History of propaganda

At the start of the war, Germany expanded its unofficial propaganda machinery, establishing the Central Office for Foreign Services, which among other duties was tasked with propaganda distribution to neutral nations, persuading them to either side with Germany or to maintain their stance of neutrality. After the declaration of war, Britain immediately cut the undersea cables that connected Germany to the outside world, thereby cutting off a major propaganda outlet. The Germans relied instead on the powerful wireless Nauen Transmitter Station to broadcast pro-German news reports to the world. Among other techniques used to keep up the morale of the troops, mobile cinemas were regularly dispatched to the front line for the entertainment of the troops. Newsreels would portray current events with a pro-German slant. German propaganda techniques heavily relied on emphasising the mythological and martial nature of the Germanic 'Volk' and the inevitability of its triumph.

Germany published several newspapers and magazines for the occupied areas. The 'Gazette des Ardennes,' was designed for French readers in Belgium and France, Francophone prisoners of war, and generally as a propaganda vehicle in neutral and even enemy countries. Editor Fritz H. Schnitzer had a relatively free hand, and he tried to enhance his credibility by factual information. He realized until the closing days of the war that it was necessary to produce an increasingly optimistic report to hide the weakening position of the Central Powers in the summer and fall of 1918.[16]

The British made a careful analysis of the German propaganda campaigns. In terms of content, the official propaganda had multiple themes:[17] A) It proclaimed that German victory was a certainty. B) It explained Germany was fighting a war of defence. C) Enemy atrocities in were denounced, including its starvation plan for German civilians, use of dum dum bullets, and the use of black soldiers. D) The rhetoric exalted Germany's historic mission to promote high culture and true civilization, celebrating the slogan "work, order, duty" over the enemy's "liberty, equality, fraternity." E). It explained that German victory would benefit all of mankind, freeing the seas for all nations, and enabling the downtrodden colonies of the Allies to liberate themselves. F). Germany needed to land to expand, as an outlet for its surplus population, talent, organizing ability, financial capital, and manufacturing output. G). The riches of the world, especially raw materials, controlled by the British and the French, must be disgorged by the enemy to the benefit of Germany. The propaganda designed for the home market included points A through G.[18] Propaganda directed at neutral opinion downplayed D and F, and left out theme G. The Germans realized they needed to appeal to vocal supporters in countries allied with the Central Powers, especially Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey. They put special emphasis on the Muslim world, using Turkey as their leverage. Much of the propaganda was oriented toward minorities in the Allied countries, as they tried to stir up Muslims in India and Russia and ethnic groups in Eastern Europe, especially the Poles. In prioritizing the goal of destabilizing the enemy, Berlin realized that it was often counterproductive to promote German glories. Other elements that were hostile or indifferent to Germany, especially among the far left and the Muslims, could best be reached through their own spokesman. Hence large sums—upwards of nine tons of gold—were given the Bolsheviks to spread their own anti-tsarist propaganda.[19]

British propaganda during World War I — called "an impressive exercise in improvisation" — was hastily expanded at the beginning of the war and was rapidly brought under government control as the War Propaganda Bureau (Wellington House), under the overall leadership of journalist Charles Masterman. The Bureau began its propaganda campaign on 2 September 1914 when Masterman invited 25 leading British authors to Wellington House to discuss ways of best promoting Britain's interests during the war. Those who attended included William Archer, Arthur Conan Doyle, Arnold Bennett, John Masefield, Ford Madox Ford, G. K. Chesterton, Henry Newbolt, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Gilbert Parker, G. M. Trevelyan and H. G. Wells. Several of the writers agreed to write pamphlets and books that would promote the government's point of view; these were printed and published by such well-known publishers as Hodder & Stoughton, Methuen, Oxford University Press, John Murray, Macmillan and Thomas Nelson.

1914 "Lord Kitchener Wants You!" poster

After January 1916 the Bureau's activities were subsumed under the office of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In May 1916 Masterman began recruiting artists, including Muirhead Bone, Francis Dodd, Eric Kennington and others, to paint pictures of the war in France and the home front. In early 1918 it was decided that a senior government figure should take over responsibility for propaganda and on 4 March Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the Daily Express newspaper, was made Minister of Information. The British effort soon far surpassed the German in its quality and ability to sway the public mood both at home and abroad.[20]

A variety of propaganda methods were used by the British during the war, with emphasis on the need for credibility.[21] Written forms of distributed propaganda included books, pamphlets, official publications, ministerial speeches or royal messages. They were targeted at influential individuals, such as journalists and politicians, rather than a mass audience.[22] Pamphlets were distributed to various foreign countries, primarily the United States: – these pamphlets were academic in tone and factual in nature, distributed through unofficial channels. By 1916, 7 million copies had been circulated by Wellington House in various languages.[23]

British propagandists also sought to influence the foreign press, by providing it with information through the Neutral Press Committee and the Foreign Office. Special telegraph agencies were established in various European cities, including Bucharest, Bilbao and Amsterdam, in order to facilitate the spread of information.[24]

Recruitment was a central theme of domestic propaganda until the introduction of conscription in January 1916. The most common theme for recruitment posters was patriotism, which evolved into appeals for people to do their 'fair share'. Among the most famous of the posters used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I were the "Lord Kitchener Wants You" posters, which depicted Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener above the words "WANTS YOU".

