Reaction Paper 1: The Historical Context of International Communication

The use of communication as a tool has been often observed in history. The evolution of communication is strongly correlated to economic, political or military historical situations. Throughout my reading of the textbook’s first chapter, I have been particularly interested in the concept of propaganda, and in how it was adapted to different technological advances and new medium; in order to serve political or military purposes. I wished to focus here on the way Radio in particular has revolutionized propaganda, and made it a phenomenon of masses.

From centuries before the invention and then popularization of radio, communication was already used as a way to spread ideologies to the masses. Writing is an example of that, as the popularization of it to non-formal languages, thanks to the printing revolution, had “undermin[ed] the authority of priests, scribes and political and cultural elites”(p.13), which means that these actors were using their domination on printing as way for ideological control over the masses. The use of radio, however, brought propaganda to a whole new level.

Because it was both cheaper and less restricted than the telegraph, radio had from its beginning the potential for becoming a mass communication. As stated in the book, “ever since the advent of radio, its use for propaganda was an integral part of its development” (p.27), and the medium was used to manipulate public opinions both locally, and abroad. From then, radio was used as a political and diplomatic tool, all over the world, and became a foundation for propaganda.

For what is of my own opinion, I thought the chapter was a very interesting way to open the subject of global communication. Through reviewing the historical context of each major step in this fields, I could really take conscience of the importance of understanding communication. Whether it comes to politics, to economics or to sociological changes, communications have both strongly impacted and been deeply shaped by what happened in history. As I study myself political science as a major, I understand the concept of propaganda as a major tool in shaping ideas and power relations, at the international and the domestic level. As stated in the reading, since the internationalization of communication, propaganda has became an extension of diplomacy. The chapter describes a diversity of examples in which different tools of communication have indeed served propaganda; and therefore it helps the reader to understand not only the power of propaganda, but also the way it happens nowadays and can happen in the future.

One nuance I could however make on this chapter and the way it treats the concept of propaganda is the fact that I thought it did not define it as clearly as I wished. Propaganda was treated more in terms of examples than through an explicit definition of it. Therefore, some questions subsist, such as: How big of an audience must be impacted in order to call a program of ideological manipulation propaganda? and : Does propaganda only apply to political contexts, and if so, should we consider global economic interests as political contexts?