World War 2 Propaganda Research Paper

During World War II propaganda was ubiquitous. It consisted of a wide range of carriers including leaflets, radio, television, and most importantly posters. Posters were used based on their appeal: they were colorful, creative, concise, and mentally stimulating. Posters often portrayed the artist's views on the war. They demonstrated the artist concern for the war, their hopes for the war, and reflected the way enemies were envisioned. Posters also show a nations political status: they reflect a nations allies and enemies, how the nation saw itself, and its greatest hopes and fears of the war.

World War 1 proved America to be the nation producing the highest amount of propaganda. Through his use of propaganda President Wilson was able to draw American Support for the war. Despite his being elected as the “peace” president. Many Americans believed he’d keep them out of the war, especially after he stated that, “so far as I can remember, this is a government of the people, and this people is not going to choose war.” Before his election, Wilson promoted American neutrality. He pushed for what he believed his Americans wanted. However, through his employment of propaganda, Woodrow Wilson was able

Needless to say, every one of the wars just mentioned was advertised as a defensive, moralistic, and completely national expedition. Bismarck even went so far as to make an unworkable treaty with Austria so that he could claim, when Austria broke it, that he was waging war in defense of the sacredness of treaties. But no one should be deceived by such propaganda. All these wars were waged in order to maintain certain groups in control in the belligerent countries.

Propaganda, though not the most effective war time strategy, allows people to come together as one to contribute to the success of the country as a whole. However with this idea, there is also the idea that they are not whole truths being told by governments within countries. Propaganda is a form of a lie seen in both North Korea in the book Escape from Camp 14, and in one of the world’s darkest times, World War II; the world allows these lies to surface due to the fact that they do no outwardly hurt another race.

In a wartime environment, propaganda is used to shape international opinion as well as influence neutral and enemy countries. The government of a country puts a great deal of effort into propaganda that shapes the opinion of its citizens by justifying their actions and building support for the country. Propaganda was also used to point out the mistakes made by enemy countries. The impact of propaganda can be hard to determine at the surface, but when looking deeper, propaganda and its effect on people is very important in determining the outcome of a war. It has become a common belief that the Germans did not lose World War II because of their performance on the battlefield, but because of the impression that foreign propaganda had on them.[footnoteRef:0] [0: Ian Cooke. ?Propaganda as a weapon? Influencing international opinion,? bl.uk, January 29 2014, May 10

During wartime, a nation will do what it can to keep itself safe and bolster the morale of its citizens to keep them happy and to maintain the peace. The U.S. is no different, so I began to search for examples of wartime propaganda. I came across an article written by Gerd Horton in September 1996 titled, “Radio Days on America’s Home Front,” where Horton goes over the influence of radio and how it was essential to propaganda during World War 2. World War 2 took place right as the Great Depression was ending, and the wartime economy greatly benefitedbenefitted the nation. There was a lot of rationing that went on however, and the public was very displeased by this. Horton talked about how the government took advantage of the fact that “90 per

During WWII, governments engaged in a constant struggle for the hearts and minds of the public. Propaganda was a technique utilized to spread information and ideas to help the nation through songs, posters, videos, and other social media methods. According to the article, “Propaganda Posters of WWII,” the U.S. government intended to use propaganda to recruit, unify, and support the war effort. The government needed something to ignite the citizen’s patriotic feelings in the war, thus using the most effective tool: propaganda. Although many viewed propaganda use by the government to be negative and manipulative, the Allied forces issued these images effectively to escalate patriotic core values. Thus encouraging

Disparity is the state of being unequal or different in some respect. This brings to inequality being lack of equality and also the distance toward the rich and poor. Poverty is when having very little or no money and very few or no material possessions. As for development is the act of improvement meaning gaining, expanding, or enlarging. Inequality and poverty can cause a country not to develop well, unless you have a good strategy. In this case I will show you a developed country (Spain) and a under developed county (Chad). I will do this by explaining four disparities of the same for both countries. Those disparities are total population, unemployment rate, and condom use.

Propaganda was one of the weapons used by a lot of enemies and allies during WW II, but the United States was one of the main ones that used it. Propaganda was made up with posters, kids cartoons and even movies. The countries used propaganda to buy the patriotism and spirit of the people of the country. They also used it to make people want to enlist in the army and factories to produce a supple amount of supplies for civillians and military. Several governmental people were responsible for producing propaganda,the biggest being the Office of War Information. The Office of War Information made posters, worked with movie studios to producing pro-war films, wrote for radio brodcasts. They also took tons of pictures that showed the war effort.

Wartime propaganda has always been a beneficial tool for warring nations. Its ability to effectively persuade, influence, and convince citizens even in a time of distress has made it a vital component of many war-engaged countries. The United States, for example, reaped great benefits by using war propaganda in World War II. American propaganda helped dramatically increase the sale of war bonds, rate of civic engagement, and public morale. Although American propaganda during World War II can be considered as extremely biased and racist, it would have been more difficult to for the Americans to defeat Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany if propaganda was not used at all.

Propaganda during World War II was very diverse, it impacted the world greatly. Propaganda had an overall negative and positive impact on the lives and political aspects in different countries. Propaganda is information spread around the world to persuade the society's views on the war. Countries would often target other governments and societies. People would react either positively or negatively it depended on how the topic was presented. Even though propaganda is not as prominent in our society today, it is still their.

In America, a character, which was shown on these propaganda posters was named Tokio kid, it was created by Jack Campbell and sponsored by the Douglas Aircraft company. It was a part of the company's campaign to reduce waste (Trevor Allison, and Nancy Gross). When you look at the Tokio Kid posters you can see the character presented is an exaggerated racial stereotype by its huge buck teeth, squinting eyes, and looks like an animal with pointed ears. If you look closely at the mouth you can see drool coming out which can make the character look more unintelligent with huge, fang like teeth and drool. If you read the poster you can see broken English these racial slurs mock the Japanese. Another thing you may notice is that “Tokio” is an incorrect spelling of Tokyo. Lastly,

Flashes of World War II propaganda cartoons from Germany, Japan and the United States demonstrate how they were by picturing the other species as rats and snakes. Based on these cartoons and images, which have some same points such as visual metaphor and hostile cliches to characterize and dehumanize their enemies, Dr. Keen believes that they are drawn from the artists being at the same schools.

Stereotyping and racial discrimination are two terms that have been used in the American culture for centuries to designate a level of superiority between two or more races. For the most part, while racial discrimination was widely practiced in the United States, it wasn’t publicly encouraged by the government or publicized in magazines and newspapers. But that was about to change with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941 and the immediate declaration of war by the United States. Primary and secondary sources show that in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. increased its efforts on war propaganda that focused mainly in the dehumanization and discriminatory practices against the Japanese, abroad as well as the ones who lived in the United States. Furthermore, both primary and secondary sources will demonstrate that many Japanese-Americans were unlawfully incarcerated in internment camps that were created by the U.S. government and were held there for the duration of the war.

By dehumanizing the Japanese and instilling fear in the minds of Americans, WWII propaganda posters prompted cultural and racial hatred that led to massive historical consequences for the Japanese including loss of jobs, property and rights in the form of internment camps (Miles 2012). Appealing to the nation’s fear and deep seated racist ideology, United States propaganda was successful in demonizing Japanese people. By turning public opinion further against the Japanese, it became much easier to justify the use of dangerous and immoral means of retaliation such as the use of the atomic bomb.