One major propaganda avenue was the use of atrocity stories. These aimed to mobilise hatred of the German enemy by spreading details of their atrocities, real or alleged, and was used extensively by Britain, reaching a peak in 1915, with much of the atrocities related to Germany's invasion of Belgium.[25][26][27] One of the first significant publications to be produced by the Bureau was the Report on Alleged German Outrages, in early 1915. This pamphlet documented atrocities both actual and alleged committed by the German army against Belgian civilians. Other atrocity stories included the fate of the nurse Edith Cavell and the Sinking of the RMS Lusitania. These had a significant impact both in Britain and in America, making front-page headlines in major newspapers.[28][29]

Before the United States declared war in 1917, the Woodrow Wilson administration established a propaganda department along similar lines. Propaganda experts Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays participated in the Committee on Public Information (CPI), which was tasked with swaying popular opinion to encourage enlistment and war bond sales.[7] The CPI deployed posters, films, and provided themes for speeches by "four-minute men" at public functions,[7] and also encouraged censorship of the American press. The American press played an unwitting role too by relying on daily war news cables controlled by the British government and by spreading false stories of German atrocities in Belgium and German-occupied eastern France supplied by the British as well.[7][30] Starting after World War I, propaganda had a growing negative connotation. This was due in part to the 1920 book How We Advertised America: the First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information that Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe[31] in which the impact of the CPI, and the power of propaganda, was over-emphasised. Also, exposure of fact that the atrocity stories were false created public distrust.[7] The CPI was so unpopular that after the war, Congress closed it down without providing funding to organise and archive its papers.

The war propaganda campaign of the CPI "produced within six months such an intense anti-German hysteria as to permanently impress American business (and Adolf Hitler, among others) with the potential of large-scale propaganda to control public opinion."[32]

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent anti-Semitic conspiracy text, was first printed in a Black Hundreds newspaper shortly before the Revolution of 1905.[33] It became widely circulated as an explanation for the uprisings. As the 1917 October Revolution unfolded, causing White movement-affiliated Russians to flee to the West, The Protocols was carried along with them and assumed a new purpose. Until then, The Protocols had remained obscure;[34] it now became an instrument for blaming Jews for the Russian Revolution. It was a directly political weapon, used against the Bolsheviks who were depicted as overwhelmingly Jewish, allegedly executing the Judeo-Bolshevist "plan" embodied in The Protocols. The purpose was to discredit communism, prevent the West from recognizing the Soviet Union, and bring about the downfall of Vladimir Lenin's regime.[33][35]

Russian revolutionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries distinguished two different aspects covered by the English term propaganda. Their terminology included two terms: Russian: агитация (agitatsiya), or agitation, and Russian: пропаганда, or propaganda, see agitprop (agitprop is not, however, limited to the Soviet Union, as it was considered, before the October Revolution, to be one of the fundamental activities of any Marxist activist; this importance of agit-prop in Marxist theory may also be observed today in Trotskyist circles, who insist on the importance of leaflet distribution).

Soviet propaganda meant dissemination of revolutionary ideas, teachings of Marxism, and theoretical and practical knowledge of Marxist economics, while agitation meant forming favourable public opinion and stirring up political unrest. These activities did not carry negative connotations (as they usually do in English) and were encouraged. Expanding dimensions of state propaganda, the Bolsheviks actively used transportation such as trains, aircraft and other means.

Joseph Stalin's regime built the largest fixed-wing aircraft of the 1930s, Tupolev ANT-20, exclusively for this purpose. Named after the famous Soviet writer Maxim Gorky who had recently returned from fascist Italy, it was equipped with a powerful radio set called "Voice from the sky", printing and leaflet-dropping machinery, radio stations, photographic laboratory, film projector with sound for showing movies in flight, library, etc. The aircraft could be disassembled and transported by railroad if needed. The giant aircraft set a number of world records.

• 
  Meeting Germans in No Man's Land (1917)
• 
  Meeting before the Russian wire entanglements (1917)
• 
  Bolshevik propaganda train, 1923.
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  ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky" propaganda aircraft in the Moscow sky.

In 1935, racist laws in Nazi Germany were introduced known as the Nuremberg Laws, the laws forbade non-Aryans and political opponents of the Nazis from the civil-service and any sexual relations and marriage between people classified as "Aryan" and "non-Aryan" (Jews, Gypsies, blacks) was prohibited as Rassenschande or "race defilement".[46] The Nuremberg Laws were based on notions of racial purity and sought to preserve the Aryan race, who were at the top of the Nazi racial hierarchy and were said to be the ubermenschen "herrenvolk" (master race),[47] and to teach the German nation to view the Jews as subhumans.[48]

Hitler and Nazi propagandists played on the anti-Semitism and resentment present in Germany. The Jews were blamed for things such as robbing the German people of their hard work while themselves avoiding physical labour. Der Stürmer, a Nazi propaganda newspaper, told Germans that Jews kidnapped small children before Passover because "Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah." Posters, films, cartoons, and fliers were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community. One of the most infamous such films was The Eternal Jew directed by Fritz Hippler.

