With conspiracies and misinformation on the rise, many believe that we should dispense with propaganda and emotion in favour of a rational, fact-based approach to persuasion. But this is not necessarily effective and in some cases counterproductive argues Anna Hennessey. Propaganda should not be a dirty word and whether it be in matters of public health or political security, we mustn’t be scared to embrace it.

When asked recently on National Public Radio about how to awaken people to important matters such as nuclear winter and climate change, esteemed American climatologist Alan Robock explained that “intellectually is not the way to do it, you need to touch people’s feelings.” Publishing more academic journal articles, will not transform ideology, he suggested. More emotionally charged forms of communication, such as popular publications and film, have a higher impact on how people establish their understandings of the world.

Try as we might, our use of data and evidence to prove our points, be they of a scientific, cultural, or historical nature, often fall flat with our audiences. Numerous studies have shown that due to a myriad of cognitive biases such as belief perseverance and confirmation bias, facts unfortunately do not change people’s minds. One of the key historical figures who understood this was Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew and father of the field of Public Relations. Born in Vienna in 1891, Bernays died in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1995, living a long, prolific life and architecting profound changes in American society from behind the scenes. The use of emotions, not science or facts, became central both to Bernays’ work and to his success.