Research Point: Posters

Posters have a long and rich history documenting everything from boxing matches to Bollywood films, the Soviet Revolution to punk encouraging young men to join the army to persuading women to buy bras. There are many collections in books, in museums and galleries, and on the internet. Find out more about your own particular area of interest.

I decided to look at the use of posters for propaganda during the First World and Second World Wars. It was interesting to see how the posters really played on people’s emotions, trying to stir up various feelings of anger, pride, courage, hatred, shame/guilt and fear.  The posters were initially used as a tool to boost recruitment for the war efforts as conscription was not compulsory at the start of the First World War and the German army outnumbered Britain’s. The posters evolved to have other purposes, for example, recruitment of ‘women left behind’ to work in munitions factories. As the fighting lasted several years, the posters were also used as a way for governments  to justify them to the nation and to raise money via war bonds to support the war efforts.

What struck me the most was the play on emotions (by every involved country’s government) and how at that time the general population could have been manipulated as this type of media was their main source for ‘real-time’ updates on the war. I think nowadays, although it does still happen in some countries on a large scale, it would be harder as the general populations have access to a large range of media online, etc. However, I think it is important to think about where the information is coming from, who produced it and for what purpose.

Resources

https://www.canva.com/learn/examples-of-propaganda/

https://owlcation.com/humanities/How-Were-Propaganda-Posters-Used-In-World-War-1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/nazi_propaganda_gallery.shtml

https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/patriotism-and-nationalism#