PUBLIC OPINION PART - IV

Dr, Kaushik Mitra, Head, Department of Political Science, Lucknow Christian Degree College, Lucknow.. U.P. India.

PUBLIC OPINION CONTINUED......

B. A. Semester-II

Political Science -Paper I

POLITICAL THEORY-II

PUBLIC OPINION

Conclution:

The Latest Trend: The Propaganda.

The term propaganda is defined as the purveying of lies by conscienceless writers and speakers. It is the communication of distorted ideas or inadequate facts or both conveyed in a manner or tone so as to create in the object of propaganda an emotional response favourable to the implicit bias of the propagandist.

According to Clyde R Miller, “propaganda is the attempt to influence others to some predetermined end by appealing to their thought and feeling.”

According to Anderson and Parke.r “propaganda is the deliberate use of communication to induce people to favour one predetermined line of thought or action over another.”

Kimball Young writes for our purposes we shall define propaganda as the more or less deliberate planned and systematic use of symbol chiefly through suggestion and related psychological techniques with a view first to altering and controlling opinions, ideas and values and ultimately to changing over to action along predetermined lines.

Propaganda is the use of reasoning or facts in order to persuade another person to favour a particular kind of action that he would otherwise not favour. However propaganda is not necessarily the propagation of wrong views by questionable methods. Groups and organizations whose objectives have been socially constructive have often resorted to the method of propaganda. The Family Planning Dept in order to control the birth rate has used all the devices of propaganda. Propaganda can also said to be the most effective when it rests upon verifiable information. It can readily justify itself in terms of the real interests of the target groups and can show a genuine commonality or interests among the individuals who compose the group. It is only the activity of the some vested propagandists which has given the term propaganda its bad connotation. Propaganda is merely a means of influencing others often towards a desirable end. It aims at persuasion by means of symbols.

Every government maintains a department (in India it is the Information and Broadcasting Ministry) to influence people in the direction of accepted patterns though they prefer to call it the dept of public relations or publicity instead of propaganda.

To cap them all, it is the opposition parties that play a more pivotal role in galvanising public opinion. Can one presume to imagine that he knows the whole truth so that he would force his views down the throat of all others?  

Mahatma Gandhi has rightly observed, “Evolution of democracy is not possible, if we are not prepared to hear the other side. We shut the doors of reason when we refuse to listen to our opponents, or having listened, make fun of them. If intolerance becomes a habit, we run the risk of missing the truth”.

According to Dr S. Radhakrishnan, “A democracy is likely to degenerate into a tyranny if it does not allow the opposition groups to criticise fairly, freely and frankly the policies of the government. But at the same time their right to criticise should not degenerate into willful hampering and obstruction of the work of parliament.”