WWII Propaganda Posters

While browsing over the World War Two propaganda posters I immediately noticed a difference between media then compared to media today. I find that the approach on how to display media and influence the nation’s population has changed since this war greatly. One thing that caught my attention right away was how the majority of the posters asked something of each person living in America. These posters suggested conserving certain materials like waste fats and hot water, buying war bonds, getting a war job, keeping quiet about military plans, joining a car club to save gas, and even eating nutritious food to stay healthy. This list, I’m sure, could be even longer and people may have followed these tasks then to do their part for the war effort. I personally don’t believe these advertisements would work on today’s population in America for one main reason. It is extremely hard in this day and age to get people to change their lifestyles, especially their time schedule and eating habits. If a sign like the “Eat the Right Food” poster shown was hung today very few people would even give it a second glance on their way to a fast food drive-through. I also think the posters suggesting one shorten his or her showers and return old waste fat would be ineffective because it would too inconvenient within a person’s busy schedule. In short I think America today has become too lazy for poster like this to be effective. I have yet to see a piece of media that asks people to conserve material or change their eating habits for the current war in Iraq.


Another reason why these posters might not work today is simply the fact that they are plain posters and not commercials or web pop-ups instead. In the 1940’s posters caught people’s attention because it was one of the only ways to spread media but because we have more advanced technology today people would disregard posters as a thing of the past. Also current forms of media such as television shows and internet media can express more thought and incorporate more rhetoric within the advertisement because of the advancement in technology. Now that media has evolved in the last 60 years media creators have incorporated a different style to how they persuaded populations. After looking at come media for a number of current problems I noticed that media today focuses a lot more on logos and pathos as opposed to ethos. The World War Two posters focused very heavily on ethos and trusting the government when they tell people to improve their morals and conserve material for soldiers. The poster suggests that a person is not a true American citizen until they have started a car club or found a place at a war job, otherwise appealing to their sense of ethics. Most media for the Iraq war today appeals to logos giving numbers or statistics to the amount of causalities or survey numbers. Also pathos plays an important role in media today. Most advertisements for the BP oil spill showed pictures of animals covered in oil and unable to move which defiantly pulls at a viewers heart strings. These issues are what Americans today are concerned with or afraid of.