Subject Area: Politics
This course can also be studied in the following specialisations: Australian Studies; International Relations

Propaganda and public relations are essential to representative democracy and the modern state, even to military strategies such as the war on terror. Along with satire, they are forms of persuasive argument. Yet they are seen as threats to democracy because of their potential for lies, spin and manipulation. This subject disentangles such issues while exploring rhetoric, prblic diplomacy, ihe nature of rationality and truth in argument, the war on terror, the internet and new media. Satire also has a difficult place in theories of democracy, as revealed in the Danish cartoon controversy, and there is a history of satire overlapping with propaganda. Through this subject, students will appreciate of the political discipline and learn that the social sciences depend on interpretation and language.