Public relations as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2011) is "the activity of inducing the public to have understanding and good will toward a person, company, or institution." The use of public relations by government leaders is not a new management skill. In the United States, public relations by government leaders is as old as the country itself. Since the days of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, there have been public relations issues and political agendas that have been presented to the citizens of the United States. The first revolutionary public relations issue faced the formation of the United States as a sovereign country and the banishment of the King of Great Britain. Although many people immigrated to the United States to escape the rule of Great Britain, it took the public relations of the Founding Fathers to establish a Continental Army and policies to protect the newly formed country from invasion and taxation by Great Britain. Public relations has always and will always be in the eye of the beholder. Until the invention of mass media, in the form of radio during World War I, the public relations profession was relatively unknown. It was then that public relations in the form of subliminal messages and propaganda began to emerge as a trend of coercion and control by government leaders (Shafritz, 2011). The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2011) defines propaganda as “the dissemination of ideas, information, or rumors with the purpose of helping or harming an institution, cause, or person.” Propaganda is used in all forms of government, from presidential candidates to supporters of political parties. Propaganda through public relations by the government can be valuable to our government's leadership... middle of paper... using propaganda as satire in advertising and attributing it to politics as just part of the job. Are we becoming a society immune to political propaganda and making more informed decisions for ourselves? I would like to hope so. Public relations and propaganda have their place in every governmental society as long as they are used as a tool to communicate the government's intentions and to provide the information for informed decisions by its citizens. As society becomes more dependent on technology for information and becomes more educated in propaganda, the old “black propaganda” (Shafritz, 2011) is disappearing. The thing to remember is that propaganda has been around since the beginning of time, even the Bible should be considered propaganda, but it is up to each society to determine the value of propaganda with public relations and government leaders.