Radio propaganda is propaganda aimed at influencing attitudes towards a certain cause or position, delivered through radio broadcast. The power of radio propaganda came from its revolutionary nature. The radio, like later technological advances in the media, allowed information to be transmitted quickly and uniformly to vast populations. Internationally, the radio was an early and powerful recruiting tool for propaganda campaigns. Before television, radio was by far the most effective way to prevent or promote social change. In many areas, it still is. Radio propaganda can be broadcast over great distances to a large audience at a relatively low cost. Through radio, a propagandist can bring his voice and all the persuasive power of his emotions to millions of people. A similar approach is used in every war employing radio propaganda: aside from convincing those on the home front of the necessity of war, a different kind of propaganda must be directed towards the enemy. Radio became a powerful propaganda tool because it ignored national borders and made enemy lines more accessible. One of the most common ways hosts got the civilian and enemy populations to listen to their broadcasts was by dropping leaflets from hot air balloons or airplanes. Most programs were broadcast on selected stations at certain times of the day; the dropped leaflets explained exactly when and where the broadcasts could be heard.
World War II The use of radio as a wartime propaganda tool was made famous during World War II by broadcasting organizations such as Voice of America and by shows such as Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, and Lord Haw Haw.
Nazi Germany
The radio was an important tool of the Nazi propaganda efforts and it has been argued that it was the Nazis who pioneered the use of what was still a relatively new technology. A few months after the break out of World War II, German propagandists were transmitting no less than eleven hours a day of programs, offering most of them in English as well. In the first year of Nazi propaganda programming, broadcasters attempted to destroy pro-British feeling rather than arouse pro-German sentiment. These propagandists targeted certain groups, including capitalists, Jews, and selected newspapers/politicians. By the summer of 1940, the Nazis had abandoned all attempts to win American sympathy and the tone of German radio broadcasts towards the United States had become critical. German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, claimed the radio was the "eighth great power" and he, along with the Nazi party, recognized the power of the radio in the propaganda machine of Nazi Germany. Recognizing the importance of radio in disseminating the Nazi message, Goebbels approved a mandate whereby millions of cheap radio sets were subsidized by the government and distributed to German citizens. It was Goebbels' job to propagate the anti-Bolshevik statements of Hitler and aim them directly at neighboring countries with German-speaking minorities. In Goebbels' "Radio as the Eighth Great Power" speech, he proclaimed:
“It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have without the radio...It is no exaggeration to say that the German revolution, at least in the form it took, would have been impossible without the airplane and the radio…[Radio] reached the entire nation, regardless of class, standing, or religion. That was primarily the result of the tight centralization, the strong reporting, and the up-to-date nature of the German radio.” As well as domestic broadcasts, the Nazi regime used the radio to deliver its message to both occupied territories and enemy states. One of the main targets was the United Kingdom to which William Joyce broadcast regularly, gaining him the nickname "Lord Haw-Haw" in the process. Broadcasts were also made to the United States, notably through Robert Henry Best and 'Axis Sally', Mildred Gillars.
United Kingdom British propaganda during the First World War set a new benchmark that inspired the fascist and socialist regimes during the Second World War and the Cold War; Marshal Paul von Hindenburg stated, "This English propaganda was a new weapon, or rather a weapon which had never been employed on such a scale and so ruthlessly in the past." It was clear that large numbers of civilians could be mobilized for a massive war effort through persuasive techniques derived from the emerging disciplines of behavioral psychology and social sciences. An example of effective radio propaganda by the United States for the United Kingdom is the news reports of Edward R. Murrow. When the United Kingdom was at the time the only remaining nation opposing Germany in the autumn of 1940, Murrow covered the Battle of Britain and particularly the nightly bombing raids on London. His reports described the falling of the bombs, their impact, and the destruction they brought. As he described his approach to a London newspaper in 1941, "The official news is perhaps less important than the more intimate stories of life, work, and sacrifice." Murrow's objective was to focus on reaching the common man through his broadcasts, intimating to the world that the United Kingdom was fighting a "people’s war," not a war for its colonies, as the American isolationists charged. He wanted Americans to know that the UK was standing tall, united in its cause and protecting Western liberties and European civilization. He wanted Americans to see the UK as their natural ally and hurry to extend a helping hand. Many say he had far greater influence than the American ambassador to London; "He was an ambassador, in a double role, representing Britain in America as well as America in Britain.... He was a diplomat without a portfolio, a spokesman for a cause."
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