episode 1

Tessa Cook's final project explores how radio broadcasting during World War II served as successful propaganda for the Allied forces. She defines propaganda as emotionally charged messaging used to persuade audiences to support a cause. Through specific instances of propaganda and internal messaging, Tessa aims to show the connection between radio broadcasting and the Allied victory. She emphasizes the power of radio in influencing nations and thanks listeners for tuning in. The transcription also discusses the history of radio broadcasting, its role in providing news during the war, and the shift in reliance on radio for news in the US and Great Britain. Hello everyone, my name is Tessa Cook, and this is my final project submission for History 2001W. For my project, I am undertaking a study of radio broadcasting during World War II, arguing that radio was successful as a propaganda machine for the Allied forces during the war years. I have to first acknowledge that my definition of propaganda is wide in its scope. I will not be stating that this information was necessarily fake or intentionally misleading. Contrary to that, I think the majority of this propaganda on the side of the U.S. and Great Britain was grounded in reality. Only that it was an emotionally charged messaging used to persuade audiences to action in support of a cause. Through the study of specific instances of propaganda delivered over the airwaves, as well as internal messaging within state and media actors, I hope to make a connection between the success of the radio broadcasting of propaganda and the victory of the Allied forces. This is a looser connection. I don't intend to state that the Allies would have lost the war without the aid of radio broadcasting. I only hope to illustrate how radio and the broadcasting of propaganda created a domestic and international cause of support for the Allied forces, supporting their victory. Through this podcast, I'd like to reinforce the sheer power of radio in changing the hearts and the minds of entire nations. I'd like to thank you for tuning in, and I hope you will enjoy. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen. Out of character to assure you that the war of the world has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theater's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying boo. From the NBC newsroom in New York, President Roosevelt said in a statement today that the Japanese have attacked the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from the air. I'll repeat that. President Roosevelt says that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii from the air. This bulletin came to you from the NBC newsroom in New York. Right to the head, and the gentleman is watching carefully. Lewis measures him right to the body, a lift up to the jaw, and Schmeling is down. The count is five, five, six, seven, eight. The men are in the ring. The fight is over on a technical knockout. Max Schmeling is beaten in one round. Before the world's information was accessible at the click of a button, or the tap of a screen, before television could inundate us with mindless soap operas, crime procedurals, and 24-7 news cycles, we have radio. British and American audiences tuned in by the millions to the golden age of radio, from the 1920s to the 1950s. In the early days, radio was off to a relatively slow start. Dame Nellie Melba's June 15, 1920 broadcast, consisting of her singing Home Sweet Home, was, as Simon Potter puts it in Wireless Internationalism and Distant Listening, an early experiment into radio programming for British audiences. The first consistent broadcast service in Europe was supervised by PCGG The Hague, a company stationed for the Ninderlandshee radio industry. By the early 1920s, radio out of Great Britain consisted of a handful of broadcasting stations out of major metropolitan areas like London. That is, until the British Broadcasting Company was established in October of 1922. By November of that year, it was conducting daily broadcasting around the country. The BBC has since claimed that it was the first European broadcaster to conduct regular daily broadcasting. By the mid-1920s, radio was a household staple for British audiences, as by Christmas 1923, over half a million British homes had radio receivers. By 1929, on the other hand, over a third of US homes, which was around 41 million people, also had at least one radio in the house. Importantly, advances in long-wave broadcasting, which required more power to work but served a much greater area than the medium-wave stations of the past, promised the advent of international broadcasting. On December 28 and 29, the first overseas relay of programs was conducted between BBC engineers at Beacon Hill as they broadcasted a program from radio station KDKA in East Pittsburgh. The BBC guide Radio Times introduced listeners in Great Britain to stations around the globe. Broadcasting had the ability to cross national borders. Potter writes, quote, contemporaries recognized that broadcasting was not just creating a more deeply felt sense of national belonging among listeners, but also encouraging new forms of transnational identity. As one pioneering sociological study of listening in interwar Bristol suggested, radio had made the continent of Europe, quote, more real to listeners than the neighboring countries had been to their grandparents. Cinema might project a fantastic picture of the US, but radio offered a more accurate, increasingly concrete representation. Thanks to wireless, the ordinary working man and woman is becoming a conscious citizen of the nation and of the world, end quote. Up until the late 1930s, however, broadcasting remained purely a source of entertainment in many American homes and as a source of ad revenue for advertisers. The broadcasting of news commentary did, of course, exist, as about 5% of programs scheduled in the late 1930s was dedicated to news and politics, according to Horton in Radio Ghost of War, but many Americans got most of their news from traditional print newspapers. In a poll taken in 1939 and again in 1945, over 60% of respondents cited their chief source of news as the newspaper, while 25% asserted theirs to be radio in 1939. By 1945, these numbers had almost completely flipped. 61% got most of their news from radio, while 35% got it from their newspapers. This sudden shift is reflective of the rapid dominance of radio in the US and Great Britain, especially as Europe catered on the brink of war and people were glued to their receivers to hear live updates from commentators. In the US, audiences were awoken by a live Hollywood picture playing out over the airwaves as the Munich crisis unfolded in September of 1938. Americans were offered a look into the negotiations between British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and German dictator Adolf Hitler, as the latter made clear his desire to annex the Sudetenland. Correspondents such as H.V. Keltenborn of the Columbia Broadcasting System, also known as CBS, shook American audiences to their core through expertly crafted commentary and live dramatic reporting. This next clip was commented by Max Jordan of NBC as the Munich Agreement was underway. Hello NBC, this is Max Jordan calling from Munich, Germany. It is now 8 minutes to 2 o'clock AM local time. Exactly 17 minutes ago, Premier Chamberlain of England, Premier Valadier of France and their delegations walked out of the assembly room at the first palace here, thus concluding the big four power meeting. Benito Mussolini, the Duchy of Italy, followed them shortly afterwards to catch his special plane for Italy. The big four conference of Munich has come to a formal close. American audiences praised commentators like Keltenborn and Jordan for their reporting, with many admitting that these journalists had created for them an interest in current events, applauding their ability to deliver informative analyses of events through quote unbiased explanations. Hollywood in turn was impressed by the drama and flair created by radio. Still, America was on the outskirts of this crisis, which probably led to a feeling of its playing out as a Hollywood picture of events far removed. For British audiences, however, this crisis would escalate into a war that would soon come knocking at their door. I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street. This morning, the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. After this British declaration of war on Germany on September 3rd, 1939, the radio war would begin. The nations of the United States and Great Britain would mobilize the radio war effort to drop national sentiment in support of the war and reinforce the existential threat that Germany under Hitler posed to the entire world. Often enough, this was done through competing modes of propaganda, from FDR's fireside chats to Churchill's broadcast to the people of Great Britain to the involvement of journalists at CBS, NBC, and BBC, as well as through the work of government organizations such as the Office of War Information of the U.S. and the Ministry of Information of the U.K. In World War II Propaganda, Analyzing the Art of Persuasion During Wartime, David Welch argues that four things are required of propaganda to be successful. It must, quote, mobilize hatred against the enemy, convince the population of the justness of one's own cause, enlist the support and the cooperation of neutral countries, and strengthen the support of one's allies, end quote. I argue that the first two points were expounded on by propagandists during World War II as, quote, the people's war gave reason to, quote, why we fight for British and American audiences.