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If we are to discuss the efficiency of government
Home Front propaganda, specifically as regards the posters that
the government produced, it is important that we have a clear
idea of what is meant by a 'poster', and by 'propaganda'. This
chapter will aim to give some idea of the definitions of these
words, with reference to how they have been regarded in the past,
and since the Second World War, and how this affected attitudes
to them.
Propaganda is the attempt to
influence opinions and attitudes, or to reinforce existing ideas
and beliefs, through suggestion and persuasion, rather than by
physical or financial inducement. It "is ethically neutral and
it is the values of those using it that make it either good or
bad". [Footnote 1] Nowadays, the word 'propaganda' generally holds
negative connotations, signifying "a bundle of lies propagated
by devious methods and irrational appeals". [Footnote 2] However,
in "its origins 'propaganda' is an ancient and honourable word.
... It was in later times that the word came to have a selfish,
dishonest, or subversive association." [Footnote 3] Yet even during
the war the word 'propaganda' held negative connotations in Britain:
"Propaganda was something in which the enemy engaged, while one's
own propaganda was regarded as 'information' or 'publicity'."
[Footnote 4] Note that whilst totalitarian Germany had a Ministry
of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, democratic Britain and
America had a Ministry of Information and an Office of War Information
respectively, although all appeared to serve basically the same
function: the manipulation and control of information that was
spread to the public. [Footnote 5]
The 'poster' was one means by
which such information was spread to the public. Although at first
it appears that everyone must know what a poster is, according
to Rickards "In the late 1960s the word 'poster' was being applied
to any single visual presentation printed on a fair-sized sheet
of paper" [Footnote 6] and therefore, defining exactly what a
poster is is far more difficult:
Firstly... the poster is a separate
sheet, affixed to an existing surface (as opposed to those markings
and images rendered directly on the surface). Secondly, it must
embody a message; a mere decorative image is not enough. Thirdly,
it must be publicly displayed. Finally, it must have been multiply
produced; a single hand-done notice is not a poster. [Footnote
7]
However, even this definition
is not entirely comprehensive: it does not exclude such things
as printed notices which cannot really be regarded as posters,
nor does it explain what the purpose of a poster may be. Susan
Sontag added a further definition: "A public notice aims to inform
or command. A poster aims to exhort, to sell, to educate, to convince,
to appeal", [Footnote 8] which although still not an exhaustive
definition, as many public displays including government posters,
overlap both areas, gives a good working definition.
Official proclamations could
perhaps be seen to be the forerunner to posters. Initially, they
consisted merely of words, but by the fifteenth century, after
Gutenberg's invention of moveable type, began to include pictures.
[Footnote 9] The pictorial element was gradually to change from
mere decoration to a major ingredient, until in 1871, in Frederick
Walker's design The Woman in White, the picture became
the most important element. As the work of the artist became more
and more important, the wording and the image begun to be treated
separately, a trend that continued until the 1920s and 1930s.
"By the 1890s designers had learned
how to convey messages in a manner that, however complex its aesthetic
elements, spoke clearly and was easily understood even from a
distance", [Footnote 10] and the poster became almost a cult object,
with serious collectors, and collectors' magazines. With industrialisation,
and mass production, producers fought for bill board space, and
plagiarism of designs became rife. With the First World War the
poster "turned from selling the comforts of peace to pressing
the demands of war". [Footnote 11] The Germans expressed doubts:
"Should an army be raised by the same means as customers for jam?"
[Footnote 12] Over the course of the war the poster became an
acceptable means of selling, or recruiting for, the war. Although
the Germans believed that "British propaganda in World War I...
[had] set a new standard for effectiveness", [Footnote 13] organisation
for poster campaigns had been very poor as campaigns were only
developed if an idea for one occurred to someone in a government
department, and was then approved.
With better communications
during the 1920s and 1930s, poster designers had been
able to gain ideas from one another, and many graphic
techniques had been experimented with and circulated.
The ideas of the Constructivist movement were spread
from the USSR by El Lissitsky (Figure 2), and by refugees after
1935, when Socialist Realism (Figure 3) became the official
art form in the USSR. Constructivism was a movement
which had devised photo-montage and experimented with
"spatial dynamics, geometric forms and flat, bright
colours". [Footnote 14] Ludwig Hohlwein, a German
poster designer, was an important influence upon European
poster design, believing that art work should not
be merely 'artistic', that it was the message that
was important, able to be absorbed with the briefest
of glances. (Figure 4) [Footnote 15] New ideas
were also spread by refugees escaping Nazism, including
Moholy-Nagy (Figure 5), who arrived in Britain
in 1935, a pioneer of the Bauhaus movement, [Footnote
16] which stressed that the typeface should be regarded
as an important and integral part of poster design
(Figure 6).
During the war, the aim of 'propaganda
posters', according to Kenneth Bird, otherwise known as Fougasse,
was to overcome three obstacles:
Firstly, a general aversion to
reading any notice of any sort; secondly a general disinclination
to believe that any notice, even if it was read, can possibly
be addressed to oneself; thirdly, a general unwillingness, even
so, to remember the message long enough to do anything about it.
[Footnote 17]
However, during the war the poster
played a lesser role than in the First World War, as, with advances
in technology, the radio was seen as a better means for disseminating
more immediate information, although many people had lost their
radio sets as dealers cancelled H.P. terms, or ran out of battery
sets. [Footnote 18] Large numbers of posters were produced, but
their use was mainly reserved for long term campaigns as they
took a long time to prepare. [Footnote 19] Posters gave information
about such subjects as rationing and petrol restrictions, and
advice on such subjects as health and diet.
In the 1950s the poster, as defined
by Dart, became chiefly an accessory to the television image,
and has largely remained so, although for those without access
to television size budgets, such as protesters and small companies,
the poster has always remained an important medium. Since the
1960s poster reprints have become popular, a category in which
we could include the posters reprinted by the IWM, although there
were also designs which were specifically made for the reprint
market.
We are now bombarded with such
quantities of commercial, social and political propaganda, that
picture posters today appear to be relatively harmless, through
visual media whose persuasiveness and effectiveness make it seem
so, [Footnote 20] the poster will probably always be regarded
as important as it can take "arguments directly to the man on
the street". [Footnote 21] It is regarded as particularly important
for election campaigns, as a poster can express in a nutshell
a specific party policy, either complimentary towards one's own
party, or derogatory to an opposing party, for instance "New Labour,
Euro Danger".
Having considered some of the
different techniques of, and uses for, posters through history,
we will now look at the organisation behind many of the posters
produced in the Second World War.
Footnotes:
If you wish to cite from this
page, please use the following citation:
Lewis, R.M., 'Chapter 2: What are 'poster'
and 'propaganda'?, Undergraduate Thesis: The planning, design
and reception of British home front propaganda posters of the
Second World War' , <http://www.ww2poster.co.uk/research_project/ugrad/dissposterpropaganda.htm>,
written April 1997, accessed Enter Date Here
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Introduction
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The Administrative Context: The Ministry
of Information and Social Surveys
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