History of propaganda

Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (perhaps lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information presented. The term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples.

Pre-modern precedents

Primitive forms of propaganda have been a human activity as far back as reliable recorded evidence exists. The Behistun Inscription (c. 515 BC) detailing the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne is viewed by most historians as an early example of propaganda. The '' Arthashastra'' written by Chanakya (c. 350 – 283 BC), a professor of political science at Takshashila University and a prime minister of the Maurya Empire in ancient India, discusses propaganda in detail, such as how to spread propaganda and how to apply it in warfare. His student Chandragupta Maurya (c. 340 – 293 BC), founder of the Maurya Empire, employed these methods during his rise to power. The best-known originator of Roman historiography was Quintus Fabius Pictor (3rd century BCE). His style of writing history defending the Roman state actions and using propaganda heavily eventually became a defining characteristic of Roman historiography. Another example of early propaganda is the 12th-century work, '' The War of the Irish with the Foreigners'', written by the Dál gCais to portray themselves as legitimate rulers of Ireland.

Propaganda during the Reformation, helped by the spread of the printing press throughout Europe, and in particular within Germany, caused new ideas, thoughts, and doctrine to be made available to the public in ways that had never been seen before the 16th century. The printing press was invented in approximately 1450 and quickly spread to other major cities around Europe; by the time the Reformation was underway in 1517 there were printing centres in over 200 of the major European cities. These centres became the primary producers of both Reformation works by the Protestant Reformers and anti-Reformation works put forth by the Roman Catholics.

During the U.S.'s Colonial period, religious writers and trading companies circulated glowing tracts urging settlement in the Americas, but often left out the risk and perils.Susan A. Brewer, "Propaganda", in ''The Oxford Companion to United States History'', ed. Paul S. Boyer (Oxford/NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), 625. During the era of the American Revolution, the American colonies had a flourishing network of newspapers and printers which specialized in the topic on behalf of the Patriots (and to a lesser extent on behalf of the Loyalists). The most famous single publication was '' Common Sense'', a 1776 pamphlet by Tom Paine that played a major role in articulating the demand for independence. On occasion, outright disinformation was used, as when Benjamin Franklin circulated false stories of atrocities committed by the Seneca Indians in league with the British. Later, '' The Federalist Papers'' were written under pseudonyms by three framers of the Constitution in order to influence public support for ratification.

In the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars both sides made heavy use of it during military campaigns with media literate. For instance, the Girondists distributed broadsheets among enemy troops offering them rewards for desertion.

19th century

Propaganda, as generally understood, is a modern phenomenon that emerged from the creation of literate and politically active societies informed by a mass media, where governments increasingly saw the necessity for swaying public opinion in favour of its policies.
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras produced some of the earliest propaganda of the Modern Period.
A notable example was perhaps during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, where Indian sepoys rebelled against the British East India Company's rule in India. Incidents of rape committed by Indian rebels against English women or girls were exaggerated to great effect by the British media to justify continued British colonialism in the Indian subcontinent. At the time, British newspapers had printed various accounts about English women and girls being raped by the Indian rebels. It was later found that some of these accounts were false stories created to perpetuate the common stereotypes of the native people of India as savages who need to be civilised by British colonialists, a mission sometimes known as " The White Man's Burden". One such account published by ''The Times'', regarding an incident where 48 English girls as young as 10–14 were supposedly raped by the Indian rebels in Delhi, was criticised as a false propaganda story by Karl Marx, who pointed out that the story was reported by a clergyman in Bangalore, far from the events of the rebellion.

