WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.459 Welcome in. It is so great to have you with us 00:00:03.459 --> 00:00:05.540 today for this deep dive. Yeah. Thanks for having 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:07.459 me. I'm really looking forward to this one. Absolutely. 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:10.380 Because today we are heading back to a period 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:13.859 in history that honestly, it completely rewrote 00:00:13.859 --> 00:00:16.320 the rules of reality. Oh, without a doubt. We 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:19.079 are looking at World War I, but through a very 00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:22.739 specific lens. Our mission today is to explore 00:00:22.739 --> 00:00:24.960 how this conflict wasn't just, you know, a battle 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:27.519 of trenches and artillery. It was actually the 00:00:27.519 --> 00:00:30.820 very first war where governments systematically 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:34.020 weaponized mass media to alter public opinion. 00:00:34.539 --> 00:00:36.539 It really is a watershed moment in human history. 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:39.799 I mean, we tend to think of modern media manipulation 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:42.000 as a product of the Internet age. Right. Like 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.780 social media bots and all that. Exactly. But. 00:00:44.969 --> 00:00:47.090 The blueprint, the actual foundation for all 00:00:47.090 --> 00:00:49.710 of it, was entirely drawn up between 1914 and 00:00:49.710 --> 00:00:53.109 1918. We're diving into compiled historical overviews 00:00:53.109 --> 00:00:56.130 of World War I propaganda today, which show us 00:00:56.130 --> 00:00:59.130 exactly how these massive state -run campaigns 00:00:59.130 --> 00:01:02.270 operated behind the scenes to engineer consent 00:01:02.270 --> 00:01:04.790 and just, well, mobilize entire populations. 00:01:05.170 --> 00:01:07.469 OK, let's untack this, because the paradigm shift 00:01:07.469 --> 00:01:11.010 here is massive. Before this, Wars were generally 00:01:11.010 --> 00:01:13.150 fought on physical battlefields by professional 00:01:13.150 --> 00:01:16.650 armies. Yes. But suddenly the battle was happening 00:01:16.650 --> 00:01:19.689 in the minds of the civilian population. Governments 00:01:19.689 --> 00:01:21.969 realized that managing the psychology of the 00:01:21.969 --> 00:01:25.030 people at home was vital to sustaining the actual 00:01:25.030 --> 00:01:28.010 physical war. The core purpose of this propaganda 00:01:28.010 --> 00:01:30.969 was incredibly calculated. According to the research 00:01:30.969 --> 00:01:33.450 of historians, Eberhard Dem and Christopher H. 00:01:33.590 --> 00:01:36.290 Sterling, the goal wasn't merely to boost morale 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:39.700 or to keep people informed. They didn't really 00:01:39.700 --> 00:01:41.239 care about keeping people informed, did they? 00:01:41.239 --> 00:01:43.620 Not at all. It was to arouse absolute hatred 00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:46.480 of the enemy. It was to idealize the nation's 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:49.340 own war aims, making them seem like a holy crusade. 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:52.400 And crucially, it was designed to blame scapegoats. 00:01:52.459 --> 00:01:55.359 Like who? Pacifists, dissenters, anyone who questioned 00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:57.920 the social order. They did this so the public 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.180 wouldn't scrutinize the military leadership if 00:02:00.180 --> 00:02:02.920 the war effort stumbled. That requires a level 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:05.400 of narrative control that seems almost impossible 00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:08.719 to achieve. I mean, how did governments actually 00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:11.099 enforce this across the media landscape of the 00:02:11.099 --> 00:02:13.860 early 20th century? We often think of journalists 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:16.639 as neutral observers, but that clearly wasn't 00:02:16.639 --> 00:02:20.340 the case here. Neutrality was essentially outlawed. 00:02:20.500 --> 00:02:22.979 When Wilhelm II declared a state of war in Germany 00:02:22.979 --> 00:02:26.659 in July 1914, the army immediately took control 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:29.780 of press censorship. Across the board, censorship 00:02:29.780 --> 00:02:32.379 rules placed severe restrictions on frontline 00:02:32.379 --> 00:02:34.639 journalism. You couldn't just buy a ticket and 00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:37.120 go report on the war. No, absolutely not. If 00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:38.580 you wanted to report from the front, you had 00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:41.780 to be an experienced military officer with, quote, 00:02:42.580 --> 00:02:45.319 recognized patriotic views. And even then, the 00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:47.419 sources indicate they were severely restricted 00:02:47.419 --> 00:02:49.319 in who they could actually talk to. They couldn't 00:02:49.319 --> 00:02:51.120 interview the soldiers actually fighting in the 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:53.139 trenches, could they? No, they were expressly 00:02:53.139 --> 00:02:55.060 forbidden from speaking to the fighting troops. 