Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren't problems for us - not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-20th century. In How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly, how it undermines democracy - particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality - and how it has damaged democracies of the past.

Focusing on the shortcomings of liberal democratic states, Stanley provides a historically grounded introduction to democratic political theory as a window into the misuse of democratic vocabulary for propaganda's selfish purposes. He lays out historical examples, such as the restructuring of the US public school system at the turn of the 20th century, to explore how the language of democracy is sometimes used to mask an undemocratic reality. Drawing from a range of sources, he explains how the manipulative and hypocritical declaration of flawed beliefs and ideologies arises from and perpetuates inequalities in society, such as the racial injustices that commonly occur in the United States.

Listening Length

12 hours and 49 minutes
Author

Jason Stanley
Narrator

Tom Parks
Audible release date

August 25, 2020
Language

English
Publisher

Tantor Audio
ASIN

B08FXTBRY1
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	12 hours and 49 minutes
Author	Jason Stanley
Narrator	Tom Parks
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	August 25, 2020
Publisher	Tantor Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B08FXTBRY1
Best Sellers Rank	#34,497 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #41 in Political Philosophy (Audible Books & Originals) #56 in Propaganda & Political Psychology #64 in Philosophy of Logic & Language

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2 star		5%
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Matthew Ellis

Not very insightful - look elsewhere

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2019

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I assigned this book for a college course on the history of theory and propaganda, but I will not make that mistake again. The author is clearly erudite and well read in his field, but the book greatly suffers from the author's choice to stay wholly within the cloistered world of analytic philosophy. What we get here is a sort of ideal-type abstracted meditation on what propaganda might or should be in theory, and yet one that has absolutely nothing to say about what propaganda has meant and functioned in practice. For instance, Stanley argues himself into a corner in saying that there can be no such thing as a propaganda ministry in a proper liberal democracy such as the U.S. Of course, the U.S. had one - the Committee on Public Information, during which a generation of admen and PR professionals cut their teeth in emotion management and the manipulation of symbols. A truly deep, insightful history of propaganda requires a properly historical approach, one that shows all of the sordid manifestations of mass persuasion across a variety of contexts - not this extremely limited, insular and hermetic thought-experiment in analytic philosophy.

78 people found this helpful

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D. Millar

Painfully biased; should have been titled "How Marxism Works"

Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2019

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I was really looking forward to this book. It did include some useful insights and examples, but the value that it might otherwise offer to the student of propaganda was deeply undermined by the unacknowledged bias toward Marxism and Marxist theory. I don't per se mind that the author is a Marxist; I mind that he presents Marxist ideas, categorizations, and terminology as assumptions, as if they were established truth.

For instance, right at the beginning (page 3) he introduces (but fails to define) his concept of "flawed ideology" (implying some ideologies are flawed, and others are not.) He then proceeds to say: "When societies are unjust, for example, in the distribution of wealth, we can expect the emergence of flawed ideologies... In a society that is unjust, due to unjust distinctions between persons, ways of rationalizing undeserved privilege become ossified into rigid and unchangeable belief." This is basically Marx's theory of class identity and class-based struggle. Characterizing differences in prosperity as "the distribution of wealth" and differences in philosophy as "ways of rationalizing undeserved privilege" implies fundamentally Marxist assumptions about the nature of wealth (something "distributed" by the system) and class identity ("undeserved privilege"). You can certainly make an argument for these things-- as indeed, innumerable Marxist scholars have-- but they are NOT self-evident truths to be tabled without critical examination. Such a intellectual presentation that fails to acknowledge its obvious intellectual pedigree would fail any decent dissertation committee.

The bigger flaw, though, is that by building in a whole host of untenable Marxist assumptions about class and race and politics and human nature, the author makes this exploration of propaganda into just another long diatribe about social justice and dialectical materialism. "Good" propaganda is something oppressed people do, and "bad" propaganda is something privileged people do. In Stanley's conception, the morality or immorality of propaganda is derived from the class identity of the one doing the propaganda work. (This again is classic Marxism-Leninism.) The full explication of this deeply flawed and dangerous idea comes in pages 76-77, in which he basically admits that he is not attempting to be unbiased. "It might be thought that my project in this book requires a neutral stance, a nonideological perspective... The fact that there is no neutral stance cannot lead us to political paralysis, or to skepticism about political and moral reality." This totally undermines the legitimacy of his whole book, because what he's saying here is that this is self-consciously a work of ideology. There's a difference between a *perspective* (a lens through which to examine something) and an *ideology* (a self-referential set of beliefs).

