After several years of rising political tensions, 
World War I erupted in the year 1914. 
I have to be careful not to make this in to a 
history class, 
but it’s important for us to realize the impact of 
this war on our topic. 
but it’s important for us to realize the impact of 
this war on our topic. 
First of all that the war was brewing was quite 
apparent for all in the Western World. 
Newspapers, magazines and even the new up 
and coming mass medium of the radio
gave a lot of attention to the political and military manoeuvring on the European continent.
A student of media history might be surprised to read inflammatory featured articles 
and hear radio broadcasters goad the world 
leaders to rise up against the enemy. 
In short, some in the media landscape were 
actually campaigning for an aggressive stance 
and seemed to be looking forward to a coming 
conflict.
Perhaps under the misconception that it would 
be a short and relatively clean skirmish
that would restore the preferred balance of 
power.
In reality, populations all over the world were
bombarded with patriotic messages and a call to 
arms. 
Of course this wasn’t the only content in the 
media landscape,
but several years later, scientists that studied 
what had happened,
noticed the two correlating variables:
media that were campaigning for war and 
patriotism
and a motivated, patriotic population, set for war 
and many men volunteering to be a soldier
in one of the bloodiest wars the continent had 
ever seen. 
When the war started, all sides made use of 
massive propaganda campaigns. 
That's another important concept from our field, 
propaganda.
It’s often referred to as ‘one-sided’, ‘biased’ and 
‘unobjective’ communication. 
Jowett and O’Donnel define propaganda as 
‘the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape 
perceptions, manipulate cognitions, 
and direct behaviour to achieve a response that 
furthers the desired intent of the propagandist’. 
The world had in 1914 never seen such a huge 
‘push’
to influence so many at the same time with use 
of mediated communication.
The political and military leaders had perhaps 
learned
their lessons from the ancient Greeks and 
Romans. 
They too wielded the sword of communication
as if it was just one other weapon in their 
arsenal, 
piercing the mind with its persuasive message.
Again, scholars who studied events directly after 
the First World War
noticed a correlation between an intensive 
propaganda attempt and
all kinds of effects that were assumed to be the 
effect of this propaganda. 
It was seen as a reason why soldiers marched 
cheerfully in to war. 
Why the home front showed such a uniform support and respect for their military. 
Why enemy soldiers decided to defect in mass, 
to be imprisoned in military camps for the 
remainder of the war. 
The importance of World War I on 
communication theory is, to put it simple:
it created a huge belief in the power of mass 
communication through the media. 
We call this the all-powerful media paradigm. 
