Usage of Propaganda in Totalitarian Governments versus Democratic Governments

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Propaganda is everywhere any human looks. It is the base of almost every government. But, seeing as how other governments are worse than the American government, it’s worse in other areas of the world. The role of propaganda in a totalitarian government is very important, especially when compared to a democratic type of government, mostly because democracies don’t usually want to control every aspect of life.
Information or ideas that are spread by an organized group or government to influence people's opinions, especially by not giving all the facts or by secretly emphasizing only one way of looking at the facts is what propaganda is (“Cambridge Dictionaries”). So basically, it’s the government making people believe in what they want them to know. These simple truths determine the underlying or governing principles of democratic propaganda.
Some propagandists use name-calling as a way to condemn and reject other races, religions, nations, political parties, or candidates that are running for some position in a political party. To do this, all the propagandist has to do is apply a bad name to the candidate, race, religion, nation, or political party. People, being as gullible as they are, will most likely take the name at face value, and completely trust the propagandist. People will react almost automatically to the bad name, almost as if they have been taught as small children to never trust that race, religion, nation, political party, or candidate ("Propaganda - Good and Bad - for Democracy" para. 5).
Name-calling is the most common propaganda trick. Propagandists will always resort back to name calling because it's easy, and has always been used. But, the 'glittering generalities' trick is almost as common to the name-c...

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...he people the truth at all. Democracies, however, use propaganda to persuade a person to one thing or another, and they always have to have a little bit of truth in the lies that they feed the people.

Works Cited

"Cambridge Dictionaries Online." Cambridge Dictionaries Online. N.p., n.d. Web.
1 Apr. 2014.
"Democracy." Student Resources. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
"Democracy in the Middle East." Student Resources. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
"Democratic VS. Enemy Propaganda." American Historical Association. N.p., n.d.
Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
"Nazi Fascism and the Modern Totalitarian State." Nazi Fascism and the Modern
Totalitarian State. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
"Propaganda—Good and Bad—for Democracy." Survey Graphic. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr.
2014.
“Totalitarianism.” Student Resources in Context. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

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