"Propagandistic language is not made of words alone-carefully chosen and deployed, designed to persuade or deceive. Propaganda is also made of silence. And it is specifically silence that has historically served as a strategic tool for promoting (often harmful) ideologies."
"If silence can function propagandistically, how exactly does it work? What mechanisms allow an absence-something that is not said -to communicate something, sometimes even more effectively than utterances themselves? It is precisely by understanding the role of silence in propaganda, how it is used to convey content, that we can make sense of Goebbels' claim."
Propaganda operates through both explicit messaging and strategic silence, creating a paradox where manipulation can appear invisible while originating from official sources. Goebbels' claim about invisible propaganda becomes comprehensible when recognizing that silence itself serves as a propagandistic mechanism. Rather than consisting solely of carefully chosen words designed to persuade or deceive, propaganda employs absence and what remains unspoken to communicate ideological content. Understanding how silence functions propagandistically—the mechanisms through which unstated information conveys meaning—reveals how audiences can be manipulated into believing they act freely. This distinction between propaganda conveyed through language and propaganda conveyed through silence provides crucial insight into both historical and contemporary manipulation tactics.
Read at Apaonline
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