Propaganda: war posters, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
The war posters in the Propaganda exhibition turn out to be surprisingly varied in their intent | PICTURES
Public opinion has always mattered when waging war, or when a nation undertakes any great effort that demands the support of the people. Even totalitarian regimes are concerned with the morale of the masses and expend enormous efforts on propaganda to prevent disaffection and ensure commitment to the revolutionary cause.
The difference between democratic and totalitarian regimes in this regard is that in the former leaders have to persuade the people of their policies, while in the latter they merely have to tell them that the policies they have adopted are the right ones.
Pericles, in a celebrated speech reported by Thucydides, makes this point contrasting Athens and Sparta. The Spartans, he says, suppress political debate, but the Athenians allow opposing views to be openly canvassed in the confidence that they are thus more likely to arrive at the right policy and that the whole population will back the majority decision.
The vehicle for debate and for persuasion, in the Athenian democracy, was direct address to fellow citizens in assemblies and law courts. In an unmediated political culture, without members of parliament or barristers, each citizen had to speak for himself, both in political and in legal settings; and the art of speaking, rhetoric, naturally became a very important part of the education of any young man who was destined for a role of leadership.
It is no accident that debating remains an important activity in the schools and universities that educate our future elites. Rhetoric is at its most effective in direct address, which is why in modern times oratory has played a vital part in political agitation and political campaigning.
But in a mass society it was impossible to address a substantial proportion of the population at large, as could be done in the small city-states of Greece.
In World War II, Winston Churchill made inspired use of the relatively new technology of radio — radio stations only dated from the 1920s — to directly reach the British public, with his unique genius for finding words that spoke to the heart and spirit of the people, across barriers of class and education.
Others used radio too, and then television, but TV is a more superficial and less patient medium than radio, with an attention span of seconds rather than minutes, encouraging politicians to reduce their messages to ever more vacuous slogans and formulas, and to avoid anything spontaneous, sincere, or capable of being taken out of context.
More recently the rise of the internet, with its constant rehashing of news and the need to keep refreshing content on the web page, has led to an endless heaping of commentary on commentary.
Social media, with its inane opinions, self-righteousness, indignation, outrage and other forms of self-indulgence, has in turn fed into that cycle, so that the febrile static of opinion becomes new matter for commentary.
But the real significance of this phenomenon is that what was originally a feedback mechanism has become more powerful than the original means of address: it is far harder to convey a strong message to the people than it is for them to chatter back, often in a hubbub dominated by special interests.
And does that mean more democracy? On the contrary, it simply means more distraction from long-term policy, and more attempts at micro-manipulation of the populace, instead of offering leadership. Real leadership, we seem to have forgotten, is not the same as marketing. It is not about chasing after the people; it is a matter of showing them what is right and convincing them to follow you. And that has to start with clear thinking, long perspectives and conviction, none of which is particularly common in a political environment shredded by electronic media.
The war posters in the Propaganda exhibition at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery represent another way of communicating with a mass audience in wartime. They are not the same thing as properly political posters, since they are not partisan, nor are they advocating for or against any matter of policy. The situation of war is a given; the posters therefore address the people about issues relating to the circumstances of war, but the means of address and the topics of concern turn out to be surprisingly varied.
Although not exhibited as distinct groups, the posters belong to the two world wars, and much changed between these conflicts. Some changes relate to the different technologies used — aerial bombardment, for example, was in its infancy in World War I but immensely destructive in World War II — but some are a matter of aesthetics and design.
Between the wars, the modernist styles that had first appeared in the years before World War I, including elements of cubism, abstraction and futurism, as well as aspects of Dada, which appeared during that war, and surrealism, which flourished in the 20s, entered the language of design and produced a modernist idiom of simplified forms that became generally legible.
Cinema, too, which developed rapidly between the wars, accustomed audiences to a different way of seeing the world, framing the relations of figures in new ways and introducing new angles of vision and perspectives.
