Total Propaganda From Mass Culture To Popular Culture [Paperback]

BLURB FOR TOTAL PROP MAILER................ Total Propagandamoves the study of propaganda out of the exclusive realm of world politics into the more inclusive study of popular culture, media, and politics. All the participatory functioning elements of the society are aspects of membership in the popular culture. Thus, the values of popular music, media, politics, debates over social issues, and even international trade become everyday propaganda to which everyone may relate.

To emphasize the necessity for new thinking about propaganda, Edelstein creates the concepts of the newpropaganda and the old, and he devises a language of uninyms to convey their meanings more quickly. Oldprop is characteristic of mass cultures and utilizes totalitarian methods of conflict, hegemony, minimization, demonization, and exclusiveness to achieve its goals. By contrast, newprop is created by members of the popular culture to allow them to engage in accomodation, enhance the individual, and promote inclusiveness. Shifts in the oldand the newpropaganda are tracked across social issues such as race, religion, sexuality, gender, gun control, and the environment, as well as in fashion, politics, advertising, sports, media, and politics.

Central to the concept of total propaganda is that it is not simply additive; it is the product of new energies that are produced by the fusing of propaganda in such related forums as music, art, advertising, sports and politics. It is these synergies, and their production of new energies, that make total propaganda greater than the sum of its parts.

Edelstein concludes that the most important distinction that should be drawn between mass culture and popular culture is its text; i.e., its propaganda. In a popular culture, everyone creates and consumes propaganda; in a mass culture almost everyone consumes it but only a few create it. This formulatl“,