History of Propaganda

Prima Nocte

Traditionally, who was responsible for spreading propaganda during times of war? Were there certain departments of state responsible for it?

Peregrinus

It's only in comparatively modern times that the importance of propaganda has been recognised, and specialist agencies set up to address it. In the nineteenth century "war fever" was often whipped up with wild atrocity stories, either thinly substantiated or outright false. Towards the end of the century - ironically, as democracy became more widespread - governments became increasingly sensitive to public opinion and alert to ways of manipulating it through the control and dissemination of information. Revolutionary political movements noticed it too, and paid great attention to it, and as they took power they tended to set up specialist government agencies to continue this work. So, for example, the Dail Government set up a Department of Propaganda in 1919 (Desmond FitzGerald, father of Garrett, ran it, and afer him Erskine Childers). It was renamed the Department of Publicity in 1921. Further from home, the Soviet Union had a Department for Agitation and Propaganda, Nazi Germany had a Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, the UK had a Ministry of Information and the US had an Office of War Information. All these agencies did essentially the same work; managing public opinion through the dissemination or suppression of information.

The term "Propaganda", incidentally, was not pejorative originally, which is why governments were quite happy to name openly what they were doing. It was only after the Second World War that it acquired its pejorative meaning, so that nowadays what we do is public information or press relations, but what those nasty people over there do is propaganda. As a result, government agencies engaged in propaganda rarely, if ever, have the word "propaganda" in their names.

Manach

I would say private efforts at Propaganda pre-date the 19th Century.
During the era of the wars of Religion, 16/17th Century Europe, there were many prints and woodcuts created alleging the blackest of crimes against their particular foes. The aim of which was both to spark outrage among sympathic populations and to pressurise the Crown in intervene : an example AFAIR - at the start of the 30 year war, pressure was placed on England to support the Winter King based on the blood ties and the Protestant cause. Propaganda pamphlets were distributed in support of his cause.

nuac

Propaganda goes back much further than that.

About 400 b.c. Xenophon was one of the leaders of a mainly Greek expedition in an area comprising present day Iraq and Iran. For complicated reasons they had to fight their way East to eventually get home.

He wrote a readable account The Anabasis, which referred to the superiority of the Greek soldier. It is a long time since i read it so I cannot say if he wrote up his own contribution. However it was early propaganda.

Nearly 400 years later Caesar wrote up his succcessful wars against the Gauls in De Bello Gallico. Again as far as I remember it referred glowingly to his various successes. Again early propaganda.

It is interesting that both these works were written in simple language, and were used as primers in starting to learn Greek and/or Latin. Perhaps written for the then equivalent of tabloid readers.

jonniebgood1

In terms of war reporting from a news point of view the Crimean war seems a turning point where the views of those at home became influenced by up to the date information about home. We had a thread here on one of the first wartime correspondants http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=79613303

pedroeibar1

nuac wrote: »

Nearly 400 years later Caesar wrote up his succcessful wars against the Gauls in De Bello Gallico. Again as far as I remember it referred glowingly to his various successes. Again early propaganda.

It is interesting that both these works were written in simple language, and were used as primers in starting to learn Greek and/or Latin. Perhaps written for the then equivalent of tabloid readers.

Brought schooldays back - Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, although we hardly were tabloid readers. De Bello Gallico was written after Caesar had conquered Gaul in a nine-year campaign. I suggest it is not propaganda, but more a self-glorification of Caesar, who, in fairness had spectacular wars and won several decisive victories, including Pharsalia where he was outnumbered 2 to 1 by Pompey. Most victors write (rewrite?) history to suit themselves, as done by various generals and leaders including Churchill, (who appointed Irishman Brendan Bracken to head up his wartime propaganda 'Ministry of Information.')

nuac

Noted Pedro

I suggest DBG could still be classed as propaganda. Caesar was writing for public consumption, rather than filing a report.

Both he and Xenophon were military men, which may account for the clear simple styles in DBG and the Anabasis, but it did make them easier to read and follow.

Contrast e.g. Tacitus and Thucydides - both texts more difficult as far as I remember

Peregrinus

I think it does depend on what you mean by "propaganda". If you simply mean putting a positive spin on accounts of a war, then DBG counts, but it's not the first, by a long shot. There are stories that are centuries older than that coming from different sides in the same war in which we can clearly see spin at work.

But I think there's a narrower and more meaningful sense in which propaganda is something intended to affect the course of the war, or support for the war. DBG doesn't count for those purposes, since by the time Caesar had written it the Gallic War was over. I don't think you can expect to find examples of this before the invention of the printing press, and at least the beginnings of the mass media. So, say, the sixteenth century.

And there's an even narrower sense in which propaganda is something done by governments/officials/combatants with a view to affecting the course or, or the conduct of, the war. I don't know that you see this much before the nineteenth century.