Propaganda: The Science of Mass Persuasion

Why do intelligent people believe things that are demonstrably false?Why does correcting a lie so often make it stronger?Why do entire populations choose leaders they know will harm them — and feel proud of the choice?The answer is not stupidity. It is propaganda.In this urgent and meticulously researched book, Victor Lane draws on the latest neuroscience and social psychology to reveal exactly how propaganda works — not as a crude tool of dictators and demagogues, but as a systematic exploitation of the cognitive architecture that every human being possesses.Propaganda moves from the science of the individual mind to the machinery of mass persuasion to five landmark cases: Nazi Germany: How Goebbels built the most complete propaganda state in history — and what his private diaries reveal about his methodsSoviet Agitprop: The revolution that rewrote reality — and its evolution into today's confusion-manufacturing doctrineRwanda: How Radio Milles Collines used language alone to prepare a population for genocideBig Tobacco: The blueprint for manufacturing scientific doubt that has since killed more people than any political propaganda campaign in historyCambridge Analytica: How psychographic micro-targeting personalised propaganda at a scale no previous system had achievedYou will discover how System 1 processing makes emotional appeals more powerful than rational argument, why repetition alone makes false claims feel true, how the illusory truth effect is exploited by every major propaganda system from Goebbels to the algorithm, and what the latest prebunking and inoculation research says about what can actually be done.Propaganda is the missing piece in The Psychology of Power series. Obedience explained why ordinary people follow destructive authority. The Dictator's Brain explained what power does to those who hold it. Propaganda explains the system that connects the two — and what it will take to resist it.The third book in The Psychology of Power series by Victor Lane. Read more