Indoctrination is understood as the action of instructing certain teachings, ideas or beliefs in individuals.
The term indoctrination derives from the word indoctrinate, which refers to the action of instilling or aligning one or more people with respect to certain beliefs or principles with a particular purpose.
Indoctrination is a tool that has been used since ancient times by power groups, especially in the areas of politics and religion, to persuade other people.
However, over time, indoctrination has managed to cover other areas related to society such as the economy and the media.
In this way, indoctrination seeks to persuade, impose and control the opinions and decisions of people of less power or influence, using a series of practices and measures that teach values and beliefs that will later be considered as their own by individuals.
Social control, the product of indoctrination, allows certain elite social groups to support specific political parties and generate social or economic plans based on dominated people.
In this sense, the media serve as a channel to make public the information with which it is hoped to persuade and indoctrinate citizens.
Once people have been indoctrinated, they will not fight and face a real and necessary change, but will support the proposals instilled by others.
Hence, several specialists also consider that thanks to indoctrination, extremist groups have been formed whose influences derive from social organizations of great power and that can generate significant damage.
As an example, it can be mentioned that totalitarian government systems are in the habit of implementing indoctrination among the members of their political and social organizations.
It should be noted that the terms indoctrination and education should not be confused. Education consists in offering an important volume of knowledge with the objective that individuals develop their skills, generate their own opinions and become independent.