A comparative review on Axis and Allied Propaganda Posters

1. Look at a lot of posters. You need to find the largest collections possible from each side, in each war/period. They will be divided into sub-sets by country, artist, and theme. These are a few of the countries that need to be regarded singly; Germany, Japan, Italy, USSR, France, GB, Canada, Australia, and the US. Keep an open mind, but look and think carefully about what you see. What patterns develop? What anomalies can you find?

2. Find out who produced what. Who were the targets of the posters? Were the posters individual efforts, or produced by a group specifically charged with the mission? Did a government entity set a specific goal, or just make some cash available for the effort. How much government resources were devoted to producing the posters, and how widely were they distributed? Did the varies governments do any sort of analysis into the poster's effectiveness. Can you find any analysis of the effect of individual posters?

Items 1 and 2 are sorta primary research, and that is almost always the best.

3. Do a literature search. What books, dissertations and/or thesis papers are available that deal with the subject? Read them all, and add them to your bibliography. Read all you can regarding propaganda, its practice and theory.

4. Now you're ready to begin making serious comparisons between the posters for the various countries and periods. How does what you've learned apply to your hypothesis?

5. Write. Write the whole thing quickly without worrying about spelling, grammar, or even whether it makes much sense. Rewrite. Edit. Edit. Have someone whose opinion you trust read and criticize the paper. Rewrite. Edit. Edit. Submit to your advisor, and then re-write and edit. By this time you should be ready to defend your work, get your sheepskin and go off to educate future generations into the esoteric mysteries of comparative propaganda posters.

Good luck, and good hunting.

Anomaly: First of all, welcome to A2K. Stick around, you're sure to learn a thing or two.

With regard to your project, Asherman gives excellent advice. A couple of websites you might want to check out:

Northwestern Univ. World War II Poster Collection

Library of Congress World War I Poster Collection

Both of these sites have search functions, so one thing you might want to do is refine your topic by concentrating on certain pictorial themes (for instance, comparing and contrasting various depictions of women, or "the enemy," or airplanes). Also, be careful about the term "propaganda." It is generally used to denote an effort to get people to support a belief, idea, or course of action. Military recruiting posters, although incorporating certain propagandistic elements, would not normally be considered "propaganda" per se.

And finally, there was no "Axis" in World War I.

Good luck!

In the First World War, there was a Triple Alliance of the German Empire, the Austrian Empire and Italy. The French handed the Italians their posterior when they attempted to invade the Riviera, and they decided it would be easier to fight the Austrians (who had to fight their way across the Julian Alps) and so switched sides.

I don't know that you'll succeed in finding anything, but it would be interesting if you could find first pro-Triple Alliance posters from Italy in 1914 & 1915, and then pro-Allies posters thereafter.

Wow, thanks for the great advice, they were much more detailed answers than I had expected.

I think that I'm going to follow Asherman's advice, its even better than the stuff my advisor said. I overlooked the small detail on Axis in 1st world war, thanks for pointing that out. I'm about to start on my thesis, and to reiterate I'm new to doing theory papers so forgive me if I ask any stupid questions in the future.

Many thanks again.

Anomaly, I was listening to the radio on my drive home from work today and heard a plug for CBC's Sunday Edition. As it turns out, they'll be looking at the long history of propaganda this Sunday.

It seems certain that propaganda posters, at least in general, would be touched on at some point during the three hour broadcast. It's possible you might get some leads. Perhaps Michael Enright will be conversing with that historian you want to interview and could provide contact info. (?) Just a thought.

I briefly checked out the website and while it doesn't advise of this pending show specifically, it does provide links to previous shows and it is possible to order transcripts, should you find it useful in any way.

cbcsundayedition

Good luck.

I'm sorry I missed it, but thanks anyway. Is the link you posted wrong or has the website been taken done? thanks again