War Feeds Off Propaganda

War is a bloody mess. I mean that as literally or as cynically as one may desire. Literally, of course, there is the awful amount of bloodshed. Thousands, possibly millions of soldiers may die in a single war. From the cynical view, wars are not always as organized or as strategic as they may seem, leaving room for error. That error leaves room for ultimately more destruction and dead soldiers. Now, to be a soldier and willing to go to war for your country knowing all of these threats exist for you, knowing that death may be awaiting your entrance, you must be crazy! So why have there been so many people willing to fight to an excruciating, often causeless death in a war of aggression? Propaganda. It was developed early in history, proving quite effective. And so of course any power meaning business in war uses this technique to sway the masses into believing the war is a good thing, a just cause, when often, it's neither. It is key in my argument to state that propaganda is used by someone in a position of power to gain support by the masses because propaganda persuades them effectively and on a large scale.

Lets take World War II as a major example because propaganda was used quite a bit in this war. The goal of the Nazi regime led by Hitler must have seemed crazy and immoral from the standpoint of one not in the German mothercountry. But with use of advertisement to the Germans to stop the "evils" of the Jews, Hitler was able to lead an army to fulfill an abominable act. The period of Nazi involvement was often called the "Third Reich" which was used to create a sense of similarity between Nazi Germany and the previous successful empires in German history, namely the Roman Empire and the empire ruled by Kaiser Wilhelm I and Kaiser Wilhelm II (ww2db.com). So, the title the "Third Reich" essentially compared the Nazi effort to the greatness of the Roman Empire in its peak. No cognitive, proud Aryan would skip out on a chance to be something as great as those before them. And Hitler didn't stop there. He capitalized on the tendency of people to be persuaded. Use of propaganda was seen in the country to rally national approval, civilian control, and support. Not only did he rally a huge group of men willing to die at his side for a cause he established, but Hitler was even able to get the German citizens to agree that the Jews were a source of economic destruction so must be dealt with as a good and beneficial solution to their own woes.

Even the US got into the business of propaganda. "Buy Bonds" posters depicting sad but patriotic children with the shadow of a swasitica falling evilly upon them encouraged citizens to buy bonds to offset war costs. And guess what? all of this propaganda worked. Rose Marie Murphy, a grade school teacher caught up in the US propaganda during WWII recalls "We were all the good guys. We did everything right and the Germans and the Japs, they looked awful and they sneered and they said lousy things. They were bad! It was really propaganda. I just accepted it. What else did I know?"(NebraskaStudies.Org)

So we ask, then, why does propaganda work? Some propaganda is heavily ethos or pathos driven, meaning they create an emotional response in you saying either "I must help this cause" or "I trust this person telling me the cause is nessecary." When a citizen sees a poster of a poor starving child with a text saying "Your donation saves their lives", the reaction is that you have the responsibility to save that childs life by donating. In actuality, though, these posters may be vastly dramatized. So viably, "propaganda can serve to rally people behind a cause, but often at the cost of exaggerating, misrepresenting, or even lying about the issues" involved in the war (GlobalIssues.org). More effective is the repetition of persuasive ideas that make propaganda effective. In the United States alone, Americans are exposed to billions of magazines, millions of commercials on the television and radio, hundreds of thousands of visuals such as billboards (Age of Propaganda). Someone exposed to some stimuli repeatedly tends to be ingrained with the ideals presented.

It boils down to the leaders of war making the cause seem glamorous, eliciting an exiting emotional response in the viewer to aid the cause. And if the Chief's propaganda works, effectively getting him massive numbers of recruits, his chances of winning the war goes way up.

Essentially, people are easily swayed by the media put in front of them, leaving opportunity for the power-grabbers to use people's tendency to be persuaded to their advantage. This has been evident since day one. Eve ate the forbidden fruit because she was told it would make her wise. People vote for a specific candidate that they did not choose just because the same political party they identify with tells them to. Soldiers sign up for the US Navy after seeing all of those grand commercials depicting exiting, non-lethal adventures. How can it be ignored? It's everywhere. As long as people can still be persuaded, persons' in power will use propaganda to lead them.


“Greater German Empire.” Ww2db.com. 8 September 2009.
http://ww2db.com/country.php?cid=4.

“Propaganda.” NebraskaStudies.org. 8 September 2009.
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0800/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0800/stories/0801_0121.html.

“War, Propaganda, and the Media.” GlobalIssues,org. 8 September 2009.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/157/war-propaganda-and-the-media#ElementsofPropaganda

Pratkanis, Anthony R., and Elliot Aronson. Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1992.