Retoriek-propaganda

Een bedenking over het verschil tussen retoriek en propaganda/
Separating propaganda from rhetoric - a three-point guide « World of words

Someone asked me the other day what the difference between rhetoric and propaganda is. It’s a good question: linguistically speaking, there is little to separate the two, although they are distinct forms of persuasion.

It would be easy to trot out an answer along the lines of the old “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, ie that it all depends on your cultural/political position – after all, no text or speech is free from cultural influence, and a speech that one group sees as rhetoric may be seen as propaganda by groups with different cultural standpoints.

O’Shaughnessy acknowledges the “very fine line between political oratory and propaganda” (p19) and Bryant (Jowett & O’Donell, p43) notes that propaganda’s techniques are “rhetorical techniques gone wrong”.