Isn’t propaganda just a form of persuasion? What about propaganda separates it from advertising or interpersonal communication?
Edit: Not all propaganda involves lying. For some reason, we seem to be more comfortable with a person lying to us than we are with viewing a propaganda poster that uses verifiable facts.
Edit 2: Another interesting note is that in some countries, propaganda is not viewed negatively like it is in English speaking countries.
This reminds me of the same issue with the term “discriminate”. Discrimination is an important, good thing to be able to do. You look at a traffic light and you should hopefully discriminate between the red and green colors. Teachers discriminate good students from bad ones through tests.
People have started using is generally to mean racial discrimination in a bad context. So now, a lot of people understand “discrimination” to mean “racism” or “sexism”.
That’s because the definition of discrimination you’re talking about is not the main definition of the word, and is not a good fit for the use you’re describing.
The word you’re looking for is differentiate.