Thussu in The Historical Context of International
Communication discusses the relevance of communication in regards to
dispersing opinion to a wide audience. Particularly his focus on propaganda
throughout the history of international communication is significant not only
today, as messages are more easily spread as ICT advance and become more
accessible to those in developing countries, but also in history. I’m thinking
of one person in particular: Marie Antoinette. But first, a little background.
Elizabeth
C. Hanson of the university of Connecticut gives a brief relay of the vast
changes that took place in medieval Europe after the introduction of the
printing press, borrowed from China and later perfected in the 1500s by Johann
Gutenberg. In her book, The Origins of
the Information Revolution, she mentioned that Europe went from a literacy
rate of 4 to 5 percent in the fifteenth century to, suddenly, producing books
that “…posed a serious challenge to the Catholic Church,” the Church being “the
medieval society’s principal information network,” (Hanson, 15). With the
invention of cheaply produced press, the poor could suddenly produce their own
versions of history and information.
“The
importance of cables as the arteries of an international network of
information, of intelligence services and of propaganda can be gauged from the
fact that the day after the First World War broke out, the British cut both
German transatlantic cables,” (Thussu, 5). Thussu goes on to recount that the
United States, after WWI, was able to land a deal in buying out communication
cables from Britain, as Britain was desperate. This cables landed the United
States in a position of power, as it would thereafter be better equipped to
diffuse its own propaganda.
Newspapers are especially powerful tools
of propaganda, and though we know Reuters today to be a distinguished a fairly
balanced source of current events, Reuters, according to Thussu, started as
Britain’s main propaganda machine, spreading news through a Royal filter to all
of Britain’s distant colonies. “[The British Department of Information]
…rallied opinion within the Empire and influenced the attitudes of the neutral
countries,” (Thussu, 6). The Manging Director of Reuters during these years,
George Jones, also happened to be in charge of “cable and wireless propaganda”
for the BDI.
Thussu
details that Mahatma Gandhi was able to “propogate an anticolonial agenda,”
(Thussu, 7) while Armand Mattelart’s Mapping
World Communication makes a convincing argument that propagandized press
was largely responsible for American intervention in Cuba in 1898. What this
demonstrates is the negative effects of technology. While technology and the
transfer of information – the right information – can be used for good, it can
also be used to accomplish things for the wrong reasons, or sometimes to place
blame on those who don’t deserve it.
Now, back
to the Last Queen of France: Marie Antoinette was indeed a victim of propaganda
made possible by an increase in communication. A few comics and pamphlets propagandized
her activities in Versailles and successfully ruined her reputation (“she’s a
lesbian/she’s spending France into ruin/etc). While the everyday Frenchman
indeed had a tough life and the French Revolution was valid (no one here is
defending the legitimacy of a monarchy), much of the blame for France’s
economic woes were placed on a teenage girl, and a foreigner at that. What this
goes to show is that information, right or wrong, was dispersed so rapidly in
the 1700s that even today people
still believe that Marie Antoinette actually
said, “Let them eat cake,” (not true). Even today, the French learn that a teenage
Austrian was the reason for France’s suffering, and French schoolbooks
conveniently leave out that it was King Louis who actually spent France into
ruin with his support of the American Revolution.
It wasn’t
long before other European powers got wind of the events in France, which
caused them to punish severely any political dissidence. If information caused that much damage back then, what can it
do today with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and the like?
No comments:
Post a Comment