Progressive propaganda critics and the magic bullet myth

Abstract

The standard account of the beginnings of American mass communication research holds that the propaganda critic between the world wars adopted the European concept of the mass audience, treating messages as “magic bullets”; directly and powerfully infused into passive receivers. Such a mythical account overlooks the progressive reformist mission of propaganda analysis to help an essentially competent public against the new co‐option of communication channels by powerful institutions. The magic bullet myth emerged after 1940 when social scientists turned from domestic to extra‐hemispheric threats to democracy and sought a consensus that propaganda was democracy's servant against fascism and communism.

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