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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence > Propaganda
Has the communication of politics become professionalised? Who are the 'professionals' and what part do they play in the political process? Can the process of professionalisation be observed in different political systems? These, and related questions, about the changing nature of practices in political communication are explored in this book that looks at developments across a number of different countries. The different ways in which the idea of the professionalisation of political communication has been commonly used is explored and the authors develop a framework for understanding changing practices in political communication and in different contexts, for example, in respect of political campaigns and elections in general, and in respect of communication by governments. It is also focuses on these same themes in specific countries: Germany, France, Britain, Greece, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Sweden.
The wartime period in Britain is now seen as an extremely fertile period of British creativity in music, film and art. Often, these projects were funded and supported by the government, who saw its role as a custodian of British culture, and by extension, of British values, at a time when those values seemed under great threat. In the late thirties the Nazi Party had stressed the superiority of Germanic culture and the promotion of Richard Wagner and Carl Orff was central to Hitler's cultural program. In Britain, the War Office under Winston Churchill chose to promote Edward Elgar and Hubert Parry, but also to appropriate and 'de-Nazify' Ludwig van Beethoven- whose Fifth Symphony was used extensively in wartime broadcasts and has since become synonymous with VE Day. Meanwhile, the work of Ralph Vaughn Williams, whose music was commissioned by Powell and Pressburger for use in 49th Parallel, reclaimed a particularly English past stretching back to the Tudors. While artists such as John Piper, Eric Ravillious and Evelyn Dunbar produced works specifically commissioned by the state which were intended to commemorate and glorify Britain, the British Council and the BBC played an active role in commissioning and broadcasting their musical equivalents. In film, Humphrey Jenning's documentaries were designed to further push the wartime agenda, along with films produced by Ealing Studios. Here, John Morris assesses the history of this body of work, shedding new light on the period. A cultural history of music in wartime based on detailed archival research, Culture and Propaganda in World War II is essential reading for historians of the period, musicians, film scholars and propaganda analysts.
As the twenty-first century unfolds society is confronted with the normalization of warfare and political violence and their growing allure for the young. Current global political events highlight the extent to which young people have become the target of both State and non-State actors in the prosecution of war and terror. The conduct of what we can refer to as "social war" has increasingly come to target the young through media (social media, the internet and video games) and more directly through acts of violence (the massacre of children, the reliance on child soldiers, and the use of children in martyrdom operations) as legitimate forms of conduct. The appropriation of the young as political and military materials through the processes of both radicalization and militarization warrants close examination. Drumbeat examines these issues within the context of the ongoing process of militarization and the establishment of a state of perpetual warfare. The book distinguishes between radicalization, which refers to the application of propaganda and ideological methods by non-State agents, and militarization, which refers to the application of propaganda and ideological methods by State agents in order to effectively prosecute war. The focus of this book will be an examination of the mechanisms through which forms of media and other digital and web-based artefacts - social media, video and video games - assist in the militarization and radicalization of the young. There is a growing body of evidence which points to the effectiveness of various forms of media in both the recruitment of young people and the promotion of ideological frames. For example, non-State actors (extremist religious groups and the Alt-Right) have been highly effective in appropriating new media to project their propaganda messages and their appeal to young people. The book also argues that militarization has become a powerful societal force, which is re-configuring the daily conduct of life in the West. Just as radicalization seeks to prepare the young for the conduct of war, militarization also functions to position the broader society for war. This is a new form of the "civilizing process" to which Norbert Elias referred. In this context new media provides the conduits through which this process is legitimized, celebrated and promulgated.
