JACQUES ELLUL

It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale.

The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.

In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern men and women live and act.

For the word is dialectical in itself and at the same time is integrated into the whole of existence. By this I mean that the word is intended to be lived.

The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment.

All human language draws its nature and value from the fact that it both comes from the Word of God and is chosen by God to manifest himself. But this relationship is secret and incomprehensible, beyond the bounds of reason and analysis.

Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.

Thinking has become a superfluous exercise... purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game.

Prayer holds together the shattered fragments of the creation. It makes history possible.

The Holy Spirit alone can do this, the Holy Spirit alone can establish this link with one's neighbor.

Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.

The intellectual who wants to do her work properly must today go back to the starting point: the woman whom she knows, and first of all to herself. It is at that level, and at no other, that she ought to begin to think about the world situation.

It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale. The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment.

Human beings have to adapt to it, and accept total change.

Propaganda can play only on individuals more or less intensely involved in social currents. The isolated mountaineer or forester, having only occasional contact with society at the village market, is hardly sensitive to propaganda.

The cult of the hero is the absolutely necessary complement of the massification of society. We see the automatic creation of this cult in connection with champion athletes, movie stars, and even such abstractions as Davy Crockett in the United States....

Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve.

Propaganda tries to surround man by all possible routes in the realm of feelings as well as ideas, by playing on his will or on his needs, through his conscious and his unconscious, assailing him in both his private and his public life. It furnishes him with a complete system for explaining the world, and provides immediate incentives to action.

Whether the state be Marxist or capitalist, it makes no difference. The dominant ideology is that of sovereignty.

Biblical teaching is clear. It always contests political power.

Christians should be troublemakers, creators of uncertainty, agents of a dimension incompatible with society.

There is a limited elite that understands the secrets of their own techniques, but not necessarily of all techniques. These men are close to the seat of modern governmental power. The state is no longer founded on the 'average citizen', but on the ability and knowledge of this elite. The average man is altogether unable to penetrate technical secrets or governmental organization and consequently can exert no influence at all on the state.

Again I want to emphasize that the study of propaganda must be conducted within the context of a technological society. Propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world.

The person who imagined that he could not be the victim of propaganda because he could distinguish truth from falsehood, is extremely susceptible to propaganda, because when propaganda does tell the truth, he is then convinced that it is no longer propaganda: moreover, his self-confidence makes him all the more vulnerable to attacks of which he is unaware.

Having analyzed these traits, we can now advance a definition of propaganda - not an exhaustive definition, unique and exclusive of all others, but at least a partial one: Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization.