Explores five case studies in Britain, the USSR, Germany and Italy to determine whether or not propaganda films reached the audiences at which they were targeted, and where they did, whether the films made the impact on those audiences that the propagandists had expected.

Explores five case studies in Britain, the USSR, Germany and Italy to determine whether or not propaganda films reached the audiences at which they were targeted, and where they did, whether the films made the impact on those audiences that the propagandists had expected.

Originally published in 1994, this important book traces the rise of film propaganda in the 20th Century, discussing specifically how film can be used to manipulate public perception and opinions. Two distinct areas are covered: war propaganda, including feature and documentary films regarding warfare; and civilian propaganda, including films that address a variety of political subjects. Although the focus is American film and American politics, this book offers insights for all those interested in the affect of film on the minds of citizens of any country or state.

'All art is propaganda,' wrote George Orwell, 'but not all propaganda is art.' Moving from World War I to the 'War on Terror' and beyond, The Story of British Propaganda Film shows how the emergence of film as a global media phenomenon reshaped practices of propaganda, while new practices of propaganda in turn reshaped the use of the moving image. It explores classic examples of cinematic propaganda such as The Battle of the Somme (1916), Listen to Britain (1942) and Animal Farm (1954) alongside little-known newsreels, 'telemagazines' and digital media initiatives, in the process challenging our understanding of propaganda itself, and its many diverse manifestations. Richly illustrated with unique material from the BFI National Archive, the book shows how central propaganda is to the development of British film, and how it has filtered our understanding of modern British history, from narratives of decolonisation to the celebration of pop culture and the meanings of the postwar consensus. In a contemporary moment so preoccupied with misinformation, malinformation and disinformation, Scott Anthony explains why the response to the ubiquity of the propaganda film has often turned out to be the production of ever more propaganda.

Though often defined as having opposite aims, means, and effects, modernism and modern propaganda developed at the same time and influenced each other in surprising ways. The professional propagandist emerged as one kind of information specialist, the modernist writer as another. Britain was particularly important to this double history. By secretly hiring well-known writers and intellectuals to write for the government and by exploiting their control of new global information systems, the British in World War I invented a new template for the manipulation of information that remains with us to this day. Making a persuasive case for the importance of understanding modernism in the context of the history of modern propaganda, Modernism, Media, and Propaganda also helps explain the origins of today's highly propagandized world. Modernism, Media, and Propaganda integrates new archival research with fresh interpretations of British fiction and film to provide a comprehensive cultural history of the relationship between modernism and propaganda in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. From works by Joseph Conrad to propaganda films by Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, Mark Wollaeger traces the transition from literary to cinematic propaganda while offering compelling close readings of major fiction by Virginia Woolf, Ford Madox Ford, and James Joyce.

In Beyond Free Speech and Propaganda: The Political Development of Hollywood, 1907–1927, Jay Douglas Steinmetz provides an original and detailed account of the political developments that shaped the American Film Industry in the silent years. In the 1900s and 1910s, the American film industry often embraced the arguments of film free speech and extolled the virtues of propagandistic cinema—the visual art of persuasion seen as part and parcel of deliberative democracy. The development of American cinema in these years was formatively shaped by conflicts with another industry of cultural consumption: liquor. Exhibitors battled with their competitors, the ubiquitous saloon, while film producers often attacked the immorality of drink with explosive propaganda on the screen. But the threat of censorship and economic regulation necessitated control and mastery over the social power of the cinema (its capacity to influence the public through the visualization of ideas) not an open medium of expression or an explicitly political instrument of molding public opinion. By the early 1920s, big producer-distributors based in Southern California sidelined arguments for film free speech and tamped down the propagandistic possibilities of the screen. Through their trade association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, headed by Republican insider Will H. Hays, the emerging moguls of Hollywood negotiated government regulation, prohibition, and the insurgency of the Ku Klux Klan in the turbulent 1920s. A complex and interconnected work of political history, this volume also uncovers key aspects in the development of modern free speech, propaganda in American political culture, the modern Republican Party, cultural developments leading up to prohibition, and the rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. This work will be of particular interest to film and political historians interested in social movements, economic development, regulation, and the evolution of consumer capitalism in the early 20th century.

This book examines the evolution of British propaganda practice during the course of the twentieth century. Written by an internationally-renowned expert in the area, this book covers the period from the First World War to the present day, including discussions of recent developments in information warfare. It includes analysis of film, radio, television and the press, and places the British experience within the wider international context. Drawing together elements of the author's previously published work, the book demonstrates how Britain has established a model for democratic propaganda world-wide.This is the first volume in the new International Communications series, edited by Philip M Taylor.

This book analyzes the factors that determined the organization, conduct and output of Nazi propaganda during World War II, in an attempt to re-assess previously inflated perceptions about the influence of Nazi propaganda and the role of the regime's propagandists in the outcome of the 1939-45 military conflict.

World War I and Propaganda offers a new look at a familiar subject. The contributions to this volume demonstrate that the traditional view of propaganda as top-down manipulation is no longer plausible. Drawing from a variety of sources, scholars examine the complex negotiations involved in propaganda within the British Empire, in occupied territories, in neutral nations, and how war should be conducted. Propaganda was tailored to meet local circumstances and integrated into a larger narrative in which the war was not always the most important issue. Issues centering on local politics, national identity, preservation of tradition, or hopes of a brighter future all played a role in different forms of propaganda. Contributors are Christopher Barthel, Donata Blobaum, Robert Blobaum, Mourad Djebabla, Christopher Fischer, Andrew T. Jarboe, Elli Lemonidou, David Monger, Javier Pounce,Catriona Pennell, Anne Samson, Richard Smith, Kenneth Andrew Steuer, María Inés Tato, and Lisa Todd.

The Encyclopedia of Propaganda examines all aspects of propaganda through history, and is organized in an A to Z format. The set defines the arenas in which propaganda is used such as politics, war, advertising and media; pinpoints the political systems in which it is used, such as Nazism, Communism and McCarthyism; and describes notable progenitors of propaganda and their works, including Hitler and "Mein Kampf", Machiavelli and "The Prince", Sun Tzu and "The Art of War", and Plato and "The Republic". "The Encyclopedia of Propaganda" also examines noteworthy individuals who have employed propaganda to further their own agenda, including Walt Disney, Fidel Castro, Jane Fonda, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Saddam Hussein, Rush Limbaugh and Eleanor Roosevelt. Organizations which have utilized propaganda in a systematic fashion are also included, among them the Black Panther Party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. This well organized, easy-to-use reference should be a valuable research tool for students of world history, politics and literature.