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Propaganda analysis was a major early focus of mass media research. After World War I, some researchers began studying how governments used propaganda to advance the war effort. They found that during the war, governments routinely relied on propaganda divisions to spread “information” to the public. Though propaganda was considered important for mobilizing public support during the war, researchers after the war criticized it as “partisan appeal based on half-truths and devious manipulation of communication channels.”⁶ Harold Lasswell’s 1927 study Propaganda Technique in the World War defined propaganda as “the control of opinion by significant symbols, . . . by stories, rumors, reports, pictures and other forms of social communication.”⁷