Visualizing Propaganda Through History

Visualizing Propaganda
EAS190 Lecture Slides by Keren Wang, SP 2023

Arirang Mass Games, North Korea, 2012

Spectacle as
Propaganda:
Public Rituals in
“Hybrid” style
Dancers celebrate
DPRK–China friendship at
the Arirang Mass Games,
2010
EAS190 Lecture Slides by Keren
Wang, SP 2023

A column of the US 1st Marine Division move through Chinese lines during their breakout from the
Chosin Reservoir, November 27, 1950. DOD Korean War propaganda phogography

Puerto Rican Soldiers in the Korean War
of 1950-1953 by Herbert Booker,
Internet Archive
Crew of an M24 tank along the Naktong River front.
US Korean War propaganda photography, 1950
Camera Operator: SGT. RILEY

DPRK Korean War
propaganda painting
in Victorious
Fatherland Liberation
War Museum
(Wikimedia Commons)

Top: "Valley of the Shadow
of Death" by Roger Fenton,
Crimean War, April 1855
Bottom: “The Japanese 1st
Army Destroys Fengtian
Army” by Ozeki Iwakichi,
Sino-Japanese War, 1895
EAS190 Lecture Slides by Keren Wang, SP 2023, all rights reserved

A modern day Kagesue by Sekiguchi
Masajiro (1895)
Captain Awata by Mizuno Toshikata (1895)
Japanese propaganda art during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895

“Admiral Ding Ruchang of Beiyang Fleet Committing Ritual Suicide (北洋艦隊遂提督丁汝昌於官宅自殺啚 )” by
Mizuno Toshikata, 1895
EAS190 Lecture Slides by Keren Wang, SP 2023, all rights
reserved

Top: Declaration of
Independence by John
Trumbull (1819)
Bottom: “The
promulgation ceremony
for the Constitution of the
Empire of Japan” by
Yoshu Chikanobu-憲法発
布式之図 (1889)

Valley of the
Shadow of
Death
Photography by Roger
Fenton, Crimea, April
1855
United States Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs division
Keren Wang CAS 420 Lecture Slides

Valley of the
Shadow of
Death
by Roger Fenton, Crimea,
April 1855
Dirt road in ravine scattered
with cannonballs.
(Original version recovered by Errol
Morris in Sevastopol, 2007)

The home of a
Rebel
Sharpshooter,
photo by Alexander Gardner,
Gettysburg, July 6, 1863
(MoMA Online Collection)

Alexander Gardner, The
home of a Rebel
Sharpshooter,
Gettysburg, 1863
– a case study on the
importance of wuwei
and ziran

Ritualism in Visual Propaganda: “The Japanese 1st Army Destroys Fengtian Army”
by Ozeki Iwakichi, Sino-Japanese War, 1895

REALISM & RITUALISM

“The war America waged in Vietnam,
the ﬁrst to be witnessed day after day
by television cameras, introduced the
home front to a new intimacy with
death and destruction.”
“The understanding of war among
people who have not
experienced war is now chieﬂy a
product of the impact of these
images.”
– Susan Sontag, “Freeze-Frame”

“New intimacy with death and destruction”

“It seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is
almost as keen as the desire for ones that show bodies naked.”
-Susan Sontag EAS190 Lecture Slides by Keren Wang, SP 2023, all rights reserved

Iconography: totemic and taboo
icons
Shin 心: dynamic interactions of
diﬀerent worldviews within our
subjectivity
Votive image: icons of blessing /
divine protection / sacred communion
Parody (228): caricatures, cartoons, or
memes, etc., can be used to critique
or subvert established ideas,
institutions, or cultural norms.

Heritage tourism: visiting places that have
special significance towards group identity.
E.g., landmarks, museums, relics, cultural
events, natural wonders...
Thanatourism (429): visiting places
associated with death, suffering, or
tragedy. E.g., historical battlefields,
cemeteries, memorials, or sites of natural
disasters, and places associated with crime,
genocide, or other forms of human
suffering.
Thanatourism can also transform events of
death, suffering and trauma for
commercial or political gains.

Observing something in a way that is considered
taboo, often with a combined senses of pleasure and
fear.
Potent tool to draw the audience's attention and create
long lasting visual memories. It can take many different
forms, ranging from subtle suggestions of sexuality to
overtly explicit depictions of violence.
Voyeurism:

Wang, Ruiheng - China’s image in US propaganda during
the Paciﬁc War Era
● Inferiority complex (65): the use of messaging and images
that play on people's feelings of inadequacy or self-doubt in
order to manipulate their beliefs or behavior. This type of
propaganda seeks to create a sense of fear or insecurity in
individuals, with the aim of convincing them that they need
the protection or guidance of a particular authority or
ideology.
● “Great nation dream” (72): the belief or political mythology
that a particular political community can achieve greatness,
power, and inﬂuence on the world stage. This concept is often
associated with nationalism and patriotism, and can be a
powerful motivator for political action and social change. In
propaganda, the "great nation dream" often involves a belief
in the superiority or exceptionalism of a particular group or
culture, and can be used to justify actions that might be
considered aggressive or militaristic, such as war and
colonization.

Svensson, Visualising Labour and
Labourscapes in China
Visual hegemony: the use of visual
culture (e.g., art, advertising, media) by
dominant groups / ideologies as means to
maintain power & control. Visual
hegemony can be used to create and
reinforce dominant narratives,
stereotypes, and cultural norms that
beneﬁt those in power. It can also be
subverted through the creation of
alternative rhetorics, often in the form of
parodies that challenge dominant norms,
values, and aesthetics.
Humanitarian realism (59): a visual
strategy that avoids overt, explicit
depictions of political or commercial
agenda, and aims to create a sense of
empathy and understanding by depicting
the “unadorned” reality of everyday
human activities and struggles.

The Chinese Must Go: 1886 advertisement
for "Magic Washer" detergent, by the
George Dee Magic Washing Machine
Company
Erin K. Jenne, Varieties of Nationalism in the Age of Covid-19
“Macabre spectator sport” : See voyeurism and thanatourism except in the
form of death data visualizations
Imagined properties of the nation: a matrix of beliefs and ritual practices
connected to the concept of a nation state. E.g., territorial boundaries,
sovereignty, self-determination, a shared collective memory and mythology.
● Liberal nationalism: It is based on the belief that individuals and
groups of individuals have certain inherent rights and freedoms that
should be protected by the rule of law, while also recognizing the
importance of a shared national identity.
● Ethnopopulism: combines elements of populism with a focus on
ethno-nationalism. It is characterized by a strong emphasis on the
protection of national identity, culture, values, and the majority group’s
exclusive power over national sovereignty.
● Antagonistic sovereignty: combines the in-out depictions that excludes
and demonizes “non-nationals” with the up-down depictions that
excludes and demonizes “elites” and the “establishment.”

The 1881 piece titled "Immigration East and West" published in Wax Magazine portrays contrasting views of
immigration in the United States. The left panel illustrates European immigrants as bringing valuable qualities
such as "art," "industry," "capital," and "politics" to the country as it expands westward. In contrast, the right panel
portrays Chinese immigration as a menacing serpent, with negative impacts such as the spread of "smallpox,"
"immorality," and a threat to "white labor," contributing to the perception of national decay moving eastward.

From left to right:
The Chinese Must Go: 1886 advertisement for "Magic Washer" detergent, by the George Dee Magic Washing Machine Company
The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920), by Lothrop Stoddard
Ben Garrison Cartoon 2020

Visualizing Propaganda Through History

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