An Economic Model of Propaganda

This paper presents a two-period model, that describes dynamic features of political propaganda. When economic performance is cumulative, in a sense that overall economic performance in the second period is just the sum of inputs in each of the periods, and politicians can manipulate the information, the propaganda in the past does affect the degree of the media bias in the present period as well as support of the present politician. The direction of this effect may vary, but if the citizens do not change their perception about the politician a lot in case of small changes in propaganda level, this effect is positive, which means that if previous politician used propaganda, the present politician is more likely to use propaganda as well, which represents a "vicious circle of propaganda". I also showed, that under such assumptions, propaganda may be used as a strategic tool. Politician may use it to create an entry barriers for an oppositional candidate, who will have to deal with highly biased believes of the citizens in case of replacing the present politician.