Name: Samantha Goetz
War Propaganda
The definition of propaganda is: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature,
used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
For this assignment, you are to find a piece of war propaganda from any time period. This
can be in the form of something visual (like a war poster or cartoon), something written
or spoken, or a piece of music. Keep in mind that war propaganda is used for both prowar and anti-war purposes. Once you find a piece of propaganda that sticks out to you,
answer the following questions. (Please do not paste the propaganda below. Your job is
to describe it and analyze it. Please type into this form, single space. Turn in a hard copy
in class. It is worth 5 points.)
Describe what this piece of propaganda is and respond to the following questions: Give a
description of the propaganda. Who is the target audience? How and when was it used?
What is effective or ineffective about it? What were or could be the effects of accepting
the ideas put forth? Does it seem to be a purposeful misrepresentation of facts, or the
product of a natural and unintentional bias? Why do you think people are inclined to
accept propaganda? (Be sure to give some good detail and explanation to these questions
and write a minimum of 500 words)
I chose the “Daisy Girl” commercial that was aired in 1964 by Lyndon Johnson and team.
The short video started with a young girl picking petals off of a flower, counting
incorrectly from one to ten. Once she reaches 10, a scary voice starts counting down from
10, and at zero, it zooms into the girl’s eyes and an atomic bomb goes off. Johnson then
starts a short voiceover where is says, “These are the stakes- to make a world in which all
God’s children can live, or go into the dark. We must love each other, or we must die.”
Johnson’s target audience was all Americans. He wanted a vote from each and every
person, and the best way to do that is to air the video when he knew there were millions
watching. The video was aired only once on September 7, 1964, but there was an
estimated 50 million viewers who watched it.
Although it is mainly presidential propaganda, it can still fit under the war category. It is
effective because ultimately scared Americans into voting for Johnson. It showed a little
innocent girl who the audience grew to love, and then she is killed in an atomic attack.
No American wants to see anyone, especially children, die. By voting for Johnson, they
would be preventing this.
The video was a purposeful misrepresentation of facts. It implied that Goldwater,
Johnson’s opponent, was going to start a nuclear war. Was that the case? Not necessarily.
Although Goldwater had a rocky past and had numerous charges against him, it was said
that Johnson played a large part in Goldwater’s negative publicity. Johnson was never
found guilty of influence peddling, but along with the daisy girl campaign, he definitely
made Goldwater look much worse than he was in order to propel himself ahead in the
polls.
Johnson won by a landslide. He won 44 states (486 electoral votes), while Goldwater
won only 6 states. Johnson was ahead in polls before the video aired, but afterwards, it
was not even a fair fight. If American’s did not vote for Johnson, it was basically like
them screaming that they do not care about American’s and the fact that they will die if
Goldwater is elected. They were given to options with this propaganda. Either elect
Johnson and prevent a nuclear war and save Americans, or elected Goldwater who will
start a nuclear war and end many Americans lives.