Propaganda

Propaganda. Defined as the deliberate attempt by the few to influence the beliefs and actions of the many through the manipulation of ideas, facts, and lies, propaganda has been widely practiced and frequently condemned throughout American history. In the Colonial Era, religious writers and trading companies disseminated glowing tracts urging settlement in the Americas. Advocates of American independence and the adoption of the U.S. Constitution promoted their causes through the Declaration of Independence, pamphlets like Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and the Federalist Papers. Before the Civil War, supporters and opponents of slavery spread their ideas through literature and lobbying. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, propaganda techniques became more refined and effective with the growth of new communication technologies together with the development of the advertising and public‐relations professions.

During World War I, the government became officially involved in the creation of propaganda. To encourage enlistment and war bond sales, the Woodrow Wilson administration established the Committee on Public Information (CPI), which deployed posters, films, and speakers known as the Four Minute Men. CPI propaganda tried to convince a skeptical public to support the war by portraying the German enemy as the brutal “Hun” guilty of atrocities while selling America's effort as one that would save the world for democracy and lasting peace. In the interwar period, the term acquired a sinister connotation because of the exposure of the false atrocity stories the Allies had spread in 1914–1918 and because of its association with the fascist and communist regimes of Mussolini's Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. The U.S. government called its own propaganda effort during World War II a “strategy of truth,” using a news and information format as a persuasive method. Organized by the Office of War Information (OWI), U.S. propaganda portrayed the war as a contest between democracy and dictatorship, good and evil. With the cooperation of the news media, industry, and Hollywood, the OWI directed messages toward the home front, the Allies, and neutral countries. Propaganda directed against the enemy, known as psychological warfare, was conducted by the military and the Office of Strategic Services.

During the Cold War, propaganda became an institutionalized part of government. The presentation of the Cold War struggle as an ideological confrontation between democratic “freedom” and communist “slavery” was assisted by the Voice of America, the United States Information Agency, and the allegedly private Radio Free Europe, which was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency. Secrecy and manipulation of information in the Cold War era led to a “credibility gap” most noticeable during the Vietnam War, when much evidence contradicted the upbeat official line. During the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. government depended on official briefings and controlling journalists’ access as strategies for assuring supportive news coverage.

In the “information age” of the late twentieth century, both the private and public sectors targeted audiences with the sophisticated use of symbols. Much of the ensuing controversy surrounding propaganda centered on whether it creates consensus by informing or by manipulating public opinion. Propaganda has been used to unite and mobilize the country in times of crisis by employing patriotic symbols and by demonizing the enemy. But social cohesion based on fear or hatred can promote intolerance and suppression of dissent, a lesson learned during all major wars. Scholars recognize the difficulties in analyzing propaganda's effectiveness, but many agree that it is most successful when it builds upon rather than challenges widely held attitudes and beliefs.

Bibliography

Robert Cole , Propaganda in Twentieth Century War and Politics: An Annotated Bibliography, 1996.
Richard Alan Nelson , A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, 1996.

Susan A. Brewer