The use and effect of political propaganda in democracies

This paper examines the influence of political propaganda on voters and analyses the behavior of the interest groups in the face of the influence being exercised. By propaganda semitruths are distributed among the electorate. The decision taken by a voter results from his basic opinion and from the parts of information he receives. The analysis shows that the greater the likelihood of a certain decision being reached by a fully informed electorate, the more probable it is that the same decision will be reached by a rationally uninformed electorate. The pecuniary interest of an interest group is, however, also positively correlated with the probability that the electorate reaches a decision which is agreeable to that interest group. It has finally become apparent that the results of the approach concur well with empirical studies.