Propaganda

Terms• Ideology: A set of ideas and beliefs that often

seem natural, and are instilled in citizens unconsciously through the dominant class.

• Indoctrination: The process of inculcating ideas and beliefs without critical reflection or examination.

• Control: To exercise authoritative or dominating influence over an individual or group.

• Consent: To express willingness, or to comply.

What is Propaganda?

• Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitudes and perceptions of a community toward a cause or position.

• War propaganda glorifies military indoctrination as the highest form of patriotism while simultaneously demonizing the enemies of the state.

War Propaganda

• Modern governments employ propaganda to incite public outcries for war in order to advance their agendas in foreign policy.

• Nazi Germany: The Arian Race• US invasion of Vietnam: Freeing the people of

Vietnam and the world of Communism • Rwanda: Dehumanization of fellow citizens,

“Cockroaches” • Canada in Afghanistan: Fighting Terrorism and

maintaining global and domestic security

WWI War Propaganda

• H.G Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Conan Doyle were influential in forming or changing public opinion.

• British authors support Britain in their war effort, creating hysteria around the Hun enemy.

• Created pamphlets dehumanizing the Germans, and their aggressive militarism.

The German Hun

• The “German Hun” was a perpetuated caricature among the British and French propagandists.

• Demonized beyond human recognition, as ape like soldiers who attacked defenseless women and children.

• Similar to the extremist Hutus description of the Tutsis as “Cockroaches”

Mythology

• 1915, the French propaganda unit produce a picture of a Belgian baby without hands claiming the “Hun” chopped them off, and in some accounts claiming they later ate them.

• Creates visceral reaction and hysteria. Enemy’s actions are so inhuman that cannot be negotiated with through diplomatic channels.

• “Either your with us or with the terrorists”.

War Fever

• Journalist George Seldes: “ It wasn’t until December 1918, when I came to Coblenz with the American Army that I realized how fooled I had been by all that poisonous propaganda”

• Rudyard Kipling: “If any question why we died, tell them, because their fathers lied” Andersen, 2006).

Battle of the Somme

• July 1st – November, 1916.

• British: 420,000 killed

• French: 200,00 killed

• Germans: Over 500,000 killed

• First day of attack British lose nearly 60,000 men

• Media coverage inaccurate to say the least

Failure of the Media

• Journalists were relied on official dispatches or greatly reduced the horrifying truth.

• Many journalists felt it was their duty to keep moral high in the home front.

• After the British lose 60,000 men on the first day, Philip Gibbs reports: “It is, on balance, a good day for England and France. It is a day of promise in this war” (Andersen, p.12, 2006).