The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads

by Tim Wu

Nonetheless the advertiser, unless a monopolist, usually remains within the realm of persuasion among a background of choice. True propaganda, by contrast, aims to obliterate that marketplace and the choices as such, by making them seem unthinkable or nonexistent. Only in rare cases is commercial advertising that powerful.

Choice may be the cornerstone of individual freedom but, as the history of humanity shows, the urge to surrender to something larger and to transcend the self can be just as urgent, if not more so. The greatest propagandists and advertisers have always understood this.