Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 ‘Uncle Sam’s Letterbag’ : Children’s Involvement in Newspaper Propaganda in the First World War
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This paper draws on letters published weekly in ‘Uncle Sam’s Corner’, in Rockhampton’s Morning Bulletin and Central Queensland Herald between 1915 and 1918 to explore the role of journalists in disseminating popular narratives during the First World War. Through the children’s own words their understanding of unfolding events is exposed as is the role of journalist ‘Uncle Sam’ in shaping children’s wartime responses. Using his adjoining children’s corner and the responses given to the children’s letters, Uncle Sam inculcates the values of duty, service and sacrifice; the qualities demanded of the Empire’s civilians in wartime to aid military success. An examination of a specific children’s column reveals how media can overtly manipulate public perceptions to shape dominant societal narratives and highlights how children unwittingly participate in wartime propaganda.'  (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture vol. 8 no. 2 September 2019 17977640 2019 periodical issue 'This issue of The Australasian Journal of Popular Cultural Studies brings together a wide range of new research on popular culture from Australia and New Zealand. In this issue, the contributors address a rich vein of products of popular culture. This includes work inspired by both current affairs, and that which looks to cultural and social production further back into the past. Marcel Danesi has long argued that ‘because of its populist origins’, popular culture has been ‘an unconscious driving force behind social, economic, and even political change’. Simultaneously, Danesi suggests, popular culture also has the ability to trigger ‘unprecedented society-wide, event worldwide’ debates about the relationship between entertainment, aesthetics and spectacle. With their interwoven focus on the connections between the everyday, identity, geography, time, our corporeal selves and our pervasive sense of moral conduct, the articles in this issue of Australasian Journal of Popular Culture draw attention to the part played by popular culture narratives in not only reflecting, but also responding to, the broader discourses of identity and society that construct our contemporary lives in the twenty-first century.' (Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Donna Lee Brien : Editorial introduction) 2019 pg. 211-228
Last amended 14 Oct 2019 13:15:29
211-228 ‘Uncle Sam’s Letterbag’ : Children’s Involvement in Newspaper Propaganda in the First World Warsmall AustLit logo The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X