PRESENTATION OUTLINE
THE MEDIA COVERAGE OF WAR
The Cold War is accepted to have lasted from 1947 to 1991. During this time, the media’s biggest way of communication involved radio and print into television.
When America's goals for European capitalism seemed to be in danger; media from both sides jumped into action.
HOw it started
- The end of World War 2 set the stage for Cold War,the struggle between communism and capitalism that pitted East against West,pushed the world to the edge of nuclear war.
- At the start of the conflict, media coverage of the Cold War between America, its allies and the Soviet Union served to escalate the fear of any upcoming destruction. “The Red Scare” campaigns of the Western media were presented on every appropriate media source. The use of print with controversial pictures helped to reconsider national identity as a patriotic America, against a dangerous and destructive communist nation. The media distributed extreme propagandist signs such as “Better Dead than Red!”
“A nation that knows how to popularize cornflakes and luxury automobiles ought to be able to tell the world the simple truth about what it is doing and why it is doing it.” – Lyndon B. Johnson, Then-Vice President of the United States in 1961
The political behavior between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1990 not only continued enemy propaganda in both countries, but was also a power battle between both nations to sell their respective ideas to the world.
In 1948, the information program received permanent legislative penalty with the passage of the Smith-Mundt Act the first legislative charter for a peacetime propaganda program. The act gave the State Department control over both international information operations and cultural and educational exchange programs. Additional propaganda activities were conducted by the newly created Central Intelligence Agency, the economic assistance agencies and the armed forces, especially the army.
“There are some who say that we must teach each subject “objectively”, avoiding propaganda and the kind of mental conditioning which the communists themselves provide in their education. If they mean by this that those who teach about communism must strive to maintain a neutral and dispassionate posture and must avoid condemning it, then I cannot agree with them.” – Thomas J. Dodd, then-Connecticut Senator at the 1963 Conference on Cold War education
Moreover, it is important to notice how education served as a propaganda tool by focusing on American beliefs of freedom and democracy, and by presenting the Soviet Union as the enemy who held opposing viewpoints such as communism.
“We have to get tough with the Russians. They don’t know how to behave. They are like bulls in a china shop. They are only 25 years old. We are over 100 and the British are centuries older. We have got to teach them how to behave.” Harry Truman,1945
The Soviet media also used the method of radio within it's own states and other countries as a form of transnational propaganda. Because the Soviet media was state censored; it attempted to minimize it's appearance by covering it's production origins. The USSR had many “international” radio stations that were indeed located in the Soviet Republic.
"Duck and Cover" Movie Analysis
This was made shortly after Soviet Union began testing for nuclear bombs.The government agencies who made the movie used propaganda to calm the fears and opinions people had about atomic
attacks.
They used propaganda devices such as plain folks, bad logic, and fear enhance.
