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.
Propaganda does not have to have a hidden agenda. Literally the “I want you” uncle Sam poster is propaganda. That agenda was pretty obvious, there was no question who was behind it and it was pretty clear why it was commissioned in the first place.
There has been propaganda encouraging car-pooling, reusing materials, conserving electricity, promoting employment etc, and many of them even had credits as to who the message was coming from.
Propaganda is not inherently evil, but it’s important to understand the context and where it’s coming from.
I think this is true from the original definition of the word. But decades of one side calling out the other sides propaganda in harsh and negative lighting leaves a negative connotation to the word. Which results in each side avoiding the word for their own messaging and using the word for their opponents messaging. Which further reinforces the negative perception of the word and over decades of people doing this it has left a lot of people thinking it only ever applies to negative or deceptive messaging. And I think this was more impactful in places like the US where there were a lot of political people using the word in a negative way - such as in the big red scare campaign in attacking communist ideas by calling it communist propaganda and similar messaging.
Which is shown by various comments in this post thinking it only applies to negative or deceptive messaging. So I would argue the meaning of the word has or is still changing - as words naturally do over time due to how people use them. Which I think goes a way to answering the OPs question, some places used the word more negatively which gives the people that live in those areas a more negative view on the word. While others have not and so people there have a more neutral take on the word.