How Propaganda Works is, sadly, an ideological work, not really that different from the kinds of studies commissioned by the Communist Party in China. Go back and read Bernays or Ellul, or (more recently) Peter Pomerantsev. Let this one go.

P.S. Not that it should matter, but I'm a liberal atheist.

50 people found this helpful

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M. Kenny

Should be read with his book "How Fascism Works"

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2021

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Excellent examination on Propaganda and how it can be used to advance and destroy democracy. Propaganda is a chief weapon of Fascism and we are seeing it's rise in countries around the world that wish to get rid of democratic ideas and replace them with fascist ones.

10 people found this helpful

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Larry Dieli

The pernicious effects of a big lie

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2022

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the author is able to supply vivid examples on both the overt and subtle effects of propaganda as it is used to persuade and control a nation. With clarity of purpose to expose the true detrimental damage that is inflicted with the use of this tactic as a governing tool. Highly recommended for these times.

4 people found this helpful

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No name

Little to no original argument presented, but not bad enough for one star

Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2022

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I think Stanley tries to do a lot in this book and unfortunately accomplishes very little. I think the link for equal distribution and epistemic inequality could use more focus. This book was a bit annoying to read, he went from referencing one philosopher to then referencing a sociologist to referencing another philosopher and then inserting premises as he sees fits, ergo the organization and format of this book was poor. However, I think there are some good points he glosses over. As a Descartes fan and an advocate of the Cartesian epistemic approach to things we confront, he rightfully highlights that a huge problem with propaganda is not just about the ones who give it, rather the ones who receive it. In addition, I feel like I was reading a book from someone who simply studied philosophy and does not philosophize.

Now I have seen some reviews on here stating "he should've called this an argument for marxism" or something of that nature. People approaching this book with that attitude are probably part of the crowd Stanley is rightfully critiquing. In fact, just to play Stanley's advocate, must of the negative reviews I have seen on here are not for the right reasons, I believe.

I can't give this book two and a half stars so I will bump it to three. If this book was better organized and more concise and contained more original argument, I would easily give it four stars.

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Kindle Customer

This author was trying to cover too much

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2021

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I choose this rating in that the subject of propaganda lead too many aspects and too deep for me. Consider spending a great deal of time on this tome.

3 people found this helpful

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WI woodsplitter

Slow-going to read

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2020

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I found this book to be like a college textbook that is difficult and slow-going to read and understand. As part of a college course that also had lectures with it to highlight and clarify important points, it might be ok, but I am struggling. Will endeavor to persevere, as Chief Dan George said in Outlaw Josie Wales movie.

3 people found this helpful

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SSG Cedar

Good discussion of propaganda

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2019

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The author's family had experience in Germany during World War II. He grew up in East Germany so he has a lot of experience with propaganda.

6 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Every one must read to understand how democracy is slowly being replaced.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 29, 2021

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By autocracy funded and controlled by the rich through with newly devised dog whistles and social media misuse.

One person found this helpful

Charles Justice

Read the Sequel first!

Reviewed in Canada on December 14, 2018

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Today, in Canada and the United States, we still live in countries with democratic political systems. We like to think of democracies as stable well-managed political systems that represent the public interest in a fair process of deliberation. But what if the democratic deliberative process itself is hijacked by a particular group? This possibility is the dilemma of propaganda in modern democratic systems, according to Jason Stanley, in “How Propaganda Works”.

In my opinion the biggest take-home from How Propaganda Works is that the moral dividing line is not between propaganda and ordinary speech, the most important moral dividing line is between propaganda that undermines democracy and propaganda that boosts democracy. Propaganda is a particular means of communication, used at times by all political systems but it is the only way that authoritarian political systems communicate to the public. Propaganda serves to conceal structural inequalities; it is the everyday means by which any authoritarian regime controls the populace.

Stanley is saying that propaganda is more of an issue in democratic systems because the bad kind is a direct threat to democracy. He calls the bad propaganda, “demagoguery”; as it was first described by Plato, in his book, The Republic, written twenty-four hundred years ago, it is a message that on the surface appears to be supporting democracy but the real intention is to subvert the democratic system.

