Propaganda is a phenomenon of mass communication. As such, it appeals to social and/or public roles and relationships. It can appeal to personal and interpersonal roles, but only insofar as they intersect or resonate with social and public ones. The objective of propaganda is and always has been to maintain power. Since the nature of power and the means through which it must be sought and defended change and evolve as cultures change and evolve, so do the nature and content of propaganda change and evolve. In the modern world, power is amassed and protected through the capacity to control the flow of information. Since technology and the dynamics of society make it virtually impossible for any single interest or small group of interests to control the channels of communication, the attempt to amass and maintain power focuses on influencing the perceptual and interpretive screens through which people determine:
The forms of modern propaganda still include subterfuge and misdirection--its messages still employ "glittering generalities" "plain folk appeals" and the rest of the traditional pantheon--but it relies more and more on the stimulation of vague and undefinable ambiguities and insecurities through the use of emotion-laden abstractions and reason-bending "pseudo-logics." The modern propaganda campaign is almost always composed of a myriad of small messages, created in and transmitted through many integrated and coordinated media and stress complicity instead of compliance.