00:02:55.240 --> 00:02:57.639 Wow. Journalists were only allowed to interview 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:00.680 high ranking officers and commanders. The army 00:03:00.680 --> 00:03:03.300 dictated the flow of information strictly from 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:06.020 the top down. Which, I guess, creates a massive 00:03:06.020 --> 00:03:09.400 degree of uniformity in wartime reporting. The 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:12.020 public only read exactly what the generals wanted 00:03:12.020 --> 00:03:14.580 them to read. Precisely. It was a closed loop. 00:03:14.939 --> 00:03:17.979 I imagine this level of control extended beyond 00:03:17.979 --> 00:03:21.020 just the written word, too. I mean, you and I, 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:23.879 we associate World War I with those grainy black 00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:26.639 and white photos of combat. But the source material 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:29.240 suggests our visual memory of the war might be 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:31.860 completely constructed. How much of what people 00:03:31.860 --> 00:03:34.939 saw was actually real? Very little, initially. 00:03:35.580 --> 00:03:38.060 Real photography and filming of battle were prohibited 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:41.199 by both sides early in the war. Prohibited entirely? 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:43.979 Yes. The military leadership viewed unauthorized 00:03:43.979 --> 00:03:47.379 photography as an espionage risk and also a massive 00:03:47.379 --> 00:03:50.229 threat to morale. Because of these strict image 00:03:50.229 --> 00:03:52.750 concerns, much of the visual reality was heavily 00:03:52.750 --> 00:03:55.150 curated or just outright fabricated. So they 00:03:55.150 --> 00:03:57.810 were faking it? Yes. The combat photographs presented 00:03:57.810 --> 00:04:00.050 to the public were often literal reenactments, 00:04:00.289 --> 00:04:01.930 staged well behind the lines. Wait, they were 00:04:01.930 --> 00:04:03.689 staging battle scenes for the cameras, like a 00:04:03.689 --> 00:04:06.849 movie set? Literally like a movie set. They manufactured 00:04:06.849 --> 00:04:09.889 the visual reality of the war. Because of this, 00:04:10.110 --> 00:04:12.069 the historical record is permanently altered. 00:04:12.300 --> 00:04:15.500 For example, there is no known visual evidence 00:04:15.500 --> 00:04:18.220 of American shotgun use during the war simply 00:04:18.220 --> 00:04:20.519 because the sensors wouldn't allow it to be documented. 00:04:20.620 --> 00:04:23.660 That is wild. The French government actually 00:04:23.660 --> 00:04:26.379 preferred utilizing heroic war paintings over 00:04:26.379 --> 00:04:29.980 photography for a long time. They felt a painting 00:04:29.980 --> 00:04:33.620 conveyed the proper patriotic spirit much better 00:04:33.620 --> 00:04:36.240 than the grim, messy reality of a photograph. 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:38.699 Right, because a painting can be perfectly heroic. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:41.139 Nobody is terrified in a patriotic painting. 00:04:41.629 --> 00:04:44.050 What about the Germans? Meanwhile, the Germans 00:04:44.050 --> 00:04:46.709 relied heavily on heavily censored newsreels, 00:04:47.009 --> 00:04:48.850 but again, completely controlled by the state. 00:04:49.149 --> 00:04:51.750 That manipulation of the visual record is profound, 00:04:51.769 --> 00:04:54.430 but it wouldn't have mattered much if the information 00:04:54.430 --> 00:04:56.430 couldn't cross borders to influence the rest 00:04:56.430 --> 00:04:58.670 of the world. And this brings us to a frankly 00:04:58.670 --> 00:05:01.889 brilliant strategic move by the British. How 00:05:01.889 --> 00:05:04.230 did they ensure their curated narrative reached 00:05:04.230 --> 00:05:06.769 the United States? What's fascinating here is 00:05:06.769 --> 00:05:09.189 the sheer strategic brilliance of the British 00:05:09.189 --> 00:05:12.850 approach to information warfare. The moment the 00:05:12.850 --> 00:05:16.750 war started, Britain actively located and cut 00:05:16.750 --> 00:05:19.970 Germany's undersea communication cables. Physically 00:05:19.970 --> 00:05:22.209 severed the cables connecting Germany to the 00:05:22.209 --> 00:05:24.889 outside world. Literally dragged them up from 00:05:24.889 --> 00:05:27.449 the ocean floor and snipped them. That is, I 00:05:27.449 --> 00:05:29.490 mean, that's incredibly aggressive on day one. 00:05:29.529 --> 00:05:32.180 It was a masterstroke. because it guaranteed 00:05:32.180 --> 00:05:34.779 that the Allies held a near total monopoly on 00:05:34.779 --> 00:05:37.779 the most expedient means of transmitting news 00:05:37.779 --> 00:05:40.420 from Europe to press outlets in the United States, 00:05:40.540 --> 00:05:43.040 which was neutral at the time. So Britain controlled 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:45.019 