Propaganda actions in the 20th century
With the emergence of mass consciousness, there are tools that can work with it. This includes mass culture, mass communications, and propaganda.
The First World War became the first testing ground for ideas of influencing mass consciousness. For example, during 1918, 2,000 propaganda balloons were raised every day, each of which carried a thousand postcards. In October of the same year, more than 5 million leaflets were dropped on German territory. Real technologies are emerging to influence the mass consciousness. Interestingly, the leaflets have retained their significance to this day, they are used in all military conflicts (for example, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Chechen War). It was only in World War II that the Monroe bomb was offered - it opened at the required height and threw out all the postcards.
Great Britain created a special propaganda bureau under the leadership of Charles Masterman, which worked from 1914 to 1917. This bureau was so secret that even members of parliament did not know about its work. The UK has also begun an interesting form of work with the population of neutral countries. They took the addresses of people with whom they corresponded privately from their citizens. And propaganda materials began to be sent to these addresses. Thus, from 1914 to 1918, they sent out 250 thousand different pamphlets and booklets. There was the use of already existing social connections, which immediately strengthened the effect of communications.
In 1917, the United States created a corresponding Public Information Committee under the leadership of George Krill. Since there was no such influential mass communication medium as radio at that time, the Krill committee prepared leaflets, posters, films and public appearances, which J. Krill called paper balls.
The objectives of this work were:
to mobilize their citizens and direct their hatred towards the enemy;
convincing its population of the need for the United States to participate in the war as part of the allied forces;
developing friendly relations with neutral countries in order to receive their support;
the development of friendship between countries that are fighting on the same side.
The main target audience of this propaganda campaign was internal (own).
The George Krill Committee invented a form of informing its population, which allowed it to perform the functions of mass communication without the special means that we have today. Groups of so-called four minutes were created. These were speakers all over the country who received telegrams with the text of the speech, designed for just four minutes. They delivered news from the fronts in hospitals, churches, schools, i.e. in crowded places. 75 thousand speakers worked for the Krill Committee, and 755 thousand speeches were delivered. Such reports were presented to 400 million listeners.
American advertising companies were involved in working with the population, which "attacked" the population with exhibitions, posters, and photographs. By 1914, the U.S. advertising industry was already firmly on its feet.
By the way, the book that J. Krill released after the war was called "How We Advertised the War to America" (1920). The Committee has released 75 million copies of thirty different booklets. Due to the termination of the work of film studios in Europe, the American film industry became the first in the world and such famous figures as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks starred in propaganda films of that time. For example, in one of the feature films, M. Pickford traveled to France, where she saw with her own eyes the atrocities of German soldiers. The most emotional version of influence was used here.
Similar forms of propaganda about enemy atrocities almost automatically appear during wars. The German Kaiser was presented as a "devil in a helmet". The use of such stories of German atrocities is a typical example of propaganda work during the war. They were used both during World War II and during the Gulf War. The enemy's propaganda "spins" such situations as much as possible. And the degree of trust in them is quite high. This can be explained by the fact that in a crisis situation, and war is always like that, people begin to react to simpler versions of stimuli.
It is believed that Germany made such mistakes in its propaganda work:
the whole world saw the atrocities of the German troops;
The Germans were responding to the BBC's comments, which should not be done, because it only draws attention to hostile propaganda; It is not so much a mistake, but rather an opportunity for the opposing side to make the most of the opportunities that are provided to it.
During the Second World War, the methods of "in-depth interview" were used for the first time in order to build a conditional picture of the world of a German soldier. This was done by Henry Dix, who is called the leading analyst on psychological operations of those times. Working with prisoners of war, he identified the following five categories among Germans:
1) real Nazis - 10%;
2) almost Nazis - 25%;
3) non-political Germans - 40%;
4) passive anti-Nazis - 15%;
5) active anti-Nazis - 10%.
The Second World War was characterized by strict censorship, which interfered with the work of the media. If, for example, reporters worked quietly in the First World War, then at the beginning of the second it was already difficult. They even cite the fact that when a journalist asked for the text of a leaflet that had already been distributed in Germany in millions of copies, a British official refused him with the words: "We do not disclose information that may be of interest to the enemy."