Soon after the takeover of power in 1933, Nazi concentration camps were established for political opponents. The first people that were sent to the camps were Communists.[49] They were sent because of their ties with the Soviet Union and because Nazism greatly opposed Communism.[50]

France, a democratic society in the 1930s, but the people were kept in the dark about critical issues of foreign policy. The government tightly controlled all of the media to promulgate propaganda to support the government's foreign policy of appeasement to the aggressions of Italy and especially Nazi Germany. There were 253 daily newspapers, all owned separately. The five major national papers based in Paris were all under the control of special interests, especially right-wing political and business interests that supported appeasement. They were all venal, taking large secret subsidies to promote the policies of various special interests. Many leading journalists were secretly on the government payroll. The regional and local newspapers were heavily dependent on government advertising and published news and editorials to suit Paris. Most of the international news was distributed through the Havas agency, which was largely controlled by the government. Radio was a potentially powerful new medium, but France was quite laggard in consumer ownership of radio sets, and the government impose very strict controls. After 1938, stations were allowed only three brief daily bulletins, of seven minutes each, to cover all the day's news. The Prime Minister's office closely supervised the news items that were to be broadcast. Newsreels were tightly censored; they were told to feature none controversial but glamorous entertainers, film premieres, sporting events, high-fashion, new automobiles, an official ceremonies. Motion pictures likely likewise were censored, and were encouraged to reinforce stereotypes to the effect that the French were always lovers of liberty and justice, contending against cruel and barbarous Germans. The government-subsidized films that glorified military virtues and the French Empire. The goal was to tranquilize public opinion, to give it little or nothing to work with, so as not to interfere with the policies of the national government. When serious crises emerged such as the Munich crisis of 1938, people were puzzled and mystified by what was going on. When war came in 1939, Frenchman had little understanding of the issues, and little correct information. They suspiciously distrusted the government, with the result that French morale in the face of the war with Germany was badly prepared.[51]

From the beginning of its involvement in Vietnam, the United States government engaged in covert psychological operations. Thomas Anthony Dooley III, a medical intelligence recruit, became the public face of Operation Passage to Freedom, a refugee program secretly designed by CIA officer Edward Lansdale. The refugee surge from North to South appeared spontaneous to the American public, but was partly engineered by Lansdale's hoax threats of dropping nuclear bombs on Hanoi. Although celebrated for independent humanitarian activities, after his death the public learned that Thomas Dooley had been recruited as an intelligence operative by the Central Intelligence Agency, and numerous descriptions of atrocities by the Viet Minh in his book Deliver Us From Evil had been fabricated. Dooley later did similar propaganda work in Laos. [63]

Lansdale went on to run black propaganda operations out of Saigon in collaboration with dictator Ngo Diem. The CIA's forged Communist pamphlets were so convincing they even fooled some of the Viet Minh, and US journalist Joseph Alsop reported Lansdale's disinformation as fact. The agency also manipulated astrology reports in the North in order to negatively effect the morale of the population.[64]

Propaganda was used extensively by Communist forces in the Vietnam War as means of controlling people's opinions.[65] Radio stations like Radio Hanoi were an integral part of North Vietnamese propaganda operations. Communist Vietnamese politician Mai Chi Tho, commenting on the use of propaganda, stated:

"Ho Chi Minh may have been an evil man; Nixon may have been a great man. The Americans may have had the just cause; we may not have had the just cause. But we won and the Americans were defeated because we convinced the people that Ho Chi Minh is the great man, that Nixon is a murderer and the Americans are the invaders... The key factor is how to control people and their opinions. Only Marxism–Leninism can do that."[66]

On the U.S. home front, information was tightly controlled and the government maintained an upbeat official line about the conduct of the War. However, during the Nixon administration, revelations from the Pentagon Papers and about the My Lai Massacre and the war's expansion into Cambodia and Laos, exposed the government's secrecy and manipulation of information. This led to a “credibility gap” when much evidence contradicted the upbeat official line.[67] By 1971, more than 70% of those polled thought the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam had been a mistake.[68]

Film was still relatively new to urban audiences with the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. Governments’ use of film as propaganda reflected this. The British and Americans’ initial struggles in the official use of film led to eventual success in their use of the medium. The Germans were off to a faster start in recognising film's value as a tool of perpetuating pro-German sentiment in the US through The American Correspondent Film Company as well as on the front lines with their mobile cinemas, which showed feature films and newsreels.

Though the Allied governments were slow to use film as a medium for conveying a desired position and set of beliefs, individuals, such as Charlie Chaplin were considerably more successful with The Bond and Zepped.

A baby in a carriage falling down the Potemkin Stairs in the iconic scene of The Battleship Potemkin

In the years following the October Revolution of 1917, the Soviet government sponsored the Russian film industry with the purpose of making propaganda films. The development of Russian cinema in the 1920s by such filmmakers as Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein saw considerable progress in the use of the motion picture as a propaganda tool, yet it also served to develop the art of moviemaking. Eisenstein's films, in particular 1925's The Battleship Potemkin, are seen as masterworks of the cinema, even as they glorify Eisenstein's Communist ideals. In depicting the 1905 Russian Revolution Potemkin sought to create a new history for Russia, one led and triumphed over by the formerly oppressed masses. Eisenstein was heavily influenced by the ideology of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, which results in it providing better insight into the mindset of the later revolution than that which it depicted. Its dual purpose beyond forging a national Russian identity was to bring its revolutionary Communist message to the West. Its influence was feared in Germany to the extent that the government banned the film when it was released in the late 1920s.[78] Another of Eisenstein's films, 1927's October, depicted the Bolshevik perspective on the October Revolution, culminating in the storming of the Winter Palace which provided Soviet viewers with the victory that the workers and peasants lacked in Battleship Potemkin, ending with Lenin (as played by an unknown worker) declaring that the government is overthrown. Because no documentary material existed of the storming of the palace, Eistenstein's re-creation of the event has become the source material for historians and filmmakers, giving it further legitimacy as the accepted historical record, which illustrates its success as a propaganda film.[80]