the narrative flowing to the rest of the world 00:05:45.019 --> 00:05:48.660 right out of the gate. From day one. They capitalized 00:05:48.660 --> 00:05:51.259 on this by establishing a highly secret organization 00:05:51.259 --> 00:05:55.420 called Wellington House in 1914. It was so clandestine 00:05:55.420 --> 00:05:56.939 that much of the British Parliament didn't even 00:05:56.939 --> 00:06:00.149 know it existed. Oh wow. They recruited prominent 00:06:00.149 --> 00:06:02.889 journalists and authors to write sympathetic 00:06:02.889 --> 00:06:05.410 pro -allied articles, distributing them globally 00:06:05.410 --> 00:06:07.550 to shape international sympathy. So you have 00:06:07.550 --> 00:06:09.930 this physical control of the information infrastructure, 00:06:10.050 --> 00:06:13.069 but there's also the diplomatic side. As the 00:06:13.069 --> 00:06:15.149 war kicked off, there was a frantic scramble 00:06:15.149 --> 00:06:17.730 by every government to dodge the blame for starting 00:06:17.730 --> 00:06:20.550 the conflict. The blame game was intense. It 00:06:20.550 --> 00:06:23.769 seems like a massive exercise in weaponized transparency, 00:06:24.389 --> 00:06:26.449 where they dumped documents to look cooperative, 00:06:26.589 --> 00:06:29.509 but carefully hid the truth. I was thinking about 00:06:29.509 --> 00:06:32.269 this. It's kind of like when you have a massive 00:06:32.269 --> 00:06:35.149 argument in a group chat and you take screenshots 00:06:35.149 --> 00:06:37.529 to prove you were right, but you deliberately 00:06:37.529 --> 00:06:39.829 crop out the terrible things you said yourself. 00:06:40.069 --> 00:06:42.050 That is a highly accurate way to look at it. 00:06:42.329 --> 00:06:44.980 It was state -sponsored leaking. The sources 00:06:44.980 --> 00:06:47.139 refer to this as the era of the color books. 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:49.259 Right, the color books. As the armies clashed, 00:06:49.639 --> 00:06:51.860 the foreign ministries engaged in a simultaneous 00:06:51.860 --> 00:06:55.079 media battle to avoid blame and cast it entirely 00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:57.560 on their rivals. They achieved this by publishing 00:06:57.560 --> 00:07:00.699 curated, heavily edited collections of diplomatic 00:07:00.699 --> 00:07:03.639 exchanges. Germany was the first to deploy this 00:07:03.639 --> 00:07:06.660 tactic. On August 4th, 1914, they published the 00:07:06.660 --> 00:07:09.060 German White Book. And what was in it? It contained 00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:13.160 36 diplomatic documents. But crucially, Anything 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:15.519 that could benefit Russia's position or implicate 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:18.720 Germany's aggression was deliberately redacted. 00:07:18.899 --> 00:07:21.540 So it's an illusion of transparency. They released 00:07:21.540 --> 00:07:23.620 the official documents, but only the ones that 00:07:23.620 --> 00:07:25.660 serve their narrative. Did the other nations 00:07:25.660 --> 00:07:28.600 follow suit? Almost immediately. Within days, 00:07:28.939 --> 00:07:30.860 almost every combatant country rushed out their 00:07:30.860 --> 00:07:33.319 own curated version, each named after the color 00:07:33.319 --> 00:07:35.699 of his cover. France released the Yellow Book. 00:07:35.949 --> 00:07:38.350 Britain the Blue Book and Russia the Orange Book. 00:07:38.410 --> 00:07:40.910 Let me guess they all proved that their own country 00:07:40.910 --> 00:07:43.350 was completely innocent. Exactly. Then you had 00:07:43.350 --> 00:07:45.829 the Austro -Hungarian Red Book, the Belgian Grey 00:07:45.829 --> 00:07:48.949 Book and the Serbian Blue Book. It was a coordinated 00:07:48.949 --> 00:07:51.829 international effort of self -justification. 00:07:52.009 --> 00:07:54.189 That covers the diplomatic maneuvering but how 00:07:54.189 --> 00:07:56.490 did they translate that high -level political 00:07:56.490 --> 00:07:59.670 justification into actual visceral hatred on 00:07:59.670 --> 00:08:02.310 the ground. I mean, we know patriotism was a 00:08:02.310 --> 00:08:04.350 massive theme. You see it in the iconic Lord 00:08:04.350 --> 00:08:06.410 Kitchener poster in the UK, the one pointing 00:08:06.410 --> 00:08:08.750 directly at the viewer saying, your country needs 00:08:08.750 --> 00:08:11.029 you. But they didn't just rely on civic duty, 00:08:11.129 --> 00:08:14.050 did they? No, civic duty wasn't enough to sustain 00:08:14.050 --> 00:08:16.550 a war of attrition. You need something deeper. 00:08:17.129 --> 00:08:19.829 They heavily utilized religious and mythological 00:08:19.829 --> 00:08:23.269 symbolism to elevate the conflict. British propaganda 00:08:23.269 --> 00:08:26.430 frequently depicted St. George slaying a dragon. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:28.959 with the dragon representing the German forces. 00:08:29.139 --> 00:08:32.000 Framing it as good versus evil. Precisely. They 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.139 were framing the war not as a geopolitical dispute 00:08:34.139 --> 00:08:37.200 over territory, but as a cosmic battle. And to 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:39.980 solidify the enemy as true evil, the media relied 00:08:39.980 --> 00:08:43.039 heavily on atrocity propaganda. The headlines 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:45.399 from the sources are incredibly graphic. They 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:48.259 really seem designed to bypass logic and go straight 00:08:48.259 --> 00:08:50.340 for the nervous system. This is where the media 00:08:50.340 --> 00:08:53.059 truly abandoned any pretense of objective reporting. 