The art of propaganda

The art of propaganda, by Megan Lane, published in the BBC News Magazine, talks about how an exhibition tries to rescue propaganda like artworks of the time of World War II, which encouraged in the North American Nation patriotism feelings. In this exhibition, the author says, it shows sketches, cartoons and paintings which reflect how life was in North America in the forties years, their needs, their jobs, their feelings about the war and how they worked toward an objective. Among 1900 artworks 250 of the best were chosen; those have been digitized for an online gallery.
But the influence of propaganda on the people in the 40s is different from the influence over the people now.
Even though propaganda is made with the same purpose, to influence the people’s minds, the people now don’t like propaganda, because this resource had been used too much. In the election time, for example, people are supersaturated with unpleasurable political propaganda.
Furthermore, it is important to consider that people now have many other ways to obtain information; to change what the people believe or not is not as simple as in the days of World War II. The war of the USA against Iraq is an example of this; the people shouldn’t be able to associate art with anything about the war, because these days we can see through the mass media the horror of the war.
However, we have now too, in the media, propaganda that tries to give us values like to share and to respect, and many others important to live. Not everything about propaganda these days is bad; as an example of this, the Mormons’ propaganda talking about the family and values, and some propaganda about September 11 that tries to awake in the people feelings like compassion.
As a result, I think initiatives like William Spencer’s are good to rescue the artworks from 1940s to enable us to compare with the propaganda in our days; in that way we will be able to notice as the change in the mentality of people and the advance of technology, which forced the propaganda to also change.
Lane, M. (2005, July 11). The art of propaganda. BBC News

By Vanessa