PSY OP
Wars are no longer won solely by armies; they’re won in the quiet corners of the human mind. Long before a soldier takes the field, psychological operations are already shaping belief, loyalty, and fear. But what most people don’t realize is that these tactics didn’t stay on the battlefield. We continue to swallow tiny fragments of propaganda every day; microdosed messages that mold our perspectives without us ever noticing. After years of this constant drip, it becomes difficult to tell where our own thoughts end and where the conditioning begins.
Psychological operations have long been recognized as one of the most effective weapons in wartime; shaping perception, influencing behavior, and bending public sentiment without firing a single shot. But the battlefield of the mind does not disappear when the guns fall silent. Many of us spend our entire lives absorbing subtle, repeated messages; micro-doses of propaganda woven into media, politics, advertising, and national narratives. Over time, these small doses accumulate, shaping what we believe, how we behave, and even what we think is “normal.” In this sense, psychological operations have evolved from wartime tools into everyday instruments of influence, raising a critical question: how much of our worldview and inner view is truly our own?
Long before the rise of modern media, rulers and institutions understood the power of controlling perception through symbols, stories, and public displays. Egyptian pharaohs carved their victories onto temple walls, even when those victories were nonexistent. Greek and Roman leaders shaped political opinion through speeches, coins, and works of art, while religious institutions conveyed authority and belief through imagery, ritual, and sacred texts. These early forms of influence were effective, but slow, localized, and limited in reach. After the 1400s, the invention of the printing press expanded the reach of propaganda dramatically. Governments and religious authorities began using printed materials to spread influence across wider populations. During the Reformation, both the Catholic and Protestant churches relied on pamphlets to recruit and convert followers, while kings and monarchs used printed decrees to reinforce national identity. Colonial powers used newspapers and posters to justify expansion and assert control, demonstrating that even before radio, television, or the internet, the careful shaping of public perception was a central tool of power.
Propaganda existed, but still not at industrial scale. Governments, political parties, and businesses used early forms of propaganda to build nationalism, influence elections, promote wars, and sell products. Still, it wasn’t centralized or systematic.
WWI changed everything. WWI marks the birth of modern propaganda as we know it.
Eric Bernays, who is considered to be the father of Public Relations, recognized how the public scrutinized the use of propaganda, he recognized it as a tool that could not only be used during wartime, but also during peacetime. He rebranded the term propaganda to Public Relations. After returning from working on wartime propaganda for the U.S. government during WWI, he opened what he called the “Office of Public Relations Counsel” in New York City in 1919. The firm became known for its legendary campaigns. His campaigns didn’t just sell products; they reshaped public opinion, redirected desire, and manufactured demand. And because he was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Bernays used psychoanalytic Freud’s name to gain credibility and trust. He handed political leaders, corporations, and media institutions the blueprint to manage the masses without them knowing. His goal was to control attitudes, guide beliefs, and engineer consumption while convincing people they were making their own choices.
By the time World War II arrived, propaganda had become even more psychologically targeted. Governments distributed leaflets designed to break soldiers from the inside out, hinting at cheating spouses, abandonment, and betrayal. These small emotional triggers did more damage than bullets ever could. Governments began using psychometric testing to map out how the mind works and what messages penetrate deepest.
Today, propaganda no longer looks like bold posters screaming for attention. Modern propaganda is quiet. It’s emotional. It’s tailored to your fears, your desires, and your identity. And because it’s embedded in everyday media, most people never realize they’re absorbing it at all.
Modern propaganda no longer announces itself with bold posters or patriotic slogans. Instead, it works quietly through the digital systems we interact with every day. Social media algorithms on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, continuously feed people the same ideas over and over. They amplify whatever triggers emotion, not what is accurate, balanced, or true, creating personalized echo chambers designed to shape beliefs without anyone realizing it.
Influencers and celebrities now function as some of the most effective carriers of propaganda. Governments, corporations, and political groups often push messages through familiar faces, brand partnerships, or content made to look “organic” and spontaneous. People are more likely to trust a personality they follow than an institution, which makes this approach extraordinarily effective.
News media contributes its own layer of influence by framing stories in emotional terms. Modern reporting doesn’t simply convey events, it chooses language, visuals, angles, and emphasis that evoke crisis, fear, outrage, or urgency. A single word, a dramatic graphic, or a selectively chosen image can shift public perception without ever altering the facts.
Even memes have become powerful propaganda tools. Because they spread faster than articles and rely on humor, oversimplification, and repetition, they can reshape cultural attitudes in ways that feel harmless but carry strong ideological weight. Modern advertising rarely sells an actual product. It sells identity, lifestyles, values, morality, belonging. The message becomes: buy this to show you care, to prove you’re ethical, to join the movement.
Political messaging is woven into entertainment as well. Films, music, reality TV, sports events, and even children’s programming often carry subtle narratives about patriotism, gender roles, beauty standards, national identity, or morality. Audiences absorb these ideas without noticing the shift in their own beliefs.
Another defining feature of modern propaganda is manufactured outrage. Controversy, scandal, and fear spread faster than calm discussion. While earlier forms of propaganda relied on withholding information, today the opposite is true: the system overloads people with it. Cherry-picked statistics, cropped videos, and selective timelines, create an illusion of clarity while actually stripping away context. In a world flooded with content, many stop questioning, default to emotion, and cling to simplified narratives.
This is what propaganda looks like now, quiet, constant, personalized, and deeply embedded in everyday life.
Propaganda is subtle, emotional, personalized, digital, constant. It doesn’t tell people what to think; it shapes what they pay attention to, what they feel, and what they assume is true.
I want to close by honoring radio journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose work continues to push me to question, to dig deeper, and to look beyond the surface. Mumia remains incarcerated, serving a life sentence for a manufactured crime and a wrongful conviction, yet his voice has never been silenced. His essays, available at prisonradio.org, are proof of his clarity, courage, and unwavering commitment to truth. I encourage you to read, listen, and stand with the movement to FREE a true political prisoner, a journalist punished for amplifying the stories of marginalized people and for exposing the brutality directed at the MOVE organization. His work is a reminder that truth telling has always come with a cost, and that our responsibility is to continue the work he never abandoned.
