Nowadays, propaganda, as a stable comprehensive and proven method of influencing the minds of people, is becoming the subject of scientific research, both in criminological science and in psycholinguistics. In the presented article, an attempt was made in order to systematize modern interpretations of such a concept as ‘propaganda’, which is important not only in the process of studying the causes and conditions for committing crimes in the media space (television, radio, Internet content, publishing printed media, etc.), but also for the subsequent development of measures of identifying and preventing cases of the use of destructive propaganda based on the abuse of psycholinguistic techniques for negative influence upon people’s mind and upon their system of moral values and basic instincts.