Randal Marlin (born 1938 in Washington, D.C.) is a Canadian philosophy professor at Carleton University in Ottawa who specializes in the study of propaganda. He was educated at Princeton University, McGill University, the University of Oxford, Aix-Marseille University, and the University of Toronto. After receiving a Department of National Defence fellowship to study under propaganda scholar Jacques Ellul at Bordeaux in 1979–1980, he started a philosophy and mass communications class at Carleton called Truth and Propaganda, which has run annually ever since.
One of the texts for this class is his 2002 book Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion, which examines historical, ethical, and legal issues relating to propaganda. Marlin acknowledges that there are many definitions of propaganda, including favourable ones. However, his book reflects Ellul's view that propaganda suppresses individual freedom and autonomy.
In 1998, Marlin published a book examining the public uproar following the appointment of a former separatist Quebec political candidate to the top administrator's post at the new Ottawa Hospital. The David Levine Affair: Separatist Betrayal or McCarthyism North? criticizes the Ottawa news media for fanning the flames of intolerance in their quest for higher circulations and audience ratings. The book also documents how the media kept the controversy going with a barrage of stories, columns, letters, editorials and radio phone-in shows. The David Levine Affair draws on Marlin's knowledge of propaganda techniques that play on stereotypes as well as pre-existing fears, suspicions and resentments to incite intense emotional reactions.
Marlin's studies and teaching in the field of propaganda have earned him the nickname "Ottawa's Orwell".**
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