“YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!” We’ve all seen the posters before. Pointing fingers, flexing biceps, the type of moustache that now only exists on a pringle can. For most, propaganda feels like a relic of the past, something confined to museums and history textbooks or so we are led to believe.
Yet, in the age of smartphones and political social media campaigns, propaganda has not vanished, it has simply just evolved. Today’s propaganda no longer shouts from posters, it has slithered into notifications, adverts, and social media posts. It no longer manipulates us to fight in a war, but instead cultivates our social behaviour, our emotions, and our political loyalties, all through the language of marketing.
Even Duolingo’s green owl, with its duality of cheerful reminders and guilt-stirring emails, re-enacts the psychological tactics once reserved for national campaigns. The differences between marketing and propaganda have become non-existent. Every brand, political movement, campaign seeks not only to sell but to create a social reaction: a new pair of jeans comes with controversy and attention; a soft drink advert with a social cause and profits.
Every comment, like, and share has become a silent political act, one we rarely consent to but constantly repeat. Modern political language has perfected its own jingles with the use of tricolons. “Save the NHS.” “Stronger for Scotland.” “Stop the boats.” These three word slogans are used for more than brandishing linguistic style; they can be used as indicators for unity or wielded as instruments of control. Designed for memorability and emotional digestion, they allow parties to distil complex agendas into soundbites.
They create the illusion of clarity, of conviction, of aims. This simplicity is deliberate. When slogans dominate political debates, it is all smoke and mirrors to avoid real scrutiny.
They make parties feel familiar and trustworthy, discouraging voters from searching through manifestos and checking the details of policies. Political communication has changed to favour comfort and familiarity, not truth and information. As elections draw near, this pattern intensifies. Slogans appear on podiums, buses, and media backdrops.
Hopeful political contenders repeat them until they become background noise, training the public through repetition. Pavlov treats his dog when a bell rings, and Farage is trying to have you eat out of his hand too. Look at the posters all around you, the words they are using; the signs are literally right in front of you.
Brexit was a Pandora’s Box of modern propaganda’s power to weaponise the real frustrations of the working-class. “Take Back Control”, words to indicate power to the people and a chance of something new but instead just repackaged austerity as freedom. It turned anger away from inequality, years of lacking investment and from poorly managed governments towards immigration and Brussels by framing Machiavellian arguments as objective logic. Contemporary politics thrives on the narrative of individual power: “You matter.
You decide. You vote.” Yet behind this rhetoric lies a numerical reality. Parties do not win through individuals, they win through aggregates.
Voters become data points in a broader equation, and their importance extends only as far as their ballot can be persuaded. Successive governments, regardless of the colours of their ribbons, have swapped caring about our beliefs and instead just track our engagement. What differs modern propaganda from its poster predecessors is precision.
What was once broadcast to nations now whispers to us as individuals. Instead of rallying together for collective causes, we are pushed into digital echo chambers to fight among ourselves over jobs, housing, and identity. In the 21st century, propaganda no longer asks us to fight for our country.
It ensures we are too divided to fight for anything at all. Until we enforce rules of transparency into political advertising, democracy will remain a contest of manipulation rather than choice.