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[[File:5041.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Figure 1. Roman triumphs were intended to show the glory of the leader and Rome as a great spectacle to the public]]__NOTOC__
Official propaganda promulgated by governments has existed since the earliest writing and government-sponsored art since the 3rd millennium BCE. Early forms of propaganda were intended to show the ruler and government under the favor of the gods. While this has changed, the general purpose of propaganda has been to convince a ruler's population on the efficacy of a ruler's destiny or relevance in ruling.
====Medieval Propaganda and Early Modern====
Medieval European propaganda can be divided into chronicles, hagiography, which was a type of reporting of what was happening around a narrator, and a type of monograph or book. Visual arts were also used as in previous periods. This time, most visual arts about leaders or governments focused on demonstrating them as having divine benefaction and that their governing was part of an ordained process.Chronicles provided a more dry, descriptive accounting of events in a type of linear process that describes events from year to year. By being somewhat dry, the voice sounded neutral but in reality portrayed an official government account. A good example of this are the Chronicles of Alfred the Great. These, although often useful historically, were propaganda at their core because they often focused on events that could be shaped to help the ruler or show support that the ruler received from God.
====Modern Propaganda====
[[File:1.jpg|thumbleft|300px|thumbnail|Figure 2. Allied propaganda showed the Germans in World War I as brutish to help compel the population in supporting the war effort.]]
World War I began the era of military and government propaganda that de-emphasized the ruler and focused more on the people. In this case, propaganda tried to make people feel compelled that it was their duty to serve the state in times of peril or war (Figure 2). Increasingly, stories of the enemy conducting atrocities, whether real or imagined, were portrayed in the wider media. With the rise of film and radio, propaganda began to move to these new media. Propaganda could now reach not only the entire country easily but it could be broadcast beyond. This opened up new forms of propaganda in World War 2 with radio personalities such as Tokyo Rose that attempted to discourage American soldiers.
