AS IN SOCIOLOGY generally, scientific propaganda analysis necessarily employs many types of criteria. These include criteria of objectivity, adequacy, generalization, interpretation, causation, prediction, and interest. Of these, criteria that are frequently taken too much for granted and that usually demand most careful statement, assessment, and restatement are those associated with interest, in the sense of the individual, group, and general societal objectives or purposes served.' It is with these criteria that the present paper deals.2 In propaganda analysis, it has been common describe criteria in a general way by saying that the purposes of the analysts are to help the intelligent citizen detect and analyze propaganda.3 This is not be taken as a narrow, purely individualistic or individualism-promoting approach, an effort merely help individuals serve their own selfish interests the better. On the contrary, the conception is thrown into a broader perspective by the pointing out that the more clear-eyed and intelligent citizens we have, the more who can detect and understand actual issues at stake in a social agitation or conflict, the more adequately can the societal aggregate comprising such persons and their fellows meet changed life conditions as they arise. Or, as it has been stated, the challenge democracy is for Americans and all others who believe in it keep on making their own decisions concerning our problems, and keep on inviting free-even though dangerouschoices among the alternatives presented us.4 Out of such realistic individual decisions, when participated in by enough citizens, it is claimed that wise social policy will result.5 This position also recalls the parallel conclusion of Morris R. Cohen6 that 1 Throughout this paper, interest has the sense of objectified desire or purpose, whether realizable or delusory. It relates especially concerns and responsibilities, in the case of groups and of society, that are popularly regarded as being primarily economic and political. This definition is similar that of R. M. MacIver, Interests, Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. Macmillan, 1932, Vol. 8, pp. I44-I48, esp. p. I44. Cf. Albion W. Small, General Sociology. University of Chicago Press, 1905, pp. 425-436; W. G. Sumner, Folkways. Ginn and Co., i9o6, pp. 62-64 et passim; R. E. Park and E. W. Burgess, Introduction the Science of Sociology. University of Chicago Press, I924, pp. 494-497. 2 In developing the materials and viewpoints presented in this paper, the author is indebted his colleagues and former associates during his tenure as Executive Director, Institute for Analysis. He refers especially Kirtley F. Mather, Harvard University, Institute President; F. Ernest Johnson, Columbia University and Federal Council of Churches, Vice-President; Clyde R. Miller, Columbia University, Secretary of the Board; Clyde Beals, formerly Institute Editor, now of Fortune Magazine; and Barrington Moore, Jr., formerly Institute Research Assistant, now of the U. S. Department of Justice. 2 Descriptive statement concerning the program of the Institute for Analysis, Inc., frequently reprinted. See A. M. and E. B. Lee, Fine Art of Propaganda. Harcourt, Brace and Co. and Institute for Analysis, I939, p. i. Lee and Lee, op. cit., p. 133. For a recent summary of this viewpoint in modem terms, see Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Speech Today, in his Free Speech in the United States. Harvard University Press, I194I, pp. 559-566. See also Howard Woolston, Speech in War Time, American Sociological Review. Vol. 7, I942, pp. 185-I93. For controversial discussions chiefly of criteria in propaganda analysis, see Bruce L. Smith, Propaganda Analysis and the Sc ence of Democracy, Public Opinion Quarterly. Vol. 5, I94I, pp. 250-259; Clyde R. Miller, Some Comments on Analysis and the Science of Democracy, Public Opinion Quarterly. Vol. 5, I94I, pp. 657-665; and William Garber, Propaganda Analysis-To What Ends? American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 48, I942, pp. 240-245. * Method, Scientific, Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. Macmillan, I933. Vol. I0, pp. 389396, p. 395 quoted. See also Dwight Sanderson, Sociology a Means Democracy, American Sociological Review. Vol. 8, 1943, pp. i-9; and D. G. Haring and Mary E. Johnson, Order and Possibility in Social Life. R. R. Smith, 1940, esp. chap. 23, The Scientific Mood.