Lizzie Suiter, Jennifer Hucke and Courtney Schultz edge final Paper December 2004 The War at Home

A Look at Media Propaganda in WWII, Vietnam, and the War in Iraq

I. Psychological Warfare through Media Propaganda Prior and up to WII ..Page 2

Edge final paper

December 2004
Psychological Warfare through Media Propaganda Prior and up to WII

Media propaganda is an extremely dynamic and effective tool when utilized in times of warfare. The use of psychological warfare with military forces is not new in this world of media dominance. Dating back to the Spanish American war, mainstream media propaganda served as a way to generate finance, inform the public, advertise, and support ideologies. A turning point in media propaganda occurred during the Second World War when new technologies and methods of communication were inexperienced, yet fully capable and eager to control public opinion. Because the war was stationed on European soil, Americans could not see, hear, or experience the world firsthand. Owing to the fact that WWII was not on U.S. soil, the American public became reliant on any sort of media that shared information. This need for news and dependence on the media gave the press great power to mold Americans’ perceptions of the war, their enemies, their goals, and their own culture. During WWII, propaganda was applied to a multitude of purposes such as the breeding of patriotism, the distribution of information, and the installation of fear during wartime to provoke increased production and loyalty. Yet in accomplishing these goals, the media and its resulting propaganda produced an often contaminated view of the happening events. This media spin, more often than not, gave way to circulating an exaggerated view of the war. Media propaganda chooses one side and places it vigilantly against another; then through its sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious efforts, propaganda demonizes the opposing view. Through this distorted view of the enemy, entire wars can be fought without weapons. Propaganda itself is a weapon in warfare, and its mobilization and success in World War II demonstrates the power of the media on public and political opinion.

Different forms of media can most definitely have varying effects on the audience. During wartime, media is an influential tool to in serving as a constant reminder of the war. Even today, there is a headline at the bottom of every news station twenty four hours a day, seven days a week as a reminder of the war in Iraq. This brings into question the effect media has on American culture. Media is capable of initiating and influencing some of the values, behavior patterns and other characteristics that constitute the cultural fabric of a society. Yet in wartime, is the media a true reflection of our perceptions of war? In his book, To Hasten the Homecoming: How Americans Fought World War II Through the Media, Jordan Braverman wrote, “The media permeated American culture in so many ways that perhaps, after a while, the public took the media for granted and became less conscious of the subliminal, but very real, effects the media had on our daily lives” (Braverman xx). The notion that the media can shape our impressions of events subconsciously is a frightening thought. This blurs the line of our own thinking and a thinking imposed by the media.

Mass media as a medium possesses this power because the people behind it know how to correlate the type of media with its audience. Choosing a media type is a result of many factors. First, the media must have some credibility or else most audiences will ignore it. If a particular medium is causing the target audience to be non-responsive, then the suitability of the media was mismatched. This could be a result of poor language selection, vocabulary, and level of understanding. For example, it would be wise to use printed text such as a newspaper to deliver a message to an illiterate audience, while a professional journal might be the most suitable means of reaching a professional audience (“Psychological”). The availability of media, the capacity of message production, and the capability to deliver the message, as well as the ability of the audience to receive and understand it are all important elements. People issuing media messages also have to be aware of timeliness and quantity. The media selected should be mixed, one medium reinforcing the other, and delivered in sufficient volume and at the correct time to insure that the entire target is exposed to the message. For example, if an event occurs, when and how much the media covers it determines the success of the media medium chosen (“Psychological”).

Through this discussion of different media methods, the issue of propaganda, its components, and its effects are brought into question. The dictionary defines propaganda as “ideas, facts, or allegations that are spread deliberately to further one’s cause or damage or an opposing cause” (“Propaganda”). In essence, propaganda is a way to make events potentially more dramatic by creating a distinct good and bad side. Propaganda media has its own types of media methods as well and are categorized by methods of dissemination. Each type of propaganda media has its own levels of success in persuasion. The most effective means of transmitting a persuasive message is face to face (interpersonal) communication. This type of propaganda can be employed in rallies, rumor campaigns, group discussions, lectures, show-and-tell demonstrations, social organizations, social activities, entertainment, and individual person-to-person contact (“Psychological”). Face to face interaction is the most dominant means of propaganda because it provides a participating experience for the individual or group to remember personally. Also, a personal experience allows the audience to receive and interpret the given information in their own manner. Since the point of propaganda is often to educate and persuade, this personal interpretation is heavily biased since they heard the information face to face. Audiovisual media such as television, electronic tape recordings, and sound motion pictures are the second most effective means of communication available to the psychological operator. “Effectiveness is based on seeing and hearing the persuasive message” (“Psychological”). Because the target audience is using the two senses of hearing and seeing, there is a high recall product. Audio media such as loudspeakers and radio lend themselves to the transmission of brief, simple messages and to personalization by use of the human voice. Their effectiveness is due to the face that “they require little or no effort by the audience, and generally, they have more appeal than visual media. Also, the barrier of illiteracy may be more easily overcome with audio media than with visual media such as printed material” (“Psychological”). The least popular form of communication, visual media, can transmit long, complex material whether it is animated or still cartoons, it may be used to convey themes to illiterate target audiences (“Psychological”).