00:08:53.470 --> 00:08:56.129 The allied press was inundated with sensational 00:08:56.129 --> 00:08:58.529 stories of rape, mutilation, and wanton murder 00:08:58.529 --> 00:09:01.730 by German and Austro -Hungarian soldiers. The 00:09:01.730 --> 00:09:04.309 goal was to paint the enemy as inhumane savages. 00:09:04.429 --> 00:09:06.029 Because if the enemy is a monster, there can 00:09:06.029 --> 00:09:09.029 be no negotiated peace. Exactly. Fighting to 00:09:09.029 --> 00:09:10.990 the bitter end becomes the only moral option. 00:09:11.289 --> 00:09:13.610 We're talking about unverified headlines here. 00:09:13.950 --> 00:09:16.889 Things like, Belgium child's hands cut off by 00:09:16.889 --> 00:09:19.909 Germans, or Germans crucify a Canadian officer. 00:09:20.120 --> 00:09:22.840 The newspapers, which were often controlled by 00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:25.259 powerful media barons, printed these stories 00:09:25.259 --> 00:09:28.220 to whip the public into an absolute frenzy. And 00:09:28.220 --> 00:09:31.100 it worked exceptionally well. It did. But here's 00:09:31.100 --> 00:09:34.059 where it gets really interesting. That intense 00:09:34.059 --> 00:09:36.139 pressure to fight wasn't just directed at the 00:09:36.139 --> 00:09:39.220 enemy. It was turned inward at the domestic population 00:09:39.220 --> 00:09:41.919 to enforce compliance. I want to talk about the 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:44.539 Order of the White Feather. Ah, yes. In the UK, 00:09:44.820 --> 00:09:48.539 in August 1914, a man named Admiral Charles Penrose 00:09:48.539 --> 00:09:51.940 Fitzgerald initiated a deeply psychological campaign 00:09:51.940 --> 00:09:54.539 to shame men into enlisting. What did he actually 00:09:54.539 --> 00:09:56.860 do? He organized a group of women to walk the 00:09:56.860 --> 00:09:58.759 streets and hand out white feathers to any man 00:09:58.759 --> 00:10:00.789 they saw. who wasn't wearing a military uniform. 00:10:01.389 --> 00:10:03.330 The white feather was a long -standing symbol 00:10:03.330 --> 00:10:06.269 of cowardice, popularized heavily by A .E .W. 00:10:06.450 --> 00:10:09.889 Mason's 1902 novel, The Four Feathers. The strategy 00:10:09.889 --> 00:10:13.190 was pure, localized public humiliation. The idea 00:10:13.190 --> 00:10:15.590 being, if a man is publicly branded a coward 00:10:15.590 --> 00:10:18.029 by the women in his own community, the social 00:10:18.029 --> 00:10:20.029 pressure will just force him right into the recruiting 00:10:20.029 --> 00:10:22.690 office. That was the goal. But delegating that 00:10:22.690 --> 00:10:25.649 kind of psychological warfare to everyday citizens 00:10:25.649 --> 00:10:29.220 seems incredibly risky. How did it actually play 00:10:29.220 --> 00:10:31.639 out? It rapidly spiraled out of the government's 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:34.740 control and became deeply damaging. The fundamental 00:10:34.740 --> 00:10:37.960 flaw of a vigilante shaming campaign is its complete 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:40.700 lack of nuance. Right. The women handing out 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:43.799 the feathers had no idea why a man was in civilian 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:46.919 clothes. Consequently, they began targeting men 00:10:46.919 --> 00:10:49.379 who are completely essential to the war effort. 00:10:49.779 --> 00:10:53.159 They publicly humiliated civilian men. working 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:55.639 in the vital military industrial complex. The 00:10:55.639 --> 00:10:58.580 guys building the very munitions the army desperately 00:10:58.580 --> 00:11:00.639 needed to fight. Exactly. It essentially turned 00:11:00.639 --> 00:11:02.539 the public against the unseen infrastructure 00:11:02.539 --> 00:11:05.240 of the war. Worse still, they shamed soldiers 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:09.480 who were home on lease. deeply tragically wounded 00:11:09.480 --> 00:11:11.559 veterans who had returned home and were wearing 00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:14.360 civilian clothes. Oh, that is off. The psychological 00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:16.559 devastation of fighting, suffering a wound, and 00:11:16.559 --> 00:11:19.100 then being handed a symbol of cowardice in your 00:11:19.100 --> 00:11:22.799 own hometown was immense. It became such a crisis 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:24.679 that the government had to intervene to protect 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:27.000 its own citizens from this propaganda campaign. 