The west’s hidden propaganda machine | Eliane Glaser | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Clearly an exhibition worth attending…

We are no longer appealed to as thinking citizens. We are simply flawed units to be prompted into spending more and costing the state less. The propaganda lies not only in the political-corporate manipulation of the public but also – most insidiously – in the way this is cloaked in the language of ideology-free empiricism and the semblance of autonomy: the idea that people are being nudged “to make better decisions for themselves”.

Let’s take the second revolution – in social media. To read the trade literature of the PR and online advertising industries is to be hit by a tidal wave of guff about authenticity, engagement and two-way conversations. In the “era of participatory public relations”, the story goes, “the people have defeated the corporation“. The objective now is to “make your customers a partner in the selling process”. This is pseudo-egalitarian code for the voluntary circulation of Facebook ads. The notion that propaganda is always a state-run, top-down affair provides a cloak for our complicity. Social media’s veneer of openness and people-power exemplifies western propaganda’s habit of masquerading as its opposite.