PROPAGANDA ANALYSIS, BY ALEXANDER L. GEORGE. ( EVANSTON, ILL.: ROW, PETERSON AND COMPANY. 1959. PP. 287. $600)

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02198832
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2022
• Case Number: F-2019-01816
• Publication Date: June 1, 1959

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PROPAGANDA ANALYSIS,
George � �anetcn, Ill.t Row,
Peterson and Company. 1959. 287, 6490
This scholarly and imaginative one of Rand Corporationa
social scientists is of special significance because it evaluates
propaganda analysis techniques actually used in an operational situation
and has therefore had to consider the dynamics of politics, rather
s s
the formal
science is devoted. Nr George's guinea pig is the analysis of German
propaganda done by the FCC's Foreign Broadcast intelligence Service
during World War II. He examines it in the light of information obtained
later from German war documents and German officials, which providei a
unique opportunity to validate the inferences drawn from propaganda bearing
on intelligence problems and questions critical to Allied pdlicy. Some
80 percent of the FCC inferences that could be scored proved to be accurate.
The reader who does not make a specialty of propaganda analysis. will
be most interested in Part //I, nHethodolou and Applications," in which 20
case studies are presented to illustrate the broad range of intelligence
problems approached by the FCC. The analysts? reasoning is reconstructed
and their inferences metaled against the available historical record on
such important problems as the question of a German offensive against
Russia in 1943, 4he-Germaa expectations in 1942 of an-Allied second front
in North Africa the German public's attitude toward the Nazi information
to Which the usual scholarly study in political
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and a predicted change in the propaganda presentation of 014tary
setbacks on the Russian front.
The first case study, on the German V-weapons propaganda, is cited
as one in which the FCC analysts did not do as well as their British
counterparts. The brilliant British analysis way be known to some readers.
Based on the nubstantiated hypothesis that German propaganda would not
deliberately mislead the German people about an Increase of German power
it concluded that the Germans actually had sane sort of new weapon and were
not merely bluffing, It accurately described the German leaders' evaluation
of the new weapon and made the tentative estimate based on subtle shifts in
the propaganda, that in November 194, the Germans expected to have it rear
between mid-January and mid-April 1944 This *Abate prtnrelamasingly
curate.
The deduction concerning Isadore' private estimate
of the timing of the If-weapon was. based upon ingenious use of a
gen
1 Observation about Nazi propaganda practice. The British
analyst reasoned that Goebbels would be careful not to give the
German public a promise of retaliation too far ahead of the date
on which the promise could be fulfilled. ....Ttking a nuMber of
factors into account the British analyst reckoned that Gcebbels
would give himself about three months as the RaXiMUM period
propagandize forthcoming retaliation in advance.
**Atte
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One of the reasons
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ced for the lower
ber of TCC anairee
on this problem is that C analyits, unlike the Briti worked on
their own and were not asked to coordinate their If-weapon researoh with
that of other intelligence specialists. They assumed that other intelligence
techniques more appropriate than propaganda analysis were being applied to
the problem. This lack of coordination may also have damaged the quality
of their analysis in another case study citadt they were not informed of
TORCH or briefed to look for indications of Nazi concern over possible
invasion of North Africa, and so continued to search for signs of the
Nazi attitude toward a possible second front across the English Channel
or in Northern Europe
These two cases, in both of whici
predicting a =jar action, are not regarded asexelusively typi
author recoil/112es and discusses at same kingth the possibility that
leaders may decide to forego any propaganda preparation which might reveal
a planned action in advance. In either event, he points out,
The value to the policy maker of inferences assessing the
nature and objectives of the major action once it is taken should
not be underrated; in many cases they overshadow in importance the
usefulness of having predicted the action before it occurred.
Writing for scholars and experts, Kr. George has set himself a
subtler teak than presenting these interesting case studies. He
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idtif general types of inference made about conditions
which h.:Lped to d ermine the communication content (for example propaganda
goals and techniques, "situational factors, and elite estimates, expectations,
and policies); (2) to identify other possible determinants about which the
FCC did not attempt to make inferences, and then to depict the relationship
among all the various factors making up the Tystan of behavior; and (3) t
identify reasoning patterns in individual inferences and codify the more
general methods, direct and indirect, that were used. Out of this thorough
and painstaking study comes his cautious conclusion:
It as that propaganda analysis can become a reasonably
objective diagnostic tool for making certain kinds of inferences
and that its techniques are capable of refinement and improvemen
The book is not early to read in part becau�e of both undefined and
overrefined terminologyrently th,e--4alt4,erusea4ut:erchangeablr taie
,-.-
undefined -terays--nprepegander," "propaganda cormandcations," "political
connunications and "public communication, Imwt propaganda is distingu
f mass communication," also undefined. Readers may find quite
confusing the relationships between propaganda analysis, conunicstIcns
analysis, content analysis, quantitative analysis and nonfrequency
analysis. And many a reader may never get beyond a choker on page
the introduction:
4. Dichotomous attributes meaning or nonmeaning
characteristics which can be'_pitedivbed only as belonging or net
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belonging to a given unit of the communication materia1)4/
It he persists, however,footnote 4 an page 81 will refer him to
page 96, where he can learn that a dichotomous attribute is merely the
presence or abaence* of a designated symbol or theme.
Addressing an academic audience which historleaL4 has tended to wsw
meke content analysis eynonymoup with counting, the author overstates
his criticism of quantitative techniques in propaganda analysis
tame' reader may miss his references to the fact that quantitative teehniques
are important in the first elmewntarr task of propaganda, analysis, that is
in describing tts Content, and his judgment that *another deficiency of
FCC's procedure was its failure to make use of systematic quantitative
procedures in evaluating certain aspects of Nazi V-Weapon propaganda*
Debate over quantitative vv. qualitative techniques is actually beside the
point. The real question is how best to combine these tedhniques in
attacking each specific intelligence problem.
Despite these minor tortccTnings, it is
udnently qualified and objective expert as eh Onclusions
like the followingt
Provision must be made for examining al of the output of a
propaganda system and for evaluating its over-all propaganda
rater/. Any division of labor which divorces trend analyais on
o f
d soh
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te from cross-sectional
propaganda
opaganda cstrategr ray result
interpretations of specific trends*
The propaganda analyst 'makes the basic assumption that propaganda
coordinated with elite foliates, but he needs more concrete knowledge which
he can obtain only from a set of earpiricelly derived generalisation* about
an elite's operational pm:agenda theory. ...ffie slog requires knowledge
about technical expertise and skillfulness of propaganda incstems under
scrutiny and that of individual propagandists employed therein.
The investigator must have rather specific, detailed knowledge of the
popaganda organisation whose output he is analysing in order to appraise
the ituational ccatext who says it, to whom, and under What stances. ...Comparison of what is said to different audiences is generally
of considerable value in making inferences.
In propaganda analysis, it is typical for the inve
concerned with eatablishing slight changes in propaganda
or subtle differences in the wording employed by different 5 or
by the same speaker to differznt audiences.
to be
minute
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