Revisiting 2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece

Through the lens of Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Studies at New York University.

ON June 10, 2021, Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Studies at New York University sat down with director and filmmaker John Kirby for a conversation about the totalizing propaganda campaign that defined the year 2020 and beyond.

For twenty-eight years, Miller has been teaching about media, culture, and communications at NYU. Among the topics he focuses on: propaganda—in its historical and modern forms. His Wikipedia page today is emblematic of what Miller spends his time teaching students about: how propaganda and ideology work hand-in-hand, to discredit dissidents who question prevailing narratives. “Questioning propaganda narratives necessarily means taking conspiracy theory seriously,” he explains, about the narrative management tactic employed by institutional media organizations. “When someone calls you a conspiracy theorist, they have already lost the argument because that epithet is a way to prevent discussion from taking place.”

In this enlightening three-part interview series on propaganda during the COVID era, documented as part of Perspectives On The Pandemic, an expansive video series produced by the Press and the Public Project, Miller revisits the events leading up to 2020, as he would with a classroom of students sitting in for his propaganda course. He lectures about the factors that made the propaganda campaign so effective, and how the COVID era’s propaganda tactics compare with many other historical propaganda campaigns.

Now more than anything, this series is worth revisiting for a refresh on the coordinated institutional attacks on free speech, healthcare, privacy, livelihood, and human rights.

---

2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece
Part I, 2021
Watch Now →

---

2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece
Part II, Divide & Conquer, 2021
Watch Now →

---

2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece
Part III, The Coup of ’63 to COVID 2021, 2021
Watch Now →

---