PropagandaA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWTh ompson refers to the ‘project of self ’ in rela-
tion to how members of the audience for media
connect their personal development – the story
of themselves – to lived and mediated experi-
ence. Equally, media practitioners – journalists,
broadcasters or internet bloggers – experi-
ence a constant process of self-formulation,
negotiating a passage between personal needs
and aspirations and the pressures and demands
of the media world and those of the real world.
Thompson writes, ‘Individuals increasingly
draw on mediated experience to inform and
refashion the project of self ... The growing
availability of mediated experience thus creates
new opportunities, new options, new arenas for
self-experimentation.’
Above all, the Net has not only created possi-
bilities for the development of self, but has also
allowed self to become a multiplex of identities;
the emphasis often becoming projection, that is
the use of new media technologies to launch one’s
image, persona, ambitions, passions, creativity as
well as one’s opinions, beliefs, prejudices through
innumerable social networking platforms – even
to the point where the project of self relies more
on the mediated than the real world for its
defi nition and recognition. See blogosphere;
facebook; myspace; networking: social
networking; self-concept; self-identity;
twitter; web 2.0; youtube.
Prolefeed Th e rubbishy entertainment and spuri-
ous news piped to the proletariat by the Party
in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
(1949).
Propaganda Usually deliberate manipulation
by means of symbols (words, gestures, images,
flags, monuments, music, etc.) of thoughts,
behaviour, attitudes and beliefs. Th e word origi-
nates with the Roman Catholic Congregation
for the Propagation of the Faith, a committee of
cardinals in charge of missionary activities of the
church since 1622. Propaganda works through
emphasizing some factors and excluding others,
often emotively appealing to anxieties, fears,
prejudices and ignorance of the true facts.
Propaganda can be blatant (see radio death)
or work by stealth, often using entertainment as
a means of ‘sugar-coating’ messages.
In the world of contemporary politics, propa-
ganda takes the form of news management
or spin; and a profession of spin-doctors now
‘doctor’ facts in ways intended to favourably
propagate to the public the ideas, policies and
performance of government. Propaganda,
whether it is that of governments, companies,
institutions, charitable organizations or theaudience to stay tuned to a particular channel.
Programme boundaries, Williams points out,
are constantly being obscured by advertise-
ments and/or trailers for other programmes, to
counteract the itchy fi nger on the remote control
button and the much-feared viewer indulgence
in zapping. However, the major obstacles to
eff ectively managing programme fl ow in recent
years are the diversity of competing channels
and the empowerment, through new technolo-
gies, of audiences to select and record and view
at their own convenience.
Proiaretic code See codes of narrative.
Projection A throwing outwards or forwards;
term commonly used within several areas of
communication and media studies. Th e ability to
project oneself is an important communication
skill. Here projection has been achieved when
a person, in giving a talk, making a speech or
acting a part on stage, has reached the whole
audience both with words and with his/her
personality. Voice, posture, eye contact, facial
expression, gesture combine in creating eff ec-
tive projection.
Th e term can be used in a psychological sense:
when people tend to project on others – transfer
to others – their own motives for behaviour, in
particular those which cannot be gratified or
which are regarded as unacceptable; in other
words, to assume in others the same motives.
We may be more inclined to make such assump-
tions about those we like and perceive as being
similar to ourselves. Clearly projection can lead
to errors in perception and to misunderstand-
ings in the communication process.
Projection of pictures A German Jesuit,
Athanasius Kircher (1601–80), professor of
mathematics at the Collegio Romano in Rome,
is generally thought to have been the fi rst person
to project a picture on to a screen. His apparatus
was crude but eff ective, containing all the essen-
tials – a source of light with a refl ector behind
it and a lens in front, a painted glass slide and a
screen. Kircher’s astonished audience spoke of
black magic. Undaunted, the inventor published
a description of his fi ndings.
Th e projection of moving pictures was fi rst
demonstrated by Baron Von Uchatius (1811–81)
in 1853. He used a rotating glass slide, a rotating
shutter and a fi xed lens. An improved version
contained a rotating light source, fixed slides
and a series of slightly inclined lenses whose
optical axes met on the centre of the screen. See
cinematography, origins.
Project of self In Th e Media and Modernity: A
Social Th eory of the Media (Polity, 1995), John B.