The corresponding department was established in the middle of 1940, which immediately simplified the situation. As in the First World War, control was applied at the level of the source of information. Censorship worked before the texts got into the newspapers. There were only four cases during the entire war when newspapers got into a situation outside the law.
Visual communication was widely used in the UK. Posters were released on all topics that are known to us, including a version of the Soviet poster "Chatterbox is a find for a spy."
The posters worked against rumors, called for an economical way of life, and called for women to work in factories.
The film production has changed. Since it was necessary to get the support of the population, ordinary people appeared on the screens for the first time as heroes.
This even made it possible to use old pre-war scenarios in production.
Control over the process of the film industry was simplified by the fact that the celluloid from which the film is made was included in the list of military materials.
Consequently, no film could be released unless it was given the go-ahead by the military.
Since September 1941, a corresponding unit dealing with the political war began to work in the UK. Radio was used quite powerfully, appropriate radio stations were created, and information was transmitted from countries enslaved by Hitler, for example, the Netherlands. This made it possible for the population of these countries to feel the resistance that was being exerted by certain forces within the country.
In 1942, the BBC conducted work in 23 languages.
A military information unit was also established in the United States in June 1942. A list of important military tasks was compiled for Hollywood, which included the following:
to explain why America is at war;
Reflect the United Nations and their peoples;
to help in the work and in the production;
to raise morale on the fronts;
display the heroism of the military.
The U.S. Department of Defense allocated $50 million annually for the creation of motion pictures. It was also necessary in order to teach a large number of reservists military affairs. Seven American films "Why We Fight" were mandatory for conscripts, and the first of them, "Prelude to War", was watched by a wide range of civilians in 1943. Since 1942, American radio joined the BBC in London. In 1943, the Voice of America broadcast in 46 languages for 50 hours a day, with 36 radio stations.
In the Soviet Union, to support patriotism, the historical realities of the past were revived, the old version of the military uniform was returned, the church received a new status, which can also be considered as a channel of mass influence. Two weeks after the outbreak of hostilities, military newsreels began to be shown. Feature films had a special status. New endings were added to the old films, where the characters, for example, Chapaev, called for the fight against the Nazi invaders. The difficulties that people faced could be overcome only with intensive ideological support from various types of propaganda. The Soviet Union actively used all types of visual communication (postage stamps and postcards, posters, coins), which is always a fairly effective means of influence.
Hitler attached special importance to propaganda, believing that it was the reason for Germany's defeat in the First World War. Therefore, the Second World War is sometimes considered to be one where Hitler won on the propaganda front.
Propaganda in Germany was managed professionally. The Ministry of Propaganda and Education has been headed by Goebbels since 1933. Hitler was the first to use an airplane in his election campaign, and the population was surprised how the Fuhrer could simultaneously speak at rallies in two different German cities. Cinema was of particular importance: in 1940, the number of moviegoers doubled. The radio also worked for propaganda. The Germans used their radio stations to give the impression that these were rebel voices from Greater Britain.
Here are some facts. Hitler's image was created by Goebbels so that it would meet the requirements of all: for the soldiers, he was a soldier of the First World War, for the artistic intelligentsia, an artist, etc.
The holding of party congresses as ancient triumphs was continued in Western democracies after the war. Leni Riefenstahl's famous film "Triumph of the Will" told about the 1934 party congress. After the war, when she was accused of promoting fascism, she talked about this film as a documentary. German propaganda forbade the use of the word "peace" in order not to clog the heads of Germans with unnecessary things. Instead of "after the war" or "after the conclusion of peace", it was recommended to use only the phrase "after the victory". By October 1944 The model of depicting the "atrocities" of the Soviet troops was not used, so as not to frighten the relatives of those who fought on the eastern front. Although the model of representing the Soviet soldier as a "cattle" was applied at the general level.
The propaganda acted quite quickly. For example, it was immediately forbidden to mention in the press that members of the British royal family visited the site of the German bombing in Great Britain, when it was discovered that this aroused sympathy for them.