Between the Great Wars American films celebrated the bravery of the American soldiers while depicting war as an existential nightmare. Films such as The Big Parade depicted the horrors of trench warfare, the brutal destruction of villages, and the lack of provisions.[81]

Meanwhile, Nazi filmmakers produced highly emotional films about the suffering of the German minority in Czechoslovakia and Poland, which were crucial towards creating popular support for occupying the Sudetenland and attacking Poland. Films like the 1941 Heimkehr (Homecoming) depicted the plight of homesick ethnic Germans in Poland longing to return to the Reich which in turn set the psychological conditions for the real attack and acceptance of the German policy, Lebensraum (living space).[78]

In the face of obstacles – COURAGE. Depicting the United States Army in action.

The Totenehrung (honouring of dead) at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. SS leader Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler and SA leader Viktor Lutze (from L to R) on the stone terrace. From Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl

Charlie Chaplin in the film The Great Dictator

The 1930s and 1940s, which saw the rise of totalitarian states and the Second World War, are arguably the "Golden Age of Propaganda". Nazi control of the German film industry is the most extreme example of the use of film in the service of a fascist national program and, in 1933, Hitler created the Reich Ministry for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda and appointed the youthful Joseph Goebbels as its head.[82] Fritz Hippler, producer of one of the most powerful propaganda films of the time, 1940's The Eternal Jew (Der ewige Jude), ran the film department under Goebbels. The Eternal Jew purported to be a documentary depicting the Jewish world, insinuating that the Jewish population consisted of avaricious barbarians putting on a front for civilized European society, remaining indifferent and unaffected by the war.[83] During this time Leni Riefenstahl, a filmmaker working in Nazi Germany, created one of the best-known propaganda films, Triumph of the Will, a film commissioned by Hitler to chronicle the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. Despite its controversial subject, the film is still recognized for its revolutionary approach to using music and cinematography. Another of Riefenstahl's films, 1938's Olympia, was meant to prove that the Reich was a democratic and open society under Nazi rule. It had the perfect venue, the 1936 Berlin Olympics in which to showcase Adolf Hitler's Aryan ideals and prowess. One of the most notable shots is Hitler congratulating the African American Jesse Owens on his four gold medals, whose successes spoiled Hitler's wish to depict those of African descent as racially inferior. The film won a number of prestigious film awards but fell from grace, particularly in the United States when, in November 1938, the world learned of the program against the Jews.[78] Riefenstahl's cinematic masterpiece, though temporarily effective propaganda, was unable to mitigate the growing awareness of the political realities in Nazi Germany.

In the United States during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized that the direct style of propaganda would not win over the American public. He assigned Lowell Mellett to the post of coordinator of government film. Although he had no jurisdiction over Hollywood films, he pressured the industry into helping the war effort. On 13 January 1945, Mellett stated in then-confidential testimony that he was assigned to persuade the film industry to "insert morale-building and citizenry arousing themes in its films by all means possible."[84] Luckily, many directors recognized the necessity (and likely the commercial success they would reap) of supporting the battle against fascism as public opinion lay with the war effort.[85] One such filmmaker, Frank Capra, created a seven-part U.S. government-sponsored series of films to support the war effort entitled Why We Fight (1942–5). This series is considered a highlight of the propaganda film genre. Other propaganda movies, such as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and Casablanca (1942), have become so well loved by film viewers that they can stand on their own as dramatic films, apart from their original role as propaganda vehicles.[86] Charlie Chaplin once again joined the U.S. war effort, creating The Great Dictator (1940), in which he played the Hitler-like character of 'Adenoid Hynkel' — this was preceded by some nine months by the short subject starring The Three Stooges, You Nazty Spy!, as Moe Howard was the first American actor (as "Moe Hailstone") to spoof Hitler in film.

Animation became popular, especially for winning over youthful audiences. Walt Disney and Looney Tunes were among those that actively aided the U.S. war effort through their cartoons which provided training and instructions for viewers as well as a political commentary on the times. One of the most popular, Der Fuehrer's Face (1942) was a means of relieving the aggression against Hitler by making him a somewhat comical figure while showcasing the freedom America offered. Disney's Food Will Win the War (1942) attempts to make US citizens feel good by using US agriculture as a means of power.[87] Also popular in the Soviet Union, the government produced such animated shorts as What Hitler Wants, which depicts a devilish Hitler giving Russian factories to capitalists, enslaving and riding once-free Soviet citizens, but shows that the U.S.S.R. will be prepared to fight, paying the Germans back in triplicate, ready to beat the 'fascist pirates.'[88]

Many of the dramatic war films in the early 1940s in the United States were designed to create a patriotic mindset and convince viewers that sacrifices needed to be made to defeat "the enemy." Despite fears that too much propaganda could diminish Hollywood's entertainment appeal, reducing its targeted audience and decreasing profits, military enlistment increased and morale was considered to be higher, in part attributed to America's innovative propaganda.[89][90] One of the conventions of the genre was to depict a racial and socioeconomic cross-section of the United States, either a platoon on the front lines or soldiers training on a base, which come together to fight for the good of the country. In Italy, at the same time, film directors like Roberto Rossellini produced propaganda films for similar purposes.

