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Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, PROPAGANDA AND PERSUASION (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1999; pp. 430, $30.95 paper, ISBN: 0761911472.
Jowett and O'Donnell bring with this third edition of Propaganda and Persuasion a renewed effort to analyze the role of propaganda in society. This new edition expands on their previous works by offering fresh insights regarding the impact of the Internet, and two additional case studies of recent propaganda campaigns. Although this new edition introduces some important advances, there are lingering concerns about the authors' ultimate conceptualization of propaganda and how we might best go about studying this type of communication.
The authors should be applauded for their attempt in Chapter 1 to define propaganda, and establish how it is distinct from persuasion. As the authors note, previous works in this area have failed miserably in establishing clear boundaries of what is and is not propagandistic material (e.g., Ellul, 1965). In essence, the first chapter of this text conducts what amounts to a meaning analysis of propaganda (e.g., Chaffee, 1991), with the culmination of this effort being the following definition: "Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist" (p. 6).
Although this definition is clear in marking out a specific territory for the concept, a number of examples of propaganda provided by Jowett and O'Donnell run the risk of counteracting their efforts to establish clear conceptual boundaries. As an example,Jowett and O'Donnell define Western television news coverage of the Third World as a form...