Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part 1 The National War Aims Committee
- 1 The Development of Wartime Propaganda and the Emergence of the NWAC
- 2 The NWAC at Work
- 3 Local Agency, Local Work: The Role of Constituency War Aims Committees
- Part 2 Patriotism for a Purpose: NWAC Propaganda
- 4 Presentational Patriotisms
- 5 Adversaries at Home and Abroad: The Context of Negative Difference
- 6 Civilisational Principles: Britain and its Allies as the Guardians of Civilisation
- 7 Patriotisms of Duty: Sacrifice, Obligation and Community – The Narrative Core of NWAC Propaganda
- 8 Promises for the Future: The Encouragement of Aspirations for a Better Life, Nation and World
- Part 3 The Impact of the NWAC
- 9 ‘A Premium on Corruption’? Parliamentary, Pressure Group and National Press Responses
- 10 Individual and Local Reactions to the NWAC
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Local Case Studies
- Appendix 2 Card-Index Database
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Presentational Patriotisms
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part 1 The National War Aims Committee
- 1 The Development of Wartime Propaganda and the Emergence of the NWAC
- 2 The NWAC at Work
- 3 Local Agency, Local Work: The Role of Constituency War Aims Committees
- Part 2 Patriotism for a Purpose: NWAC Propaganda
- 4 Presentational Patriotisms
- 5 Adversaries at Home and Abroad: The Context of Negative Difference
- 6 Civilisational Principles: Britain and its Allies as the Guardians of Civilisation
- 7 Patriotisms of Duty: Sacrifice, Obligation and Community – The Narrative Core of NWAC Propaganda
- 8 Promises for the Future: The Encouragement of Aspirations for a Better Life, Nation and World
- Part 3 The Impact of the NWAC
- 9 ‘A Premium on Corruption’? Parliamentary, Pressure Group and National Press Responses
- 10 Individual and Local Reactions to the NWAC
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Local Case Studies
- Appendix 2 Card-Index Database
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
PART 1 of this book detailed the NWAC's establishment and its organisational structure. Part 2 is concerned with the ideological structure of NWAC propaganda. NWAC propaganda used familiar patriotic themes and ideas within a framework of ‘presentational patriotisms’: broad interactive and interdependent discursive categories which combined to provide a flexible patriotic narrative reflecting civilians’ total-war experiences. This narrative revolved around a core message of patriotic duty, contextualised by several other elements which demonstrated the necessity of accepting such obligations. This was not a narrative structure set out by the NWAC for its propagandists to adhere to. Rather, it is a model construct based on a close reading of the NWAC's printed and spoken propaganda (the latter reprinted in the local press). The interaction of the various contextual and core sub-patriotisms with each other within the narrative framework offered a patriotic message adaptable to different audiences and situations.
Setting the propaganda's content within this interpretative framework enables qualitative assessment of the language used, emphasising the purposes behind the rhetoric. Rather than assigning primacy to the most extensively discussed elements within patriotic rhetoric, this approach contends that the interactions of the wider presentational categories gave patriotism its vitality by enabling similar conclusions to be drawn from a range of approaches. Without adequate contextualisation, the NWAC's core appeal to duty may have seemed unreasonable, given the efforts already undertaken by civilians. Hence, using one or more contextual presentational patriotisms, the majority of most discussions explained why the appeal was made. Placing several familiar patriotic ideas and images within a particular presentational patriotism does not overly schematise the range of themes and arguments, but recognises that the same rhetorical purpose was served by several alternative arguments. Propagandists had many familiar patriotic themes and ideas at their disposal from which to construct an argument to convince war-weary civilians to continue doing their ‘duty’. Interpreting the manner and variety of these constructions may reveal more than merely re-identifying and re-cataloguing those familiar themes.
The core duty message was actually a three-pronged mixture, combining a hortatory ‘civic patriotism’, suffused with the self-denying rhetoric of ‘sacrificial patriotism’, with a celebratory evocation of what may be termed a ‘concrescent community’ growing together through shared sacrifice and acceptance of duty.
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- Information
- Patriotism and Propaganda in First World War BritainThe National War Aims Committee and Civilian Morale, pp. 85 - 112Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2012