Historical Propaganda Research

The image I choose to use for propaganda is a little boy wearing a Nazi hat, above the child it goes to say “is he your child? You don’t want that" and under that it says, "Buy WAR BONDS before is too LATE! “. I believe the purpose of this image is to say hey you don’t want your child to become a Nazi soldier. So if you buy war bonds everything will be okay. The reason I select this artifact is because the little kid caught my eye with his blue eyes, blonde hair, and the innocence of his smile.

The rise of posters to encourage American patriotism throughout World War II is an example of using propaganda. During World War II, the troops needed more soldiers, more factory production, more government funds, and less consumption by civilians of crucial war resources. This means that the military needed support from the public, thus leading to propaganda. This was before the extensive use of television, the soundest method to reach the people was radio broadcasts and also print. President Roosevelt used the radio to persuade the public opinion and shortly bright posters began supporting the necessities of the war and work started reaching across the United States.

During wartime, a nation will do what it can to keep itself safe and bolster the morale of its citizens to keep them happy and to maintain the peace. The U.S. is no different, so I began to search for examples of wartime propaganda. I came across an article written by Gerd Horton in September 1996 titled, “Radio Days on America’s Home Front,” where Horton goes over the influence of radio and how it was essential to propaganda during World War 2. World War 2 took place right as the Great Depression was ending, and the wartime economy greatly benefitedbenefitted the nation. There was a lot of rationing that went on however, and the public was very displeased by this. Horton talked about how the government took advantage of the fact that “90 per

The most basic definition of propaganda is information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc (Propaganda).Anything that falls under misleading or biased falls into this category as well, including promotions that one doesn’t view as deceitful. Propaganda in United States’ history dates back as early as the Revolutionary War, but most Americans would argue that propaganda is of the past. Propaganda is alive and well, living in campaign platforms, advertisements, and news channels, attempting to contort their audience’s thoughts to mimic their own.

When President Wilson declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, the American people still needed convincing that his decision was the best course of action (World). This convincing was necessary due to the fact that many Americans remained isolationist and Wilson’s decision of war irked them (Belt). To convince and pacify the American people, Wilson created an agency that began to use propaganda supporting going to war on the side of Britain and France (Belt). The many methods of propaganda used by the government were highly effective and quickly won over the majority of the American population. This proved that propaganda had a highly motivational effect on Americans during World War I.

Even though W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, and Gunnar Myrdal are all three very different men, that come from different viewpoints on the topic of race, they still believe the same thing. The Propaganda of History, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch, and An American Dilemma, are three different books that all talk about race.

World War II opened many doors for American women such as job opportunities and a new beginning of gender equality. The changes that women underwent in the late 1930's and early 1940's would be felt by generations to come. Before the start of the Second World War women were commonly seen as housewives who spent their days staying at home, cleaning and taking care of children. However, everything changed for Americans, especially American women after the Japanese bombed the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, which resulted in the United States declaring entry into the Second World War. Inevitably, the United States immediately began to draft men to help aid in the war efforts.

Propaganda, though not the most effective war time strategy, allows people to come together as one to contribute to the success of the country as a whole. However with this idea, there is also the idea that they are not whole truths being told by governments within countries. Propaganda is a form of a lie seen in both North Korea in the book Escape from Camp 14, and in one of the world’s darkest times, World War II; the world allows these lies to surface due to the fact that they do no outwardly hurt another race.

During the war, many different techniques were used to persuade people to different things to help during the war. Many were about enlisting in the war and about the war efforts. During this time, many people were afraid of the war and how it was impacting the world. Both sides were involved in the spreading of propaganda, which in many cases are racist and mean. Both sides each had things similar and different about the ideas and messages that they portrayed in the propaganda.

     Alike, “The Poster” was the most prominent form of psychological manipulation during Stalin's reign. Until World War I the poster had avoided social themes. However, as Stalin’s Russia rose to war and as a world power, the posters took a turn to be commercial and cultural, an attempt to develop an expanding market and advertise various entertainments. The posters of World War II took on a new task: to mobilize the population in support of the war effort. Stalin’s Posters featured themes of mobilizing the armed forces, reconstructing the economy, as well as various specific war time problems. It was at this point that the government began to make efforts to “shape public opinion” and “arouse patriotic feelings”. The government assigned this task to the mass media. Every political event in Russia found resonance in

Wartime relations can cause a country to get down as we saw in the United States during Vietnam to a point where a large portion of the public doesn’t support the war. One of the ways countries, like the United States, curb this is by creating propaganda. In World War II, the United States used the propaganda to get the public behind the war effort and to unite the country. This propaganda included posters to advertise,

Furthermore, contrary to the beliefs of certain monarchs during his time, Mill argued that human beings are not infallible; therefore, we can never be certain that anything is definite, because we are not in a position to be judges of certainty (Cahn 443). The usefulness of an opinion is subjective and open to discussion, and due to the fallibility of humans, no individual has the right to stifle the opinion of another, for we can never be certain we are stifling a false opinion (Cahn 461). Even our truest convictions must be tested, Mill argues, because even they can be partly mistaken. However, it may in fact be that our convictions are logical and valid. Mill asserts that even then we must subject ourselves to critics and alternative viewpoints; only then can our convictions become vivid in our mind and character. If our beliefs are not tested, they will become robotic and lifeless. Further, Mill argues that we must not think in black and white, for different positions have value in them and since we are not judges of what is

Propaganda was used in 3 main types of ways in the First World War. It

This time in history, not-ironically called the Great War, was basically marked by putting mass in front of many invaluable terms, such as mass society, mass culture, mass production, mass mobilization and mass consumption. Mass culture was spread by the rising amount of propaganda utilized during this time. Propaganda in the Great War was an imperative part for the development of support, more specifically nationalism, which lead to a great amount of success for certain countries. Culture was shifting during this time due to skyrocketing popularity of radio and film. These technological advances made it easier for the views of the elite, and those in power, to spread their views to all citizens, as even radios had a place in most homes. The popularity of the radio was common regardless of class situation, which is very rare. The radio also lead mass

There are two types of propaganda: sociological propaganda; the spreading of an ideology through the mass media, and political propaganda; efforts that are sponsored by governments and political groups that alter a persons’ interests. All propaganda has a direction, and the overall quality determines whether it will have a positive or negative effect over the masses. Our entire nation is a vast propaganda operational system that is greatly linked to education, consumerism and politics. A great deal of what makes up propaganda and how it is placed among the masses lies in understanding the overall emotional and physical states of these groups of people and in finding a way to draw a persons’ attention to capture their hearts, breaking down