Similar to Nazi Germany, the U.S.S.R. prepared its citizens for war by releasing dramas, such as Sergei Eisenstein's iconic Alexander Nevsky. The U.S.S.R also screened films depicting partisan activity and the suffering inflicted by the Nazis, such as Girl No. 217, which showed a Russian girl enslaved by an inhumane German family. Films were shown on propaganda trains while newsreels were screened in subway stations to reach those who were unable to pay to see films in the theater.[91]

Psychological combat was in fashion during the Cold War, and was used heavily by both sides.[92]

When describing life in Communist countries, western propaganda sought to depict an image of a brainwashed citizenry which was then held captive by their government. The CIA's Office of Policy Coordination adapted George Orwell's Animal Farm into an animated movie in 1954 that was released in England.[93] In 1951, the American Federation of Labor disseminated a map, entitled "'Gulag'--Slavery, Inc.," of the Soviet Union showing the locations of 175 forced labor camps administered by the Gulag. It was widely reprinted across the United States and internationally.[94] The U.S. government made various anti-communist "education" documentaries, known as Armed Forces Information Films (AFIF), first shown to the Armed Forces, then released to commercial television or as educational films in schools. They include Communism (1950), Communist Weapon of Allure (1950), Communist Blueprint for Conquest (1956), Red Nightmare (1957), Challenge of Ideas (1961), and Communism (1967). Some were used to portray the American Left as infiltrated by communism, such as Communist Target—Youth (1960), produced by J. Edgar Hoover, which painted the anti-HUAC riots of the 1950s as the work of communism; Anarchy, USA (1966) presents the civil rights movement as a part of a communist plot for world domination.

Red Dawn (1984) was a commercial Hollywood film that depicts an alternate 1980s in which the United States is invaded by the Soviet Union, Cuba, Nicaragua, and other Latin American allies of the U.S.S.R. and a group of small-town high school students engage in guerrilla warfare in their resistance of the occupation, eventually beating the communists.[95]

Pork Chop Hill (1959) was the most notable 1950s American anti-war propaganda piece about the Korean war. Milestone was known for his previous anti-war films, including 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front and Shangganling (The Battle of Sangkumryung Ridge or Triangle Hill; 1956), which was the most influential film on the Chinese in that era. Both Pork Chop Hill and Shangganling depict a single battle in which a small dedicated unit defends a small holdout with very little hope of reprieve. Like all propaganda the importance of the film is not the battle itself but the outstanding characteristics of such individuals who would commit such acts of patriotism for their home and country.[96]

Over 100 years since its creation, film continues to resonate with viewers and helps influence or reinforce a particular viewpoint. Following the 9/11 attacks, many Americans were split on the success of the government's response and the ensuing war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Similar to the Vietnam War, filmmakers expressed their view of the attacks and feelings about the war through films, most notably, Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). The film sparked debate across the country, presenting mixed assessments on the role of the U.S. government and its response along with the controversy that normally arises when depicting recent, traumatic events. Director Michael Moore omits footage of the planes striking the Twin Towers, cutting directly to the aftermath and destruction.[97] Alan Petersen's Fahrenhype 9/11 was released in response to Fahrenheit 9/11's success in theaters. Petersen called Fahrenheit 9/11 "the Road Runner of manipulation...removing all avenues of thought through over-determination...leaving no room for the viewer's own judgment."[98] It received considerably less press and screentime than Moore's controversial piece.

Ayman al-Zawahiri stated that “We are in a media battle for the hearts and minds of our umma [community] of Muslims.”[99] Towards winning the hearts and minds of the MENA region, Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have produced propaganda films and documentaries depicting jihadist attacks, last will and testament videos, training, and interviews, all meant to boost morale among supporters. Al-Qaeda established a Media Committee early in its inception to handle traditional Western and Arab media as well as create an online media presence, which was established through the multi-media company as-Sahab in 2001. The company, which produces documentary-like films and operational videos for Afghanistan is known for its technological sophistication, cinematic effects, and their efforts to reach the west with translations and subtitling. Its operational videos were serialised in Pyre for Americans in Khorasan [Afghanistan]. Other productions in North Africa include Apostate in Hell, a Somali film produced by al-Fajr Media Centre includes interviews with Somali jihadists, training of fighters, preparation for an attack, and actual operations. It along with many other al-Qaeda videos is distributed by Arabic jihadist websites as that community relies on the Internet to a high degree to disseminate information to followers.[100]

Elements of propaganda films can also be incorporated into films that have messages that seek to implement positive change within society.[101] However, what one generation may see as positive, later generations may experience as negative.

