G. Thompson
Note 6:00 p.m. deadline Sunday. This is so I have time to read your submissions before the next day's class.
[Here--use Chrysler commercial from 2012.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRtvpMPLQ8o&t=8s
Essay #1 due Wednesday. We have a little break while we engage with reading Nineteen Eighty-Four, but there will be informal writings due (i.e., Sept. 25)--I'm not assigning one for Sept. 18, as that would be three writings on successive class days. There will be a draft of essay #2 due for workshopping Sept. 27, and we'll approach the workshop activities a little differently for that class (TBA).
Follow-up on Triumph of the Will--their informal responses were due Sun. 6:00 p.m.; comments above.
For this informal writing, you should choose a portion of the film which you believe to be propagandistic, describe it, and tell how it supposedly worked as propaganda. Be prepared to discuss your response in class.
Note that your response is due before class--that is, by Sunday, Sept. 10, by 6:00 p.m. This is to allow the instructor to review responses and incorporate them into class discussion on Monday.
There's no assigned length, but your response should be long enough to be a substantial description and thoughtful response.
I didn't get responses from everyone--they can be turned in by Tues. 6:00 for partial credit. (Exception: Gino submitted a pages document--that has to be resubmitted in a different format.)
Some thoughts on what we watched:
Photography and film / video are often readily accepted as unbiased reporting. But films are selected with the intention of constructing an overall narrative, which is anything but unbiased. It takes an effort to pull out of the mood and watch skeptically.
It's hard not to project our knowledge of the next 10 years into Triumph of the Will.
A number of citizens of Nuremberg had no reason to celebrate Hitler's visit. Even though he downplayed the anti-Semitism as portrayed in the film, Jews of the town, and others who were not political supporters, might have stayed inside--but there might have been public pressure to take part.
For "totalitarian model," review textbooks on this period, focusing in particular on Nazi Germany, with sidelights to Soviet Union--
US model during wartime could be direct, but did not assume the same level of social control over messaging. Efforts to minimize enemy propaganda so as to sustain the war effort--it was by no means easy or even possible to oppose the war, but more a matter of social pressure than governmental control.
We have a limited version of the same thing when the US goes to war--I remember in the first Gulf War the feeling in classes here that you didn't want to say anything in opposition out of concern that people would object. There was more vocal opposition to 2003 Iraq War because of the way the (second) Bush administration approached it--no clear cause to attack Iraq.
Classic view of propaganda--
Remember overview from two weeks ago:
Word propaganda related to "propagate," to grow (as with plants); came into usage from Latin in 16th c., attempts to counter growth of Protestantism.
Antecedents to propaganda in American revolution ("Don't Tread on Me" flag), image of the 13 colonies as a segmented snake needing to come together; Civil War, news of battles carried via telegraph to newspapers.
Growth of mass culture: greater literacy in 19th-c., newspapers and magazines; development in teens of film, '20s of radio; talkies in '28. American dominance in films, which served to spread positive images of America
Theorizing about propaganda draws from psychology of crowds--appeals based on logos are mostly pointless under these assumptions--you need appeals to pathos. Thus use of atrocity propaganda, stereotypes, simplistic messaging.
Hitler believed that the masses cannot understand events, so Nazi propaganda held attention through entertainment and simple slogans (one nation, one people, one leader). The model of persuasion was top-down, one to many. Dissenting voices were quashed.
Hitler set up a propaganda apparatus with Goebbels in charge of controlling mass media. Reporters who wrote unfavorable stories were expelled. Beginning in March 1933, Joseph Goebbels began to work as Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, undertaking "political decontamination" of German public life (United States Holocaust Museum, State of Deception 66). A frequent metaphor used to further Nazi propaganda was that of disease: the health of the state is like the state of the body: just as, in order to be healthy, you have to rid yourself of bacteria, so in the state you have to rid yourself of unhealthy elements. For Nazi ideology these were Jews, but also gypsies, Communists, homosexuals, people with physical or mental handicaps, along with non-German influences. (Disabled persons were the first victims.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHCmiWaHUCw
A few seconds will be enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHzM1gXaiVo
Start about 1:00 to 3:28;
Nazi propaganda was entertaining, repeating the same themes in multiple media.
