Propaganda is defined as the spreading of information that is not objective used to influence an audience or further agenda. There are 7 main types of propaganda, for example, there is Bandwagon propaganda that tells an audience that there is widespread support, therefore they should join in on the cause. This is the main type of propaganda that will be discussed as well as guilt tactics such as using children and women. These types of propaganda will help show the different beliefs of people in the past compared today.
The above piece of propaganda is targeted towards Irish men to join into the British army. A woman is shown holding a gun standing strong and confident while the man appears to have a more relaxed and with a distant look. It’s important to take into consideration the viewpoints of the people at this time and the roles of man and women as well. At the time, it was expected of women to stay home and care for kids while men went out to work. Women were seen as caretakers and much weaker than men. Therefore this use of guilt propaganda was effective because men were not seen as very masculine if
they were able-bodied and did not go to war, or at least contribute to war efforts. The main presence of women in the military were nurses, however, as a good example today, there are about 200,000 women in the U.S. military according to the Huffington Post. This is the most it has ever been. To the left, there is a clear example of present-day propaganda that boasts of the skill level of women indicating that they are plenty strong to fight. It’s important to look at these two pieces of propaganda, and know the reasons why the propaganda was created as well as the reactions from the public as well. The poster from ww1 was not seen as sexist or wrong by the majority of the public, however people today will see it as such.
In the above piece of propaganda, a father with his two kids are shown. This propaganda is also aimed towards men as an attempt to guilt them into joining the war. Men in Britain were quick to sign up for war in 1914 and 1915 leading to over 1 million men joining the military in 1915, however, the number f men signing for war greatly dropped, which led to Conscription laws. The military service act of 1916 made any single men between the ages of 18-41 eligible to be picked and forced to serve. This spur of needing more men also led to other methods to get them to join such as propaganda. It targets the common practice of retelling war stories or simply important moments in life. This propaganda is guilting men into joining by saying they will be left out and seen as weak to their children if they never joined. At the time, it was important for men to be able to relive and tell stories of their bravery and this guilt propaganda fueled it. Today, however, this would seem like something quite strange to the average British citizen. The population in Britain in 1914 was about 46 million including 4.3 million from Ireland. However today the population is at about 66.5 million. Other factors such as the Gross National Income of the country as well play into its military capabilities, nonetheless, there is little to no propaganda that guilts men into joining war today in Britain and other western countries that fought in ww1.
Overall, it’s important to look at these pieces of propaganda from a different perspective. It is completely normal and expected of people to say that these posters are sexist, however knowing why this was accepted at the time is vital to understanding the change of perspectives during different historical times.
sources
Ministry of Culture and Heritage. “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” New Zealand History, nzhistory.govt.nz/war/united-kingdom-facts.
Crouch, Morgan. “What Are the Seven Techniques of Propaganda?” Classroom, 25 June 2018, classroom.synonym.com/what-are-the-seven-techniques-of-propaganda-12080912.html.
Marks, Ben. “Women and Children: The Secret Weapon of World War I Propaganda.” Collectors Weekly, 6 Nov. 2013, www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/women-and-children-the-secret-weapons-of-world-war-i-propaganda-posters/.
Follmer, Chris. “Women in Combat: Female Warriors.” Women in Combat: Female Warriors, 22 Apr. 2014, womenincombatfollmecs.wordpress.com/.
Connecting to the propaganda piece with the father, I think another change in attitude would be the general public opinion towards war in Europe now, which is significantly richer in skepticism and negativity. People have more information about why conflicts are fought and what conditions are like so modern-day propaganda must be much more subtle and bypass previous nationalistic and guilt-tripping tactics.
Propaganda has been part of every major war. Especially world wars. It is used to recruit soldiers to fight, to build ships, weapons, change our industries to support the war effort. For war on a grand scale propaganda helps mobilize the country to support the effort.
I really enjoyed reading this blog post and looking at the pictures. It’s great that you included some examples and showed how they could be looked at differently.
This is an interesting topic and the juxtaposition between present and historical perspectives is worthy of consideration. What might you say the main takeaway was?
How might the claims/evidence for wither historical or modern perspectives be presented more clearly? For example the information about women in war seemed to imply that most women were nurses, and the number of women in military today – but these are quite different points. Likewise, the claim was noted that British men might view these propaganda posters from WWI as “strange” but this claim is not explained. Is this to imply that fatherhood and gender roles have changed so drastically in 100 years?
The inclusion of visuals greatly enhances the overall post on a compelling topic.