Modern propaganda has four objectives: “to mobilize hatred against the enemy, maintain the friendship of allies, gain the cooperation of neutrals, and demoralize the enemy. When carrying the war into enemy’s homeland, propaganda also has several virtues, including being corrective, instructive, and suggestive” (Braverman 54). Propaganda owes its development to many different elements such as technology, psychology, and ethics. For example, psychologically, the Allied forces in WWII had to know how to address each country depending on their situation, and how to say things in the leaflets they dropped from planes or the radio broadcasts they sent out.

What becomes disturbing is the impression that the propaganda a country produces can directly reflect on their culture. This is saying that today’s cartoons, news, posters, radio shows, television, magazines, movies, newspapers, and every other media circulated can be used as a portrait of how Americans view social issues such as politics. Since propaganda is often a representation of that society, its values, skills, and beliefs, the public can do one of two things. Either they learn about themselves during war to see what they are fighting for, or they lose sight of what is being fought for. The first option is one of conscious self-reflection, yet propaganda and mass media are characterized by having the audience absorb its rhetoric subconsciously. For this reason, the latter option is often chosen unintentionally. The wars continue, yet many times, due to the distorted spin the media puts on information, citizens forget what they are fighting for.

Even before the days of advanced technology where the spreading of information becomes almost instantaneous, propaganda played a huge factor in the demonization of enemies through media communication. The most blatant application of propaganda dates back to the Spanish-American War in 1868 with the arrival of “yellow journalism.” Spain still owned many islands in the Philippines, yet Puerto Rico and Cuba were its last remains of land in the New Word. As Cuba grew tired of feeling pressure from its mother country, the tensions eventually sparked a war of independence. While President McKinley and much of America wanted to stay out of the war, U.S. citizens still felt a great amount of sympathy for the small warring nation of Cuba. Yet, when the Maine, a U.S. warship (pictured below) was destroyed on February 15^th while lying at anchor in Havana harbor, “an outburst of indignation, intensified by sensationalized press coverage, swept across the country” (Baker).

Although the explosion occurred under circumstances that were (and still are) unclear, media propaganda took it upon themselves to convince the public of Spain’s culpability and urge America and its government to join the war. Joseph Pulitzer (owner of New York World) and William Randolph Hearst (San Francisco Examiner and later the New York Morning Journal), were, themselves, fighting a media war of their own. Each day’s headlines of their corresponding publications tried to cause more controversy, scandal, surprise, or entertainment. These flashy and often false headlines resulted in an exaggerated view the events leading up to and during the war. This competitive and melodramatic style of writing and publishing is called “yellow journalism.” Directly following the bombing of the Maine, the Hearst papers had given up all pretense of believing the explosion was an accident and printed in huge block letters, "MAINE BLOWN UP BY TORPEDO" with small type reading "Such is the belief now gaining ground" and "May Have been anchored over a mine" underneath graced the cover (Baker). Newspaper headlines trumpeted the need for war, and stories about the military appeared almost daily in many papers. The government still insisted on maintaining neutrality, but clamor for intervention continued to rise and the yellow press would not let the issue die. “It seems that what compelled McKinley to act against his deepest desire for peace was the irresistible popular public demand welling up all over America after the destruction of the Maine. Such pressure was picked up upon and played with by the press until it seemed as if newspapers were making foreign policy” (Baker). Frightening as it is, because of the strength and rhetoric in the media’s words and images, they were able to make their own foreign policy. The yellow press took the “opinions” of society and amplified them by reporting that there was “growing hysteria, in the process causing it to grow even more” (Baker). Due to the provocative nature of both Hearst’s and Pulitzer’s publications, the Spanish-American War became classified as a “popular war” because it was forced upon a reluctant leadership by the people. Congress had no choice but to seek war symbolizing its surrender to the public pressure fueled by the media.

The importance of the war propaganda of the Spanish-American War is observing the developing and perfecting yellow journalism. In the mid-1890s, Pulitzer and “transformed newspapers with sensational and scandalous news coverage, the use of drawings and the inclusion of more features such as comic strips” (Baker). The term “yellow journalism” was actually coined in1896 after Pulitzer began publishing color comic strip sections that starred “The Yellow Kid” (pictured right) who proved to be the first merchandising phenomenon of the comics (Baker).