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:30.740 By September 1916, they began issuing silver 00:11:30.740 --> 00:11:33.539 war badges to former servicemen, specifically 00:11:33.539 --> 00:11:36.340 to act as a visual shield against the women distributing 00:11:36.340 --> 00:11:38.940 white feathers. It perfectly illustrates how 00:11:38.940 --> 00:11:41.700 propaganda, once unleashed into the societal 00:11:41.700 --> 00:11:44.480 bloodstream, can take on a destructive life of 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:47.019 its own. And this brings up a larger point about 00:11:47.019 --> 00:11:49.980 how propaganda targeted and utilized women, which 00:11:49.980 --> 00:11:52.179 is a fascinating study because the methodologies 00:11:52.179 --> 00:11:54.740 vary dramatically depending on the cultural and 00:11:54.740 --> 00:11:57.120 economic needs of the specific country. Let's 00:11:57.120 --> 00:11:59.019 look at those differences, starting with Britain. 00:11:59.639 --> 00:12:01.860 The sources show their domestic propaganda relied 00:12:01.860 --> 00:12:04.320 heavily on fear and the sanctity of the home. 00:12:04.879 --> 00:12:07.000 Yes. British propaganda frequently depicted the 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:10.279 German army as a ravenous force destined to tear 00:12:10.279 --> 00:12:13.080 families apart and assault women. By effectively 00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:15.240 framing domestic violence, or the threat of it 00:12:15.240 --> 00:12:17.600 from an invading force, as the ultimate war crime, 00:12:18.100 --> 00:12:20.879 they played on deeply ingrained patriarchal fears. 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:23.779 It ensured men felt a primal, protective duty 00:12:23.779 --> 00:12:27.570 to enlist. Exactly. while women felt a desperate 00:12:27.570 --> 00:12:30.269 need to support the war effort to avoid this 00:12:30.269 --> 00:12:32.490 horrifying fate. But when you look at the Ottoman 00:12:32.490 --> 00:12:35.409 Empire, the source material reveals a profoundly 00:12:35.409 --> 00:12:38.049 different approach. It wasn't about the fragile 00:12:38.049 --> 00:12:40.870 homemaker needing protection. What was the cultural 00:12:40.870 --> 00:12:43.250 shift happening there? In the Ottoman Empire, 00:12:43.450 --> 00:12:46.330 the state faced a severe labor shortage as men 00:12:46.330 --> 00:12:49.200 were mobilized for the fronts. To keep the empire 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:51.600 functioning, the messaging shifted primarily 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:54.759 toward economics and labor, necessitating a massive 00:12:54.759 --> 00:12:57.299 departure from traditional Ottoman social structures. 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:00.220 How did they manage that shift? The government 00:13:00.220 --> 00:13:02.519 actually utilized pre -existing women's committees 00:13:02.519 --> 00:13:04.440 that had been established during the Balkan Wars 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:07.860 of 1912 and 1913. So they basically hijacked 00:13:07.860 --> 00:13:11.679 an existing societal network. Exactly. When World 00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:13.919 War I broke out, the state leveraged these committees 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:16.879 to spread patriotic propaganda, encouraging women 00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:19.700 to enter the workforce, specifically into munitions 00:13:19.700 --> 00:13:21.980 factories and administrative roles previously 00:13:21.980 --> 00:13:25.039 held by men. That's a huge change for that society. 00:13:25.340 --> 00:13:28.120 It was. But they framed this not as a breach 00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:31.440 of traditional gender roles, but as a vital Islamic 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:34.659 and patriotic duty to save the empire. It was 00:13:34.659 --> 00:13:37.539 an engine of rapid social engineering disguised 00:13:37.539 --> 00:13:40.190 as a wartime necessity. The United States took 00:13:40.190 --> 00:13:41.990 a somewhat similar approach in pushing women 00:13:41.990 --> 00:13:44.450 into the workforce, but the sources highlight 00:13:44.450 --> 00:13:46.590 a really striking contradiction in the American 00:13:46.590 --> 00:13:49.190 messaging. They pushed for labor, but heavily 00:13:49.190 --> 00:13:52.149 policed morality at the exact same time. The 00:13:52.149 --> 00:13:54.210 American domestic landscape was highly focused 00:13:54.210 --> 00:13:56.750 on moral purity as a component of patriotism. 00:13:57.129 --> 00:13:59.570 You had women's clubs producing extensive campaigns 00:13:59.570 --> 00:14:01.649 against gambling and prostitution near military 00:14:01.649 --> 00:14:05.250 camps. And the popular fiction of the time fiercely 00:14:05.250 --> 00:14:07.789 reinforced these specific moral tropes. Like 00:14:07.789 --> 00:14:10.360 in the magazines. Yes, if you examine publications 00:14:10.360 --> 00:14:13.080 like McClure's magazine, which temporarily rebranded 00:14:13.080 --> 00:14:15.700 as McClure's Win the War magazine, the female 00:14:15.700 --> 00:14:18.059 archetypes were incredibly polarized. The sources 00:14:18.059 --> 00:14:20.700 mention authors like Dana Gatlin and Porter Emerson 00:14:20.700 --> 00:14:23.399 Brown. In Brown's short story, Mary and Marie, 00:14:23.580 --> 00:14:26.080 there is no middle ground. You have the virtuous, 00:14:26.360 --> 00:14:29.299 self -sacrificing homemaker held up as the absolute 00:14:29.299 --> 00:14:32.139 ideal, and she's sharply contrasted against the 00:14:32.139 --> 00:14:35.379 immoral, selfish, wealthy woman who ignores the 00:14:35.379 --> 00:14:38.320 war effort. Gatlin wrote a story called New York 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:40.960 Stuff. They criticized the city for being too 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:43.919 engrossed with materialistic wealth, or ephemeral 00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:47.059 baubles as they called it. The propaganda manufactured 00:14:47.059 --> 00:14:50.440 a rigid social archetype. The dutiful wartime 00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:52.759 homemaker was the moral heart of the community. 