Poster propaganda is one of the most memorable and enduring legacies of the
Second World War. These artistic creations were strongly influenced by social and
cultural paradigms as well as corresponding military events. Previous scholarship on
propaganda has largely overlooked the role of posters and propaganda efforts on the
home front, a gap that this study seeks to fill. The purpose of this study is to compare
home front posters produced by the major nations involved in the European theatre and
discern any trends or patterns that have a larger significance. Each poster in the sample
was arranged chronologically by country. The area of emphasis (recruiting, production,
etc.) and appeal (duty, guilt, fear, hate, etc.) for each poster was then recorded and
analyzed.
The analyses revealed several significant trends and patterns. The most
important of these is that posters, regardless of which country produced them, tended to
appeal to negative emotions (hate, fear, etc.) when the war was going badly and positive
emotions (patriotism, duty, etc.) when the war was being won. Even when the areas of
emphasis remained the same, the images, rhetoric and overall emotional tone of posters changed depending on the corresponding war situation. In other words, what a
government said was not always as important as how they said it. This trend is equally
significant today. Although posters have disappeared as a major propaganda tool,
nations still fight wars and still carry out propaganda campaigns, therefore, if
relationship between propaganda and the conduct of war presented in this study is
applied to modern campaigns it provides the public with information that propaganda
intends to keep secret: the truth about the war. Previous scholarship has mentioned this
connection between propaganda methods and military operations, but as previously
mentioned, these studies neglect both the home front and the poster, choosing to focus
on propaganda directed at the enemy. Other patterns, such as the use of humor and
religion in posters, are briefly touched on and provide possible areas for future research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/5802 |
| Date | 17 September 2007 |
| Creators | Thomas, Christopher C. |
| Contributors | Krammer, Arnold P. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | 3863524 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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