Suchergebnisse

This book traces the origins and early development of what are today loosely termed Britain's Overseas Information Services. It examines how, at the end of the First World War, the British government came to forfeit the considerable lead it had established in propaganda since 1914, and the reasons why it had gradually to re-enter the field during the inter-war years as a direct response to totalitarianism. It surveys the pioneering work of the Foreign Office News Department and its important press office, the commercial propaganda conducted by the Empire Marketing Board and the Travel Association, the foundation and rapid peacetime growth of the British Council to conduct 'cultural diplomacy', and the beginning of the BBC's World Service with the inauguration of foreign-language broadcasts in 1938

This polemical essay argues that, despite many presentational mistakes in the West's information war on terror since 9/11, the `propaganda' war is not yet lost. Indeed, it tentatively suggests that although those mistakes have made the task of `winning hearts and minds' in the Islamic world harder and longer, the root cause of failure to date lies with a failure to `know yourself' — i.e. to address those elements, such as foreign policy decisions, which fuel support for Al Qaida. Although the terrorist `organization' has proved exceptionally adept in its own propaganda, it is not just inept western propaganda that lies at the heart of the problem. It is the inability to see yourself as others see you, even if — or perhaps — you disagree with `them'.