This is a study of the British state's generation, suppression and manipulation of news to further foreign policy goals during the early Cold War. Bribing editors, blackballing "unreliable" journalists, creating instant media experts through provision of carefully edited "inside information," and exploiting the global media system to plant propaganda -- disguised as news -- around the world: these were all methods used by the British to try to convince the international public of Soviet deceit and criminality and thus gain support for anti-Soviet policies at home and abroad. Britain's shaky international position heightened the importance of propaganda. The Soviets and Americans were investing heavily in propaganda to win the "hearts and minds" of the world and substitute for increasingly unthinkable nuclear war. The British exploited and enhanced their media power and propaganda expertise to keep up with the superpowers and preserve their own global influence at a time when British economic, political and military power was sharply declining. This activity directly influenced domestic media relations, as officials used British media to launder foreign-bound propaganda and to create the desired images of British "public opinion" for foreign audiences. By the early 1950s censorship waned but covert propaganda had become addictive. The endless tension of the Cold War normalized what had previously been abnormal state involvement in the media, and led it to use similar tools against Egyptian nationalists, Irish republicans and British leftists. Much more recently, official manipulation of news about Iraq indicates that a behind-the-scenes examination of state propaganda's earlierdays is highly relevant. John Jenks draws heavily on recently declassified archival material for this book, especially files of the Foreign Office's anti-Communist Information Research Department (IRD) propaganda agency, and the papers of key media organisations, journalists, politicians and officials. Readers will therefore gain a greater understanding of the depth of the state's power with the media at a time when concerns about propaganda and media manipulation are once again at the fore.
Within seventeen years of the first public broadcast in Britain, the nation again found itself at war. As the Second World War progressed, the BBC eventually realised the potential benefits of public radio and the service became vital in keeping an anxious public informed, upbeat and entertained behind the curtains of millions of blacked-out homes. The Radio Front examines just how the BBC reinvented itself and delivered its carefully controlled propaganda to listeners in the UK and throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. It also reveals the BBC's often-strained relationships with the government, military and public as the organisation sought to influence opinion and safeguard public morale without damaging its growing reputation for objectivity and veracity. Using original source material, historian and author Ron Bateman tracks the BBC's growth during the Second World War from its unorganised and humble beginnings to the development of a huge overseas and European operation, and also evaluates the importance of iconic broadcasts from the likes of J.B. Priestley, Vera Lynn and Tommy Handley.
Exploring the 'dark side' of digital diplomacy, this volume highlights some of the major problems facing democratic institutions in the West and provides concrete examples of best practice in reversing the tide of digital propaganda. Digital diplomacy is now part of the regular conduct of International Relations, but Information Warfare is characterised by the exploitation or weaponisation of media systems to undermine confidence in institutions: the resilience of open, democratic discourse is tested by techniques such as propaganda, disinformation, fake news, trolling and conspiracy theories. This book introduces a thematic framework by which to better understand the nature and scope of the threats that the weaponization of digital technologies increasingly pose to Western societies. The editors instigate interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration between scholars and practitioners on the purpose, methods and impact of strategic communication in the Digital Age and its diplomatic implications. What opportunities and challenges does strategic communication face in the digital context? What diplomatic implications need to be considered when governments employ strategies for countering disinformation and propaganda? Exploring such issues, the contributors demonstrate that responses to the weaponisation of digital technologies must be tailored to the political context that make it possible for digital propaganda to reach and influence vulnerable publics and audiences. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy studies, counter-radicalisation, media and communication studies, and International Relations in general.
A classic work, Munitions of the mind traces how propaganda has formed part of the fabric of conflict since the dawn of warfare, and how in its broadest definition it has also been part of a process of persuasion at the heart of human communication. Stone monuments, coins, broadsheets, paintings and pamphlets, posters, radio, film, television, computers and satellite communications - throughout history, propaganda has had access to ever more complex and versatile media. This third edition has been revised and expanded to include a new preface, new chapters on the 1991 Gulf War, information age conflict in the post-Cold War era, and the world after the terrorist attacks of September 11. It also offers a new epilogue and a comprehensive bibliographical essay. The extraordinary range of this book, as well as the original and cohesive analysis it offers, make it an ideal text for all international courses covering media and communications studies, cultural history, military history and politics. It will also prove fascinating and accessible to the general reader.
"The most comprehensive bibliography yet published in the public opinion field." --Journalism Quarterly. Besides a selection of the most significant titles from earlier years, this book contains a comprehensive listing of books, pamphlets, and articles which appeared between 1934 and 1943. Originally published in 1946. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Die "Historische Kommission zu Berlin" betreibt die Erforschung der Landesgeschichte und der Historischen Landeskunde Berlin-Brandenburgs bzw. Brandenburg-Preussens in Form von wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen, Vortragen, Tagungen und Veroeffentlichungen sowie durch Serviceleistungen. Dabei kooperiert die Kommission auch mit anderen Institutionen und begleitet wissenschaftliche und praktische Vorhaben von allgemeinem oeffentlichen Interesse. In der Schriftenreihe werden die Ergebnisse der einzelnen wissenschaftlichen Projekte der Kommission veroeffentlicht.
