Consider the following comments on propaganda.
Propaganda does not lie to you so much as it saves you the trouble of thinking.
A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
Anonymous
The most effective propaganda is the kind that feels like your own opinion.
Every nation calls its own story education and its enemy's story propaganda.
Persuasion becomes propaganda the moment it would rather you felt than thought.
Write a piece in response to one or more of these comments. Your essay will be assessed on the quality of your argument and the way you express it.
A way into this prompt
Argue that propaganda is not a foreign technique used only by tyrants but a structural feature of any society that must move millions of people, including democracies that prefer to call it education or advertising. Begin by conceding the obvious case, that the crudest propaganda is a deliberate lie meant to manufacture hatred or obedience. Then sharpen the claim: the most powerful version is not a falsehood at all but a frame, a repeated story that makes one conclusion feel like common sense and the alternatives feel unthinkable. A useful third move asks what distinguishes legitimate persuasion from propaganda, landing on whether the speaker wants you to reason or merely to react. Caution: resist the comforting belief that only other people are susceptible, since the propaganda that works on us is precisely the kind we mistake for our own good judgement.