Propaganda posters

Propaganda

Is a form of communication aimed towards influencing the attitude of a population toward some cause or position.
Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information presented.
While the term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples, propaganda in its original sense was neutral and could refer to uses that were generally positive, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging persons to report crimes to law enforcement.

Playing on emotions and fatherly sentiments, this 1916 British propaganda effort attempts to guilt men to join the armed forces by showing them a future in which their lack of service disappoints their children. Prior to the draft in 1917, emotional blackmail was one of the many tactics employed to recruit young men into the military. The shining faces of two young children look up at their father expectantly and ask “Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?” forced prospective servicemen to ponder what the consequences would be if the answer to that question was nothing. This poster frames military service as the most honorable accomplishment that a father can tell his children about, demonstrating the effectiveness of that simple question.











This image is the best known image from a campaign that originated in 1940 with the catchphrase “Be like Dad, Keep Mum”, this image came from the campaign in 1942 and the poster “Keep Mum, She’s Not so Dumb” by the artist Gerald Lacoste is remembered more famously. It depicts a glamorous blonde woman reclining, and the officers from each branch of the Armed forces are surrounding her talking to one another as if she was not in the room. It is implied that the officers are talking military secrets, on the assumption, as wrongful as it is, that the woman is only a “dumb blonde” and will not pass these secrets onto the enemy.

This image is interesting because it makes these implications against women, but underlying implies that they are incorrect and it is in fact the men that are being careless, this is a technique known as unstated assumption. This technique is used when the message that the propagandist intends to transmit would seem less credible if explicitly stated. The concept is instead repeatedly assumed or implied. In other words, it is more believable that the woman is assumed to be stupid but in fact is listening and willing to share war secrets, rather then the men just being careless, that has to be an image that is assumed after looking, reading, and analyzing the propaganda.

Another technique used in this image is the usage of slogans, a slogan is known as a brief, striking phrase that may include labeling and stereotyping. Although slogans may be enlisted to support reasoned ideas, in practice they tend to act only as emotional pleas. The two slogans used in this poster are “Keep Mum, She’s Not so Dumb”, meaning a woman can be helpful in finding out important information because she is assumed to be not listening or not intelligent. Also the main slogan of this entire campaign was “Careless Talk Costs Lives”, this was used during the time that women spies were used to gain information, and government officials were caught speaking about official business when on leave. The slogan is meant to evoke an emotional feeling of guilt to military and government officials who speak freely about war secrets; because of this the deaths of soldiers and civilians was the result.