00:14:54.460 --> 00:14:57.100 Any woman acting independently, focusing on wealth, 00:14:57.340 --> 00:14:59.220 or stepping outside this patriotic framework 00:14:59.220 --> 00:15:01.779 was painted as a corrupting influence that threatened 00:15:01.779 --> 00:15:04.370 the nation's spiritual readiness for war. We're 00:15:04.370 --> 00:15:06.509 seeing all these localized cultural tactics, 00:15:06.590 --> 00:15:08.309 but when the United States entered the conflict 00:15:08.309 --> 00:15:11.070 later on, they seemed to industrialize the entire 00:15:11.070 --> 00:15:13.629 process of propaganda. Let's talk about the diplomatic 00:15:13.629 --> 00:15:16.070 side first. President Woodrow Wilson sets the 00:15:16.070 --> 00:15:19.789 stage with his famous 14 points. Why was a diplomatic 00:15:19.789 --> 00:15:22.529 speech considered such a powerful piece of global 00:15:22.529 --> 00:15:24.830 propaganda? Because it functioned as brilliant 00:15:24.830 --> 00:15:27.909 psychological warfare. Wilson's 14 points called 00:15:27.909 --> 00:15:30.269 for transparency, free navigation of the seas, 00:15:30.409 --> 00:15:32.809 and equal trade conditions. Sounds pretty reasonable. 00:15:32.970 --> 00:15:36.059 Exactly. It was explicitly framed as a blueprint 00:15:36.059 --> 00:15:39.039 for world peace. The brilliance of this document 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:41.840 was that it masked the aggressive realities of 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:46.000 war with noble, high -minded ideals. It inspired 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:48.919 audiences globally, but, truthfully, it targeted 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:51.059 domestic support within the central powers. It 00:15:51.059 --> 00:15:53.500 gave the enemy population a reason to stop fighting. 00:15:53.820 --> 00:15:57.080 Precisely. It resonated deeply with German socialists 00:15:57.080 --> 00:15:59.539 who were already weary of their own government's 00:15:59.539 --> 00:16:02.740 imperialist aims. By offering a vision of a non 00:16:02.740 --> 00:16:05.600 -punitive democratic peace, Wilson's rhetoric 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:08.399 actively fractured German domestic support for 00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:10.500 their military leadership. But the real engine 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:13.320 of American persuasion was domestic, right? Spearheaded 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:15.480 by the Committee on Public Information or the 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:19.500 CPI? Yes. Wilson created the CPI in 1917, reporting 00:16:19.500 --> 00:16:21.759 directly to him, and he put a former investigative 00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:24.460 journalist named George Creel in charge. And 00:16:24.460 --> 00:16:26.879 Creel didn't view this as a traditional government 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:30.320 press office. He explicitly called the CPI a 00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:33.120 vast enterprise in salesmanship and the world's 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:35.639 greatest adventure in advertising. They literally 00:16:35.639 --> 00:16:38.580 applied commercial advertising psychology to 00:16:38.580 --> 00:16:41.740 selling a war. They saturated every available 00:16:41.740 --> 00:16:44.700 medium. They had historians drafting pamphlets 00:16:44.700 --> 00:16:47.840 to intellectually justify the war. They plastered 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:51.129 colorful emotionally resonant posters in store 00:16:51.129 --> 00:16:54.070 windows to catch a passerby's attention for just 00:16:54.070 --> 00:16:57.250 a few vital seconds. But their most profoundly 00:16:57.250 --> 00:16:59.570 effective innovation was the four -minute men. 00:16:59.929 --> 00:17:01.629 I saw the numbers on this in the sources, but 00:17:01.629 --> 00:17:03.570 can you break down how this actually functioned 00:17:03.570 --> 00:17:05.670 in practice? They basically weaponized a captive 00:17:05.670 --> 00:17:08.069 audience, right? They did. During this era, going 00:17:08.069 --> 00:17:10.950 to the cinema was a massive cultural event. However, 00:17:11.009 --> 00:17:12.710 it took about four minutes for the projectionist 00:17:12.710 --> 00:17:14.809 to physically change the film reels between parts 00:17:14.809 --> 00:17:17.660 of a movie. The CPI realized the audience was 00:17:17.660 --> 00:17:20.079 sitting in the dark waiting with nothing to do. 00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:22.619 Praying real estate. Exactly. So they trained 00:17:22.619 --> 00:17:24.900 a volunteer army of public speakers to fill that 00:17:24.900 --> 00:17:28.599 gap. 75 ,000 volunteers. 