CENSORSHIP AND PROPAGANDA

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 272, 13 August 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

CENSORSHIP AND PROPAGANDA

Manipulating Public Opinion

WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

This curious thing we call public opinion has become one of the primary forces in directing nations and governments. Perhaps the greatest force. You cannot put your finger on it and s ay, “This is public opinion,” any more than you can put your finger on that other force which we call “electricity and say, “This is electricity.” We know it is there because of the results it accomplishes, but we do not yet wholly understand the force itself. Public opinion was not always the force in the world that it is at piesent. Some centuries ago power was concentrated in the hands of relatively small "roups, and the masses of the people were voiceless. But the American Revolution and the French Revolution marked the effective beginning of the form of social organisation which we call “democracy.” That transition took place 150 years ago, said Dr. Robert W. Desmond, in a broadcast in England. The people still cannot govern themselves with complete wisdom. But most of us undoubtedly would agree that the world has advanced more rapidly, and in more ways, during that century and one-half, than during any other like period in history. It is important to notice that, whether in a democratic or in an authoritarian country, it is only the information that actually reaches the people which can determine their reaction to a particular policy or event. Most such information apart from that which is a part of our own necessarily limited personal experience, reaches us through the newspapers. Even radio news usually is based upon dispatches originally obtained or published by newspapers or press associations. Government Methods. Governments have been among tlie most active in utilising press and radio as sounding boards for the advancement of their particular ideas. Specifically, this has resulted in the use of censorship and propaganda, by Governments, on 'a very extensive scale. Censorship is a means by which information is kept from reaching the people at home, or the people abroad, or both. It is negative in its purpose —preventing ideas from gaining currency. Propaganda is the term used to describe information put forward with the deliberate purpose of impressing certain facts or some particular point of view—whether wholly accurate or not —upon the people at home, or the people abroad, or both. It strives to shape opinion and so to determine action.

These two—censorship and propaganda—are among the weapons used by governments to-day to deal with public opinion, chiefly to win its support for government policies. I believe that most persons now are aware that the blight of censorship and propaganda has swept across the map of the world to such an extent that in only three major countries of the world is. the Press now free to print the facts if it can get them. Those countries are the United States, Great Britain, and France. Dissemination of Ignorance. “Censorship,” so an editor-friend of mine said, “as now practised in the authoritarian countries, makes the dissemination of ignorance an instrument of national policy.” That is well put, and he might have said “Censorship and propaganda,” for the two are reverse sides of the same coin. Censorship deprives the people of certain information. Then propaganda is poured in to fill the void.

The evolution of mankind has been, and must continue to be, in the direction of greater individual intelligence and freedom, with the wise, co-opera-tive use of supreme power by the sovereign people. We may be a long way from the goal, but at least we know what the goal is. We know that the way to attain it is to march toward it as best we can. and not head in the other direction. Dictatorships are obstructions in ths stream which would carry people ahead, permitting them to develop freely, naturally, and normally, without, artificial stimulation through propaganda, and certainly without being misled and terrorised. You cannot bring up a child as he should go by frightening him and lying to him, and you cannot do so with a nation.

We, as individuals in a world temporarily in the grip.of such forces, can try to be intelligent and reasonable, do our daily work as well as we can, be as tolerant as we can—and, above all, avoid being stamped ourselves by propagandists and demagogues, wherever they may be. who will excite our emotions, if they can, and so induce us to believe and act as they want us to do. Temporary Annoyances. Ultimately, events will force the world back on to the course of progress. Censorship and propaganda now help to befog the scene and delay that return. But we will get there in the end. Recognising man's potentialities, as revealed by the long course over which he lias come so far. censorship and propaganda become mere temporary annoyances, obstructions built upon fear and selfishness, and rising high enough to keep out the light of truth. As we become able to bear the brilliance of that light, we ourselves will remove those obstructions and open the way to a greater future.