In the U.S. prior to the Civil War, slavery proponents and abolitionists both disseminated their ideas through literature and lobbying. Early anti-slavery periodicals included ''Anti-Slavery Reporter'' and ''Freedom's Journal'' (1827–29), the last attacking the "return to Africa" colonization programs favored by many prominent politicians. Activists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Theodore Dwight Weld were very effective in anti-slavery societies' writings in winning over public opinion. On the pro-slavery side, the Ostend Manifesto (October 18, 1854) made a case for acquiring Cuba as a slave state, as a way of getting around the Missouri Compromise. In the wake of ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'' (1857), several books were written to bolster the decision. For instance, George Fitzhugh's ''Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters'' argued that the master-slave relationship was better than wage-slavery under capitalist exploitation. Another, Frederick A. Ross's ''Slavery Ordained of God'', used divine will to justify slavery and controversially equated slavery to the treatment of women (i.e., both slaves and women are children). Lastly came Augusta Jane Evans Wilson's ''Macaria; or, Altars of Sacrifice'' (1864), popular in the North and South, persuasively defended Confederate policy and predicted horrible consequences if the slaves were freed.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, propaganda techniques became more refined and effective due to, on the one hand, the growth of new communication technologies (e.g. underseas cables, wireless radio, silent motion pictures), and on the other, the development of modern advertising and public relations. Gabriel Tarde's ''Laws of Imitation'' (1890) and Gustave Le Bon's ''The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind'' (1897) were two of the first codifications of propaganda techniques, which influenced many writers afterward, including Sigmund Freud. Hitler's '' Mein Kampf'' is heavily influenced by Le Bon's theories.

First World War

The first large-scale and organised propagation of government propaganda was occasioned by the outbreak of war in 1914. In the war's initial stages, propaganda output was greatly increased by the British and German governments, to persuade their populace in the justness of their cause, to encourage voluntary recruitment, and above all to demonise the enemy. Heavy use was made of posters, as well as the new medium of film.

Germany

At the start of the war, Germany expanded its unofficial propaganda machinery, establishing the Central Office for Foreign Services, which among other duties was tasked with propaganda distribution to neutral nations, persuading them to either side with Germany or to maintain their stance of neutrality. After the declaration of war, Britain immediately cut the undersea communications cables that connected Germany to the outside world, thereby cutting off a major propaganda outlet. The Germans relied instead on the powerful wireless Nauen Transmitter Station to broadcast pro-German news reports to the world. Among other techniques used to keep up the morale of the troops, mobile cinemas were regularly dispatched to the front line for the entertainment of the troops. Newsreels would portray current events with a pro-German slant. German propaganda techniques heavily relied on emphasising the mythological and martial nature of the Germanic ' Volk' and the inevitability of its triumph.

Germany published several newspapers and magazines for the occupied areas. The 'Gazette des Ardennes,' was designed for French readers in Belgium and France, Francophone prisoners of war, and generally as a propaganda vehicle in neutral and even enemy countries. Editor Fritz H. Schnitzer had a relatively free hand, and he tried to enhance his credibility by factual information. He realized until the closing days of the war that it was necessary to produce an increasingly optimistic report to hide the weakening position of the Central Powers in the summer and fall of 1918.

The British made a careful analysis of the German propaganda campaigns. In terms of content, the official propaganda had multiple themes:
A) It proclaimed that German victory was a certainty.
B) It explained Germany was fighting a war of defence.
C) Enemy atrocities in were denounced, including its starvation plan for German civilians, use of dum dum bullets, and the use of black soldiers.
D) The rhetoric exalted Germany's historic mission to promote high culture and true civilization, celebrating the slogan "work, order, duty" over the enemy's "liberty, equality, fraternity."
E). It explained that German victory would benefit all of mankind, freeing the seas for all nations, and enabling the downtrodden colonies of the Allies to liberate themselves.
F). Germany needed to land to expand, as an outlet for its surplus population, talent, organizing ability, financial capital, and manufacturing output.
G). The riches of the world, especially raw materials, controlled by the British and the French, must be disgorged by the enemy to the benefit of Germany.
The propaganda designed for the home market included points A through G. Propaganda directed at neutral opinion downplayed D and F, and left out theme G. The Germans realized they needed to appeal to vocal supporters in countries allied with the Central Powers, especially Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey. They put special emphasis on the Muslim world, using Turkey as their leverage. Much of the propaganda was oriented toward minorities in the Allied countries, as they tried to stir up Muslims in India and Russia and ethnic groups in Eastern Europe, especially the Poles. In prioritizing the goal of destabilizing the enemy, Berlin realized that it was often counterproductive to promote German glories. Other elements that were hostile or indifferent to Germany, especially among the far left and the Muslims, could best be reached through their own spokesman. Hence large sums—upwards of nine tons of gold—were given the Bolsheviks to spread their own anti-tsarist propaganda.

