Total Propaganda

<p><i>Total Propaganda</i> moves the study of propaganda out of the exclusive realm of world politics into the more inclusive study of popular culture media and politics. All the participatory functioning elements of the society are aspects of membership in the popular culture. Thus the values of popular music media politics debates over social issues and even international trade become everyday propaganda to which everyone may relate.<br><br>To emphasize the necessity for new thinking about propaganda Edelstein creates the concepts of the <i>new</i> propaganda and the <i>old</i> and he devises a language of uninyms to convey their meanings more quickly. Oldprop is characteristic of mass cultures and utilizes totalitarian methods of conflict hegemony minimization demonization and exclusiveness to achieve its goals. By contrast newprop is created by members of the popular culture to allow them to engage in accomodation enhance the individual and promote inclusiveness. Shifts in the <i>old</i> and the <i>new</i> propaganda are tracked across social issues such as race religion sexuality gender gun control and the environment as well as in fashion politics advertising sports media and politics.<br><br>Central to the concept of total propaganda is that it is not simply additive; it is the product of new energies that are produced by the fusing of propaganda in such related forums as music art advertising sports and politics. It is these synergies and their production of new energies that make total propaganda greater than the sum of its parts.<br><br>Edelstein concludes that the most important distinction that should be drawn between mass culture and popular culture is its text; i.e. its propaganda. In a popular culture everyone creates and consumes propaganda; in a mass culture almost everyone consumes it but only a few create it. This formulation offers new ways to discuss power and ideology in media texts. As an example where once the least informed and the least educated were the most subject to propaganda now the most informed and most educated often are the first to create propaganda and the first to consume it.</p>