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I am going to look into propaganda. Propaganda, according to Wiki, "is information that is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda). Propaganda is used to push ideas and ideologies onto a population and is used to manipulate them into believing what the people using the propaganda want them to believe. We can see the use of propaganda throughout history, it was used by the Soviet Union to unite the citizens under communism, to form an enemy in the United States, and it could be seen in China. Most of the uses of propaganda were a while ago and are not really seen in today's society. While the ways I have mentioned that propaganda was used, according to Wiki, "In the 20th century, the term propaganda has often been associated with a manipulative approach, but propaganda historically is a neutral descriptive term" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda). Propaganda is not always a negative thing, as Wiki shows us, but I have always seen it in a mostly negative light since the most common times that I have seen it is in a country that is ruled by an authoritarian ruler.
Now that we have prefaced what propaganda is, we should talk about how it can be good and how it can be bad. Propaganda can be something that is good because it can help bring people together to do good things during hard times or times that might require people to unite under a cause. This can be seen in the United States during World War II when the United States was putting out propaganda posters for war bonds, jobs, and unifying the country against evil. Some of these propaganda posters did things like, "As men were sent to battlefields, women were asked to branch out and take on jobs as riveters, welders and electricians" (https://www.history.com/news/world-war-ii-propaganda-posters-photos-united-states-home-front), which asked women to take up jobs that men were doing and now could not because they were overseas. An example of this is the image above which says, "We Can Do It!"
Propaganda can be a bad thing in cases like Nazi Germany and how they used propaganda to rally its citizens to join the army and that they are the superior race. This can be seen in the image above which shows the Germans beating up the Allies and Jewish people. During World War II, "The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany (1933–1945) was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_Nazi_Germany), which shows the importance of propaganda and rallying people or pushing a message. Propaganda was so important for Nazi Germany and trying to convince people to follow Hitler and the Nazi party that, "Adolf Hitler devoted two chapters of his 1925 book Mein Kampf, itself a propaganda tool, to the study and practice of propaganda" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_Nazi_Germany).
Propaganda can affect society as a whole by convincing them of an ideology or an idea, for good or for bad. The reasons above explain why it can be both good and bad for a society to experience.
It might affect segments in a good way because it can bring people together and most of the people that are being united are the working class. Propaganda can unify these lower-income people with a cause.
Propaganda is not really a big thing right now, and I do not see it being used that much in the future, but it can affect who we choose as president because of the propaganda that they use to negatively show their opponent and to try and rally people behind their ideologies and beliefs on how this country should be, and what changes need to be made.
These are all the things that encompass what propaganda was and is, and how it can be good or bad for society. Propaganda will always be a part of our lives no matter how subtle, and even if we realize it or not.
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