Propaganda vs. Advertising

Before class today the thought of propaganda and what it tries to accomplish never really came to my mind in depth. Many images contain propaganda whether you know it or not. After my presentation of Patrick Demarchelier and some of his work, we started discussing whether the images I presented were propaganda or not. Then someone started explaining that some images are made for advertising and other images are strictly for propaganda. I do agree that they both have a very similar job of displaying some type of message. Advertising deals with the act of trying to sell to the viewer. It may be of a materialistic subject. Propaganda is not trying to sell something. I believe it is just trying to get a message across to the viewer. Propaganda deals with many important issues that advertising will never be able to accomplish. Many issues dealt with propaganda are politics and war. Propaganda issues must be very controversial in my mind otherwise they would not be considered to be propaganda. Propaganda is trying to get the viewer to think in a certain way.