It is important also to bear in mind that these posters were produced in an environment far less cluttered with visual noise than our own. Today we are surrounded not only by posters and billboards but by high-impact colour advertising in shops, on covers of magazines, on TV and, relentlessly, on mobile devices. We have to imagine these images, with their strong and simple designs, experienced by a public not yet stupefied by constant visual aggression.
Thus some of the first ones, at the start of World War I, are remarkably simple, such as the poster that simply says “YOUR KING AND COUNTRY NEED YOU: ENLIST NOW” against a Union Jack background. Recruitment posters were common, especially when, in Australia, referendums to introduce conscription for service abroad were twice defeated. Another poster attempts to conflate the glamour of being a sportsman with the patriotic duty to serve. Later, as the need for men became more acute, there are more desperate appeals, such as Norman Lindsay’s poster in which a wounded soldier calls for help while his companion is about to be bayoneted by German soldiers.
Less histrionic but even more deeply biting is one of the most famous posters of the period, which was produced in 1915 but is implicitly set some years in the future, after victory has been achieved. A little girl sits on her father’s lap and asks, “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?” He looks away, not knowing what to say in reply, aware that the truth will disappoint her. If this wasn’t clear enough, his little son is playing with toy soldiers on the floor, reminding us of the martial vocation of men, which the father has evaded to save his own skin. The effect of projected shame is insidious and was part of the psychological pressure applied to young men to induce them to enlist.
World War II posters are different in many respects, partly, as already mentioned, because of changes since the previous war. Aerial warfare and cinema had developed enormously, and the telephone, a relative novelty in World War II, was ubiquitous by 1939.
One consequence of the increased speed of communication was a correspondingly increased security risk: information could be intercepted or overheard, then almost instantaneously retransmitted to the enemy. One of the consequences of this risk was the effort put into message encryption and code-breaking.
As far as the general public was concerned, however, it was important to make everyone aware of the risk of inadvertently leaking military secrets. This could take any form, from loose chatter at the factory, the shops or the pub, to wives and girlfriends discussing what they knew about troop movements.
Posters specifically target this danger, with two girls talking in a restaurant, unaware they are being overheard, and another poster in which a male figure is shown as half well-dressed gentleman and half Nazi officer. The consequences of seemingly trivial information leaks are dramatically emphasised in posters such as Someone talked!, in which a drowning sailor in the foreground reaches vainly for help while his ship sinks in the background. In He talked — they died, modern graphic design is used to make a direct link between loose speech and the death of soldiers in the field.
In general, World War II posters seem to address the public at large rather than encourage young men to enlist. One American poster, for example — designed by Walt Disney — urges workers to stick with their jobs rather than taking advantage of the shortage of labour and thus higher wages to move from one employer to another. Others encourage women to work in what are called “victory jobs”, implying that all of this work is vital to winning the war. Several posters remind civilians to consume less food or fuel in order to help the war effort. Others again, perhaps curiously, emphasise safety at work and warn of the hazards of debris or oil spills on factory floors.
There is a deeper concern, however, which seems to come through all these particular appeals, even those for security but especially those for war economy, safety and so forth, and that is simply to make everyone in the community feel part of the war effort.
World War II propaganda does not encourage the sort of extreme anti-German hysteria that was so striking in the previous war, with regular characterisation of the Hun as a subhuman monster. But when people are suffering, for years at a time, both the trauma of rocket attack and the grinding constraints of rationing and military discipline, it is vital to make them feel that all this is part of a great collective and national effort.
Finally there is the poster that, although printed in 1939, was almost unknown until its recent rediscovery: Keep calm and carry on. Of course a great part of the appeal of this message lies in its quintessentially British spirit of unflappable determination.
But when we consider that it was originally designed to be displayed in the event of German invasion, it acquires a new pathos: the order, whose origin is signified by the royal crown, was implicitly meant to be read under circumstances in which both government and palace might be in exile or even destroyed — a last message from the king to his people to maintain their phlegmatic stoicism in the face of all adversity.
Propaganda
Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
Until July 8
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout