I am not sure that I have run across many people who claim that 'propaganda is a thing of the past'. Quite the opposite actually. I see many more people who assume propaganda before anything else. And for good reason - because it is everywhere. Israel is one of the more obvious examples - they pay their students an annual stipend if they post pro-semetic arguments online. Many other countries do this as well. So it is good to be able to look at what you are reading and try to determine what the motivation is behind it. Absolutely. It's necessary in today's world where everyone wants everyone else to focus on the good things that their country/affiliation does and ignore the negative.

That said, I am unsure that Blane counts as propaganda. It's manipulation for sure and quite alarming but I don't think that it qualifies. If you want to be even more alarmed, check out Derren Brown's material. He's on youtube and is a skilled mentalist who gets people to do things that are incredible. He even hypnotizes someone into being a manchurian candidate.