Propaganda During The Great War

To really understand and embellish the idea that I am trying to present, you have to look at the history of propaganda. Propaganda is defined by any type of material used in hopes of influencing a community’s thoughts and viewpoints towards a subject. During The Great War propaganda was a tactic heavily used by the U.S government, back then the only true news and truth citizens were told was by them. So whatever the government would say the people would believe. This allowed them to push out there motive and control the opinion and thoughts of the American people by fear, which resulted in people thinking that the war was there duty as a tax paying citizen. This propaganda would include the government pretending to unify the nation, glorifying
During this time many artists made posters to encourage Americans in join the fight. The posters would say, “WAKE UP, AMERICA CIVILIZATION CALLS EVERVY MAN WOMEN AND CHILD”. The posters would convey the message that if you joined in severed in the Great War that you would be a hero. This cheap tactic especially worked on men whom wanted glory and to be seen as a war “hero”. Many of these posters also depicted women and children being helpless and asking people to join the fight. The artist would paint a picture that the other countries were monsters and if they didn’t take a stand that these monsters would come and destroy kill them and there family’s. But the propaganda used on posters did just not stop there, it was used to encourage people to buy war bonds. War bonds are a debt securities issued by the government to finance military operations and expenditure in times of war. The government would use propaganda to make people buy theses. Even after tricking people into funding the war the government would have more posters showing people making clothes and other stuff for the soldiers. They also showed people growing their own crops, so the government could have enough food for the soldiers. The sad truth is that this worked on millions of Americans. Giving them a false sense of hope led to many untimely deaths. At the end of the day the government manipulated Americans in
Laura Powell a journalist explores the contemporary ideas about the glorification of the military in popular culture and media in chapter 8 of her book, “Good Intentions”. Powell starts with by saying, “The Pentagon has been working with Hollywood film producers for decades, in what is considered to be a mutually beneficial relationship through which the Department of Defense gets professional filmmakers to portray the military in the best possible light” (P9.167). This relationship that the government has with Hollywood might be beneficial to them, but it is the completely opposite for the viewers. It paints a false sense of hope and denial. They show us that the military is made of supermen and superwomen and that nothing harms them. In reality death, PTSD, and disability are very real and server things that they just refuse to focus on. One of many examples that Powell points out is the movie The Hurt Locker. In 2008 this movie won an Academy Award for best picture and acclaimed by the former Secretary of Defense as being the most accurate and authentic portrayal of the War in Iraq. On the contrary this isn’t the whole story, actually when movies are being made about the military the Pentagon loves to step in and provide millions of dollars’ worth of military equipment and vehicles, in return of the film makers to editing out the parts that