By the way, quite serious monitoring of public opinion was going on all the time, even rumors were gathering. The rumors were answered with specially constructed rumors-answers. If the population said that the Bolsheviks were not so terrible, then immediately there were counter-rumors that told about the atrocities of the Bolsheviks. Rumors were collected at the regional level and transmitted above, they were systematized and answers were prepared to them. Goebbels believed that the role of propaganda is to verbally express what the audience carries in their hearts. German propaganda acted quite systematically. For example, the "slogan of the week" was determined thematically, according to which the entire propaganda system then began to work. By the way, today the White House Communications Service uses the concept of "idea of the day", which means the topics of the "agenda" for the media, which the administration is trying to bring to the mass consciousness as much as possible.
In general, we can highlight the following characteristic features of German propaganda, such as the systematic and dynamic response, which made it a very sensitive force. In addition, this propaganda worked in a closed community, where it is difficult for alternative communication streams to get into.
The Cold War.
The main result of the Cold War was that the West believed that Moscow's every action was evaluated only in Washington's interpretation. Any actions make sense only when they are provided with content, and it is interpretation that does this. The "Cold War", as it was decided in the West, should be waged not on the ideological plane, but on the plane of things, i.e. not the message became the main weapon, but the context, which in the future helped generate a positive perception of possible messages. Contexts were transmitted through films, television, and cultural exchange in general.
Strangely enough, even an exhibition of abstract art in the USSR, for example, was funded from CIA funds.
So, the purely material context was very important, which influenced a person at the level of everyday life. We can make a list of the planes where the real struggle was waged, with the definition of it as interesting/uninteresting from the point of view of propaganda effect.
Among the largest information operations on the part of the USSR is considered an attempt to link AIDS with the Pentagon's developments, and on the part of the United States - the development of the situation with "star wars", which destroyed the economy of the USSR, had no real basis.
Western experts also attribute their victories to the coverage of the situation with the death of the Korean Boeing 470 in 1983. A. Snyder, one of the leaders of the USIA, notes in his interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda (1997, November 26) that they then prepared a five-minute film that demonstrated how the Soviet Union shot down the plane. It was possible to do this by erasing unnecessary moments from the transcript of the negotiations for a propaganda message. The USSR, as he believes, for its part spent 100 million. dollars for the campaign against the neutron bomb, including rallies, demonstrations, TV programs, and press publications. As a result, Carter and his Western European allies abandoned further developments in this area.
The West did not win the Cold War, as P. Taylor notes, rather, it can be assumed that the Soviet Union refused to continue it. The Cold War lasted for a very long time and absorbed the enormous material and intellectual resources of the two sides.
Glasnost and Perestroika were based on models of conducting psychological operations. If the "leaders of production" spoke from the Soviet Union, attention to which had already disappeared, on the other hand, the "leaders of consumption" spoke, who more effectively influenced their audience. If at the initial stage of perestroika in society these new leaders introduced the idea of the need to reform the country based on the ideas of socialism, then over time the ideas of socialism themselves began to be subjected to such pejorative criticism that public opinion questioned these ideas. The mass media played a big role in this: to a certain extent, the restructuring was carried out through television. The creative intelligentsia, for the most part, criticized both the political and economic foundations of socialism.
The massive disillusionment of the inhabitants of the Soviet Union with the ideas of socialism was the result of a combination of fierce criticism of the Soviet arrangement of the country with a number of ill-conceived economic reforms undertaken by M.
Gorbachev, which led to an increase in problems in the economy, its chaotic development. However, such events did not mean the inevitability of the collapse of the Soviet Union, as evidenced by the results of the referendum held in the spring of 1991, at which the peoples of the USSR unequivocally expressed their support for the preservation of a great country. But the fact is that perestroika, with the active support of the West, also relied on the activation of ideas of a national character, up to the revival of nationalism, which was constantly and quite successfully fought in the USSR. It was this aspect, multiplied by the ambitions of the leaders of the Union republics, who wanted to independently "rule" in their patrimony, that ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. This happened without observing, at least formally, constitutional norms. The young states that emerged as a result of the collapse of the USSR rushed together into the arms of the Western model of democracy.
