At various times, under its own authority or in accordance with directives from the President of the United States or the National Security Council staff, the Central Intelligence Agency has attempted to influence domestic and international public opinion, and sometimes law enforcement. This article does not address, other than incidental to influencing opinion or actions reasonably associated with CIA security, possibly illegal domestic surveillance.

It also does not address narrowly focused psychological warfare in support of covert or military action. The focus of this article is on long-term influence on opinion leaders, including journalists, artists, labor leaders, etc., rather than starting rumors to assist in supporting a coup.

This is an area with many shades of gray. There is little argument, for example, that the CIA acted inappropriately in providing technical support to White House operatives conducting both political and security investigations, with no legal authority to do so. While there is an established history of assigning responsibilities for international psychological operations to various organizations, depending if the operation is overt or clandestine, there are also questions of the wisdom of a particular operation.

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies that are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media (also known as electronic media) transmit their information electronically and comprise television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other devices like cameras and video consoles. Alternatively, print media use a physical object as a means of sending their information, such as a newspaper, magazines, brochures, newsletters, books, leaflets and pamphlets. The term also refers to the organizations which control these technologies, such as television stations or publishing companies.Internet media is able to achieve mass media status in its own right, due to the many mass media services it provides, such as email, websites, blogging, Internet and television. For this reason, many mass media outlets have a presence on the web, by such things as having TV ads which link to a website, or having games in their sites to entice gamers to visit their website. In this way, they can utilise the easy accessibility that the Internet has, and the outreach that Internet affords, as information can easily be broadcast to many different regions of the world simultaneously and cost-efficiently. Outdoor media is a form of mass media which comprises billboards, signs, placards placed inside and outside of commercial buildings and /objects like shops and buses, flying billboards (signs in tow of airplanes), blimps, and skywriting. Public speaking and event organising can also be considered as forms of mass media.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Xhosa pronunciation: [xoˈliːɬaɬa manˈdeːla]; born 18 July 1918) is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before being elected President, Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata (Xhosa: father). Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades.

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Michael C. Ruppert (born Feb. 3 1951) is an American author, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer, and investigative journalist and peak oil theorist.

Until 2006, he published and edited From The Wilderness, a newsletter and website covering a range of topics including (international) politics, the C.I.A., peak oil, civil liberties, drugs, economics, corruption and 9/11 alternative theories.^{[page needed]} He is also the author of Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil and was the subject of the 2009 documentary film Collapse.

Currently, he is president of Collapse Network, Inc, and hosts The Lifeboat Hour on Progressive Radio Network.

On November 15, 1996, then Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch visited Los Angeles' Locke High School for a town hall meeting. At the meeting, Ruppert publicly confronted Deutch, saying that in his experience as an LAPD narcotics officer he had seen evidence of CIA complicity in drug dealing.

Ruppert went on to become an investigator and journalist, and established the publication From The Wilderness, a watchdog publication that exposed governmental corruption, including his experience with CIA drug dealing activities.