Britain

British propaganda during World War I — called "an impressive exercise in improvisation" — was hastily expanded at the beginning of the war and was rapidly brought under government control as the War Propaganda Bureau (Wellington House), under the overall leadership of journalist Charles Masterman. The Bureau began its propaganda campaign on 2 September 1914 when Masterman invited 25 leading British authors to Wellington House to discuss ways of best promoting Britain's interests during the war. Those who attended included William Archer, Arthur Conan Doyle, Arnold Bennett, John Masefield, Ford Madox Ford, G. K. Chesterton, Henry Newbolt, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Gilbert Parker, G. M. Trevelyan and H. G. Wells. Several of the writers agreed to write pamphlets and books that would promote the government's point of view; these were printed and published by such well-known publishers as Hodder & Stoughton, Methuen, Oxford University Press, John Murray, Macmillan and Thomas Nelson.

After January 1916 the Bureau's activities were subsumed under the office of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In May 1916 Masterman began recruiting artists, including Muirhead Bone, Francis Dodd, Eric Kennington and others, to paint pictures of the war in France and the home front. In early 1918 it was decided that a senior government figure should take over responsibility for propaganda and on 4 March Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the '' Daily Express'' newspaper, was made Minister of Information. The British effort soon far surpassed the German in its quality and ability to sway the public mood both at home and abroad.

A variety of propaganda methods were used by the British during the war, with emphasis on the need for credibility. Written forms of distributed propaganda included books, pamphlets, official publications, ministerial speeches or royal messages. They were targeted at influential individuals, such as journalists and politicians, rather than a mass audience. Pamphlets were distributed to various foreign countries, primarily the United States: – these pamphlets were academic in tone and factual in nature, distributed through unofficial channels. By 1916, 7 million copies had been circulated by Wellington House in various languages.

British propagandists also sought to influence the foreign press, by providing it with information through the Neutral Press Committee and the Foreign Office. Special telegraph agencies were established in various European cities, including Bucharest, Bilbao and Amsterdam, in order to facilitate the spread of information.

Recruitment was a central theme of domestic propaganda until the introduction of conscription in January 1916. The most common theme for recruitment posters was patriotism, which evolved into appeals for people to do their 'fair share'. Among the most famous of the posters used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I were the "Lord Kitchener Wants You" posters, which depicted Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener above the words "WANTS YOU".

One major propaganda avenue was the use of atrocity stories. These aimed to mobilise hatred of the German enemy by spreading details of their atrocities, real or alleged, and was used extensively by Britain, reaching a peak in 1915, with much of the atrocities related to Germany's invasion of Belgium. One of the first significant publications to be produced by the Bureau was the '' Report on Alleged German Outrages'', in early 1915. This pamphlet documented atrocities both actual and alleged committed by the German army against Belgian civilians. Other atrocity stories included the fate of the nurse Edith Cavell and the Sinking of the RMS Lusitania. These had a significant impact both in Britain and in America, making front-page headlines in major newspapers.

United States

Before the United States declared war in 1917, the Woodrow Wilson administration established a propaganda department along similar lines. Propaganda experts Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays participated in the Committee on Public Information (CPI), which was tasked with swaying popular opinion to encourage enlistment and war bond sales. The CPI deployed posters, films, and provided themes for speeches by "four-minute men" at public functions, and also encouraged censorship of the American press. The American press played an unwitting role too by relying on daily war news cables controlled by the British government and by spreading false stories of German atrocities in Belgium and German-occupied eastern France supplied by the British as well. Starting after World War I, propaganda had a growing negative connotation. This was due in part to the 1920 book ''How We Advertised America: the First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information that Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe'' in which the impact of the CPI, and the power of propaganda, was overemphasised. Also, exposure of fact that the atrocity stories were false created public distrust. The CPI was so unpopular that after the war, Congress closed it down without providing funding to organise and archive its papers.

