And now for something completely different...

[Jester]

I've got a minor in psychology, and I'm with you. The smoking example was appropriate; you can teach kids the harm of smoking, and the addiction, but if it is still *cool* they will do it anyway. Make it *uncool*, and the smoking rates will drop like a lead balloon. Education presents truthful information, and leaves the person the choice. Propaganda may or may not be true and implies that making the choice is stupid, unpatriotic, selfish, and shameful.

So rumors like, "I heard that smoking when you are young leads to ED, and urinary tract problems after a few months.", Or, "there is a study that links smoking and adding fat to your hips." would be good propaganda.

The channels you and Pete are talking about cannot be plugged into directly. If it were that easy, we could have eliminated every social ill by now. Rumours spread from person to person. They are passed on if someone wants to, and otherwise not. If the target audience does not find your rumour worth chatting about, it won't spread. You can't just whisper something you want to happen in someone's ear, and expect that a year later, everyone will know the 'rumour'. You can't just write some songs on a topic, teach them to someone, and expect that in a year, everyone will be humming the tune. (Or, to challenge Pete's notion that popularity is a red herring, you can write a hundred songs, but if the topic does not resonate with its audience, you'll have a hundred flops. The songs will become jokes, and not in the laughing-with sense. Popularity *is* important.) Culture is not so easily directed.

You both seem to be envisioning a psychological success ("having 6 kids became uncool because the culture changed") and thinking backwards. I'm thinking forward from the beginning, wondering how exactly you're supposed to work with such protean tools as rumours and songs, absent a media culture. Why do some songs catch on, and others not? Why do some jokes get circulated endlessly in e-mails, and others not? What the audience wants to hear is more important than what the creator wants to convey. (See: Born in the USA) These are not trivial issues, and you can't just assume that somehow they'll get solved.

-Jester