Propaganda with a Mission: Learning from the Second World War for the Christian Sector in a Digital Age In the Second World War, British propaganda posters were circulated using the techniques of persuasion, education, information, celebration, encouragement, morale boosting, and identification of enemies to encourage civilians to understand and undertake their responsibilities in ‘The People’s War’.   In the face of oft-reported declines in church membership, there is urgency for the church to recognize the possibilities of online spaces. The author of a PhD on the above topic developed the BIGBible Project in 2010. The Project blog curates contributions from #DIGIdisciples, questioning what it means to be a Christian in a digital age and in the digital environment. What do digital technologies allow us to do differently, and what can we learn from the past?   The conference paper will draw from the rich collection of over 2,750 #digidisciple posts to demonstrate the potential that the digital has offered the Christian sector, whilst also emphasizing continuity with the past. http://ww2poster.co.uk/phd-research/phd-the-planning-design-and-reception-of-british-home-front-propaganda-posters-of-the-second-world-war-creative-commons-drbexl/

1. Propaganda with a Mission: Learning
from the Second World War for the
Christian Sector in a Digital Age
Dr Bex Lewis
Research Fellow in Social Media & Online Learning
CODEC, Durham University
The Association for the Study of Religion,
Economics, and Culture Conference, Durham,
September 2014

2. @drbexl

3. A public notice aims to inform or
command. A poster aims to
seduce, to exhort, to sell, to
educate, to convince, to
appeal. Whereas a public
notice distributes information to
interested or alert citizens, a
poster reaches out to grab
those who might otherwise
pass it by.
Susan Sontag
Read more: http://j.mp/ww2posterch2
@drbexl

4. http://ww2poster.co.uk/phd-research/phd-ww2poster-2004/
@drbexl

5. Ministry of Information
• Central
governmental
publicity machine
• Formed September
1939
• Tell the citizen
‘clearly and swiftly
what he is to do,
where he is to do it,
how he is to do it
and what he should
not do’.
@drbexl

6. During the war, a ‘shared sense of
national identity had to be mobilised
amongst the people of Britain’.
Achieved partly through propaganda
posters, more and more people ‘were
encouraged to identify themselves as
active citizens, as active members of
the nation’, a citizenship ‘to be earned
by communal and individual service of
one’s nation in wartime’.
Lewis, R., Unpublished PhD thesis (2004), quoting Noakes,
L., War and the British: Gender and National Identity, 1939-
@drbexl 91, 1998, p.48.

7. Benedict Anderson ‘Imagined
Communities’
 What ‘makes
people love and
die for nations,
as well as hate
and kill in their
name’?
 1991
@drbexl

8. @drbexl https://www.wordnik.com/words/community

9. The Big Bible Project has emerged as
an online community using everyday
social media platforms. The site itself
aims to involve its community not
only in Biblical engagement, but also
to consider what it means to be a
disciple in the digital age (and the
digital culture).
http://www.newmediacentreofexcellence.org.uk/resources/
communityinthe21stcentury#sthash.CHBenwRc.7AW3LP3H.
dpuf
@drbexl

10. Image: http://j.mp/IaePVj
@drbexl

11. http://audioboo.fm/boos/367199-a-few-pearls-of-wisdom-from-
jas-tdc11-re-community
@drbexl

12. In the 1930s Aldous Huxley recognised that
propaganda ‘canalises an already existing
stream’; it is only effective on those
already in tune with the ideas expressed.
Propaganda encourages its audience
further along the direction that they are
already moving, and reinforces partly
formed ideas.
Doherty, M., ‘What is Political Propaganda?’ (Lecture), ‘MA in Propaganda,
Persuasion and History’, at University of Kent at Canterbury, October 1997
@drbexl

13. Casting a compelling vision for a
Christ-exalting life is part of
leadership, but understanding how
best to communicate God’s word
into individual and corporate
circumstances with persistence,
persuasion and precision is what
distinguishes a visionary from a
biblical leader.
http://toddengstrom.com/2013/11/18/meeting-people-where-
they-are/
Todd Engstrom
@drbexl

14. Darren Hill, The Worship Cloud
All these great Bible verses
arrive on my feed without
any context, background or
explanation. As believers we
are fine with this, we of
course know the context to
any text that appears
online… don’t we? But what
about everyone else?
http://bigbible.org.uk/2012/11/posts-promises-
and-perennial-issues-darrenrhill-
digidisciple/
Image Credit: Darren Hill
@drbexl

15. Relationships/Communication
@drbexl

16. Abram Games (1914-1996), War
Office
• 1940: Infantry
• ‘an understanding of
what the ranker thinks,
does and, perhaps more
important, does not do’,
as the army mentality
was different from that of
the ‘outside world’.
• 1941: Recruiting Posters
for RAC
• 1942: “Official War Office
Poster Designer”
@drbexl

