Propaganda and Mass Persuasion

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course addresses the issues of propaganda and mass persuasion in the contemporary world. Propaganda, because it is a necessity for all political regimes and an essential dimension of mass persuasion, is in fact omnipresent both in authoritarian regimes and in democratic societies. Drawing on knowledge from several disciplines (history, communication, sociology, political science, social psychology, art history, neuroscience), this course puts into perspective the changes in propaganda and persuasion at work since the age of paper until the digital age using a wide variety of media (texts, still images, animated images, sounds, objects, monuments). It is based both on a theoretical approach, which leads to addressing the principles of propaganda and mass persuasion through the main reference texts, and an empirical approach, which results in the analysis of techniques and the effects of propaganda through a series of case studies. This course has a strong methodological dimension in addition to a dissertation and presentation methodology, it offers methods of understanding and critical analysis useful for understanding, in a global perspective, the modalities and techniques of the manufacture of public opinion .