75 ,000 four -minute 00:17:28.599 --> 00:17:31.220 men. The CPI provided them with standardized 00:17:31.220 --> 00:17:33.900 pamphlets and speaking tips on everything from 00:17:33.900 --> 00:17:36.759 buying Liberty bonds and rationing food to registering 00:17:36.759 --> 00:17:39.359 for the draft. So you're at the movies, the reel 00:17:39.359 --> 00:17:41.480 ends, the lights come up slightly, and a guy 00:17:41.480 --> 00:17:43.660 just stands up and starts pitching the war. Yes. 00:17:43.960 --> 00:17:47.099 During those four -minute real changes, these 00:17:47.099 --> 00:17:49.980 local volunteers, often respected members of 00:17:49.980 --> 00:17:52.539 the community, would stand up and deliver a highly 00:17:52.539 --> 00:17:55.240 polished, emotionally charged, patriotic pitch. 00:17:55.420 --> 00:17:58.670 The scale is staggering. The sources note that 00:17:58.670 --> 00:18:02.349 in just 18 months, they delivered over 7 .5 million 00:18:02.349 --> 00:18:05.650 speeches to more than 300 million listeners. 00:18:06.250 --> 00:18:08.089 The entire population of the U .S. at the time 00:18:08.089 --> 00:18:10.930 was only 103 million. They were reaching every 00:18:10.930 --> 00:18:13.250 citizen multiple times over. It was saturation 00:18:13.250 --> 00:18:15.829 bombing with information. And this industrialized 00:18:15.829 --> 00:18:18.029 approach to information wasn't limited to domestic 00:18:18.029 --> 00:18:20.390 audiences. As we touched on with Wellington House 00:18:20.390 --> 00:18:22.990 earlier, propaganda became a formal weapon of 00:18:22.990 --> 00:18:24.970 international diplomacy. Wellington House didn't 00:18:24.970 --> 00:18:27.730 just quietly place articles. They produced a 00:18:27.730 --> 00:18:30.529 massive visual publication called The War Pictorial. 00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:33.390 They translated and printed it in 11 different 00:18:33.390 --> 00:18:37.289 languages. By December 1916, it had a circulation 00:18:37.289 --> 00:18:40.750 of 500 ,000. It was deployed so effectively that 00:18:40.750 --> 00:18:43.509 it is credited with helping to turn neutral countries 00:18:43.509 --> 00:18:47.160 like China decisively against Germany. If the 00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:49.359 propaganda machinery was this powerful, what 00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:52.160 happens when the actual physical war effort starts 00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:54.680 failing? How did governments keep the public 00:18:54.680 --> 00:18:56.700 from turning on the leadership when the casualties 00:18:56.700 --> 00:18:59.279 mounted and the initial patriotic fervor wore 00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:02.559 off? That is a dark turn. It is. Looking objectively 00:19:02.559 --> 00:19:04.619 at the historical data from the sources, we see 00:19:04.619 --> 00:19:07.299 a fascinating mid -war shift in Germany regarding 00:19:07.299 --> 00:19:09.789 the mechanics of scapegoating. And just as a 00:19:09.789 --> 00:19:11.450 quick note for you listening, whenever we discuss 00:19:11.450 --> 00:19:13.490 politically charged historical events like this 00:19:13.490 --> 00:19:16.069 next part, we are not endorsing any viewpoints 00:19:16.069 --> 00:19:18.670 or taking any sides. We are simply imparting 00:19:18.670 --> 00:19:21.089 the historical facts exactly as they are detailed 00:19:21.089 --> 00:19:23.690 in the source material. It is a critical historical 00:19:23.690 --> 00:19:26.390 case study in how misinformation is manufactured 00:19:26.390 --> 00:19:29.029 to protect authority. Midway through the war, 00:19:29.349 --> 00:19:31.390 the German military effort was faltering, and 00:19:31.390 --> 00:19:33.609 the high command desperately needed a scapegoat 00:19:33.609 --> 00:19:35.930 to deflect public anger. So who did they target? 00:19:36.299 --> 00:19:39.759 They initiated a wave of anti -Jewish propaganda, 00:19:40.380 --> 00:19:42.799 propagating the claim that Jewish citizens were 00:19:42.799 --> 00:19:45.579 an evil force responsible for the military struggles. 00:19:46.619 --> 00:19:49.180 Specifically, the rumor alleged that Jewish citizens 00:19:49.180 --> 00:19:51.740 were shirking their duty and not serving in the 00:19:51.740 --> 00:19:54.680 armed forces. To investigate this, the German 00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:57.740 military actually conducted a census in 1916, 00:19:58.059 --> 00:20:00.940 known historically as the Judensalem, or the 00:20:00.940 --> 00:20:03.880 Jewish census. They surveyed the military to 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:06.180 determine the exact proportion of Jewish soldiers 00:20:06.180 --> 00:20:08.920 serving on the front lines. The resulting data 00:20:08.920 --> 00:20:10.920 from that census revealed the exact opposite 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:13.539 of what the propaganda claimed. The statistics 00:20:13.539 --> 00:20:15.680 proved definitively that the proportion of Jewish 00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:17.759 citizens serving in the military was, in fact, 00:20:18.140 --> 00:20:19.740 greater than the proportion of the general German 00:20:19.740 --> 00:20:22.279 population. They were serving and dying at a 00:20:22.279 --> 00:20:24.799 higher rate. Yes. But the government didn't release 00:20:24.799 --> 00:20:27.160 the data to clear the air, did they? No, they 00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:29.680 didn't. This raises an important question about 00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:31.819 the power of omission in media manipulation. 