Bringing It All Together

Throughout this blog we have examined the different ways propaganda was used by the British during the Second World War. There's a certain negative connotation that comes with the idea of propaganda, especially when the propaganda goes hand in hand with something so globally devastating such as a world war. But through my research I've found that much of the propaganda was aimed at the home front to inspire patriotism, not necessarily to alienate an "other".

Certainly the Careless Talk and V for Victory campaigns were used to alienate both those in England who may spill secrets and create an Everyone Vs. Germany mentality throughout the wartime periods. But home campaigns based around ensuring everyone is aware of rationing and encouraging rational recreation based holidays helping with harvests? Yes, they were created to form a mass ideology but the positive messages of running these posters brought the war effort to an everyday-person platform.

On the other hand, but integrating the war into everyday life, propaganda ensured the wartime experience was the only experience, even in the interwar period before 1939. Certainly, memories from 1939-1945 would become shaped by the war, as the movies and documentaries at the time all centred around a survival or resistance narrative, as was seen in the V for Victory post. But as was seen in the New York World's Fair, a successful foreign propaganda campaign starts well before war becomes the reality. Looking at the posters and the approach to the World's Fair, the British government certainly had the idea that a war is won through strong alliances. As we saw, the time and effort that went into crafting a patriotic friendship between American and Great Britain was painstakingly crafted. Through such measures, America's own propaganda cartoons took a favourable turn toward Britain, as was seen in the Seuss post.

When looking at all these avenues where a propaganda campaign was released, it becomes clear that propaganda is not just about casting ones own country or ideology in a favourable light. Each campaign is, in itself, a small battle where a point must be made again and again to produce a larger end result. Some were to benefit the day to day working of Britain and some were directly related to the fighting of a war. But in all ways, propaganda was the most obvious, yet the most accepted form of social control and has cemented itself within the overall narrative of the Second World War.

Sources:

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