Yellow journalism is a contradiction within itself: the media is its truest form is meant to inform. Profits, figures, and reputation all corrupted the media during the Spanish-American War. The papers boasted their concern for the “people,” yet yellow journalists “choked up the news channels on which the common people depended with shrieking, gaudy, sensation-loving, devil-may-care kinds of journalism. This turned the high drama of life into a cheap melodrama and led to stories being twisted into the forms best suited for sales by the hollering newsboy” (Baker). The United States was a world power within a few years of the war's end, exercising control or influence over islands in the, Caribbean Sea, the mid-Pacific Ocean and close to the Asian mainland. The Spanish-American conflict has sometimes been deemed "The Newspaper War," primary because of the influence of a sensationalist press. The war finally ended on Dec. 10, 1898, when Spain sued for peace and signed a treaty that transferred Cuba to the United States for “temporary occupation preliminary to the island's independence” (Baker). Spain also ceded Puerto Rico and Guam in lieu of war indemnity and the Philippines on payment of $20 million (Baker).

Although the subsequent U.S. wars still disseminated media propaganda, neither had the pivotal effect of the Spanish-American War. This conflict started a phenomenon of news reporting where competition with the opposing media means took precedent over the enemy at war. It was in the Civil War, a conflict that tried to turn all of America into a slave state, where extensive press coverage of war transpired because reporters lived and traveled with the troops (Middleton 481). Continuing on to WWI, newspapers sent reporters into the trenches of all major battles to report back to the American public. In WWI from 1914-1918, the U.S. was fighting against Russia, Austria, and Germany. Propaganda specific, this world war established a Committee on Public Information and instituted one of the first official government censor system. WWI also caused Congress to adopt a sedition law which made it illegal to question government involvement in the war. Any sort of conduct or language, such as inquiring about the purpose of the war, was considered as insurrection and rebellion against the authority of a state (Hartenian 57).

WWII was a monumental war because its outcome possessed social, economic, and political consequences that continue to influence Americans’ daily lives. More than affecting just the statistical and cultural aspects of American life, WWII changed the face of American people through its sheer loss in numbers. A total of 440,000 U.S. military personnel were killed in action in the wars of the twentieth century, two-thirds of them during World War II” (Wattenberg). Yet, the United States felt absolute in their superiority morally and physically when entering a conflict with any enemy country. Jordan Braverman explains the landscape of America’s belief system when he writes,

The war began with Japan was warring against China, while Fascist Germany was battling Great Britain, France, and other European nations after it invaded Poland in 1939. Germany continued its dominance as it invaded Czechoslovakia, Austria, Denmark Norway, Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France in the summer of 1940. Although Britain stood alone in trying to stop the offensive attacks of Hilter on Europe, President Roosevelt tried to stay “neutral” against conflicts in Europe. The key to America's early involvement occurred on September 28, 1940, when Japan, Germany, and Italy signed the Tripartite Treaty (Cirino 13). This treaty required that any of the three nations had to respond by declaring war should any one of the other three be attacked by any of the Allied nations. This meant that should Japan attack the United States, and the United States responded by declaring war against Japan, it would automatically be at war with the other two nations, Germany and Italy. Consequently, Japan did attack the U.S; it was the first time any other country had attacked American soil. In response to the Tripartite Treaty, President Roosevelt's had put an embargo of scrap iron and threats of an oil embargo in 1941 against Japan. Because the U.S. was then the world’s largest producer of oil, this potentiality of losing its supply drove Japan to attack the United States. On Sunday December 7, 1941, Japan air raided U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor. The true force of the media was exhibited as Americans listened to the voice of President Roosevelt, a leader, a voice, a stable force, saying, “I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Empire of Japan” (Braverman 3). While millions of American citizens listened on NBC (National Broadcasting Company), CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), or the MBC (Mutual Broadcasting System), this broadcast was the first of many media exploits and was only the beginning of the lengths propagandists would achieve in persuading the public of America’s virtue and the enemy’s wrongdoing. As Germany invaded Russia and following the event of Pearl Harbor, there was no question on whether the U.S. had to join or not. By declaring war on Japan, Germany and Italy declared war against America. Pearl Harbor lead to an increase in federal government action. On December 7, 1941, the U.S. government “called up and drafted the media for the duration of the war” (Braverman xx).

Through this “drafting of the media,” the government demonstrated its intention to use the media and the propaganda it disseminates to rally support from the home front. Jordan Braverman explains the value of the media during WWII when he wrote, “Among the most important resources the United States and the other warring nations used were the verbal, visual, and technical skills of the communication media” (Braverman ix). In order to ensure victory in a world against other major world powers, the United States required its people and its businesses to provide services despite if they were at home or abroad fighting. The media had to keep 130 million Americans working to bring success with a maximum effort towards common goals. What makes the media and propaganda so effective and influential is its power to inform. The trick of being a successful propagandist is knowing how much good news versus bad news they should distribute because the given amounts could decide how the information affects the morale of the audience. The information presented during WWII served as a mechanism for convincing people that only an Allied victory would assure fair peace. The media needed to persuade people that the United Nations could not be defeated.

