Hitler, Stalin, Mao - and AIDS
Mao at Anyuan
Image by British Library
By Daniel Nelson
Classic examples of propaganda: Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies, Stalin’s “Heroes of the Soviet Union”, 73-year-old Mao swimming the Yangtze, British health warnings against AIDS.
Public health messages? How come they are in the list? The British Library exhibition, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, explains: “Public health campaigns utilise methods similar to those more readily identified as propaganda. They use striking images and slogans, engender fear or exploit humour. Sometimes they demonise people as types of behaviour and habits.
“Information campaigns may be motivated by concerns for economic and military effectiveness, the cost of ill-health to public finances, or pressure from campaign groups.”
You probably won’t agree, but the exhibition curators argue that public health messages – along with the London Olympics and Twitter – fit the bill: “The exhibition explores the different ways in which the state has used propaganda to influence the thoughts and feelings of a nation, whether the message it carries creates an enemy, generates feelings of national pride or promotes a healthy lifestyle…”
It contains more than 200 exhibits, from Greek coins to a mesmerising data-driven installation that shows Twitter responses to three events, including Obama’s re-election and the reaction to the London Olympics opening ceremony: the cacophony of cyberspace.
Despite the coins and a few other ancient examples – including the first use of the term “propaganda”, by the Catholic Church in 1662– the exhibition focuses on the last 100 years. Inevitably, many examples are drawn from the Second World War, anti-Semitism, and the Cold War.
War features strongly, the exhibition admits, because states go into overdrive to convince its own people that the conflict is just and that everyone must contribute, not only by fighting but by supporting the war effort generally. It makes the case through well-known posters and images (“Careless talk costs lives”) as well as by ephemera such as paper bags designed to whip up support for tank manufacture. There are examples from all sides, as is delightfully shown by Britain’s stodgy Potato Pete and a delicately drawn Japanese counterpart, both aiming to boost local food production in a time of conflict.
There are some delightful snatches of old films (I love the stormforce-sneezing man in the use-your-handkerchief campaign), arresting graphics, a patriotic Boer War board game, and brief but excellent interviews with Tony Blair’s media man, Alastair Campbell, still railing about the British media and the “dodgy dossier”, US media analyst Noam Chomsky (recalling that Britain led the way in this field with the first Ministry of Information – “a nice Orwellian term”), journalist John Pilger (who’s strong on the power of unseen propaganda and “public relations”), MP Tessa Jowell, British academic David Welch and blogger Iain Dale.
It touches on propaganda used by a newly-independent countries to create a sense of unified purpose, and there are some fascinating gee-whizz facts: over 1 billion copies of Mao’s Little Red Book were printed, and so many badges – about 2 billion – that they became an alternative currency used as barter for goods and services. A painting of Mao that recalled him winning a strike 50 years previously “is believed to be the most reproduced painting anywhere in the world”, with more than 900 million copies made.
It’s an excellent exhibition, and a good introduction to the subject, but I would have given up some of the width for more depth. Propaganda seems to work best, for example, when it builds on existing prejudices: but what else do we know about its alleged successes and failures? Aerial leafleting, for example, and war propaganda has often been used, but is it really effective? Or only in certain circumstances? Similarly, so much has been documented about anti-Semitism that I wish it had been used to compare with, say, the techniques behind the genocide in Rwanda, or compared with Islamophobia today, or even brought into the context of the way anti-Israel feeling in the Middle East is leading to a resurgence in the region that may well seed an upsurge in the West. Or the anti-immigrant hysteria of parts of the British media today.
And surely the final section of the exhibition, on social media, should challenge viewers more. That’s where many younger will be engaged, not with Mao and Stalin, and many are dangerously over-confident about their ability to read between the lines of modern techniques.
· From the Little Red Book to the Green Cross Code, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, £9, under 18s free, British Library, 96 Euston Road, NW1, until 17 September. Info: 01937 546546/ boxoffice@bl.uk
Exhibition events:
Alastair Campbell in Conversation: Politics, the People and the Press
Fri 17 May 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
State Propaganda behind the Iron Curtain
Mon 20 May 2013, 18.30-20.30
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Propaganda and Politics in the Modern Age
Fri 24 May 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Half Term Family Workshops May 2013
Tue 28 May 2013 – Thu 30 May 2013, 11.00, 13.00 and 15.00
Price: Free
Picturing Propaganda: A Study Day
Sat 1 Jun 2013, 10.00-16.30
Price: £25 / £15 concessions
Late at the Library: The Party Rules
Fri 7 Jun 2013, 19.30-22.30
Price: £12.50
Propaganda in the Americas: A Historical Evaluation
Mon 10 Jun 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £4 / £3 concessions
Film Screening: Eisenstein's Strike
Fri 14 Jun 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Myths and Realities 19 Social Media: new democracy or mass deception?
Mon 17 Jun 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Justifying War
Fri 21 Jun 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Not a Day for Soundbites: The Craft of the Political Speech
Mon 24 Jun 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
The Art and Business of Persuasion
Mon 1 Jul 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
China: What does Propaganda mean for an Economic Superpower?
Tue 2 Jul 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Selling Britain: From Rule Britannia to London 2012
Wed 3 Jul 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Selling the Samovar: A One-Day Symposium
Mon 8 Jul 2013, 09.30-17.30
Price: £10 / £5 concessions
Matt Forde: The Political Party
Mon 15 Jul 2013, 19.00-21.00
Price: £14 / £12 concessions
Film Screening: Fires Were Started
Fri 26 Jul 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Write, Camera, Action!
Tue 30 Jul 2013 – Wed 31 Jul 2013, 11.00-16.00
Price: Free
Michael Dukakis: In Conversation
Tue 6 Aug 2013, 18.30-20.00
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions
Speakers' Corner at the British Library
Mon 2 Sep 2013 – Thu 5 Sep 2013, 13.00-13.45
Price: Free, no booking required
blog comments powered by Disqus
