Propaganda poster analysis

How did propaganda play a major role in rooting patriotism and warrior spirit in Britain?

This document is a Australian propaganda poster dating from 1915. It is part of the Autralian War Memorial where is it probably exposed in an exhibition as an element of remembrance.

On this poster we can see a family composed of a daughter sitting on her father’s knees, who’s sitting on a chair, and a little boy playing on the ground. The girl is holding a booking and seems showing something to her father, who’s looking at us with a very serious face. As the daughter is sitting on her father’s knees, they seems to be close. There are many furnitures, kids seems to be okay, healthy, well dressed and they have toys to play with. The father may be quite important or at least, he has a stable stable situation, no sign of poverty as he’s well dressed and healthy too. In conclusion, this family is probably wealthy.

We can see that this is a propaganda poster as there is a catch sentence at the bottom “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War ?”. In this context of war, the aim is to recruite as many soldiers as possible. Moreover, the “you” is in capital letters and underlined in order to make the person feel guilty for not having participate to the war. On the whole, the little boy is playing soldiers, which means that he would probably like to become a soldier. The aim is to emphasize his father’s guiltness.

Propaganda puts a huge pressure on men’s to take part in the war effort with posters like this one which focus on the guiltness of the men. This kind of emotional blackmailing has been often used during war period as the pride and the honnor of a men was essential in the society.

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