Agitprop is a combination of the words agitation and propaganda, and came into use in Soviet Russia, where a Department of Agitation and Propaganda was an essential wing of the government. It was not meant as a negative term, and the word agitation, which can translate as stirring someone to action, could also be called activism. Propaganda further meant to spread information, and is not associated with the more negative definitions given it today. The Soviet Union essentially used agitprop to encourage people to be more active and better understand Marxist beliefs. It should be noted, however, that the U.S.S.R. never was Marxist in the way Karl Marx would have envisioned it since it was governed by a succession of dictators and did not give equal rights to people.

Before the invention of the term agitprop, it was already a common thing. For instance, the impetus behind American involvement in World War I really came down to the sinking of the Lusitania, a luxury liner ship that was torpedoed by a German submarine. Prior to that, President Woodrow Wilson had spent significant time trying to find a peaceful solution to the war in Europe and to prevent American involvement. Public sentiment changed, and people were stirred to action by what was viewed as German indifference.

Stories of the Lusitania’s destruction were featured in virtually every newspaper across the US, creating agitation, and information about the sinking, the propaganda part, wasn’t hard to find. In particular, the deaths of innocents, women and children, were stressed, creating greater demonization of the German people. It’s not that this may not have been deserved, and for those European countries attacked by Germany, this is not even questioned. The “Huns” were necessarily evil, and support of the war, particularly in Canada, was continued through the portrayal of Germans raping innocent women and bayoneting babies, both matters of dispute.

Similarly, information disseminated right after the 9/11 attack in New York City was in essence agitprop. Certainly it was necessary to report the attack, to explain the situation, and to grieve over the loss of many lives. Some news stations were criticized for producing agitprop since all they did was play the attack repeatedly and then insert commentary. It was hard to find anything besides information on 9/11 for a few days following it. This stirred Americans greatly, and without minimizing the devastating effects of the attack, it can be said the attack made it quite easy for the country to almost immediately sanction war in Afghanistan. The agitprop that followed focused not only on 9/11, but also on the evils of the Taliban, their oppression of women, and their harboring of terrorists.

Governments may use agitprop with either good or bad intent to influence the people. For instance, in the 2000s, concerns about the health cost of America has led to numerous public reports about the effects of obesity, since it is the case that people who are obese may have greater health problems. Some of these reports are completely altruistic, designed to help Americans make better diet choices. Grim information disseminated specifically by the government, or by the media, is meant to stir people to action and to educate them, in the hopes that people will lose weight. Some question the motives, and point to greater discrimination of overweight people as part of this type of agitprop.