Propaganda: The systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view.
Oxford English Dictionary
I recently watched The New Spirit, a 1942 animated short film (cartoon) starring Donald Duck which encouraged American citizens to pay their income tax in support of the war effort. It was watched by 60 million people, and apparently, it was effective, contributing to an increase of twice as many income tax filings from the previous year.
This video brings up an interesting question: Is propaganda always bad? For example, in this video, is it a bad thing to encourage citizens to pay their taxes to support resistance to an existential threat?
For me, I think the answer centers around whether or not the propaganda is misleading, rather than simply biased. If it is misleading (either by presenting incorrect information or leaving out critical information) then I think it is bad for the citizenry.
However, if it is simply biased—and that bias is open and explicit, such as in The New Spirit, with the government encouraging people to pay their lawful taxes—then I don’t think propaganda is necessarily bad.
With this in mind, over the past several years, should the government put out more creative content encouraging people to get vaccinated against Covid? For example, should the CDC put out content which doesn’t just talk about the duty as a citizen of getting vaccinated, but the privilege of getting vaccinated (as was done in The New Spirit)?
And, if so, where (and who) is our Walt Disney of Propaganda today?