The Gulf War required America to solve three problems. First, it was necessary to prove to their own population the need for US military intervention many kilometers from their home. Secondly, it was necessary to ensure sufficient legitimacy of these actions in the eyes of the international community. Thirdly, it was necessary to undermine the morale of the Iraqi troops by forcing them to surrender.
As in the First World War, Saddam Hussein was modeled as the "devil" - the "Arabic-speaking Hitler". Since both sides of the conflict opposed the United States as representatives of one Arab nation, the term "potential democracy countries" was used in relation to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, although there were no fewer journalists behind bars in them than in Iraq itself. At the same time, J. Bush declared several thousand Americans who remained in Kuwait hostages. Interestingly, all the types of descriptions of this situation used - "Arabic-speaking Hitler", "countries of potential democracy", "hostages" - require the use of weapons, make this use quite legitimate, which is necessary in this case to justify their actions.
At the same time, an active appeal was made to American mythology, which made it possible to attract mass consciousness to their side. According to this mythology, the United States protects democracy all over the world, so the participation of the American armed forces becomes justified. This method was used during the First World War, when attempts to involve the United States in military action were argued that the United States "protects the freedom of all people." As we can see, military actions all the time require persistent support from the mass media.
The peculiarity of this war was the "journalistic pools", with which it was possible to get into the war zone. At the same time, journalists were forbidden to independently interview and photograph the wounded. As a result, this strict control, especially over the visual component, led to the fact that the world did not see a single dead American soldier, not a single broken American tank. Even the sudden end of the war is attributed by some analysts to the possibility of showing on television the "road of death", where thousands of Iraqi soldiers were shot from the air.
The war in the Persian Gulf demonstrated a fairly strong propaganda effect on enemy troops: 29 million leaflets were dropped, transistors that worked only on one wave. The leaflets were developed after consultation with Arab psychologists in the form of an invitation. They were built on the expectation that the Arab world would benefit from this conflict. As a result, each deserter soldier had a postcard in his hands that "allowed" him to move to the enemy. Three quarters of the soldiers defected to the enemy, testified that they were influenced by leaflets and broadcasts. Leaflets announcing the next bombing were especially effective. For example, before dropping the world's largest bomb the size of a Volkswagen beetle car, the troops received a postcard: "Tomorrow, if you do not surrender, we will throw the world's largest bomb at you."
For the first time in the history of wars, it happened that CNN was broadcasting from enemy territory. As P. Taylor notes, it would have been the same if during the Second World War in 1944 someone had broadcast for the BBC from the Warsaw ghetto. This can be seen as an unusual illustration of the phenomenon of the "global village" to which humanity has come.
Another phenomenon has emerged in connection with the censorship of visual messages.
Television as a visual channel, having nothing to demonstrate, in response gave rise to a variant of the animation war, satisfying the needs of its channel at least in this way. This is exactly what the TV channels spent almost the amounts they lost due to the lack of advertising. The Vietnam War began to look outdated because it was not so illuminated on the screen with animation.
An analysis of the most influential postcards from the Vietnam War showed that the themes of death and family were relevant. The topic of desertion was encoded using other topics that were more in line with the interests of the person receiving the message. These are American postcards.
Vietnamese postcards prepared for the American army lost, as it turned out, due to the use of ideological themes (for example, "American imperialists"). In general, it is necessary to test postcards before using them in real circumstances.
Special attention should be paid to the message options. They are built on an emotional or hedonistic (entertainment) basis. The fact is that a purely propaganda message in this case goes to another plane, so it is difficult to resist it. We easily operate with messages that are in the foreground, it is much more difficult for us to work with others.
Propaganda analysis. Propaganda as a specific technology of influence over the years of its existence has developed a sufficient number of different models according to which information tools are built (different from, for example, the tools of mass culture or scientific discourse.
J. Jowett and V. O'Donnell cite two models of T. Smith's propaganda influence: the model of source change and the model of source legitimization. In the source change model, the propagandist places his message in another source, from where it gets to the recipient of the information.
In the sources legitimization model, the propagandist places his message in a legitimate source for the audience in order to then use it for his own purposes, relying on it as someone else's.
To this can be added a model of increasing the impact of the message, when the propagandist accepts the message from another source, but gives it much more weight than it was before.
