Propaganda During Ww2 Essay

The Commonwealth Government implemented many wartime strategies, controlling the daily life of Australian citizens throughout WW2. Rationing the distribution of resources encouraged a resourceful spirit amongst the Australian public, whilst limiting everyday essentials. The use of propaganda became a more intrusive control by the Commonwealth government, as they interfered with beliefs as well as actions, regarding enlistment, the war effort and opinions towards enemy soldiers. The heavy censorship of information during WW2, had a significant impact on the Australian understanding of war as apposed to the horrifying realities, censorship also worked to protect military information from enemy interception, however at a strong cost to the freedom

As stated by US Senator Hiram Johnson in 1918 “The first casualty when war comes is truth”, this statement is very accurate in the case of wartime propaganda. Propaganda aimed to promote the political views of the Australian Government, by intentionally communicating misleading and biased messages, through means of advertisements, newsreels and newspaper articles. Depictions of fresh-faced, happy airmen alongside shiny airforce planes, were used to encourage voluntary enlistment, when the reality for airforce men was far from the perfect veneer portrayed by Australian Government Propaganda. Airforce propaganda did not include statistics of the particularly high death tolls and other facts deemed undesirable by the Australian Department of Information (who published propaganda). Many of the propaganda posters would now be considered discriminatory due to their prejudicial and stereotypical representations of enemy soldiers. By using these racist posters, the Commonwealth Government encouraged hatred and anger towards the enemy and influenced Australian’s everyday perceptions of those born in other countries. Propaganda was successful in maintaining high morale, increasing enlistment and maintaining production, however it may also be responsible for a strong racist culture

It is to be noted that the “Freedom expression” or Freedom of speech rights that are currently in place, were not present during WW2 and so Newspapers could not publish whatever content they wanted to. Censorship aimed to prevent important tactical information from being intercepted by enemy hands, prevent the spread of rumours and fake news about Australia’s military and maintain morale on the home front. Both private transfers of information, including letters from the warfront soldiers to families at home and public reporting in newspapers, radio and film, were heavily censored. An example of censorship’s unpopularity was in 1944 when journalists were so aggravated by the suppression of information, that some Sydney newspapers printed blank spaces throughout articles where Censors had removed content, to show the public the large amounts of information they had not been allowed to publish. This action breached the National Security Regulations and police were involved to stop the distribution of these newspapers. Though it had aimed to control the spread of rumours, censorship may have instead contributed to the fuelling of false information. The reality of human nature interfered with the theoretical intentions of censorship as people regularly filled in the gaps where information had