STUDY SUBJECT DESCRIPTION
Subject
code
Subject
group
Credits
Subject
certified
Subject
certification
valid until
KOM5023
C
6
2011 06 01
2012 06 01
Reg. No.
Title
PROPAGANDOS ANALIZĖ
Title in English
PROPAGANDA CRITICISM
Subject annotation in English
The aim of the course is to study theoretical and methodological preconditions and theories of historical
forms and modern propaganda and to learn analyze long term and short term propaganda actions. After
completing of this course student will be able to analyze and plan community and state important
propaganda and social engineering, social advertisement and consciousness of propaganda subjects.
Teaching methods are lecturers, seminars – discussions, home work presentations, paper works.
Necessary background knowledge for the study of the subject
Introduction to philosophy, History of philosophy, Political philosophy
Study outcomes of the subject
In the course students will get knowledge about various description of propaganda phenomenon, the
history or origin and development of propaganda, techniques of propaganda, influence of coercive
persuasion on the development of identities, the relations of propaganda with literature, cinema, history
writing, imaginary institutions and societies, social engineering, social advertisement, antipropaganda.
Students will develop skills in analysis of propaganda, ideological discourses, Public Relations actions,
skills in construction and deconstruction of methodical persuasion, capacities for subjectivation /
desubjectivation, institutionalization/deinstitutionalization. Students will improve attitudes on persuasion
and criticism, tolerance to the different symbolical words and their advocacy in public sphere, skills in
critical paper writing.
Subject contents
Historical (until XX century), classical (XX century) and contemporary propaganda seeks to form
identities of individual and collective subjects, to motivate and mobilize them for the political purposes.
For this reason propaganda uses different techniques of persuasion: media and new media, rhetoric,
repressive systems, contemporary advertisement, Public Relations, economical and military persuasion.
Propaganda is used not only for religious or ideological, totalitarian purposes but as a means for public
conquest of different communities, groups of interests, states and political parties. Contemporary
propaganda is used also as an instrument of social engineering in democratic world for the people
education, motivation and mobilization purposes. In the course special attention will be paid to the
religious propaganda in the New Ages, American revolution and France revolution propaganda,
propaganda in the period of I and II World Wars, Nazi propaganda, Soviet propaganda, American
propaganda, persuasion in contemporary political and informational wars, institutional persuasion in
internet social network. In the course also will be develop the instruments of propaganda critique: critics
of symbolical forms of thinking, social alienation, ideological and substituted thinking, coercive
institutionalization. Propaganda cinema, literature, music, cartoons, banners, photography, broadcasting
will be analyzed. Methods of analyses of propaganda related to the discourse analysis will be developed
in the course. Special attention will be paid to the philosophical critique of wrong consciousness,
spectacle society, cultural and creative industries. Philosophical texts of Althusser, Horkheimer, Adorno,
Marcuze, Habermas, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari will be red. Demistification, desubjectivation,
deinstitutionalization techniques based on the analysis of archeology and geneology of knowledge will
be interpreted.
Teaching methods
Lectures and seminars: seminars consist of students’ presentations and team work; independent study
between seminars.
Study hours
Lectures 30 hours, seminars 15 hours, team work 15 hours, individual work 100 hours.
Evaluation of study achievements
Assessment consists of mid-term examination – 30%, student‘s homework –20%, final examination –
50%.
Literature
1. Pratkanis, A.R., Aronson, E. 1991. Age of Propaganda. The Everyday Use and Abuse of
Persuasion, New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.
2. Ellul, J. Propaganda. The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. New York: Vintage Books.
3. Balfour, M. 1979. Propaganda in War 1939 – 1945. London: Routledge.
4. Page, C. U.S. Official Propaganda During the Vietnam War, 1965 – 1973. London: Leicester University
Press.
5. Clark, T. 1997. Art and Propaganda in the Twentieth Century. New York: Perspectives.
6. O’Shaughnessy N.J. 2004. Politics and Propaganda. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Programme prepared by
Prof. Gintautas Mazeikis, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Department of Public
Communication