Transcript World War I

JAMM 445
History of Mass Media
Week 11: Media Coverage of War
This week
Media coverage of war
 Today: World War I (Voices, ch. 11)
 Friday: World War II, Vietnam
Next week
Media coverage of war
 Monday: Gulf Wars I and II
– Turn in Oral-History reports
Wednesday: TBD
 Friday, April 29: 2nd exam (short
answer and one essay)

Week of May 2
Oral-history presentations:
 M: News
 W: Sports, photography
 F: Advertising, production, business
One Powerpoint slide, 3-4 mins. of highlights
Check roster today, check off completed
interviews
Second exam
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Spring Break to present
5 compare/contrast, 1 essay in class
1 take-home essay:
– Handed out May 4, due May 13 (12 noon)
Quote of the Day
“The last war, during the years of 1915,
1916, 1917 was the most colossal,
murderous, mismanaged butchery
that has ever taken place on earth.
Any writer who said otherwise lied.
So the writers either wrote
propaganda, shut up, or fought.”
--Ernest Hemingway
World War I: Combatants
Allies
 France
 Great Britain
 Russia (pre-1917)
 United States (after
1917)
Central Powers
 Germany
 Austria-Hungary
 Ottoman Empire
(Turkey)
World War I: Causes
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Fervent nationalism in Europe
Arms race of previous decades
Intricate system of alliances
Poor diplomatic communications
Inflexible military planning
Why the U.S.
got involved

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Economic ties to Allies
1915: Sinking of Lusitania
1917: Zimmerman telegram
Anti-German propaganda (by British)
Unrestricted submarine warfare (by
Germany)
Why the U.S. got involved
Woodrow Wilson
 President, 1912-1920
 Election of 1916: “He
kept us out of war.”
 1917: “The world must
be made safe for
democracy.”
 April 6, 1917: Asks
Congress to declare war
Why the U.S. got involved
“Once lead this people into
war and they’ll forget
there ever was such a
thing as tolerance. To
fight, you must be brutal
and ruthless, and the
spirit of ruthless brutality
will enter into the very
fiber of our national
life….”
--Woodrow Wilson, 1917
World War I: U.S.

VIDEO: ‘The Great War: Democracy’
Selling the War at Home
Committee on Public Information
George Creel, director

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Coordinator of government news
Public relations: “a national ideology”
Promote morale on home front:
– press releases, news digests, newsreels

Anti-German propaganda: posters, etc.
Anti-German Propaganda
U.S., Britain
portrayed Germans
as monsters
 Goal: Dehumanize
the enemy

Anti-German Propaganda

For the war to continue,
it became necessary “to
make the English hate
the Germans as they
had never hated
anyone before.”
--Robert Graves, historian
Anti-German
Propaganda

‘Before the weapon
comes the image. We
think others to death
and then invent the
battle-axe or ballistic
missiles with which to
actually kill them.”
--Sam Keen,
Faces of the Enemy
World War I Legislation
1917: Espionage Act
 1918: Sedition Amendment
 1918: Trading With the Enemy Act

Sedition Amendment

...made it illegal to write or publish any
“disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive
language about the form of government,
the Constitution, military or naval forces,
the flag or the uniform, or to use
language to bring those ideas or
institutions into contempt or disrepute.”
Restrictions
on the press
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Denial of 2nd-class
mailing permit
Refusal to allow
papers to mail
Indictment, arrest of
socialist editors
– Victor Berger,
Milwaukee Leader
Suppression of dissent
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Eugene V. Debs
Socialist party leader
and presidential
candidate (1912)
Arrested for violating
Sedition Amendment
after anti-war speech
Served 3 years in
prison
George Seldes
American journalist,
1890-1995
 Interviewed in 1988
 VIDEO: Tell the
Truth and Run

– The War for Peace
Reading for next class
Voices, Chapter 14: World War II;
Chapter 16: Vietnam