Propaganda (February 16, 2008)

Propaganda has been defined as "a message designed to influence - aimed at persuading a group or individual to behave or think in a certain way". The era of total war, with whole populations mobilised for action, has seen propaganda become as important as any other weapon. The public's appetite for information is fed by increasingly pervasive and sophisticated news media - but at the same time governments have seen that appetite as something to be controlled or guided, to try to ensure that public opinion marches in step with the aims of those who are providing the information.

Since the mid-19th Century, an ever wider range of media has been used to deliver both 'news' and 'propaganda' messages. New technologies such as photography, film, sound amplification and radio - and later television and the internet - have quickly been adopted by both the official and the unofficial propagandist. "Old" technologies also remain in use alongside new comers. In the 21st Century, information and propaganda are still disseminated by means of public speeches by well-known figures, through newspapers, and by means of the poster and the leaflet - and the tradition of the war artist survives alongside that of the war correspondent.

Propaganda campaigns will try to shape attitudes in a number of ways. One popular device is the use of caricature or comedy. This serves both to lift the spirits of its own side ('laughter is the best medicine') and to make the enemy seem ridiculous, and therefore less threatening. A careful balance has to be struck in such campaigns, however - enemies must not seem laughable to the point where the audience stops taking them seriously.

Avoiding any risk of not taking the enemy seriously are campaigns which set out to dehumanise the foe, to portray them as evil or criminal, enemies who must be feared or loathed, beasts who must be crushed. Even this kind of campaign can backfire, however - when one piece of negative propaganda is discredited, then similar stories may not be believed, even when they are true. It is widely thought that an element in people's reluctance to give credence to early reports about the Holocaust was their memory of being led to believe exaggerated or unfounded allegations of 'Hun' atrocities in the First World War.

The will to fight can also be reinforced by positive campaigns - those designed to explain what is good about one particular position, which can be much more than just 'our' opposition to 'them'. Reasons given for 'Why We Fight' can include explanations of the need to resist aggression and to defend the rights of the oppressed, but they tend also to dwell on the values, the culture, the very land of the nation at war - and of its allies. Such propaganda can often suggest that everything is perfect in the mother- or fatherland but more sophisticated campaigns will also appropriate the war to domestic causes. For the British, the Second World War became not only a war to defeat fascism and aggression, but also a war fought to help build a 'better' society within the United Kingdom.

Besides visions of the post-war world, inspiration can be offered to the targets of propaganda by building up heroes and the development of myths. Totalitarian regimes make icons of their leaders - Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin all featured in such roles in the mid-20th Century. But an inspirational example, a tragic martyr, or a popular figurehead can all provide a role model or focus for the attentions of the general public in all kinds of societies - figures such as Lawrence of Arabia, Edith Cavell, or 'The Red Baron' in the First World War, and Orde Wingate, Churchill and Montgomery in the Second have all been used in this way in propaganda. The faintly supernatural aura that attached to the hero-figure can be found still more strongly in the promotion of myths, which can be specific or generalised ('Russians with snow on their boots' or the 'Spirit of the Blitz'), positive or negative (the 'Angels of Mons' and the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion').

As well as addressing the domestic audience, propaganda is aimed at allies in other nations (for example, the Commonwealth and Dominions in the case of Britain, its Axis partners in the case of Nazi Germany) to emphasise the bond of commitment, sacrifice and achievement. The enemy themselves may be targeted by what is commonly known as 'black propaganda' using such means as leaflet drops and radio broadcasts to lower morale and encourage surrender. Another important audience is the population of neutral states, whose sympathy and support must be encouraged, and who must be persuaded not to accept the enemy's view of events. In this sense, one of the most important targets for British propaganda both before April 1917 in the First World War and before December 7th 1941 in the Second World War, was the United States.

'Propaganda' is commonly used as a purely negative term - indeed, some people will always maintain that only the enemy issued 'propaganda' while our side gives out 'truth' and 'information'. The term is, however, quite neutral in origin. Its first use is commonly attributed to the creation by Pope Gregory XV of a 'Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide (for the propagation of the faith)' in 1622. The Museum's collections contain many examples of propaganda whose purpose is entirely benign - campaigns to improve dietary or health awareness, for example, or working for better living conditions.

In spite of the qualification just made, 'propaganda' remains a term most usually linked to the manipulation and distortion of truth. Its close ally, particularly in times of war and the fear of war, or of political repression, is censorship - the suppression of unwelcome news, the control of militarily sensitive information, and the containment of potentially unsettling opinions.

Source: http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/truth/essay.asp#top