Ellul's Propaganda (1962) is the theoretical foundation for the DeMark section of the framework, and specifically for understanding how meaning spreads at scale through social systems. Ellul's key contribution is the distinction between agitation propaganda (designed to provoke immediate action) and integration propaganda (designed to produce lasting changes in belief and identity). Most of what the startup world calls marketing is agitation: get people to click, to sign up, to buy now. Integration propaganda works at a deeper level; it changes how people see themselves and their world in ways that make certain products feel not just useful but necessary to who they are. Ellul also distinguishes between direct propaganda (the explicit message) and sociological propaganda (the diffuse background meaning produced by the entire environment of a culture). The spectacle in this framework functions as sociological propaganda: not explicit claims about the product but a surrounding environment of coverage, reference, and behavioral signal that shapes how users interpret the product before they consciously engage with any direct message. The practical implication is that DeMark is not primarily about getting coverage or managing press. It's about creating the conditions for the right sociological propaganda to accumulate; getting the right signals into the right environments so that meaning builds in the background without requiring explicit persuasion.