Abstract
Gary Messinger, an expert on war propaganda, asks readers to imagine a time not far in the future when the power of nations to use mass communication to conjure and wage war will be challenged by those seeking to mediate conflict, a time when political actors will compete for public support and political influence on the battlefield of ideas. This comprehensive and compact twentieth-century history about the use of mass communication to influence hearts and minds in times of conflict testifies to how well media have served the masters of war. However, Messinger proposes that the twenty-first century could mark a change in this dynamic, influenced by broad-based access to the tools and techniques of mass communication wielded by a far wider array of political actors and a growing understanding that media can serve purposes more idealistic than reporting war and disseminating propaganda.
The author traces the historical development of mass media technologies and their strategic uses in times of conflict over 150 years in this articulate, well-woven synthesis aimed at a general reader. Beyond its readability and manageable length, considering its international scope, Messinger provides a refreshing departure from generally U.S.-centric media history provided in most textbooks. In this respect, Messinger’s approach compares to Phillip Knightley, who provides the other exception to U.S.-centric media history in his critique of war reporting, The First Casualty.
The Battle for the Mind defines mass communication broadly to include speeches, film, novels, and pamphlets in addition to the expected reporting, advertising, and public relations efforts produced by or for the government. The author shows how an audience hungry for news and excitement, combined with profit motive and nationalism, can brew potent antagonisms that fan popular support for war, then pile fuel on the fire once war begins.
The Battle for the Mind is organized into chapters focused on periods of twentieth-entury world conflict and their brief interstices, exploring why and how different nations, leaders, and political players used mass communication to influence public and political opinion, and to what effect. It begins with the years 1850 to 1914, when telegraphy dramatically increased the transmission speed of news and prompted the founding of news syndicates in the United States and Europe. Chapters 2 through 5, the longest and most comprehensive chapters, cover the increasing use of mass communication by governments during WWI, the frustrating interwar years of failed peace, and the militarization and nationalism fueling WWII. Two chapters focus on the use of propaganda techniques used by authoritarian regimes during this period. Chapter 6 covers the Cold War years 1945 to 1991, and Chapter 7 covers the post–Cold War years 1991 to 2006. This concluding chapter also considers ways mass communication might contribute to peace, including global efforts by Reporters Without Borders to monitor hotspots and curricula for international reporters centered on conflict resolution rather than reactive war reporting.
The author identifies WWI as a turning point in the use of media in times of war, which also serves as an example of his comparative methodology. The speed of transmission by telegraph and telephone helped accelerate the rush to war by quickly overtaking slower, more measured diplomatic exchanges that had delayed decisions to engage armies in the past. War news saturated European society as telegraphs reached even remote towns to report massive casualties suffered through a deadly mix of trench warfare, machine guns, and poison gas. War news was supplemented by newspaper and magazine photography. Germany, meanwhile, fine-tuned leafleting into a psychological weapon to frighten populations into surrender or collaboration. England did not need to produce much in the way of government-sponsored propaganda because well-known writers and seasoned reporters were doing such a good job of persuading the public for them. As latecomers to the war, Americans were at first the objects of European propaganda, but were later rallied by Committee of Public Information director George Creel, who mobilized well beyond news reporting to create speakers bureaus, advertising campaigns, and films to rally wartime support. Presidential candidate Eugene Debs was summarily prosecuted under new sedition legislation aimed at silencing dissent and dissenters.
The comparative approach also demonstrates how closely aligned media are to the institutions of war in every nation, and how quickly technical innovations are absorbed and put to use by increasingly security-obsessed and militarized states in the post-WWI era. Missing in the media at the time was responsible reporting about European rearmament. Just how closely aligned the media had grown to the institutions and industries of war would become evident in WWII.
Chapters 4 and 5 are important because they explore the use of mass communication by the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, and Japan as they rearmed and retooled society along authoritarian lines after WWI. The Soviet Union had the advantage of having never dismantled wartime propaganda programs after WWI, but the others were quick to build their own, aided perhaps by the fact that both Stalin and Mussolini were former journalists, and the themes of racial superiority, youthful vigor, and hypernationalism provided such fertile ground for all forms of media productions, including film. Journalists of Western democracies, in contrast, often had difficulty explaining complex international events to the public, and instead advertisers lulled them into consumer-fueled stupor from where it was difficult to arouse their interest in world events until the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The post-WWII superpowers, by then teetering on the edge of mutual nuclear annihilation, fought an ever more symbolic war of brinkmanship, where television viewers become participants in world events. From the Kitchen Debates to the visual dismantling of the Berlin Wall, live visual representation overtook every other medium in shaping public perception. The most significant development in the struggle for influence in the early twenty-first century is the emergence and growth of global media outlets, such as Al Jazeera, which chips away at Western media’s hegemony in explaining world events. This multipolar media phenomenon, combined with irretrievable errors and intentional lies leading up to the Iraq war, has certainly contributed to the pandemic of disillusionment about mass media and their uses.
On the brighter side, this multivectored, multipolar media world may be opening new possibilities related to Messinger’s more optimistic message about the use of mass communication for the purpose of mediating conflict before it flares into war. Arab Spring falls outside the scope of this book, which ends in 2006, but provides a twenty-first-century example of how political activists have already employed mass communication with astonishing effectiveness to rally support from around the globe for the peaceful transfer of political power, if not the end or prevention of war. Even as hopes for immediate peaceful outcomes were dashed and brutal state repression set in, the use of mass media by these new political actors continues to rally international support. Although Mideast outcomes are still uncertain, the moment has certainly arrived when political actors, who do not possess the resources of nation-states, can rally international support for peaceful change using cell phones and social media. Perhaps the battle for minds will be fought on a more pluralistic and level ground after all.
The Battle for the Mind is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students as a primary or secondary text in global media or media history courses.