Propaganda and Public Relations in Military Recruitment: Promoting Military Service in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

This book represents the first international investigation of military recruitment advertising, public relations and propaganda. Comprised of eleven case studies that explore mobilisation work in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, it covers more than a hundred years of recent history, with chapters on the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, and the present day.

The book explores such promotion in countries both large and small, and in times of both war and peace, with readers gaining an insight into the different strategies and tactics used to motivate men, women and occasionally even children to serve and fight in many parts of the world. Readers will also learn about the crucial but little-known role of commercial advertising, public relations and media professionals in the production and distribution of recruitment promotion. This book, the first of its kind to be published, will explore that role, and in the process address two questions that are central to studies of media and conflict: how do militaries encourage civilians to join up, and are they successful in doing so?

It is a multi-disciplinary project intended for a diverse academic audience, including postgraduate students exploring aspects of war, propaganda and public opinion, and researchers working across the domains of history, communications studies, conflict studies, psychology, and philosophy.

Brendan Maartens is a Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. He has published on various aspects of military recruitment promotion in Britain and Ireland, and has also written about the development of modern media management techniques. At the broadest level, he is interested in how governments and armed forces ’sell’ themselves to ordinary citizens, and what role private enterprise (and advertising agencies and public relations firms in particular) play in such selling.

Thomas Bivins is the John L. Hulteng Chair in Media Ethics and the head of the Graduate Certificate Program in Communication Ethics in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. Before entering academia, he spent six years as a broadcast specialist in Armed Forces Radio and Television and has worked in advertising, corporate public relations, and as a graphic designer and editorial cartoonist. He is the author of numerous research articles on media ethics and several college texts.