Exploring the political climate during the final years of the reign of Charles II, when John Dryden wrote his great public poems and several of his dramatic works, Phillip Harth sheds new light on this writer's literary activity on behalf of the monarch. The poems Absalom and Achitophel and The Medall, and the dramatic works The Duke of Guise and Albion and Albanius, have commonly been considered in relation to such public events as the Popish Plot, the Exclusion Crisis, and the Tory Reaction, but that approach does not explain the noticeable differences among these works or the specific purposes for which they were written. Harth argues that the immediate contexts of these works were not the historical events themselves but a constantly developing series of propaganda offensives, both Tory and Whig, designed to influence public opinion toward fluctuating conditions. Pen for a Party traces the halting process by which the government of Charles II developed propaganda as an effective instrument for gradually winning the public's acquiescence in its divisive policies. It likewise shows how Dryden fashioned his own works to meet the needs of this propaganda campaign in each of its successive phases. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Political analyst Mark Smith offers the most original and compelling explanation yet of why America has swung to the right in recent decades. How did the GOP transform itself from a party outgunned and outmaneuvered into one that defines the nation's most important policy choices? Conventional wisdom attributes the Republican resurgence to a political bait and switch--the notion that conservatives win elections on social issues like abortion and religious expression, but once in office implement far-reaching policies on the economic issues downplayed during campaigns. Smith illuminates instead the eye-opening reality that economic matters have become more central, not less, to campaigns and the public agenda. He analyzes a half century of speeches, campaign advertisements, party platforms, and intellectual writings, systematically showing how Republican politicians and conservative intellectuals increasingly gave economic justifications for policies they once defended through appeals to freedom. He explains how Democrats similarly conceived economic justifications for their own policies, but unlike Republicans they changed positions on issues rather than simply offering new arguments and thus helped push the national discourse inexorably to the right. "The Right Talk" brings clarity, reason, and hard-nosed evidence to a contentious subject. Certain to enrich the debate about the conservative ascendancy in America, this book will provoke discussions and reactions for years to come.
Much of the story about the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany has yet to be told. In Motherland in Danger, Karel Berkhoff addresses one of the most neglected questions facing historians of the Second World War: how did the Soviet leadership sell the campaign against the Germans to the people on the home front? For Stalin, the obstacles were manifold. Repelling the German invasion would require a mobilization so large that it would test the limits of the Soviet state. Could the USSR marshal the manpower necessary to face the threat? How could the authorities overcome inadequate infrastructure and supplies? Might Stalin's regime fail to survive a sustained conflict with the Germans? Motherland in Danger takes us inside the Stalinist state to witness, from up close, its propaganda machine. Using sources in many languages, including memoirs and documents of the Soviet censor, Berkhoff explores how the Soviet media reflected-and distorted-every aspect of the war, from the successes and blunders on the front lines to the institution of forced labor on farm fields and factory floors. He also details the media's handling of Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust, as well as its stinting treatment of the Allies, particularly the United States, the UK, and Poland. Berkhoff demonstrates not only that propaganda was critical to the Soviet war effort but also that it has colored perceptions of the war to the present day, both inside and outside of Russia.
Over the course of his career, George Orwell wrote about many things, but no matter what he wrote the goal was to get at the fundamental truths of the world. He had no place for dissemblers, liars, conmen, or frauds, and he made his feelings well-known. In Orwell on Truth, excerpts from across Orwell's career show how his writing and worldview developed over the decades, profoundly shaped by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, and further by World War II and the rise of totalitarian states. In a world that seems increasingly like one of Orwell's dystopias, a willingness to speak truth to power is more important than ever. With Orwell on Truth, readers get a collection of both powerful quotes and the context for them.