The war propaganda campaign of the CPI "produced within six months such an intense anti-German hysteria as to permanently impress American business (and Adolf Hitler, among others) with the potential of large-scale propaganda to control public opinion."

The use of film by the U.S. Signal Corps and the Committee on Public Information during World War features in the documentar
"Mobilizing Movies!" (2017).

Russian revolution

White propaganda

The '' Protocols of the Elders of Zion'', a fraudulent anti-Semitic conspiracy text, was first printed in a Black Hundreds newspaper shortly before the Revolution of 1905. It became widely circulated as an explanation for the uprisings. As the 1917 October Revolution unfolded, causing White movement-affiliated Russians to flee to the West, '' The Protocols'' was carried along with them and assumed a new purpose. Until then, ''The Protocols'' had remained obscure; it now became an instrument for blaming Jews for the Russian Revolution. It was a directly political weapon, used against the Bolsheviks who were depicted as overwhelmingly Jewish, allegedly executing the Judeo-Bolshevist "plan" embodied in ''The Protocols''. The purpose was to discredit communism, prevent the West from recognizing the Soviet Union, and bring about the downfall of Vladimir Lenin's regime.

Red propaganda

Russian revolutionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries distinguished two different aspects covered by the English term ''propaganda''. Their terminology included two terms: russian: агитация (agitatsiya), or ''agitation'', and russian: пропаганда, or ''propaganda'', see agitprop (agitprop is not, however, limited to the Soviet Union, as it was considered, before the October Revolution, to be one of the fundamental activities of any Marxist activist; this importance of agit-prop in Marxist theory may also be observed today in Trotskyist circles, who insist on the importance of leaflet distribution).

Soviet ''propaganda'' meant dissemination of revolutionary ideas, teachings of Marxism, and theoretical and practical knowledge of Marxist economics, while ''agitation'' meant forming favourable public opinion and stirring up political unrest. These activities did not carry negative connotations (as they usually do in English) and were encouraged. Expanding dimensions of state propaganda, the Bolsheviks actively used transportation such as trains, aircraft and other means.

Joseph Stalin's regime built the largest fixed-wing aircraft of the 1930s, Tupolev ANT-20, exclusively for this purpose. Named after the famous Soviet writer Maxim Gorky who had recently returned from fascist Italy, it was equipped with a powerful radio set called "Voice from the sky", printing and leaflet-dropping machinery, radio stations, photographic laboratory, film projector with sound for showing movies in flight, library, etc. The aircraft could be disassembled and transported by railroad if needed. The giant aircraft set a number of world records.

File:RJB23 – Friede 1917 1.jpg, Meeting Germans in No Man's Land (1917)
File:RJB23 – Friede 1917 2.jpg, Meeting before the Russian wire entanglements (1917)
File:1923 Bolshevik propaganda train.jpg, alt=Bolshevik propaganda train, 1923., Bolshevik propaganda train, 1923
File:ANT-20.jpg, alt=ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky" propaganda aircraft in the Moscow sky., ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky" propaganda aircraft in the Moscow sky

Post-war

Bernays, a nephew of Freud, who wrote the book Propaganda early in the 20th century, later coined the terms "group mind" and "engineering consent", important concepts in practical propaganda work. He wrote:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

The documentary film Century of the Self by Adam Curtis explores the influence of these ideas on public relations and politics throughout the last century.

Lippmann, in ''Public Opinion'' (1922) also worked on the subject, as well as the American advertising pioneer and founder of the field of public relations Edward Bernays, a nephew of Freud, who wrote the book Propaganda early in the 20th century.

According to Alex Carey, one distinctive feature of the 20th century was "the professionalising and institutionalising of propaganda", as it became an increasingly prominent, sophisticated, and self-conscious tactic of both government and business.

