HISTORY OF

PERSUASIVE
CAMPAIGNS AND
PROPAGANDA

B Y: D R . S H A R I FA H S O F I A H S Y E D
ZAINUDIN
  At the end of this lesson, you should be able to learn
about:

LEARNING 1. the origins of commercial, political and social action

OUTCOMES
campaigns
2. examines most significant developments during the past
100 years that have shaped the nature of modern
persuasive communication campaigns.
 ORIGINS OF PERSUASIVE
COMMUNICATION
• Word of mouth

• Babylon, Egypt, & Greece  criers & barkers

Town crier by Alan Myatt, Hitchin, UK 

• Invention of papyrus  written advertisement

Ancient Greeks  poetry

Aristotle  rhetoric  logic,

emotion, personal appeal

Timeline:
• 15th century  printing press  advertising
• 17th century journals, books, newspapers
• 18th century  political & social action
campaigns
 DEVELOPMENT OF
PERSUASIVE
CAMPAIGNS
• Industrialization – growth of commercial marketing

• Growth of literacy

• Development of mass media

• War
INDUSTRIALIZATION

• Control of the mass market

• Rise of manufactured goods
• Systematic techniques need
• Transportation systems  quick distribution  turn to
more variety of goods
• Growth of mass market  commercial advertising 
to distinguish their products from others  generate
consumer demand for their product
• Through packaging and promotion
RISE OF LITERACY &
CHANGES IN MASS MEDIA

• Growth of school attendance and graduates  reduced

illiteracy
• Growth of advertising + rise in literacy + more economical
printing techniques = newspapers and magazines
• Growth of newspaper & magazines = persuasive
communication campaigns
• $$$ in advertising = revenue for newspapers
• Sensationalised news  circulation  advertising rate =
yellow journalism
• Late 19th and early 20th centuries = radio
WORLD WAR I

• Challenges: (1) to offset enemy propaganda efforts; (2) to

mobilize domestic support for the war effort
• World War I = “total war”, requirements for the mass
mobilization of national resources: finance, industrial
production, manpower.
• DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach, 1982, p. 159: “It became
essential to mobilise sentiments and loyalties, to instill in
citizens a hatred and fear of the enermy, to maintain their
morale in the face of privation, and to capture energies
into an effective contribution to their nation”.
WAR (CONT’…)

• President Wilson established the Committee on

Public Information (CPI) under George Creel.
• Employed more than 150,000 workers, convince
the public that America was fighting for freedom
and democracy, conversely that the Germans
were bent on an evil mission of world conquest.
• “A battle for the minds of men”
• Stereotyped German behaviour as barbaric, while
suppressing dissent at home as unpatriotic
ACHIEVEMENTS OF CPI

• Distributed more than 100 million posters and pamphlets

• Recruited 75,000 four-minute men to speak between features
at movie houses to promote the war effort
• Sold “liberty bonds”
• Produced a series of “Hang the Kaiser” movies (The Kaiser,
the Beast of Berlin, a 1918 American silent war propaganda
melodrama film) 
• Prepared “red, while and blue” books
• Wrote editorials for newspapers and magazines (editors were
under pressure to run)
• Records, sermons, news stories, billboards
ACHIEVEMENTS OF CPI
(CONT’…)
• Allied propaganda
• The Propaganda Section of the American Expeditionary
Forces
• Balloons, airplanes, “leaflet bombs and mortars” to
distribute millions of leaflets behind enemy lines
• Antimilitaristic and prodemocratic
• Food  starving German soldiers and civilian population
• Propaganda efforts were stunningly successful
• “America’s most noteworthy contribution to the ‘science’ of
warfare was in ‘molilizing the mind of the world” (Bailey,
1996, p.737)
 WHAT HAPPENED AFTER WW1?

• SMCR
• Propaganda  advertising, PR and political campaigns
• Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays (human motivations)
• Psychologists  commercial advertising
 WORLD WAR II

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Office of War Information (OWI)

Directed by journalists, Elmer Davis and Psychological Warfare Division

Mission: undermined enemy military and civilian morale

Overseas Allied propaganda  radio  misinformation campaigns  simply broadcast the facts about wartime
conditions to enemy civilian populations
WORLD WAR II
(CONT’…)
• Factual and moderate tone
• Film shown to soldiers and civilians
• A clear justification of America’s role in WW2
 ACTIVITY (ORAL PRESENTATION)

Discuss the role of social and/or interactive media (twitter, facebook,

blogs) in the last Malaysian elections.
Did you get information on the elections through interactive media?
Explain your answer.
Do you think interactive/social media is more effective for persuasive
campaigns compared to newspapers, radio, TV? Why so?
Was interactive/social media used responsibly during the campaigning
period? Explain your answer.
Thank You