00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:35.099 The military intentionally withheld the census 00:20:35.099 --> 00:20:38.160 data. They refused to publicize the truth that 00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:40.900 their own study had uncovered because they hid 00:20:40.900 --> 00:20:43.630 the empirical facts. the doubts, and the harmful 00:20:43.630 --> 00:20:46.190 anti -Semitic stereotypes were allowed to persist 00:20:46.190 --> 00:20:49.430 and fester in the public consciousness. It demonstrates 00:20:49.430 --> 00:20:51.630 that propaganda isn't strictly about the affirmative 00:20:51.630 --> 00:20:54.529 lies a state tells. It is equally reliant on 00:20:54.529 --> 00:20:57.589 the truths a state actively conceals. So what 00:20:57.589 --> 00:21:00.049 does this all mean? We've traced the architecture 00:21:00.049 --> 00:21:02.670 of modern media manipulation from fake combat 00:21:02.670 --> 00:21:04.869 photos and state -sponsored document leaks to 00:21:04.869 --> 00:21:06.890 the societal devastation of the white feather 00:21:06.890 --> 00:21:09.769 all the way to 7 .5 million speeches in movie 00:21:09.769 --> 00:21:12.269 theaters and the strategic burying of census 00:21:12.269 --> 00:21:14.710 data. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:21:15.049 --> 00:21:18.230 World War I proved definitively that information 00:21:18.230 --> 00:21:20.849 control, censorship, and emotional manipulation 00:21:20.849 --> 00:21:23.450 are just as critical to sustaining a war effort 00:21:23.450 --> 00:21:26.650 as troops and artillery. Governments learned 00:21:26.650 --> 00:21:29.289 that to mobilize a modern, industrialized nation 00:21:29.289 --> 00:21:32.390 for total war, you must first mobilize and manage 00:21:32.390 --> 00:21:35.390 their minds. They constructed the vast machinery 00:21:35.390 --> 00:21:38.450 of mass persuasion and state -sponsored advertising 00:21:38.450 --> 00:21:40.829 that established the foundation for the media 00:21:40.829 --> 00:21:43.130 landscape we navigate today. It is a profound 00:21:43.130 --> 00:21:46.049 legacy. And I promised you one last mind -bending 00:21:46.049 --> 00:21:48.630 fact to mull over before we wrap up. We've explored 00:21:48.630 --> 00:21:50.809 how successful all this propaganda was at pushing 00:21:50.809 --> 00:21:52.849 populations into the conflict. But there was 00:21:52.849 --> 00:21:55.789 a massive delayed backfire effect. The hangover. 00:21:55.950 --> 00:21:57.930 Yes. After the war ended, the truth eventually 00:21:57.930 --> 00:21:59.730 surfaced. Many of the propagandists actually 00:21:59.730 --> 00:22:01.910 confessed that they had completely fabricated 00:22:01.910 --> 00:22:03.809 those horrific atrocity stories we discussed 00:22:03.809 --> 00:22:06.269 earlier. The mutilated children, the crucified 00:22:06.269 --> 00:22:08.690 officers. They admitted they made it all up simply 00:22:08.690 --> 00:22:11.589 to engineer public outrage. The psychological 00:22:11.589 --> 00:22:14.230 hangover from that revelation was immense. The 00:22:14.230 --> 00:22:16.589 public realized they had been deeply manipulated 00:22:16.589 --> 00:22:19.890 on an emotional level. By the 1930s, citizens 00:22:19.890 --> 00:22:23.069 had grown intensely cynical and resistant toward 00:22:23.069 --> 00:22:25.930 any media reports of foreign atrocities. The 00:22:25.930 --> 00:22:28.450 source material highlights a fascinating 1940 00:22:28.450 --> 00:22:31.390 study on American public opinion. It determined 00:22:31.390 --> 00:22:33.730 that the collective memory of being lied to by 00:22:33.730 --> 00:22:36.569 World War I propaganda was the primary reason 00:22:36.569 --> 00:22:39.130 Americans initially rejected allied reports of 00:22:39.130 --> 00:22:41.789 atrocities during World War II. Think about the 00:22:41.789 --> 00:22:44.289 gravity of that for a second. The fake news of 00:22:44.289 --> 00:22:46.630 the First World War was so effective and the 00:22:46.630 --> 00:22:49.250 subsequent betrayal so deeply felt that when 00:22:49.250 --> 00:22:51.670 genuine horrific atrocities were occurring in 00:22:51.670 --> 00:22:54.089 the Second World War, the public initially dismissed 00:22:54.089 --> 00:22:56.220 them as just another government manipulation. 00:22:56.940 --> 00:22:59.539 The propaganda actually intensified anti -war 00:22:59.539 --> 00:23:02.200 sentiment declares after the fact. When governments 00:23:02.200 --> 00:23:04.740 cry wolf, the public remembers for generations. 00:23:04.819 --> 00:23:06.880 They certainly do. It's a sobering thought. It 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:08.940 really is. Thank you so much for joining us for 00:23:08.940 --> 00:23:11.700 this deep dive. It's a heavy complex topic, but 00:23:11.700 --> 00:23:14.420 an incredibly vital one for understanding the 00:23:14.420 --> 00:23:16.859 mechanics of the information we consume every 00:23:16.859 --> 00:23:19.279 single day. Keep staying curious, keep digging 00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:21.660 into the sources, and always keep questioning 00:23:21.660 --> 00:23:23.980 the media landscape around you. We will catch 00:23:23.980 --> 00:23:24.579 you next time.