If we look at history books we see the history of the winners, of men, of the rich and powerful ones. We read about a small part of the world's history - and very often we do not even realize this selective attitude. Those books disinform, telling us that they inform about what had happened in former times. Information turns into disinformation. Even being aware of this, we tend to live with it rather than change the system of selection.
Which means, we are accustomed to disinformation, as it is nothing new.
There is nothing like an exact history of disinformation, but the topic seems to have existed forever. With the help of disinformation, power and might can be prolonged, destroyed or gained. This is the secret of disinformation and its popularity.
Rumors were the first way of spreading news. Rumors tend to be interesting and they make people interesting: first of all the person who spreads the rumor and second the person who hears about it. Both of them think that they know something that others do not know yet - and this information advantage makes them special, at least for some moments, until the next rumor is spread or that one destroyed by some truth.
The "history" of disinformation is closely connected with the history of propaganda, though those two words do not mean the same thing. They are connected to each other and tend to influence each other in various ways.
What we tend to forget: everybody is disinforming sometimes, everybody is using propaganda. And persuasion is a common companion. The latter is less problematic though, as it uses less violence.
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Obviously, the existence of a totalitarian system is not the premise for disinformation. Democracies in a way praise disinformation. For example in the daily news: first the tragedies and catastrophes, afterwards the better stories, and finally the news end with something positive. This makes people satisfied and does not leave them with the feeling that everything is lost. The majority of politically uncomfortable news do not reach the light of the media at all.
Propaganda seems to work even better in a democratic society, as the population is not as suspicious as in a totalitarian system. Democratic systems tend to use disinformation especially during the times of elections. They use it while fighting against the others. The media decide which role they want to play in all that.
Already the selection of news can be disinformation.
"This system of thought control is not centrally managed, although sometimes the government orchestrates a particular propaganda campaign." (
It is very common that political interests are criticized by the media. But as soon as the so-called national interest is in danger, it is most of all the government's strategy that molests them, but no longer the issue itself. Which U.S.-newspaper ever criticized the American participation in the Kosovo or the Gulf War with hard words? Wasn't it simply the way how propaganda was done that was criticized? But even this only got into the news after the war (and that in both cases).
And if the population doesn't want a certain war then there is always the excuse that it has to be done that way to secure the national interests. Who - especially in patriot nations like the USA or Great Britain - would want or dare (from a moral perspective) to speak against this?
"It is sufficient that people obey; what they think is a secondary concern." (
The media are supposed to change information into public information. Out of this results that any lack of media-liberty means a lack of democracy as well.
Still, the instruments and rituals of democracy are never questioned officially.
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Soon after the Bolshevik Revolution wall newspapers were hung up around Moscow to distribute ideological thoughts and to (dis-)inform the people. As many people were illiterate in the beginning of this century, posters were the most effective tool for propaganda in the USSR. The ways of production and their design were so special that they reach high prices today, as pieces of art.
However, German posters were produced without any aesthetic idea behind, but to manipulate by using open disinformation and propaganda. Several motives existed, each fitting to a certain political topic.
- Very often they turned out extremely racist.
- The motive could be PR for
- The fight for each other, to work together in war times was another motive. In this case the presentation of different generations working together on the same project was important.
- Other posters were produced to make everybody save materials of daily life. The "Kohlenklau", the figure of an ugly thief of coal, was so popular that finally comics about him were sold. Everybody new the toon figure; a perfect and successful propaganda.
- A mixture between warning and propaganda were the posters talking about the enemy being everywhere and listening. In the beginning the enemy was portrayed as a shadow wearing a hat; a hostile person, hard to recognize. Later the figure seemed to fade away, was no longer really visible but still there, by then more mystic and frightening national security.
What is true for German propaganda posters can also be said about other political powers. And also today propaganda posters are used in pre-election periods. Style has changed, but the idea of presenting something simple that can't get forgotten easily, is still the same.
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Between the two World Wars the radio started becoming more and more important; as well in education (e.g.
By hearing unconsciously, without listening, while concentrating on something else, it is easy to spread ideas and emotions. This fact was taken advantage of.
The German Minister for Propaganda,
Radio Moscow, which started working in 1922, tried to intervene in innerstate-affairs in Britain as well as in other countries. The radio was supposed to push ahead the idea of communism.
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Cartoons' technique is simplicity.
Images are easier to remember than texts.
Frequently they show jokes about politicians, friendly or against the person shown. In the first decades of this century, cartoons were also used for propaganda against artists; remember the famous cartoons of
As a tool in politics it had fatal consequences by determining stereotypes, which never again could be erased even if detected as pure disinformation. Most famous got the cartoons about Jews, which were not only distributed by Germans and Austrians but all over Europe; and already in the tens and twenties of our century. Most horrifying is the fact that many of those old, fascist and racist cartoons are coming back now, in slightly different design only.
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Probably the most significant Internet service, the World Wide Web is not the essence of the Internet, but a subset of it. It is constituted by documents that are linked together in a way you can switch from one document to another by simply clicking on the link connecting these documents. This is made possible by the Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML), the authoring language used in creating World Wide Web-based documents. These so-called hypertexts can combine text documents, graphics, videos, sounds, and
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Among other things that is the reason why the World Wide Web is not simply a very huge database, as is sometimes said, because it lacks consistency. There is virtually almost infinite storage capacity on the Internet, that is true, a capacity, which might become an almost everlasting too, a prospect, which is sometimes
According to the Internet domain survey of the
Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero († 1980) was elected archbishop because he was very conservative. But when he saw how more and more priests and definitely innocent people were murdered, he changed his attitudes and became one of the sharpest critics of the government. He gave shelter to those in danger, never stopped talking against violence and his Sunday sermons on the radio where moments to tell the truth to the Salvadorians, also mentioning the names of the disappeared or killed persons. As Romero got extremely popular and dangerous for the population he was killed by death squads, while reading a sermon.
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The ICPC aims at reducing the number of incidents of damages to submarine telecommunications cables by hazards.
The Committee also serves as a forum for the exchange of technical and legal information pertaining to submarine cable protection methods and programs and funds projects and programs, which are beneficial for the protection of submarine cables.
Membership is restricted to authorities (governmental administrations or commercial companies) owning or operating submarine telecommunications cables. As of May 1999, 67 members representing 38 nations were members.
http://www.iscpc.org
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the head of the NSdAP, the National Socialist Workers' Party. Originally coming from Austria, he started his political career in Germany. As the Reichskanzler of Germany he provoked World War II. His hatred against all non-Aryans and people thinking in a different way killed millions of human beings. Disinformation about his personality and an unbelievable machinery of propaganda made an entire people close its eyes to the most cruel crimes on human kind.
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Source: Nicky Hager, Secret Power, New Zealand's role in the international spy network, (Craig Potton, 1996), Chapter 2
b., March 3, 1847, Edinburgh
d. Aug. 2, 1922, Beinn Bhreagh, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
American audiologist and inventor wrongly remembered for having invented the telephone in 1876. Although Bell introduced the first commercial application of the telephone, in fact a German teacher called Reiss invented it.
For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,15411+1+15220,00.html
Menwith Hill Station is one of the biggest groundstations in the
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