Food

As mentioned previously, Walt Disney's Food Will Win the War (1942) attempts to make US citizens feel good by using US agriculture as a means of power.[87] In 1943, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) introduced its "Basic 7" nutrition guide (a precursor to the food pyramid). In the same year, the United States Office of War Information released Food for Fighters about the importance of nutrition in wartime.[102] Between the 1940s and 1970s the Green Revolution increased agriculture production around the world which led to further increases in farm size and a reduction in the number of farms. Advances in fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, antibiotics, and growth hormones, reduced crop wastage due to weeds, insects, and diseases at the expense of health and safety from agricultural pollution. Good Eating Habits (1951) by Coronet Films is a drama focusing on gluttony and "hidden hunger," where well-nourished people eat poorly and malnourish themselves.[103] Miracles From Agriculture (1960) from the USDA presents then supermarkets as the showplaces of agriculture, discussing methods of improvement in the growing, handling, processing, and shipping of food products and the cooperative assistance offered by agricultural and food-processing research centres; the film also hypothesises that a nation grows according to the productivity of its agriculture.[104]

Since the 1990s to the present, responses to mad-cow disease, genetically modified foods, flu epidemics in pigs and birds, and an increase in foodborne illness outbreaks, agricultural pollution, and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have led people to question where their food comes from and what is actually in it. The use of antibiotics and hormones in cattle and birds, artificial food additives like artificial colors/flavors, artificial sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup and aspartame, artificial preservatives, etc., prompted "propaganda" films like Super Size Me (2004),[105] King Corn (2007), Food, Inc. (2008),[105] Forks Over Knives (2011), and others to promote food awareness, organic farming and eating local organic food, reducing and eliminating pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and synthetic fertilisers, and adopting a vegan and/or raw food diet.

Health

Health and medical propaganda films include The Pace That Kills (1935, cocaine), The Terrible Truth (1951, Sid Davis, anti-marijuana/heroine), Case Study series by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation (1969, amphetamines, barbiturates, heroine, LSD),[106][107] Hoxsey: Quacks Who Cure Cancer (1988) about the Hoxsey Therapy,[108] The Beautiful Truth (2008) about the Gerson method for treating cancer,[108] the anti-vaccine The Greater Good,[109] Burzynski The Movie: Cancer Is Serious Business (2010),[110] and Michael Moore's Sicko (2007) about the health care industry.[108]

Other

Other propaganda film topics include Cannabis and hemp, Are You Popular? (1947, Coronet Films, popularity),[106] The Spirit of '43 (1943, Disney, income taxes) with Donald Duck,[106] Boys Beware (1961, anti-homosexuality),[106] Perversion for Profit (1965, anti-pornography),[106] The Secret (2006), a self-help film about the metaphysical concept of the law of attraction, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) about intelligent design, Silent Contest (2013) a military propaganda film produced by the People's Liberation Army.

Fake news websites have been used to disseminate hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation — using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect.[111][112][113]

The ease of data collection emerging from the IT revolution has been suggested to have created a novel form of workplace propaganda.[114] A lack of control on the acquired data's use has led to the widespread implementation of workplace propaganda created much more locally by managers in small and large companies, hospitals, colleges and Universities etc. The author highlights the transition of propagandist coming from large, often national producers to small scale production. The same article also notes a departure from the traditional methodology of propagandists i.e., the use of emotionally provocative imagery to distort facts. Data driven propaganda is suggested to use 'distorted data' to overrule emotion. For example, by providing rationales for ideologically driven pay cuts etc.

Revolutionary opera with a scene from the Red Detachment of Women.

Propaganda is used by the Communist Party of China to sway public and international opinion in favour of its policies.[115][116] Domestically, this includes censorship of proscribed views and an active cultivation of views that favour the government. Propaganda is considered central to the operation of the Chinese government.[117] The term in general use in China, xuanchuan (宣傳 "propaganda; publicity") can have either a neutral connotation in official government contexts or a pejorative connotation in informal contexts.[118] Some xuanchuan collocations usually refer to "propaganda" (e.g., xuānchuánzhàn 宣传战 "propaganda war"), others to "publicity" (xuānchuán méijiè 宣傳媒介 "mass media; means of publicity"), and still others are ambiguous (xuānchuányuán 宣传员 "propagandist; publicist").[119]

Aspects of propaganda can be traced back to the earliest periods of Chinese history, but propaganda has been most effective in the twentieth century owing to mass media and an authoritarian government.[117] China in the era of Mao Zedong is known for its constant use of mass campaigns to legitimise the state and the policies of leaders. It was the first Chinese government to successfully make use of modern mass propaganda techniques, adapting them to the needs of a country which had a largely rural and illiterate population.[117] In poor developing countries, China spreads propaganda through methods such as opening Confucius Institutes, and providing training programs in China for foreign officials and students.[120]

According to Anne-Marie Brady, the Foreign Ministry first set up a system of designated officials to give information in times of crisis in 1983, and greatly expanded the system to lower levels in the mid-1990s. China's spin had been directed only at foreigners, but in the 1990s leaders realised that managing public crises was useful for domestic politics; this included setting up provincial level "News Coordinator Groups," and inviting foreign PR firms to give seminars.[121]

