This Is Propaganda Podcast: Fine-Tuning Our Bulls**T Detectors

 Propaganda is a word used with monotonous regularity during the Cold War era. In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, it was the Communist Soviet Union that was the wellspring of almost all propaganda. When propaganda was successful, we called those victims "brainwashed."

While the word propaganda has fallen from favor, current society has crafted new descriptive terms for it. Spin, marketing, influencer, brand awareness, personal branding, deepfakes, and even misinformation have replaced the P word.

In this new Webby Award-winning narrative podcast by Brink Media, This Is Propaganda, co-hosts Josh & Malcolm from BRINK media group challenge the marketing profession’s delusions about the origins, techniques and cultural impact of the propaganda all around us and how it continues to profoundly shape our culture today.
The first season investigates how propaganda became the foundation of all consumer marketing, its omnipresence and evolution across generations of media, and the consequences we face today.

What's the show about? The show details, describes and autopsies the numerous methods used by governments, business, and powerful groups to influence how we think and how we behave. 

 

For example, in the first episode the co-hosts discuss Edward Bernays, the self-proclaimed “Father of Public Relations,” who realized a fundamental truth of effective PR: People are more likely to believe your story if it is told by someone else.

In the episode, the co-hosts reveal how Bernays essentially dreamed up the need for women to smoke cigarettes to grow the demand for tobacco. Rather than simply market cigarettes conventionally, Bernays wrapped up women smoking into a tapestry of women's equal rights and suffrage. Bernays' genius was that he constructed a marketplace for cigarette smoking in a cloak of socially admirable goals. 

 
In another episode, the co-hosts investigated the dissonance between Donald Trump and his brand authenticity with his followers and his constant stream of lies, which even any of his followers acknowledge.

The show is well-constructed. There's an intro with a clip of significance before the music comes in, and the intro music is appropriately dire in tone. The two co-hosts are thoughtful, articulate, impassioned narrators, and very capable of distilling complexity into digestible concepts.

Co-host Josh has 20 years on the job as a Writer / Planner / Designer / Coder / Director. His bio states that he "Thinks feelings and feels thoughts. Likes: new wave, old houses. Dislikes: small talk, big emotions. Hasn't figured it out yet, but is closer than ever."

Co-host Malcolm is a starving artist who finally got hungry enough to become a professional creative.

His bio states: "Likes: BBQ, creative brainstorms, live news bloopers. Dislikes: push notifications, camp as an aesthetic concept, the military-industrial complex. Wishes he was a magician (either kind)."

 
The show is produced by BRINK, which is apparently an entertainment media group powered by a creative agency. The company says: "We build brands and produce and distribute attention-worthy media such as films, shorts, and podcasts."

 

I have two minor quibbles. First, the show notes are abysmal, and, second, while both co-hosts excel in their roles, their voice inflections are so similar I struggle to identify which co-host is speaking.

 

This is Propaganda is an ear-worthy podcast because of the show's narrative dexterity, incisiveness, and its ability to communicate cultural complexity into understandable concepts.