Art has been used in the service of social and political movements, for good and evil, from ancient times to the present day, and this unique book explores the history, cultural diversity, and artistic legacy of art works that have had far greater impact than political and social rhetoric and have served as key catalysts for change. Colin Moore presents the art in themes such as political state control, opposition, revolution, politics, and social influence such as advertising and self-promotion, and provides historical context to explain the origin of the dreams and concerns that prompted mass movements. Three hundred images are explored representing five thousand years of civilization from the ancient Mesopotamians, Romans, Crusaders, Normans, Victorians; movements such as the Suffragettes, the Nazis and the Hippies; and revolutions in America, France, Russia, Mexico, China and Cuba. From Gutenberg's printing press to You Tube, from Alexander the Great to President Obama, this review of propaganda art reflects the best and the worst of how our common hopes and dreams can be guided and manipulated by powerful, persuasive art images.
In this book R. W. Scribner provides the first detailed analysis of the forms of propaganda - such as illustrated broadsheets, picture books, title pages, and book illustrations - which were aimed at the illiterate and semi-literate during the Reformation, and reproduces many of the vast corpus of prints which still survive in scattered locations in Germany. Dr Scribner advances new and original interpretations of these illustrations, revealing how visual propaganda exploited popular belief and the coarser aspects of popular culture, while at the same time being a product of them. This, he suggests, explains why the Reformation appealed to the broad masses of sixteenth-century people, even though the propaganda was unable to educate them in the more complex theological aspects of the Reformation message. As well as raising important questions about the Reformation as a religious phenomenon, the book is a contribution to the understanding of early modern popular culture, and the nature of propaganda in a pre-industrial society; it is also a detailed historical study of the sixteenth-century woodcut. In develolping an interdisciplinary analysis combining the methods of iconography, semiology, sociology, and folklore, Dr Scribner presents a fruitful new approach to the study of popular mentalities. Hailed as a pioneering study of great importance on its original publication in 1981, For the Sake of Simple Folk is now available in paperback for the first time, with a new Introduction and additional chapter. 'The reproduction of such a formidable body of "documentation" in the text is a major achievement . . . important and pioneering study', Journal of Ecclesiastical History
This open access edited volume shines new light on the history of propaganda and persuasion during the Nordic welfare epoch. A common analytical framework is developed that highlights transnational and transmedial perspectives rather than national or monomedial histories. The return of propaganda in contemporary debate underlines the need to historically contextualize the role and function of persuasive communication activities in the Nordic region and beyond. Building on an empirically situated approach, the chapters in this volume break new ground by covering a range of themes, from cultural diplomacy and nation branding to media materiality and information infrastructures. In doing so, the book stresses that the Nordic welfare epoch, with its associated epithet the "Nordic Model", was built not only on governance, social security and economic productivity, but also on propaganda and persuasion.
Who owns the street? Interwar Berliners faced this question with great hope yet devastating consequences. In Germany, the First World War and 1918 Revolution transformed the city streets into the most important media for politics and commerce. There, partisans and entrepreneurs fought for the attention of crowds with posters, illuminated advertisements, parades, traffic jams, and violence. The Nazi Party relied on how people already experienced the city to stage aggressive political theater, including the April Boycott and Kristallnacht. Observers in Germany and abroad looked to Berlin's streets to predict the future. They saw dazzling window displays that radiated optimism. They also witnessed crime waves, antisemitic rioting, and failed policing that pointed toward societal collapse. Recognizing the power of urban space, officials pursued increasingly radical policies to 'revitalize' the city, culminating in Albert Speer's plan to eradicate the heart of Berlin and build Germania.
