Agitprop

Agitprop is a slang word applied to any form of Mass Media , such as a Television program or Film , that tries to influence opinion for Political , Commercial or other ends, especially if it aims to convince people through ''agitating'' their minds with highly emotional language of problems in present-day society or politics (which may or may not exist if analysed in an unbiased manner). Agitprop sometimes although not always uses indirect methods to reach its goal, such as conveying a political message via a television drama that's marketed as a form of entertainment rather than political education, for example.

Most people today see "agitprop" as a contraction of ''agit''ational ''prop''aganda. The term originated in Communist Russia , where the term was a shortened form of отдел агитации и пропаганды (''otdel agitatsii i propagandy''), i.e., ''Department for Agitation and Propaganda'', which was part of the Central and regional committees of the Communist Party Of The Soviet Union . The department was later renamed to ''Ideological Department''.

The term '' Propaganda '' in the Russian Language doesn't bear any of the negative connotations that it carries in the English Language . It simply means "dissemination of ideas". In the case of Agitprop, the ideas to be disseminated were those of Communism , including explanations of the policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet State. In other contexts, propaganda could mean dissemination of any kind of beneficial knowledge, e.g., of new methods in agriculture. "Agitation" meant urging people to do what Soviet leaders expected them to do; again, at various levels. In other words, propaganda was supposed to act on the mind, while agitation acted on emotions, although both usually went together, thus giving rise to the Cliché "propaganda and agitation".

In the western world, agitprop has a negative connotation. In the United Kingdom during the 1980 s, for example, Socialist elements of the poltical scene were often accused of using agitprop to convey an extreme left-wing message via television programmes, theatre and even children's books. However, in a more general sense, a Television cartoon might be described as 'agitprop' if it could be interpreted as a marketing ploy to sell Toy s.

The term is rarely used in the modern Russian language, apart from references to the genuine Agitprop organization.

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Agitprop