During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, Washington policymakers aspired to destabilize the Soviet and East European Communist Party regimes by implementing programs of psychological warfare and gradual cultural infiltration. In focusing on American propaganda and cultural infiltration of the Soviet empire in these years, Parting the Curtain emerges as a groundbreaking study of certain aspects of US Cold War diplomacy never before examined.
Description: This work brings together a collection of articles around the concepts of propaganda and political rhetoric from the 14th century to 1999. It is divided into seven thematic and chronological sections which respond to some of the historiographical debates on these subjects. The first section is devoted to the late medieval and early-modern periods and deals with "proto-propaganda". The second part deals with the revolutionary century, 1789 to 1871. Esays examine the effect of British anti-revolutionary propaganda in Central Europe. Part three concentrates on 19th-century uses of propaganda and focuses on gender, while the central part of the book covers World War I and discusses the generalized use of self-conscious propaganda in the context of mass mobilization of for war. The following section on the inter-war years looks at the many different uses of propaganda and new media. The penultimate section on World War II looks at the use of propaganda in intelligence and counter-intelligence warfare. The last section looks at American film and television, revising many crude arguments on US expansionism, and the book concludes with an essay on psychological operations in the era of CNN televised warfare.
Description: This is an account of the historical background to Soviet thinking about propaganda. Traditionally Soviet leaders are thought to have devised an elaborate 'blueprint' for the indoctrination of their citizens. David Wedgwood Benn examines the evidence for such a 'blueprint' and highlights a major paradox, namely that the authorities in the USSR have previously attached greater importance to the organizational aspects of propaganda than the psychological. As a result they have been led into unrealistic beliefs about what propaganda can, and cannot, achieve. Part of the evidence for this lies in the fact that in Soviet Russia the social sciences, including psychology have at all times been subject to political constraints. The author describes the almost forgotten episode when opinion surveys were expressly forbidden in the Stalin era. He shows how the Soviet media became increasingly beset with problems of credibility - all of which helps to explain the reforms of 'glasnost'. The author shows that the family is a much more powerful factor in the shaping of individual values than the media and that Soviet citizens are more autonomous in their judgements than is often realized.
Description: The studies presented in this volume go back to the origins of the 20th century and continue until the present day. They deal with episodes of propaganda in different parts of the world and cover the history of organizations that carried it out, and the analysis of its means and content.
Description: Can the strategy of negative political advertising developed in the United States succeed in Canada, or does this kind of advertising do more harm than good?
The year 1988 saw elections in both the United States and Canada. It also saw a turning point in the tenor of television campaign advertising. By the early 1990s there was a growing reliance upon negative political images and symbols. This book is about that growing reliance. While focusing on the use of "attack" ads, Television Advertising in Canadian Elections provides a historical overview of the growth of negative advertising.
This is the first book-length investigation of negative political advertising in Canada.