Yet, in reporting, the information often became a distorted view of the war over seas. Early in the war in 1942, the topic which Americans felt they knew the least about was ‘what would happen if the Axis powers won the war’? (Braverman 51). This constant unknowing was, in part, due to the fact that the media often only reported optimist accounts in attempts to bolster public morale, or the testimonies they gave were so embellished that the truth was rarely known. The lack of information also supplied a constant fear of the American public. The media then learned to fuel this fear and use it as means to control the emotional and psychological state of the Americans both on the home front and abroad. Because media forms of all kinds served as a constant reminder of the war, the methods of propaganda were forced to battle each other rather than the enemy in order to stay in the public eye. For example, because newspapers were competitive economically, they ended up attacking each by trying to outdo their opponent. This caused truth in headlines to become less and less distinguishable. Furthermore, papers not afraid to expose their fears or demonstrate their favoritism. This freedom made it so “the nation’s newspapers published according to the dictates of their own consciences and interests and printed what they wanted to print, attacked who they wanted to attack, and reported with accuracy or distortion—that is, they acted like a free press” (Braverman 30). Due to human nature, people are inclined to believe what they see and hear. Because the press possesses this power to inform, they hold the power to cause mass delusion during any wartime.

To remedy this problem and prevent another propaganda war similar to the Spanish American War, the U.S. government made vast efforts to find a successful way to control information. This notion of censorship then brought into question the difference of what they didn’t want us to see or simply exercising public safety. Upon entering the war, the US was the only nation without a war information agency. The government attempted to form many agencies devoted to propaganda: Office of Government Reports, the Division of Information of the Office of Emergency Management, and Office of Facts and Figures to name a few. All of these organizations failed, not because of its leaders, but because their objectives all overlapped and were not clearly outlined. For this reason, the United States entered 1942 trying to develop a “coordinated and uniform policy for disseminating wartime information” (Braverman 49). On June 13, 1942, President Roosevelt established the Office of War Information (OWI) whose sole purpose was to inform the public of the happenings abroad, yet it also served as a device to counteract enemy propaganda. President Roosevelt said of Office of Censorship that its “mission in wartime was not considered an appropriate activity of the federal government in peacetime” and was “authorized to use absolute discretion in censoring all communications that entered or left the country regardless so their form of transmission” (Braverman 12). According to distinguished columnist for New York Times, Arthur Krock “because war news came from either sources or independent press reports that had to be submitted for censorship, the consequence is that except for headlining and placement of the news within the paper, the news of the war is a government product” (Braverman 37). The Office of Censorship put constraints on things such as locations of planes, ships, maps, casualty lists, weather, war materials, and transportation. (Braverman 30). Censorship was an important component of WWII because it allowed the government to tell Americans only what they wanted to. Author Jordan Braverman defines the OWI’s objectives when he writes,

“The goals of the OWI were to record, clear, and approve all proposed radio and motion picture programs that federal agencies sponsored and to serve as a contact for the radio broadcasting and motion picture industries in their relationships with federal departments and agencies and concerning these governmental programs…The OWI was to formulate and carry out information programs to increase an understanding of the war by using the press, radio, and motion pictures; it was also to maintain a liaison with the information agencies of the United Nations so as to relate our information programs to theirs” (Braverman 50).
These aims badly needed to be attended to because in 1942, after three years of involvement in the war, nearly fifty percent of people confessed they were not clear what the war was about (Braverman 51). Vast mobilization was also proved to be essential through another poll in the summer of 1942 that said that “almost one third of the American people would be prepared for a negotiated peace with German army leader” (Braverman 51). In response to these alarming polls, in the fall of 1942, the OWI declared that all federal agencies had to “clear their national news releases through its staff, except for local or regional agency offices that could deal directly with the press on local and regional issues” (Braverman 51). As a result, the OWI could dictate what the government wanted the American public to think into every newspaper, school, movie theater, radio, and magazine and on every public platform. In essence, the OWI used every means at its disposal to tell America’s friends and enemies, and the neutrals that the United States were coming, was going to win the war and the world will be better off with a United Nations victory” (Braverman 56). The appeal of propaganda did not only affect U.S. citizens; it could influence America’s neutrals and enemies. The poster shown (above) is one that encourages the need for censorship because without it, America’s profit hungry media methods could disclose location information of a vessel and soldiers may die because of it. The propaganda of WII is characterized as being campaigned to present the war as good vs. evil. The press helped the war efforts because it voluntarily adhered to the nation’s censorship codes and willingly received guidance from the U.S. Office of Censorship.