What is the difference between propaganda and advertising?
Advertising usually tries to get people to buy something, and propaganda usually tries to shape their beliefs, loyalties or political behaviour. The two use the same tools: emotion, repetition, slogans, celebrity and social proof. Scholars therefore treat the line as one of purpose and openness, not of method. Some writers, including Jacques Ellul, count advertising as a form of propaganda, and others keep them apart.
Where the two are usually separated
None of these is a clean test. A war-bond poster is an advertisement for a government product that is also an appeal to loyalty. A tobacco campaign, a political ad and a recruiting film all sit on both sides of the table.
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| Question | Advertising, typically | Propaganda, typically |
|---|---|---|
| What is the aim? | A purchase or a brand preference | A belief, an identity, a vote, a loyalty or an act of obedience |
| Who pays? | A company, with the sponsor named by law in many countries | A state, party, movement or interest group, sometimes with the source hidden |
| Is the source clear? | Usually labelled as an advertisement | Often labelled, but the white, grey and black categories turn on how open the source is |
| What does the audience give up? | Money | Opinion, trust, time, votes, sometimes safety |
Scholars who treat them as one family
Harold Lasswell's 1927 definition of propaganda as "the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols" covers commercial symbols as readily as political ones. Edward Bernays titled his 1928 book Propaganda and wrote of the "engineering of consent"; he later promoted the phrase "public relations" for the same work. Ellul (1962) argued that advertising, schooling and mass entertainment together produce a standing "sociological" propaganda in every industrial society. Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell take the opposite emphasis and reserve "propaganda" for deliberate, systematic attempts to serve the sender's intent, which leaves room for ordinary commercial persuasion outside the term. The definition page (What is propaganda? Definition, history and examples) sets all four side by side.
Where they have overlapped in practice
- First World War, United States. The Committee on Public Information (1917) included a Division of Advertising that placed government appeals in newspapers and magazines, and its posters used commercial illustrators.
- Second World War, United States. The advertising industry organised itself to carry government messages on bonds, rationing and salvage. The collection's war bond posters and rationing and salvage posters show the same layout and slogan habits as commercial posters of the period.
- Britain and Canada. Government posters of both wars borrowed commercial lettering and slogans (British and Canadian pages).
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- Other sides. Soviet and Chinese poster artists also came out of commercial and graphic-design training, and their state posters reuse techniques such as Card stacking and Fear appeal, as US and British ones do.
How to tell which one you are looking at
- Name the sponsor. A named company selling a product is advertising; an unnamed or disguised sponsor is the signal to look harder.
- Name the ask. A purchase is a commercial ask. A vote, an enlistment or an attitude toward a group is a political one.
- Check what is left out (Card stacking). Both genres omit; the question is what a reader cannot see.
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- Apply the test to every side. Wartime poster appeals, product ads and party broadcasts should get the same questions.
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For a longer checklist see how to spot propaganda, and for the wider map see types of propaganda.
Sources and further reading
Sources
Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War (1927).
Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War (1927). Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda (1928). Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1962; English translation 1965). Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion (Sage). George Creel, How We Advertised America (1920).