United States Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other forms of media, the OWI was the connection between the battlefront and civilian communities. The office also established several overseas branches, which launched a large-scale information and propaganda campaign abroad. From 1942 to 1945, the OWI revised or discarded any film scripts reviewed by them that portrayed the United States in a negative light, including anti-war material.
United States Office of War Information
Elmer Davis, Director of the Office of War Information, examines Nazi and Japanese propaganda organs at a press conference that explained how the OWI was fighting the propaganda war (March 6, 1943).
A M-4 tank crew. OWI photo, 1942.
Washington, D.C. Radio repair service in the self-help exchange.
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts.
A poster that was used to encourage Americans to car-share in order to conserve oil for the US during World War II.
Nazi Propaganda poster of 27th SS Volunteer Division Langemarck with anti-semitic title: "Together we will crush him!".
A 1918 Finnish propaganda leaflet signed by General Mannerheim circulated by the Whites urging the Reds to surrender during the Finnish Civil War. [To the residents and troops of Tampere! Resistance is hopeless. Raise the white flag and surrender. The blood of the citizen has been shed enough. We will not kill like the Reds kill their prisoners. Send your representative with a white flag.]
Poster of the 19th-century Scandinavist movement