17. How to Keep Well in Wartime
During three years of total war the nation’s
stubborn good health has been invaluable to out
war effort. Even so, as a nation we are still using
about 22 million weeks’ work each year through
common and often preventable illnesses such as
colds and influenza, dyspepsia, biliousness,
neurasthenia, rheumatism, boils and other septic
conditions. This is calculated to be the equivalent
to the loss of 24,000 tanks, 6,750 bombers, and
6,750,000 rifles a year, not to mention the pain
and inconvenience we suffer as individuals.
How to Keep Well in Wartime, Ministry of Information, 1943 (Booklet)
@drbexl

18. http://www.propagandacritic.com/
articles/index.html
@drbexl

19. Posters did not stand alone
• Legislation
• Newspapers
• Radio
• Cinema
• Leaflets
• Window Displays
@drbexl

20. Simon Edge, ‘Sign of the Times’, Daily @drbexl Express, Thursday March 19, 2009, p36

21. @drbexl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_And_Carry_On

22. @drbexl

23. Celebrity
@drbexl

24. Global
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/magazine/05FOB-@drbexl consumed-t.html?ref=magazine

25. http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/ @drbexl

26. Citizen Warriors
The boundaries between
the civilian and the
combatant soldier were
blurred during the war,
with ‘propagandist
attempts to personify the
entire population as
heroic’.
Lewis, R., Unpublished PhD thesis, quoting
Paris, M., Warrior Nation: Images of War in
British Popular Culture, 1850-2000, 2000,
@drbexl

27. The Church Front Door?
For many churchgoing is no longer the
‘cultural norm’. People don’t actively
ignore the church: they don’t even
think about it. … With literally billions
in the digital spaces, the online social
spaces presented by churches need to
be appealing, welcoming, and not look
like they are just an afterthought: they
are now effectively the ‘front door’ to
your church for digital users, and you
ignore those spaces at your peril.
@drbexl Image Credit: freeimages.com
http://www.churchgrowthrd.org.uk/blog/churchgrowth/growing_churches_in_the_digital_age

28. [If we are…] means by which God
communicates and reveals himself
through his spirit, then our blog
posts, status updates, tweets,
artistic images, and online
comments should be products of a
life transformed by Christ and
indwelled by his spirit. As restored
image bearers, our online presence
and activity should image the triune
god.
Byers, A. Theomedia (2013, 196)
@drbexl

29. @drbexl

30. @drbexl

31. @drbexl

32. @drbexl

33. @drbexl

34. @drbexl

35. Christians and Churchgoing
http://www.ons.@drbexl gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290510.pdf

36. https://www.facebook.com/maryengelbreit/photos/a.283968321636466.87914.1388327
42816692/809142355785724/?type=1&theater
@drbexl

37. http://phdinprogress.wordpress.com
Dr Sara Batts (2013)
@drbexl

38. The Growth of the Internet
http://oxis.oii.ox.ac.uk/sites/oxis.oii.ox.ac.uk/files/content/@drbexl files/publications/OxIS_2013.pdf

39. The digital environment is not a
parallel or purely virtual world,
but is part of the daily experience
of many people, especially the
young. Social networks are the
result of human interaction, but
for their part they also reshape
the dynamics of communication,
which builds relationships: a
considered understanding of this
environment is therefore a
prerequisite for a significant
presence there.
Pope Benedict XVI
(2013)
@drbexl

40. “Bringing the young in…?”
“Jake told the executive that he never
goes directly to a brand like this man’s
newspaper or even to blogs he likes. ...
he reads a lot of news – far more than I
did at his age. But he goes to that news
only via the links from Digg, friends’
blogs, and Twitter. He travels all around
the internet that is edited by his peers
because he trusts them and knows they
share his interests. The web of trust is
built at eye-level, peer-to-peer.”
Jarvis, p.86, my emphasis
@drbexl

41. Cohen, D.J., & Rosenzweig, R., Digital
History: A Guide to Gathering,
Preserving, and Presenting the Past on
the Web, 2006, p18
“Writing history requires that you first
immerse yourself in the styles, conventions,
and methods of historical writing and that
you understand the different genres of
history books, whether scholarly
monograph, popular narrative textbook, or
reference work. The same holds true for
those who want to create history museum
exhibits, make history films, and teach
history classes.” … and of course history
websites.

42. Church: Broadcast Model
@drbexl Image Source: RGBStock

43. On the Emmaus road, Jesus was
recognized in the breaking of bread rather
than in the exegesis of scripture. That’s an
intriguing lesson to learn when so much of
the web and so much of digital
communication is about proclamation
rather than reception.
Phillips et al, 2013: 10
@drbexl

44. New Opportunities
@drbexl Image Source: Stockfresh

45. #DIGIDisciple
those who seek to live
out their Biblically-informed
Christian faith
in the digital space,
exploring both what it
means to be a disciple
in the digital age, and
also how the digital age
affects or alters
discipleship.
@drbexl

46. https://audioboo.fm/boos/1577833-what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-digital-
disciple-with-changingworship
@drbexl

47. It’s something about the informality and
distance; the ability to pause and think,
which can be difficult in a conversation;
and the way discussions can pick up
where they left off several hours, days or
weeks later.
Emma Major, BIGBible Post, 2012
@drbexl

48. Thank you for your
time…
QUESTIONS?
@drbexl @codecuk