functions in areas with closed borders, and these
are diminishing.
On the other hand, propaganda has become a
part of the worldwide media business, which has
changed basic assumptions of ideology substan-
tially. The launch of stars within media, be it
movie stars or members of royal families, is not
possible without a mixture of news material and
propaganda. Its quality now lies in the preparation
of mediated images meant to change people’s ideas
about consumption, or aggression, or their own
roles in processes of globalization. By the manipula-
tion of preferences in taste and interest, people can
be brought to consume certain products or follow a
certain lifestyle without concern for larger commu-
nity and social welfare. Or to say it the other way
round in the late twentieth century, propaganda is
no longer a means of governmental action but of
economic interests. The ease of creating seductive
images through inexpensive and widely-available
modern editing software designed to manipulate
all aspects of a photograph has caused the public
to suspect that almost all publicly distributed photo-
graphs have been altered in some fashion.
At the same time, propaganda gains a new role
in shaping global politics as spy satellites, night
vision technologies, and super-miniaturized camera
equipment with instantaneous dispersal of images
over the internet feed what has been called the
Information War. The erosion of the credibility of
images is an important part in bilateral propa-
ganda fights as the aerial photographs of bombed
buildings, bridges, and trains in the Gulf and Bal-
kan conflicts of the 1990s have shown. Thus, the
new photographic propaganda might be created by
automatic cameras in real time, look like scientific
images, and pretend a truth not conceivable.
RolfSachsse
Seealso: Aerial Photography; Agitprop; Bayer,
Herbert; Bourke-White, Margaret; Capa, Robert;
Eisenstaedt, Alfred; Photographic ‘‘Truth’’; Photo-
graphy in Germany and Austria; Photography in
Russia and Eastern Europe; Riefenstahl, Leni; Stei-
chen, Edward; Virtual Reality; War PhotographyFurther Reading
Hovland, C.I., I.L. Janis, and H.H. Kelley.Communication
and Persuasion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1953.
Jaubert, Alain.Le Commissariat aux Archives. Paris: 1986.
King, David.The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of
Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia. New York:
Metropolitan Books, 1997.
Lazarsfeld, P.F., B. Berelson, and H. Gaudet.The People’s
Choice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1948.
Mattelart, Armand.Mass Media, Ideologies, and the Revo-
lutionary Movement. New Jersey: Humanities Press,
1980.
Schwartzenstein, S.J.D., ed.The Information Revolution and
National Security: Dimensions and Directions. Washing-
ton, DC: The Center for Strategic and International
Studies, 1996.
Smith, B.L., H.D. Lasswell, and R.D. Casey.Propaganda,
Communication, and Public Opinion. A Comprehensive
Reference Guide. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1946.PUBLIC ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography and photographic processes have been
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Public art may be defined as art that is created
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