Abstract of a paper entitled "Winning the War on State-Sponsored Propaganda: Results from an Impact Study of a Ukrainian News Media and Information Literacy Program":
"From 2015-2016, IREX implemented a media literacy training program called Learn to Discern (L2D) that trained Ukrainian citizens to critically assess news media messages and identify misinformation. In 2017, IREX conducted a quasi-experimental impact evaluation in a stratified random sample of L2D participants and a control group (n=412) matched for gender, age, region and education levels. A news literacy assessment was administered under two scenarios: an objective news article and a disinformation-based news article that included a series of questions to assess media analysis skills, knowledge of the news media environment and Media Locus of Control. Results show statistically significant higher levels of news analysis skills and knowledge of the news media environment for L2D participants, controlling for geographic region, education level, age, and gender. The results also found that news media behaviors acquired during the training persisted over a year following the training. In both groups, those who had a better ability to correctly identify disinformation also had better knowledge of how news media works, and slightly greater sense of control (assessed as Media Locus of Control) over their media choices. Future news media literacy programs should balance identifying and evaluating objective news stories and disinformation to ensure individuals are truly media literate in today’s news media environment."
Abstract of a paper titled "Infographics and their role in the IS propaganda machine":
"Although infographics form only a small portion of Islamic State (IS) propaganda, they provide an insight into the organisation’s self-perception, strategy and long-term plans. This research paper analyses more than four hundred infographics published by official IS media units using Winter’s (2018) thematic framework to categorise these images beyond the violence for which IS has become known. The three principal IS propaganda themes that Winter identified – Victimhood, Utopia and War – define the core themes of these IS infographics. This paper’s analysis shows that Religious Life and Summaries make up the majority of infographic sub-themes, while the primary theme Victimhood exists in the background, ultimately demonstrating that IS uses a combination of religiously based justification and state-building to solidify their position as a lasting power in the region."
Infographics and their role in the IS propaganda machine (Glausch)
Information about the author of the book "Propaganda Technique in the World War", available below, is provided here. This may help readers to better evaluate the contents of the book.
"Harold Dwight Lasswell (February 13, 1902 – December 18, 1978) was an American political scientist and communications theorist. He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and economics and was a PhD student at the University of Chicago. He was a professor of law at Yale University. He studied at the Universities of London, Geneva, Paris, and Berlin in the 1920s . He served as president of the American Political Science Association (APSA), of the American Society of International Law and of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS).
He has been described as a "one-man university" whose "competence in, and contributions to, anthropology, communications, economics, law, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and sociology are enough to make him a political scientist in the model of classical Greece."
According to a biographical memorial written by Gabriel Almond at the time of Lasswell's death and published by the National Academies of Sciences in 1987, Lasswell "ranked among the half dozen creative innovators in the social sciences in the twentieth century." At the time, Almond asserted that "few would question that he was the most original and productive political scientist of his time."
Areas of research in which Lasswell worked included the importance of personality, social structure, and culture in the explanation of political phenomena. Lasswell was associated with the disciplines of communication, political science, psychology, and sociology – however he did not adhere to the distinction between these boundaries but erased the lines drawn to divide these disciplines."
Propaganda Technique in the World War (file size: about 25 MB)
Nazi Propaganda:
"The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany (1933–1945) was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi policies."
Propaganda Ministry
"Paul Joseph Goebbels (German: [ˈpaʊ̯l ˈjoːzɛf ˈɡœbl̩s] (About this soundlisten);) (29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of Adolf Hitler's closest and most devoted associates, and was known for his skills in public speaking and his deeply virulent antisemitism, which was evident in his publicly voiced views. He advocated progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust.
Goebbels, who aspired to be an author, obtained a Doctor of Philology degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1921. He joined the Nazi Party in 1924, and worked with Gregor Strasser in its northern branch. He was appointed Gauleiter (district leader) for Berlin in 1926, where he began to take an interest in the use of propaganda to promote the party and its programme. After the Nazis' seizure of power in 1933, Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry quickly gained and exerted control over the news media, arts, and information in Germany. He was particularly adept at using the relatively new media of radio and film for propaganda purposes. Topics for party propaganda included antisemitism, attacks on the Christian churches, and (after the start of the Second World War) attempting to shape morale.
In 1943, Goebbels began to pressure Hitler to introduce measures that would produce "total war", including closing businesses not essential to the war effort, conscripting women into the labour force, and enlisting men in previously exempt occupations into the Wehrmacht. Hitler finally appointed him as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War on 23 July 1944, whereby Goebbels undertook largely unsuccessful measures to increase the number of people available for armaments manufacture and the Wehrmacht.
As the war drew to a close and Nazi Germany faced defeat, Magda Goebbels and the Goebbels children joined him in Berlin. They moved into the underground Vorbunker, part of Hitler's underground bunker complex, on 22 April 1945. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April. In accordance with Hitler's will, Goebbels succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany; he served one day in this post. The following day, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide, after poisoning their six children with cyanide."
(from Wikipedia)
The effectiveness of Nazi propaganda during World War II (by Stout)