Clip from "The Eternal Jew," if we can stand it.
We can make similar points about the Soviet Union. Because Russia is further away from the center of Europe, isolation is easier. One difference is the governing ideology: Nazi ideology was based on twisted so-called science (eugenics), whereas communism derives from the economic theories of Karl Marx, as interpreted by Lenin and other revolutionaries. Supposedly the working class or proletariat would rise in revolutionary fervor to take control of factories and other sources of wealth and power; because the proletariat doesn't have the intellectual preparation to do so, the Party exists to further their interests and rule in their name.
This notion of a collective was diverted into a cult of personality, first with Lenin as party secretary, then after his death in 1924 a struggle for power between Trotsky (who wanted an international movement) and Stalin (who wanted the movement arising out of Russia). Stalin won, carried out bloody purges in the '30s, and consolidated his power. Communication was controlled by the state, with tight censorship. The newspaper Pravda (which means truth), was legendary for journalism tightly controlled by the state.
Communism and Nazism in the '30s were natural enemies: the Nazis were essentially right-wing, for all their having "socialism" in their name--as with so much else about the Nazis, the words meant the opposite of their accepted meaning. Industrial capitalism thrived in Nazi Germany, thanks to the rebuilding of the economy after the Weimar Republic, development of war materiel in preparation for the planned expansion of German control throughout Europe, and collusion between industrial figures such as those in IG Farben. At the same time, Jews were progressively forced to give up their places in public life--businesses, eventually their homes and property.
The USSR and fascism clashed in the period from 1935-37 in the Spanish Civil War: the communists were backing the Spanish government (republicans), while the Nazis had a natural ally in Franco and that group--who eventually were victorious. (Because Spain is isolated from the rest of Europe, it managed to stay out of WWII.) So it was surprising to all when Hitler and Stalin negotiated a non-aggression pact in 1939: Germany invaded Poland from the west, beginning Sept. 1, 1939, and the USSR did likewise from the east two weeks later. Poland had successfully fought off the USSR in 1920, but was helpless against the larger armies of the Wehrmacht, much less the betrayal from the east. During the next two years, Hitler and Stalin were allies, and it was mostly Britain carrying on the war effort on the Western Front (France had fallen fairly quickly). Then in June 1941, Hitler betrayed the Russians and invaded the USSR, so as to take control of rich agricultural regions in Ukraine and oilfields (Central Europe doesn't have oil). Overnight the propaganda changed: the Soviets had killed about 10,000 Polish officers and intellectuals at Katyn, and when they took control of that region, the Germans exposed their actions . . . A few years later, when the Soviets pushed the Germans out, all mention of these events was rewritten.
Goebbels defines truth as whatever advances the social cause of the state (the people, etc.). So the propaganda of the Big Lie is a common theme in this period.
One of these Big Lies is that Germany is united by its leader (Fuehrer). "Heil Hitler" salute was mandatory (State of Deception 75). Early on this looked good: Germany reoccupied territories lost after WWI, and peacefully gained control over Austria (Anschluss) and the Sudetenlands of Czechoslovakia. "Hitler was presented as a brilliant statesman, a figure picked by 'destiny' to lead the nation out of misery, and a vehicle through whom the German people spoke" (75). This should sound familiar after the opening of Triumph of the Will. If your side is winning, it's hard to fault the central figure.
Modernization of Nazi Germany was showcased in the 1936 Olympics (embarrassing that Jesse Owens won so many medals).
Genocide was masked by euphemisms
So, to summarize: classic propaganda is managed in totalitarian regimes where there is partial or complete control of information. Counter-propaganda is suppressed through censorship or even imprisonment. Radio broadcasts may be jammed, films not distributed, etc.