Terrorism and propaganda

Abstract

I will suggest two things about propaganda: First, that the propaganda campaign was successful because of “new propaganda” akin to “public diplomacy” that was used “against” other countries, but it was turned on citizens of the United States; Second, that propaganda narratives both “pro” and “con” – in our case, the Bush Administration and an opposing view such as 9/11 Truth – not only distort reality, but are being shaped by new information technologies, for example, videos and the Internet, which play off members’ experience with popular culture and entertainment media, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, promoting sub-plots that reaffirm the dominant narrative and counter-narrative. Missing, as usual, is the sociological narrative, about how reality gets constructed through symbolic meanings that are routinized and flow into the culture stream of myth and “what everyone knows.” I will try to tell that, too.

Citation

Altheide, D.L. (2009), "Terrorism and propaganda", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 33), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 279-296. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2009)0000033019