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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
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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).