Unit 3 - Censorship and Propaganda

Question 1

What is propaganda?

Answer 1

Propaganda is the use of information, true or false, to influence what people think or the way they act. Propaganda was used by both sides in the war.

Question 2

What is censorship?

Answer 2

Censorship is controlling the circulation of certain information - in newspapers, radio broadcasts, private letters and even conversations.

Question 3

What was the aim of the censorship of the Ministry of Information?

Answer 3

The aim was to stop information getting out that would encourage the enemy or demoralise the British public.

Question 4

What was the aim of the propaganda of the Ministry of Information?

Answer 4

Propaganda was used in Britain to boost the morale of the British public, encourage patriotic feeling and persuade people to do (and not to do) certain things to help the war effort.

Question 5

Who was subjected to censorship?

Answer 5

Everybody. Civilian letters were opened and checked to make sure important information was not given away, the armed forces had their own censors to go through the troops’ mail and even Winston Churchill had telephone calls cut by telephone censors if he was in danger of revealing secret information.

Question 6

When was the Ministry of Information established?

Answer 6

The Ministry of Information (MOI) was formed on 4 September 1939, the day after Britain’s declaration of war, and the first Minister was sworn into Office on 5 September 1939.

Question 7

Who was the Minister of Information?

Answer 7

Lord Macmillan was sworn in as its first Minister on 5 September 1939.

Question 8

Was the MOI popular?

Answer 8

At first, no - their first posters were criticised because they seemed to be directed only at the working class, or because they put pressure on individuals.

Question 9

Give an example of how censorship was used with the news.

Answer 9

1. Certain pieces of news were not broadcast because the MoI thought they would damage morale (e.g. the government covered up reports of ships sunk by Japanese kamikaze pilots).
2. Certain photos were banned (e.g. those showing dead children, and one of a bomb which had broken through into an Underground station).
3. The Communist newspaper The Daily Worker was banned in 1941 because it opposed the war.

Question 10

How was propaganda used to try and keep the invention of RADAR secret?

Answer 10

Early in the war, the MoI kept the invention of radar secret - instead, it said that RAF pilots had been eating carrots and could see in the dark!

Question 11

Was the BBC censored?

Answer 11

The MoI had the right to control the BBC - although it never did; the BBC voluntarily controlled the flow of information in a sensible way (self-imposed censorship). In 1939, the BBC was expanded to 23 transmitters and 4233 employees.

Question 12

How was morale kept up by propaganda?

Answer 12

In September 1939, the BBC started to broadcast Tommy Handley’s comedy programme: It’s That Man Again! (ITMA). Comedy was found to be a wonderful way of keeping up morale.
Also, the BBC started a programme called ‘Music While You Work’ because they had found that productivity in factories went up if cheerful music was played to workers.

Question 13

Who were ‘Cooper’s Snoopers’?

Answer 13

Another mistake by the MOI in July 1940 when the Daily Herald newspaper began a fierce campaign against the use of ‘gestapo techniques’ (the MOI trying to collect public opinion information in invasive ways, e.g. doorstep polls), and coined the epithet ‘Cooper’s Snoopers’ (after Duff Cooper, the Minister of Information).

Question 14

Did the MOI’s methods improve?

Answer 14

Yes, a new Minister of Information - Brendan Bracken - used his experience as a newspaper editor and lasted until the end of the war.

Question 15

What was ‘Black Propaganda’?

Answer 15

‘Black Propaganda’ is where the government aims messages at the enemy population, trying to confuse or demoralise them.

Question 16

Give an example of ‘Black Propaganda’.

Answer 16

Perhaps the most well-known example of this was William Joyce, who broadcast ‘news’ from Germany every night, telling the British people that the war was hopeless and that they were being defeated. His posh, sing-song accent - ‘This is Jarmany calling’ - led people to nickname him Lord Haw-Haw. Although it was forbidden, some 6 million people tuned in to hear him every night - mainly to have a laugh at his accent and exaggerated claims.

Question 17

How was cinema used as propaganda?

Answer 17

‘Going to the movies’ was a major part of people’s recreational time, and the film-makers produced films about heroism and patriotism such as:
• In Which We Serve (1943) - the heroic story of the ship HMS Torrin, sunk by a torpedo.
• Henry V (1944) included the British victory against the odds at Agincourt, and the stirring speech “on St Crispin’s Day”.
Other films amused people, or provided romances which allowed them to ‘escape’ the worries and hardships of life.

Question 18

How did Brendan Bracken improve the methods of the MOI?

Answer 18

He introduced a large-scale public opinion collection technique called the ‘Mass Observation Diary’ by which thousands of ordinary civilians kept a private diary of their experiences.

He also realised that the public didn’t need to be preached to and that they were far more likely to believe propaganda if they were also told some unpleasant truth with it!