Research Review

Still hiding behind the camouflage... after all these years

By Igor Stadnik

It's somewhat astonishing when the public acts 'surprised' at the latest revelations of government information improprieties - whether it's newly released 'evidence' of weapons of mass destruction or a paid columnist discovered promoting the latest government proposal. Propaganda has been around for a long time.

In the Spring Issue of 1996 in the Western Journal of Communication, Shawn Parry-Giles elaborates on what he calls "Camouflaged" propaganda. His article, "Camouflage Propaganda: The Truman and Eisenhower Administrations' Covert Manipulations of News," is a study of the United States' propaganda activities following WWII and leading into the Cold War. It details how these two administrations involved the presumably "free" press in propagating their policy objectives.

The article begins by suggesting that the lines between press and governmental are blurry and often crossed. To illustrate this, the author describes the inception of the Committee for Public Information (CPI), the government's propaganda machine, and how it was mostly staffed by journalists. These journalists were encouraged to think of themselves as a new breed of soldiers; ones that would engage in a war of words, and help win the battle of ideas. The article title, however, refers to the fact that these administrations readily engaged in covert strategies in order to generate favorable news coverage regarding policy objectives. Hence the term 'camouflage' propaganda. He argues that the success of this government strategy, then and now, is largely because of the assumption that the American people have about their press being free and independent of government. In totalitarian regimes where propaganda is commonplace, audiences are aware of these tendencies in the media and are more selective in believing reports pertaining to government actions or policies. However, audiences in democratic societies presume that their media acts independently and critically and therefore give little attention to whether or not they are in fact being indoctrinated by the press.

The result is that media remains an effective propaganda tool that is used by the government to affect the "national will."