Possibly, perhaps in certain foreign academic contexts the word "propaganda" can mean something other than lies & distortions for political purposes.
But not in normal American political contexts.
If we mean something honest, even if it's advocacy, then we'll use a different term from "propaganda".
We'll call it "promotion" or "advertising" or just "messaging".
But when we shift to the word "propaganda", we intend to imply misleading or distorted, if not outright lies & deceptions.
So there is simply no point in trying to claim some propaganda can be just honest & informative "messaging".
For our purposes, it never is.
But what, exactly, is or is not dishonest "propaganda" can seem very much in the eyes of the beholder.
For example, I've almost never seen anything obviously pro-Russian that I did **NOT** consider propaganda.
By contrast, pretty much anything pro-Ukraine seems fine to me.
Obviously, for many here it's the reverse.
Consider an example -- how many serious Russian casualties have there been in Ukraine?
Russians themselves have not put out recent numbers, but such Russian source numbers as we saw were minimal.
All non-Russian sources put Russian casualty totals at over 300,000 with US intelligence estimating 315,000 while British intelligence and the Ukrainian government put it at circa 350,000
Are all of those estimates just propaganda, or do they represent honest efforts to arrive at the real numbers?
And if we consider them mere propaganda, then what are the real numbers, and where did they come from?
So, very recently, Vlad Putin himself estimated the number of Russian troops in the Ukraine SMO as 600,000 which prompted wags to respond: that number can only right if Vlad adds to the actual number those that were killed and buried in Ukraine.
Propaganda?
Drop and give us 500 words!!
🇺🇸🇷🇺🇺🇦‼️🚨 “Ukraine is functionally destroyed as a country… It’s just a tragedy.”
— Republican Senator James Vance on Ukraine pic.twitter.com/9jgVI4Qkti— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) December 19, 2023
“But what, exactly, is or is not dishonest “propaganda” can seem very much in the eyes of the beholder.”
Yep!