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Also, The Use Of Visual Imagery In The First World War Was Given More ...

Also, the use of visual imagery in the First World War was given more precedence than written work because of the nature of education. As such, it is very important not to underestimate the power of visual iconography and imagery during this period of history in shaping political views. R. J. Goldstein (2000) comments that elite concerns centered less on controlling what little popular education existed than on restraining the press and other forms of communication, especially media such as caricature, theater, and (after 1900) cinema, which could reach a broad, even illiterate, lower-class audience" (4). The importance of visual imagery such as caricature was therefore treated as a matter of great importance by the print media industry. As the numerous poster campaigns prove, as well as the employment of various prominent cartoonists (some of whom, prior to employment conceiving of propaganda posters worked for highly conservative satirical newspaper Punch), the importance of the visual image in generating a generalised public consensus that filtered through all areas of society, including the large swathes of working class illiterates, was presumably more important than the written material that was circulated at the time. The history and the development of cartoons and satire in shaping public opinion only testifies to its importance in shaping public ideology and opinion.
A second point to consider is the history of the newspaper industry. Because press freedoms rely upon the structural framework of the organisation and the prevalent ideologies at the time, the trends that the First World War exacerbated have to be considered in their historical context. Firstly, the development of the newspaper industry as a means of channelling and disseminating news is a long and complex one. While the first newspapers in Britain date back to renaissance times, the development of press freedoms in Britain can be dated back even further than that, and represent a long-standing struggle for press autonomy in Britain which dates back to the 17th Century. James Curran (2003) comments that The winning of press freedom is attributed partly to a heroic struggle against the state. The key events in this struggle are generally said to be the abolition of the Court of Star Chamber in 1641, the ending of press licensing in 1694, Fox's Libel Act, 1792, and the repeal of press taxation the so-called ‘taxes on knowledge' in the period 1853 to 1861 (3). As such, the establishment of press freedoms, at least from direct intervention from the government tends to be a widely cherished movement in the British press, therefore the developments of a particular structure or organisational element in newspapers tends to be the overall dictate for how free a particular press tends to be.


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