The Romans

The Romans can be called the great inventors of myths with the purpose of propaganda. Think of Caesar, Augustus or Nero. Caesar wrote his war-documentation by using incredible (e.g. the numbers of hostile soldiers) but he also emphasized the barbarity of the foe, creating images of hatred. People back at home had to believe these manipulative stories.
Or Augustus: he reunited the Roman Empire; part of his power was due to huge efforts in propaganda, visible e.g. in the mass of coins showing his face, being sent all over the empire. He understood very well, that different cultures used different symbols - and he used them for his propaganda.
Politically the Roman army was an important factor. Propaganda in that case was used for the soldiers on the one hand, but on the other hand also for demonstrating the power of the army to the people, so they could trust in its strength. Even then security was an essential factor of politics. As long as the army functioned, the Roman Empire did as well (Taylor, Munitions of the Mind, p. 48).

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Exchange of the Text

One of the easiest tools for disinformation is to exchange the words written below a photograph. The entire meaning of the picture can be varied like this:

- The visit of a school-group at a former international camp can change into a camp, where children are imprisoned (which happened in the Russian city of Petroskoy in 1944).

- Victims of war can change nationality. The picture of the brutal German soldier in World War II that was shown in many newspapers to demonstrate the so-called typical face of a murderer, turned out to be French and a victim in other newspapers.

- In 1976 a picture of children in a day-nursery in the GDR is taken: The children, coming out of the shower, were dressed up in terry cloth suits with stripes. The same year the photograph with the happily laughing boys and girls wins the contest "a beautiful picture". Two years later a small part of the photograph can be seen in a Christian magazine in West-Germany, supposedly showing children from a concentration camp in the USSR. The smiling faces now seem to scream. (source: Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (ed.): Bilder, die lügen. Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung im Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Bonn 1998, p. 79)

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Posters

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 Hitler. In this case only his face was shown, sometimes without neck, which gave him the expression of a spiritual.
- 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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Ottawa

Latitude: 45.42, Longitude: -75.7

The headquarters of the Communications Security Establishment CSE are located in Ottawa. Here all processed intercepted data from Canadian monitoring stations come together to be further analyzed by special signals intelligence analysts. For that purpose the dictionary system is used.

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INTELSAT

INTELSAT is in business since 1964 and owns and operates a global communications satellite system of 17 geostationary satellites providing capacity for voice, video, corporate/private networks and Internet in more than 200 countries and territories.



http://www.intelsat.int/index.htm

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Seneca

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (~4 BC - 65 AD), originally coming from Spain, was a Roman philosopher, statesman, orator and playwright with a lot of influence on the Roman cultural life of his days. Involved into politics, his pupil Nero forced him to commit suicide. The French Renaissance brought his dramas back to stage.

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