Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
Later, the Allies remembered this German habit when the Nazis on the
radio began talking about their own secret weapons. When the British
bombed the V-1 ramps on the French coast, the German radio stopped that
talk. The British therefore had additional grounds for supposing that
the ramps they had bombed were a part of the secret weapon the Germans
bragged about. The British further knew that the Germans would try to
counter the psychological effect of the announcement of Allied D-Day
with some pretty vivid news of their own. When the German radio began
mentioning secret weapons again, the British suspected that the Germans
had gotten around the damage done to the ramps. D-Day came; the Germans,
in one single broadcast designed to impress the Japanese and Chinese,
announced that the secret German weapon was about to be turned loose,
and that more such weapons would follow. One day later the first V-1 hit
London.
[Illustration: _Chart IV._
ENEMY MENTION OF SELECTED TOPICS, FIRST HALF-YEAR, NUMBER OF MENTIONED
TOPICS PER 10-DAY PERIOD, WITH REFERENCE TO NAVAL WARFARE, FOOD SUPPLY
AND SECRET WEAPONS]
In order to follow this type of propaganda, a quantitative chart is
needed. A sample imaginary chart for a three-month period is given in
chart IV. This chart reveals at a glance the fact that the enemy kept
mentioning food supply and naval warfare until the middle of March,
because he presumably thought his blockade runners would bring in more
food. After March, food drops in emphasis but naval warfare continues to
be stressed. In May, following enemy admission to himself of the
hopeless naval situation, naval warfare drops almost altogether out of
sight. Foodstuffs continue to be modestly mentioned as the enemy
explained away minor difficulties, but the use of secret weapons
propaganda shows that the enemy propagandists had to have something
sensational to keep up the courage of the home audience. Whether the
enemy really had a secret weapon or not, depends on the national
character, past records, and so forth. The Germans and Japanese both
said they had world-shaking secret weapons. The Germans delivered; the
Japanese did not.
Such quantity records will also be useful in showing the enemy's
propaganda statistically with reference to number of words uttered on
each of his major subjects, number of inches of newspaper columns for
specified kinds of news, and so on. Percentage charts show which major
shifts his propaganda performs. Audience charts (that is, how much time
he spends addressing workers, pacifists, mothers, minorities, etc.) show
which groups he is really trying to reach. Emphasis charts for selected
topics on which your own propaganda has been active show how much you
force him to talk about something which he may not wish to discuss.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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