[pessimizer]

It doesn't. "Propaganda" is a western word for any argument coming from the eastern enemies of the state, and "Brainwashing" is a western word for being convinced by them.

The way we control behavior is by depriving people of unfiltered information, not showing them cat videos and remembering if they liked them.

[jknoepfler]

The modern sense of the word "propaganda" emerged during the first World War to describe information deliberately disseminated to influence political opinion. I'm pretty sure that's still what people mean when they use the word.

Usage then and now also conveys a sense of purposeful distortion or fabrication.

[bostik]

Not everywhere, which is a good thing.

A year ago I saw (and thoroughly enjoyed) an exhibition of 80's arts posters in Spain. What struck me were the description labels, and especially the terminology used. Where the English part described something as "advertising", the Spanish descriptions unashamedly used the word "propaganda".

Let's not fool ourselves. The mechanisms of advertising have been lifted, adapted and further weaponised from war-time propaganda, or as we'd call them these days, influence operations.

[narag]

...the Spanish descriptions unashamedly used the word "propaganda"

That's not what you think. At the time it was common to use that word instead of publicidad to mean advertising. A construction typical from Latin, propaganda just meant it's made to be propagated, similar to addenda, Amanda or Miranda.

Now it's limited to politics in Spanish too. People working with ads didn't like the connotations of the term, understandably :)

[nmfisher]

I was pretty amused when I first visited China and saw that the university communications/marketing department translated its name to "Propaganda Department".

[vicnicius]

In Brazilian Portuguese advertising is still most commonly called “propaganda”.

But it also has the bad connotation when it’s used in the context of politics.