Nazi Germany

After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, military officials such as Erich Ludendorff suggested that British propaganda had been instrumental in their defeat. Adolf Hitler came to echo this view, believing that it had been a primary cause of the collapse of morale and the revolts in the German home front and Navy in 1918 (see also: Dolchstoßlegende). Later, the Nazis adapted many British propaganda techniques during their time in power. Most propaganda in Germany was produced by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Joseph Goebbels was placed in charge of this ministry shortly after Hitler took power in 1933. All journalists, writers and artists were required to register with one of the Ministry's subordinate chambers for the press, fine arts, music, theatre, film, literature or radio.

Hitler met nearly every day with Goebbels to discuss the news, and Goebbels would obtain Hitler's thoughts on the subject. Goebbels then met with senior Ministry officials to pass down the official Party line on world events. Broadcasters and journalists required prior approval before their works were disseminated. Along with posters, the Nazis produced a number of films and books to spread their beliefs.

On 13 March 1933, The Third Reich established a Ministry of Propaganda, appointing Joseph Goebbels as its Minister. Goals were to establish external enemies (countries that allegedly inflicted the Treaty of Versailles on Germany – by territorial claims and ethnocentrism) and internal enemies, such as Jews, Romani, homosexuals, Bolsheviks and topics like degenerate art.

A major political and ideological cornerstone of Nazi policy was the unification of all ethnic Germans living outside of the Reich's borders under one Greater Germany (e.g. Austria and Czechoslovakia). In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler made a direct remark to those outside of Germany. He stated that pain and misery were being forced upon ethnic Germans outside of Germany, and that they dream of common fatherland. He finished by stating they needed to fight for one's nationality. Throughout ''Mein Kampf'', he pushed Germans worldwide to make the struggle for political power and independence their main focus. Nazi propaganda used the '' Heim ins Reich'' policy for this, which began in 1938.

For months prior to the beginning of World War II in 1939, German newspapers and leaders had carried out a national and international propaganda campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Germans living in Poland. On 22 August, Adolf Hitler told his generals:

The main part of this propaganda campaign was the false flag project, Operation Himmler, which was designed to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used to justify the invasion of Poland.

Nuremberg Laws

In 1935, racist laws in Nazi Germany were introduced known as the Nuremberg Laws, the laws forbade non-Aryans and political opponents of the Nazis from the civil-service and any sexual relations and marriage between people classified as "Aryan" and "non-Aryan" (Jews, Gypsies, blacks) was prohibited as '' Rassenschande'' or "race defilement". The Nuremberg Laws were based on notions of racial purity and sought to preserve the Aryan race, who were at the top of the Nazi racial hierarchy and were said to be the ubermenschen "herrenvolk" (master race), and to teach the German nation to view the Jews as subhumans.

Hitler and Nazi propagandists played on the anti-Semitism and resentment present in Germany. The Jews were blamed for things such as robbing the German people of their hard work while themselves avoiding physical labour. '' Der Stürmer'', a Nazi propaganda newspaper, told Germans that Jews kidnapped small children before Passover because "Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah." Posters, films, cartoons, and fliers were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community. One of the most infamous such films was The Eternal Jew directed by Fritz Hippler.

Political opponents

Soon after the takeover of power in 1933, Nazi concentration camps were established for political opponents. The first people that were sent to the camps were Communists. They were sent because of their ties with the Soviet Union and because Nazism greatly opposed Communism.

