World War 1 Propaganda Research Paper

Propaganda is an influential idea being spread to indulge the liking of and audience. The propaganda can be spread in many ways through school, radio, and even television shows. In the end, propaganda is just an attempt to sway the audience to believe what the message senders believe. Propaganda has a broad history and dates back to even 5 B.C. when Pericles created propaganda to show Athens was better than the tyrannical Sparta. The actual term “propaganda” only came to the surface in the 1600’s when an organization set up within the Roman Catholic church created it. Totalitarian states, popular during world war two, (1939 to 1945) have an advantage using propaganda because they control what people see and believe. (Gibbons, David) Because
there were many totalitarian states, propaganda was used pretty heavily before and during world war two. Propaganda during war time was used to either get people to fight, or even get them to support the cause. Propaganda definitely affected the war and it swayed the ideas of many people in their nation. The goals of propaganda are simple, does the message get delivered. If you can answer that question with a yes, the goal is met if not exceeded. But, when the creator of the propaganda is trying to complete a more prestigious goal, like war, the goal gets less defined. Especially for world war two, because that is more than just a war. To propaganda, there are other things to consider than just a ring to a jingle, but also the reactors background and economic threats or ultimatums.
Another key aspect to propaganda is social pressure. The deliverer of the message must make it feel wrong or unacceptable to believe otherwise of the message. It is easier to follow this through if you have total control of the people’s school, radio, television; which makes it easier if you are totalitarian. Sometimes, in extremely propagandic nations, if you do not believe in the propaganda, you would be sent to labor camps or shunned by people. (“Propaganda”)
During the war, propaganda created hate against Jews, Germans, Japanese, and Americans. Most propaganda in the U.S. was spread by poster but there are other methods. Some of those other types are spread by song, art, movies, and cartoons but some of that took a totalitarian dictator. One huge part taken to propaganda was Walt Disney. Most of Disney’s work was meant to see Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito in a bad way. The cartoons macked the leaders and showed how lives were under these regimes. Most times that types of propaganda was meant for mockery and to insult the foreign leaders; but in some other times, the propaganda was meant to show the fear of the women and children in the opposing regime. In one of the cartoons, he shows Donald Duck as a soldier of the Nazi’s and is dreaming about how hard the times are for the German’s. But he only wakes up to show his American patriotism.
Dr.
Suess, also, pulled his weight in supporting and using the technique of propaganda. He created cartoons that mocked and insulted the German and Japanese leaders and regimes. Suess use dawful regimes as a storyboard but also he sent a blow to people who did not want to fire African-Americans or Jews. World war two propaganda posters and cartoons were the most used form of propaganda and probably the most convincing in my eyes because everybody had to see posters and cartoons of the propaganda at one point. This propaganda was one of the main reasons that there were so many people fighting in the war because the propaganda depicted it as more glorious than it actually was. So when you take a step back and think about it, the authors that are popular today for their works that do not consist of propaganda, played a huge role in spreading the propaganda that we have today and made it a more popular thing than if they just stayed out of it. The propaganda depicted other nations as evil and an awful way to live. Also, in other, nations they had propaganda against the United States which probably made them feel poorly about us. (WWII
Propaganda) Different countries throughout the war all had some sort of propaganda. Whether these propaganda’s were true or not, they swayed a lot of people with the country. The opinion changes also had a big impact on the war and who was fighting in it. The British propaganda took to the radio first. Winston Churchill found the not-trues in many enemy propaganda in an attempt to damage to opposing nations spirits. Americans, just like world war one, wanted to stay isolationist and not fight an oversea war. America wanted to rebuild their economy because it was during the Great Depression where the economy suffered more than ever after a series of events that happened at the worst time. The ironic part, when we entered the war, it is actually what brought us out of the depression. Since most of the war was fought out of the United States, our economy was not hurt by this war. United States and Britain both used highly persuasive and public propaganda. The different countries propaganda was all very effective; all of it had an affect on the soldiers and their will to fight. (PBS) There were many strategies and techniques to get good propaganda and sometimes, they used more than one technique which made it better or more believable.
Some of the types are bandwagon, where you get others to act in a way just because the people around them do or believe in something; which makes you feel weird not to believe in them because everybody else does. Another technique is for status, which makes someone be swayed to think or act in a special different way all so that they can maintain a high social status. The third is using broad words that are so broad and widespread, that in the end they are worthless in a way that they don’t mean anything. The next technique is strong words, which is using words or terms that are extremely positive or negative to make the receiver of the message feel forced to think that. The fifth technique is switch, or using strong words and phrases that might not be true or extremely exaggerated to get the audience to think of something in an extreme good or bad way. “The last technique is called unreliable testimonial, which means having someone who might be popular endorse a product opinion or idea, that might not have the qualifications that they should have to talk about the product.” The last one is not necessarily bad but if the person is lying or exaggerating a lot than that is when the line is crossed and it becomes bad. (PROPAGANDA
TECHNIQUES) Propaganda made many people believe in in false and harmful stuff. The consequences were society change, a dictator, and even loss of lives. Propaganda in the end of the equation, is a negative, because it may misinform or change for the worse the way things are even if it might seem good. “Propaganda usually appeals emotions over intellect to get into the recipient’s head.” If it is good propaganda, the audience will act accordingly because it messed with the emotions. The methods that were before, were ways of getting into people’s heads and controlling them. The worst part is how easy it is to control the recipient. All it takes is one or two good phrases and a famous person to turn half a country for or against an extreme idea. All of the public places to spread that idea also helped the cause of propaganda. The dictators also put it in schools and other public places to make sure it stayed in their heads. Propaganda, in my opinion, was the main cause of world war two. It riled up everyone and almost forced them to fight. Propaganda did not just start world war two, but also world war one partly and many other later wars that happened but world two and world war one was then it was the biggest and by far the most undetectable. Propaganda, in the many ways that it can be spread, is dangerous and mainly negative to the people of the country. (The effects of Propaganda)