How Propaganda Works was written before 2016. But Jason Stanley’s book “ How Fascism Works” focuses on Trump as the clearest current example. The current Trump Presidency is in a class all by itself when it comes to examples of demagoguery. For instance Trump’s focus on immigration and the immigrant caravans from Central America, weeks before the 2018 midterm election, was intended to heighten passions and inflame tensions in order to motivate his followers to get out and vote. The result was that more Republicans got out to vote in the midterms than might have otherwise if Trump had not stoked racial fears. Getting more people to vote seems to support democracy doesn’t it?

Jason Stanley points out that using racial prejudice to motivate political movements harms the deliberative process in democracies, because it makes it more difficult to have rational discussions about immigration, social welfare and other important issues when certain groups are targeted as less worthy of consideration.

If you need an example of what Stanley is getting at, look no further than the United States. We only have to look at the amount of child poverty, poor educational results, poor access to medicine for low income groups, diminished life expectancies, and poor post-partum survival statistics to realize that America is an outlier on major measures of public health, given its per capita GNP. To stoke fears about immigrants is really about playing to people’s prejudice, and what it does is make it far harder for anyone to deal constructively with issues like immigration, public health, and social welfare.

Since the invention and widespread use of the internet and social networks on the internet we are seeing the rise of a new danger. We saw it first come to prominence in the U.S. Presidential election of 2016 when Vladimir Putin outsourced computer hacking and trolling to shadowy individuals and organizations dedicated to one of Putin’s prime goals - that of weakening the Western Alliance. It is also a homegrown phenomenon in the U.S. perfected by Steve Bannon and Breitbart News, where propaganda is effectively outsourced to private individuals and groups using social media to sow hatred and prejudice.

Something just as alarming is the mushrooming of conspiracy theories on youtube and on the internet, also specialised in by the Kremlin via it’s T.V. mouthpiece: Russia Today. Trump himself is no stranger to this form of propaganda, during the Obama Presidency he actively promoted a discredited conspiracy theory that President Obama was born in Kenya. Conspiracy theories like Birtherism and the 9/11 “Truther” conspiracy are like hidden corrosives to the democratic system. The more people believe them the less they trust the government and the media, and the safer they feel inside of a bubble of fellow “truthers”. This makes them all the more susceptible to the next conspiracy theory or, and this is more dangerous, it makes them susceptible to trusting someone like Trump who seemingly creates his own reality and “alternative facts” whenever he likes.

I found “How Propaganda Works” did a good job of zeroing in on the major issues of Inequality, destruction of democratic deliberation, and the threat to our shared knowledge. It’s also worth noting his point that propaganda is the default mass communication system for authoritarian political systems. It works for Putin and Trump. It doesn’t work for democracy.

If you are a Philosophy or Social Sciences major you will love this book, it has a wealth of references to contemporary analytic and feminist philosophy. Otherwise I would recommend Stanley’s much more prescient book “How Fascism Works”.

3 people found this helpful

Amazonion

Not Recommend - misleading title with no substance

Reviewed in Canada on November 10, 2021

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I have read few books on the topic; so far this is a book that must be avoided. Don’t waste your time. Excessive verbiage with no substance. At places you might get bored to stop reading it altogether and think the author is simply trying to fill the pages.

AlexP

Philosophisch und sprachwissenschaftlich

Reviewed in Germany on June 11, 2017

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Den Titel finde ich irreführend, da ich mir sehr viel mehr erwartet habe: Das Buch erklärt eben nicht und schon gar nicht für interessierte Laien wie Propaganda arbeitet, sondern ist eine sehr theoretische, philosophisch-sprachwissenschaftliche Abhandlung. Wie in der Einleitung klar gestellt wird, will Stanley kein "Manual of propaganda" liefern, sondern zeigen "how effecttive propaganda exploits and strengthens flawed ideology". Es sind ein paar gute Überlegungen vorhanden, aber nach der Lektüre weiß ich genauso wenig wie davor, wie Propaganda in der Praxis arbeitet und wirkt.

5 people found this helpful

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Arnaldo Mandel

Repetitivo

Reviewed in Brazil on September 6, 2018

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Para mim, que não sou do ramo, foi interessante aprender certos conceitos de filosofia política, e conhecer algumas opiniões. A idéia central do autor, de "ideologias falhas" como substrato para o funcionamento de propaganda política, parece sólida e de bom valor explicativo. Só que não precisava ficar martelando cada idéia por páginas e páginas, repetindo definições e cansando este leitor. Nesse sentido, a velha piada sobre filósofos não usarem a lata de lixo encontra guarida neste livro. Que fal faz um bom editor!

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