As the twenty-first century unfolds society is confronted with the normalization of warfare and political violence and their growing allure for the young. Current global political events highlight the extent to which young people have become the target of both State and non-State actors in the prosecution of war and terror. The conduct of what we can refer to as "social war" has increasingly come to target the young through media (social media, the internet and video games) and more directly through acts of violence (the massacre of children, the reliance on child soldiers, and the use of children in martyrdom operations) as legitimate forms of conduct. The appropriation of the young as political and military materials through the processes of both radicalization and militarization warrants close examination. Drumbeat examines these issues within the context of the ongoing process of militarization and the establishment of a state of perpetual warfare. The book distinguishes between radicalization, which refers to the application of propaganda and ideological methods by non-State agents, and militarization, which refers to the application of propaganda and ideological methods by State agents in order to effectively prosecute war. The focus of this book will be an examination of the mechanisms through which forms of media and other digital and web-based artefacts - social media, video and video games - assist in the militarization and radicalization of the young. There is a growing body of evidence which points to the effectiveness of various forms of media in both the recruitment of young people and the promotion of ideological frames. For example, non-State actors (extremist religious groups and the Alt-Right) have been highly effective in appropriating new media to project their propaganda messages and their appeal to young people. The book also argues that militarization has become a powerful societal force, which is re-configuring the daily conduct of life in the West. Just as radicalization seeks to prepare the young for the conduct of war, militarization also functions to position the broader society for war. This is a new form of the "civilizing process" to which Norbert Elias referred. In this context new media provides the conduits through which this process is legitimized, celebrated and promulgated.
Now updated with a new preface that examines the current conflict in Iraq, this brilliant work of investigative reporting reveals the government's assault on the constitutional freedoms of the American media during Operation Desert Storm. John R. MacArthur's engaging and provocative account is as essential and alarming today as when the first paperback edition was published ten years ago.
In the 1940s and '50s, comic books were some of the most popular-and most unfiltered-entertainment in the United States. Publishers sold hundreds of millions of copies a year of violent, racist, and luridly sexual comics to Americans of all ages, until a 1954 Senate investigation led to a censorship code that nearly destroyed the industry. But this was far from the first time the US government actively involved itself with comics-it was simply the most dramatic manifestation of a long, strange relationship between high-level policy makers and a medium that even artists and writers often dismissed as a creative sewer. In Pulp Empire, Paul S. Hirsch uncovers the gripping untold story of how the US government both attacked and appropriated comic books to help wage World War II and the Cold War, promote official-and clandestine-foreign policy, and deflect global critiques of American racism. As Hirsch details, during World War II-and the concurrent golden age of comic books-government agencies worked directly with comic book publishers to stoke hatred for the Axis powers while simultaneously attempting to dispel racial tensions at home. Later, as the Cold War defense industry ballooned-and as comic book sales reached historic heights-the government again turned to the medium, this time trying to win hearts and minds in the decolonizing world through cartoon propaganda. Hirsch's groundbreaking research weaves together a wealth of previously classified material, including secret wartime records, official legislative documents, and caches of personal papers. His book explores the uneasy contradiction of how comics were both vital expressions of American freedom and unsettling glimpses into the national id-scourged and repressed on the one hand and deployed as official propaganda on the other. Pulp Empire is a riveting illumination of underexplored chapters in the histories of comic books, foreign policy, and race.
In the early 1970s, Sir Maurice Oldfield of the British Secret Service, MI6, embarked upon a decade-long campaign to derail the political career of Charles Haughey. The English spymaster believed Haughey was a Provisional IRA godfather, therefore, a threat to Britain. Oldfield was assisted by unscrupulous British agents and by a shadowy group of conspirators inside the Irish state's security apparatus, all sharing his distrust of Haughey. Escaping scrutiny for their actions until now, Enemy of the Crown examines more than a dozen instances of their activities. Oldfield was conspiratorial by nature and lacked a moral compass. Involved in regime change plots and torture in the Middle East, in the Republic of Ireland he engaged with convicted criminals as agent provocateurs as well as the exploitation of pedophile rings in Northern Ireland. He and his spies engaged in dirty tricks as they ran vicious smear campaigns in Ireland, Britain and the US. MI6 and IRD intrigues were deployed to impede Haughey's bid to secure a position on Fianna Fail's front bench and any return to respectability. London's hateful drive against Haughey saw no let-up after Fianna Fail's triumphal return to power in 1977 which saw them win a large majority of seats in the Dail. When Haughey sought a place at Cabinet, Oldfield and his spies devised more dirty tricks to impede him. While Haughey was suspicious of MI6 interference, he had no inkling of the full extent of London's clandestine efforts to destroy him. By circulating lurid stories about him, they played a major part in trying to prevent him succeed Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in 1979. This book attempts to shed light on some of the anti-Haughey conspiracies which took place during the period of the late 1960s right through to the early 1980s. |
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