A populace not allowed to vote, people constantly watched by government officials books deemed offensive and burned, are all symbols of dystopia. All these examples are ways that a ruling government exerts power over its people. Propaganda is another useful tool that a regime can utilize to sway citizens to believe certain ideologies and it’s not as obvious as most instruments of mind control. It is also a useful device used by companies to promote their products to consumers.  Propaganda has to be able to stir the emotions rather than the thought process of people. It excites the person by various means to change a point of view or purchasing pattern. The next few paragraphs will attempt to illustrate how propaganda is defined, how a government regime can utilize it, and how vendors of products use it to sway people into purchasing in certain ways.

People have different definitions for propaganda but as Richard Alan Nelson, professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kansas State University wrote, “propaganda is defined as the systematic attempt to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political, or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages via mass and direct media channels” (333) Technology has made the use of propaganda much easier with the advent of films, radios, internet, and space communication systems. It is much easier for political parties or marketing firms to disseminate information that is advantages to them with the flick of a switch. However for propaganda to work well, the state of mind of the intended individual or that of the mass market needs to be susceptible. Marjorie Van de Water wrote in the journal Science News Letter that, “For successful propaganda never appeals to the mind. It rouses the emotions. It takes advantage of all the prejudices, the hates and loves that are already in man's heart. And it directs these forces against the individuals, the nations, the parties, or the policies which the propagandist is undertaking to destroy” (234). An individual needs to be subconsciously aroused to feels a certain way and then convinced to act on such feelings. Also, “Propaganda urges haste, for delay permits the reason to act” (Water 234); thus anyone using propaganda needs to be constantly scouring the news or latest polls and extract anything that could be used to benefit their cause, in the most immediate matter.