Propaganda, Information and Media, Cancel Culture and the COVID-19 Event

Note: This is the paper and slides used for a talk I delivered at the International Crisis Summit IV, Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest, Romania, 17-20 November 2023. Update: And here is a recording of the talk itself.

Although some improvements have occurred over the last few years, propaganda remains a phenomenon that is poorly understood by academics, publics and political classes. For many it is perceived, incorrectly, to be present only in authoritarian political systems or, with respect to democracies, a feature only of wartime information activities.

In reality, propaganda has played a central role within liberal democracies throughout the 20^th and 21^st centuries albeit frequently referred to by any one of the many euphemisms in circulation, such as public relations, strategic communication, psychological operations, perception management, political communication, all of which are deployed in order to, as the late historian Professor Phil Taylor explained, disguise the reality of what is actually being done.