Brady writes that Chinese foreign propaganda officials took cues from the Blair government's spin doctoring during the mad cow disease crisis of 2000–2001, and the Bush government's use of the U.S. media after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. According to her, the Blair model allows for a certain amount of negative coverage to be shown during a crisis, which is believed to help release some of the "social tension" surrounding it. She believes information managers in China used this approach during coal mining disasters of 2005.[121]

According to Brady, trained official spokespeople are now available on call in every central government ministry, as well as in local governments, to deal with emerging crises; these spin doctors are coordinated and trained by the Office of Foreign Propaganda/State Council Information Office.[121]

During the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, Communist Party officials moved swiftly in a public relations campaign. According to Newsweek, Party officials felt that the recent riots risked tarnishing China's global image, and underwent a public relations program involving quickly getting out the government's official version of the events, as well as transporting foreign journalists to riot affected areas. The growth in new technologies, such as email and SMS, forced the CCP's hand into taking up spin.

Instead of attempting a media blackout as with the 2008 Tibetan unrest, the Party has adopted a series of more advanced techniques to influence the information leaving China. The day after violence in Ürümqi, the State Council Information Office set up a Xinjiang Information Office in Ürümqi to assist foreign reporters. It invited foreign media to Xinjiang to tour the riot zones, visit hospitals, and look at the aftermath themselves. Journalists were also given CDs with photos and TV clips. "They try to control the foreign journalists as much as possible by using this more sophisticated PR work rather than ban[ning] them," according to Professor Xiao Qiang, quoted by Newsweek.[122]

Drug cartels have been engaged in propaganda and psychological campaigns to influence their rivals and those within their area of influence. They use banners and narcomantas to threaten their rivals. Some cartels hand out pamphlets and leaflets to conduct public relation campaigns. They have been able to control the information environment by threatening journalists, bloggers and others who speak out against them. They have elaborate recruitment strategies targeting young adults to join their cartel groups. They have successfully branded the word narco, and the word has become part of Mexican culture. There is music, television shows, literature, beverages, food and architecture that all have been branded narco.[123][124]

North Koreans touring the Museum of American War Atrocities.

Every year, a state-owned publishing house releases several cartoons (called geurim-chaek in North Korea), many of which are smuggled across the Chinese border and, sometimes, end up in university libraries in the United States. The books are designed to instill the Juche philosophy of Kim Il-sung (the "father" of North Korea)—radical self-reliance of the state. The plots mostly feature scheming capitalists from the United States and Japan who create dilemmas for naïve North Korean characters.

DPRK textbooks claim that US missionaries came to the Korean Peninsula and committed barbarous acts against Korean children, including injecting dangerous liquids into the children and writing the word "THIEF" on the forehead of any child who stole an apple for missionary-owned orchards in Korea.[125]

A poster circa 2000 concerning cannabis in the United States.

The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, originally established by the National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988,[126][127] but now conducted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998,[128] is a domestic propaganda campaign designed to "influence the attitudes of the public and the news media with respect to drug abuse" and for "reducing and preventing drug abuse among young people in the United States".[129][130] The Media Campaign cooperates with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other government and non-government organizations.[131]

Anti-smoking campaigns that aired in the United States between 1999 and 2000 were state-sponsored to decrease the amounts of youth smoking.[132] The 'Truth' anti-smoking campaign was created to target 12-17 year old to decrease youth smoking in the United States.[133] February 2004 the 'Truth' anti-smoking campaign started to show up on televised commercials to expose youth of the dangers of tobacco and smoking.[132] The televised campaign used provocative tactics to decrease the amount of youth using tobacco and to change attitudes towards the tobacco industry.[132]

In early 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense launched an information operation, colloquially referred to as the Pentagon military analyst program.[134] The goal of the operation is "to spread the administrations's talking points on Iraq by briefing ... retired commanders for network and cable television appearances," where they have been presented as independent analysts.[135] On 22 May 2008, after this program was revealed in The New York Times, the House passed an amendment that would make permanent a domestic propaganda ban that until now has been enacted annually in the military authorization bill.[136]

The Shared values initiative was a public relations campaign that was intended to sell a "new" America to Muslims around the world by showing that American Muslims were living happily and freely, without persecution, in post-9/11 America.[137] Funded by the United States Department of State, the campaign created a public relations front group known as Council of American Muslims for Understanding (CAMU). The campaign was divided in phases; the first of which consisted of five mini-documentaries for television, radio, and print with shared values messages for key Muslim countries.[138]

Vladimir Putin's Russia has been reviving the Soviet-style Propaganda traditions. He stated in April 2005 on national television that the destruction of the USSR was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century."[139] In 2005 he established "Russia Today", now called RT, with English, Spanish and Arabic cable news channels financed by the government and designed to function as a "soft power" tool that will improve Russia's image abroad and counter the anti-Russian bias it sees in the Western media. RT's ruble budget in 2013–14 was equivalent to $300 million US dollars, compared to the $367 million budget of the BBC-World Service Group. RT has an American channel based in Washington, and in 2014 opened a British channel based in London. However the sharp decline in the ruble forced it to postpone channels in German and French. Meanwhile, China and Iran have followed the RT model in launching their own English language channels.[140]

Journalism expert Julia Ioffe argues, RT became an:

extension of former President Vladimir Putin's confrontational foreign policy....It featured fringe-dwelling "experts," like the Russian historian who predicted the imminent dissolution of the United States; broadcast bombastic speeches by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez; aired ads conflating Barack Obama with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and ran out-of-nowhere reports on the homeless in America.[141]

