Book notes: Nordic Media Histories of Propaganda and Persuasion

Abstract

This book, as the title suggests, offers a history of propaganda andpersuasion inNordicmedia in the classic Nordic welfare epoch between the 1930s and the 1980s. The editors structure it around three key themes: cultural diplomacy and public information, politics and security as well as internationalismand environmentalism.Themain researchquestion is ‘howwere propaganda and persuasion practices, as well as their associated ideas and the results they generated, shaped and reshaped by transnational entanglements within the Nordic region and beyond?’ (p. 6). The book draws on Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell’s inclusive definition of propaganda as ‘“the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions,manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”’ (p. 6). Persuasion, on the other hand, is defined as ‘a complex, continuing and reciprocal process inwhich both parties are dependent on one another, a process that focuses both on influencing a given attitude or behaviour and on the co-creation ofmeaning’ (p. 6). The book focuses on propaganda and persuasion because according to the editors: