Propaganda

Here is an example of how the British and American Allies in WWI created propagandafilms to demonise their enemy. If you've watched The Century Of The Self video, you'll have already heard about Edward Bernays, the father of modern advertising. Bernays learnt the art of persuasion through film and billboard poster during World War One, persuading a largely pacifist American public to join the war. He later turned these skills to good use advertising the products of the post war American boom. In a way, a propaganda film and an advertisement are quite similar, their job is to persuade you to think in a particular way. Watch this clip and then compare it with an advert on TV, todays ads are far more subtle, and are trying to convince you to act in a different way, but both are part of the 20th Century science of public relations, the control of the public mind.