I'd say understanding how propaganda works (and especially when it works effectively) is imperative if we ever want to use agit-prop to our own advantage. I'm pretty sure Moore's very effective piece of propaganda wasn't the result of ignoring how the conservative spin machine works. In fact, I'd say his insistence on plowing through supposedly 'bad publicity' and shrugging it off (and actually using it purposefully to his own advantage) was something he picked up from watching the cons.
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Bullseye.
Poll results showing persistent, you might even say stubborn, belief in publicly discredited ideas (Iraq assisted al Q, had WMDs and so on) are not trivial, as I think Carrol's suggesting.
They provide, to echo Kelley, a method for analyzing the propaganda food chain. Because we live in a world in which millions of people are hindered by mass media enhanced dreams from understanding their class interests or even, in some instances, simple cause and effect (evidenced, for example, by the shock and outrage of many to the rise of an Iraqi guerrilla war - if we're good, why do they fight?) we desperately need this sort of information to understand our ideological environment.
I maintain friendships and acquaintances with people who support Bush so I see the Bush propaganda process in action at close range.
As I'm sure Jacques Ellul and others have observed, propaganda operates along a feedback loop. That is, it's my impression the people most receptive to the peculiarly reality-challenged prop of the Bush admin (peculiar because they usually doesn't even bother to mix truth with untruth but simply forge ahead into neverland) are already at least halfway there: they start with an above-average-in-strength belief in American righteousness which makes them excessively ready for the Bush message.
I've been in debate after debate with my Bush loving chums in which, to save appearances, they go through every page of the Karl Rove play book and then, when that's not enough, write some script of their own all with the same theme: American actions are invariably correct; any uncomfortably undeniable deviations are the mistakes of a debauched few (see, most recently, Abu Ghraib).
There are many millions of such people in the US and they must be understood if any long-term corrective political activities are to have better than a snowball's chance on Venus.
.d.