Critics identify a cult of personality around Putin, known as Putinism. Cassiday and Johnson Argue that since taking power in 1999, "Putin has inspired expressions of adulation the likes of which Russia has not seen since the days of Stalin. Tributes to his achievements and personal attributes have flooded every possible media."[142] Ross says the cult emerged quickly by 2002 and emphasizes Putin's "iron will, health, youth and decisiveness, tempered by popular support." Ross concludes, "The development of a Putin mini cult of personality was based on a formidable personality at its heart."[143]

Putin's government shut down almost all independent television media, while allowing a few small critical newspapers and websites to exist.[144] school textbooks were revised to teach students the exceptionality of Russian historical development and how Putin fits into the grand Russian traditions.[145]

Propaganda posters in Vietnam with images of solidarity and Ho Chi Minh

Posters hanging everywhere often describe unity of the working class, farmers and soldiers under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh. Residents and students have been studying ethics and ideology of Ho Chi Minh.

In the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, psychological operations tactics were employed to demoralise the Taliban and to win the sympathies of the Afghan population. At least six EC-130E Commando Solo aircraft were used to jam local radio transmissions and transmit replacement propaganda messages. Leaflets were also dropped throughout Afghanistan, offering rewards for Osama bin Laden and other individuals, portraying Americans as friends of Afghanistan and emphasising various negative aspects of the Taliban. Another shows a picture of Mohammed Omar in a set of crosshairs with the words: "We are watching."

Both the United States and Iraq employed propaganda during the Iraq War. The United States established campaigns towards the American people on the justifications of the war while using similar tactics to bring down Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.[146]

The Iraqi insurgency's plan was to gain as much support as possible by using violence as their propaganda tool.[147] Inspired by the Vietcong's tactics,[148] insurgents were using rapid movement to keep the coalition off-balance.[147] By using low-technology strategies to convey their messages, they were able to gain support.[149] Graffiti slogans were used on walls and houses praising the virtues of many group leaders while condemning the Iraqi government. Others used flyers, leaflets, articles and self-published newspapers and magazines to get the point across.[149]

Insurgents also produced CDs and DVDs and distributed them in communities that the Iraq and the US Government were trying to influence.[150] The insurgents designed advertisements that cost a fraction of what the US was spending on their ads aimed at the same people in Iraq with much more success.[150] In addition, a domestic Arabic language television station was established with the aim of informing the Iraqi public of alleged coalition propaganda efforts in the country.[148]

US PSYOP pamphlet disseminated in Iraq. The pamphlet says: "This is your future, Al-Zarqawi", and shows Al-Qaeda fighter Al-Zarqawi caught in a rat trap.

To achieve their aim of a moderate, pro-western Iraq, US authorities were careful to avoid conflicts with Islamic culture that would produce passionate reactions from Iraqis, but differentiating between "good" and "bad" Islam has proved challenging for the US.[148]

The US implemented black propaganda by creating false radio personalities that would disseminate pro-American information, but supposedly run by the supporters of Saddam Hussein. One radio station used was Radio Tikrit.[148] Another example of use of black propaganda is that the United States paid Iraqis to publish articles written by US troops in their newspapers under the idea that they are unbiased and real accounts; this was brought forth by The New York Times in 2005.[151] The article stated that it was the Lincoln Group who had been hired by the US government to create the propaganda. However, their names were later cleared from any wrongdoing.[151]

The US was more successful with the Voice of America campaign, which is an old Cold War tactic that exploited people's desire for information.[148] While the information they gave out to the Iraqis was truthful, they were in a high degree of competition with the opposing forces after the censorship of the Iraqi media was lifted with the removal of Saddam from power.[152]

In November 2005, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times alleged that the United States military had manipulated news reported in Iraqi media in an effort to cast a favourable light on its actions while demoralising the insurgency. Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Iraq, said the program is "an important part of countering misinformation in the news by insurgents", while a spokesman for former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the allegations of manipulation were troubling if true. The Department of Defense confirmed the existence of the program.[153][154]

The extent to which the US government used propaganda aimed at its own people is a matter of discussion. The book Selling Intervention & War, by Jon Western, argued that president Bush was "selling the war" to the public.[155] In a 2005 talk to students Bush said: "See, in my line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over, and over again, for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."[156]

While the United States' official stance was to remove Saddam Hussein's power in Iraq with allegations that his government held weapons of mass destruction or was related to Osama Bin Laden,[157] over time the Iraq war as a whole has been seen in a negative light.[158] Video and picture coverage in the news has shown shocking and disturbing images of torture and other evils being done under the Iraqi Government.[157]

Russian nationals used different propaganda tools to interfere with the United States 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.[159] Russia created political propaganda for the United States 2016 election to confuse voters from interpreting which news information was false or misleading.[160] Different tactics used to interfere with the United States 2016 included fake social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and other cites, false political rallies, and online political advertisements.[159] Russian nationals used new online propaganda which "is not to convince or persuade", but rather to cause distraction and paranoia.[161]  The Select Committee On Intelligence in the United States Senate found that technology aided to providing more convincing and realistic propaganda.[161]

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