The War News Was High-minded

The book repeatedly examines the methods mass media used to portray the wartime effort. Media is held to be highly censored, sanitized, politically controlled, and directed toward fostering an attitude of victory and sacrifice. This consistent focusing of media resulted in a high-minded view of the world with a consistent voice of presentation that led to private media being very much similar to official military media. Within this construction of public opinion, the war was interpreted as a great quest of apocalyptic significance—the good Allies fighting against the evil Axis. Thus, the war became not a geopolitical struggle for power and economic control, but a veritable crusade against wickedness. This interpretation led any home-front sacrifice to be viewed as not only necessary, but in fact well-aligned with wartime efforts. Goods rationing was widely practiced, commodities were managed, ersatz substitutes were common, and...