America does propaganda better than probably any other country on earth, because it’s so interwoven into the fabric of society. Freedom of the press, of speech, of creators is espoused at every opportunity.
And at the same time, the Pentagon is required to sign off on every movie script that shows any military buildings, or the White House. And they do make edits [1].
Military officials and commentators helped shape the narrative of the Iraq war, often with roles at the media outlets themselves. I’ll dig up the article I was thinking of when I get a chance. They helped shape the presentation after — any embeds had to run their footage by military editors before airing too.
What US propaganda does better than Chinese state propaganda for instance is that they don’t just tell the truth they want directly to your face even though it’s obviously and visibly wrong. They shape narratives. It’s an elegant, soft-touch approach. They make you want to hear and buy into their version of the truth. The press here hasn’t really been independent in a long time. I respect the game, tbh. It’s a free press so propaganda is impossible! Nothing to see here haha.
It’s also why I get my news from a couple of foreign sources and ideally it cancels out each providers biases. If you get a chance watch some Fox and CNN (I watch both) then compare to CBC and Al Jazeera English.
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2008/n...