Public opinion and propaganda: Their definition, interpretation and meaning in the United States at the beginning of the interwar period (1918-1922)

  • Dario Migliucci Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Keywords: Propaganda, public opinion, United States, manufacture of consent, mass media

Abstract

The present work reconstructs the way in which the concepts of ‘propaganda’ and ‘public opinion’ were defined and perceived by American intellectuals and poli­cy-makers during the first years following the end of the Great War. The documen­tary sources analyzed for this study were produced by social scientists (academics works), journalists (press articles) y politicians (presidential speeches) of that time. The central thesis of the research is that, as for the interpretation of the notion of ‘propaganda’ and ‘public opinion’, a radical interpretative shift took place in that period as a consequence of the propagandistic experiences of the war, the recurrent radical movements’ informative campaigns and the emergence of new and more effi­cient mass media. It is stated that these first scholarly postulates constituted the breeding ground for the emergence of the well-known debate on the manufacture of consent that characterized the interwar period.

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How to Cite
Migliucci D. (2019). Public opinion and propaganda: Their definition, interpretation and meaning in the United States at the beginning of the interwar period (1918-1922). Historia y Política, 40, 213-238. https://doi.org/10.18042/hp.40.08