The role of the media during WW1 - influence on British attitudes
- Created by: emi_dow
- Created on: 21-03-19 09:41
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- The role of media during WW1
- Methods of propaganda
- Censorship & control of the Press
- Journalists who went to the front on their own without permission risked being shot or arrested
- In 1915, four correspondents were allowed to come to France
- It was clear that it was more effective to work with the press
- By late 1915, some news correspondents were allowed close to the front lines
- A colonel at GHQ in France wrote dispatches to Kitchener who reviewed them; then published as "eyewitness" reports
- Rumours & Myths
- The Angel of Mons
- Accounts from the front line - exaggeration
- Lies
- 'Fake News' story published in The Times which revealed the existence of a 'Corpse Conversion Factory' which was used to process the bodies of dead soldiers
- Cinema
- The 'Battle of the Somme' was one of the most successful films made with £30,000 profit
- Distressing material was sometimes edited out, but it doesn't seem that fictitious footage was added
- Cartoons
- They were basic, crude, and unsophisticated but had clear, unmissable messages
- Censorship & control of the Press
- Messages within propaganda
- The 'Enemy within' Britain
- 'Spy-Spotting' became a popular activity
- Around 36 spies were arrested and imprisoned by the government at the outbreak of war
- Those which inspired optimism
- The appearance of Angels who saved British troops
- Russian soldiers seen in Britain
- Demonisation of the Germans
- Rumours of atrocities involving children, women, nuns, ****, cruel torture
- Verified by Belgian refugees who fled to Britain
- Accounts of the killings of 'non-combatants'
- The execution of Edith Cavell
- The sinking of the Lusitania
- Criticism of the German shelling of Scarborough and Hartlepool which was done to heighten British fears of invasion
- Rumours of atrocities involving children, women, nuns, ****, cruel torture
- The 'Enemy within' Britain
- Successes of propaganda
- Moulded Britsh attitudes towards the Germans
- Boosted morale
- Failures of propaganda
- Very chaotic
- There was a lack of direction
- reliant on voluntary bodies
- Often very contradictory
- The government's role
- 1914 - The Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House was set up under Masterman
- Kept secret even from MPs
- Was very chaotic because there was no clear person in charge
- 1917 - Department of information set up under Montgomery and Buchan
- Wellington House continued to provide material for home consumption
- There was a CInema division
- Political Intelligence division discovered public opinions
- The News Division filtered the war news received by the public
- 1918 - The Ministry of Information set up under Beaverbrook
- By then, there was considerable experience in the propaganda field
- The government's approach at the beginning of the war was to let the 'propaganda machine roll of its own accord'
- 1914 - The Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House was set up under Masterman
- Methods of propaganda
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