France in the 1930s

France, a democratic society in the 1930s, but the people were kept in the dark about critical issues of foreign policy. The government tightly controlled all of the media to promulgate propaganda to support the government's foreign policy of appeasement to the aggressions of Italy and especially Nazi Germany. There were 253 daily newspapers, all owned separately. The five major national papers based in Paris were all under the control of special interests, especially right-wing political and business interests that supported appeasement. They were all venal, taking large secret subsidies to promote the policies of various special interests. Many leading journalists were secretly on the government payroll. The regional and local newspapers were heavily dependent on government advertising and published news and editorials to suit Paris. Most of the international news was distributed through the Havas agency, which was largely controlled by the government. Radio was a potentially powerful new medium, but France was quite laggard in consumer ownership of radio sets, and the government impose very strict controls. After 1938, stations were allowed only three brief daily bulletins, of seven minutes each, to cover all the day's news. The Prime Minister's office closely supervised the news items that were to be broadcast. Newsreels were tightly censored; they were told to feature none controversial but glamorous entertainers, film premieres, sporting events, high-fashion, new automobiles, an official ceremonies. Motion pictures likely likewise were censored, and were encouraged to reinforce stereotypes to the effect that the French were always lovers of liberty and justice, contending against cruel and barbarous Germans. The government-subsidized films that glorified military virtues and the French Empire. The goal was to tranquilize public opinion, to give it little or nothing to work with, so as not to interfere with the policies of the national government. When serious crises emerged such as the Munich crisis of 1938, people were puzzled and mystified by what was going on. When war came in 1939, Frenchman had little understanding of the issues, and little correct information. They suspiciously distrusted the government, with the result that French morale in the face of the war with Germany was badly prepared.

Second World War

World War II saw continued use of propaganda as a weapon of war, building on the experience of WW1, both by Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the British Political Warfare Executive, as well as the United States Office of War Information (OWI).

Within the US, the British Security Coordination activities worked to counter pro-German sentiment, and isolationist opinion. Because of public distrust following the revelation of false atrocity stories during WW1 and the heavy association of propaganda with the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the U.S. government referred to its own propaganda effort as a "strategy of truth", this time using as its main method newsreels and an information format. Enlisting the cooperation of the news media, industry, and Hollywood, the OWI portrayed the war as a contest against democracy and dictatorship, good and evil. While the OWI focused on the home front, the Allies, and neutral countries, the military and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) engaged in psychological warfare by directing propaganda against the Axis powers.

The British broadcast black propaganda through fake German-language radio stations to Europe. It was disguised to sound like legitimate German radio broadcasts, but it had a negative twist designed to undermine German morale. The Germans undertook a similar program. The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda used English language broadcasts – such as '' Germany Calling'' – broadcast to the UK. Presenter William Joyce – a British fascist – gained the nickname "Lord Haw-Haw" from the popular press.

In the US, animation became popular, especially for winning over youthful audiences and aiding the U.S. war effort, e.g., ''Der Fuehrer's Face'' (1942), which ridicules Hitler and advocates the value of freedom. Some American war films in the early 1940s were designed to create a patriotic mindset and convince viewers that sacrifices needed to be made to defeat the Axis Powers. Others were intended to help Americans understand their Allies in general, as in films lik
''Know Your Ally: Britain''
an
''Our Greek Allies''
Apart from its war films, Hollywood did its part to boost American morale in a film intended to show how stars of stage and screen who remained on the home front were doing their part not just in their labors, but also in their understanding that a variety of peoples worked together against the Axis menace: ''Stage Door Canteen'' (1943) feature
one segment meant to dispel Americans' mistrust of the Soviets
an
another to dispel their bigotry against the Chinese

Cold War propaganda

During the Cold War, propaganda became highly ideological rather than tactical, and the rivalry among the United States, Soviet Union, and People's Republic of China generated the most pervasive and intense propaganda seen thus far.

All sides used film, television, and radio programming to influence their own citizens, each other, and Third World nations. The United States Information Agency operated the Voice of America as an official government station. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which were, in part, supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, provided grey propaganda in news and entertainment programs to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union respectively. The Soviet Union's official government station, Radio Moscow, broadcast white propaganda, while Radio Peace and Freedom broadcast grey propaganda. Both sides also broadcast black propaganda programs in periods of special crises.

In 1948, the United Kingdom's Foreign Office created the IRD (Information Research Department), which took over from wartime and slightly post-war departments such as the Ministry of Information and dispensed propaganda via various media such as the BBC
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