with.Read the rules](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#the-rules)

## The rules

Score methods, not teams. A technique is a technique regardless of faction, and an archive that only studies the other side is itself a stacked deck. The same standard applies to every side, country and era, including the ones a reader may agree with. FRAME is a record, not an argument: it describes how a message works and leaves judgments about the cause behind it to the reader. Quotes are never invented. Sources are primary and dated wherever possible, and a thin record is labelled as thin.

> Sources are primary and dated wherever possible, and a thin record is labelled as thin.

![Illustration: a redacted-dossier collage of press photography, contact sheets and political crowds from multiple eras.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/hero-case-studies.jpg)

## Beyond the archive

[![Ты записался добровольцем? (Have You Volunteered?)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/did-you-volunteer-moor-1920-640.jpg)ResearchLearncited research on the psychology that makes these techniques work, with a rating of how well each finding has held up, and a section on countering propaganda that sets out the evidence for each method.](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/) [![Is Ireland a part of England? Vote for Sinn Fein (Sinn Féin publicity sheet, 1918 general election)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/sinn-fein-election-poster-1918-640.jpg)HandbookWritea handbook and cause-neutral templates for open, attributed advocacy, with the techniques named so writers know what they are using.](https://propagandaarchive.org/write/) [![Proclamation by the Queen in Council, to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India (printed sheet, Allahabad, 1 November 1858)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/queens-proclamation-to-the-people-of-india-1858-640.jpg)MethodDoctrinethe archive's own working definition and method, and pages on the theories, official doctrines and manuals behind propaganda.](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/working-definition/)

## Showing the record as it was

Propaganda was often cruel, racist, violent or sexualized, and some of it is hard to look at today. That does not change the fact that it was made and seen. FRAME shows every object complete and unedited, because a cleaned-up version would misrepresent what people were actually shown and what the technique relied on. Showing an object is not endorsing it.

**Who this is for.** FRAME is meant for readers 18 or older, or younger readers with a parent's or guardian's approval and supervision. Much of the material is extremely offensive and will offend people. Read the [terms of use](https://propagandaarchive.org/terms/) and the [privacy policy](https://propagandaarchive.org/privacy/).

Objects with dehumanizing, violent or graphic imagery carry a short content note above them, so readers know what is coming. The note never replaces or hides the object.

> Showing an object is not endorsing it.

## Known gaps

The collection only holds images whose rights are clear, and that currently tilts it toward American and British material, which is more often in the public domain. Many German, Soviet, Japanese and other posters are left out for copyright reasons, not by choice. Gaps like this are noted as they are found and filled when openly licensed copies turn up.

## What this is not

- A partisan scoreboard
- A claim that "everything is propaganda"

## How the pages are made

Some pages may be drafted with AI assistance (Claude).

## Using this material

The text of the archive is licensed CC BY 4.0: reuse it with credit to FRAME. Images keep their own public-domain or open-license status, which is stated on each object's page.

## How to read a brief

Every brief carries a **color**, which says how openly the source speaks, and a **confidence**, which says how solid the facts are. Color is not a moral ranking: white propaganda can be more effective than black.

- **Identified:** Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Unidentified:** Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Impersonated:** Source falsified: fake personas, outlets or documents

- **documented:** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures
- **high:** Multiple independent open sources, low disagreement about the facts
- **medium:** Plausible and sourced, but attribution or interpretation still open
- **contested:** The facts or the frame are actively disputed

## Doctrine

- [Doctrine: the archive's contract and the doctrines it studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/doctrine/)
- [Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/bernays-propaganda/)
- [Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1962)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/ellul-propaganda/)
- [Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (1988)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/herman-chomsky-propaganda-model/)
- [Institute for Propaganda Analysis, How to Detect Propaganda (1937)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/ipa-seven-devices/)
- [Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War (1927)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/lasswell-propaganda-technique/)
- [Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (1922)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/lippmann-public-opinion/)
- [Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party, thought work and the mass line (1942-present)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/maoist-thought-work/)
- [Method (how to file)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/method/)
- [Hitler, Goebbels and the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (1925-1945)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/nazi-propaganda-ministry/)
- [People's Liberation Army, the Three Warfares (2003)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/pla-three-warfares/)
- [Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time (1928)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/)
- [Soviet and Russian military theory, Reflexive control and information confrontation (1960s-2016)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/russian-reflexive-control/)
- [Lenin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the agitprop model (1902-1991)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/soviet-agitprop/)
- [U.S. Army and Joint Staff, Psychological Operations doctrine (1987-2013)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/)
- [Doctrine (working definition)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/working-definition/)