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Tag: Publicity

Misinformation, Mass Observation and the Public Perception of the Norway Campaign, 1940

Written by Charles Taylor

If you ask the modern-day Briton about the Norway campaign of 1940, you will likely be met with a blank face or a simple shrug. Eclipsed by the evacuation of Dunkirk and the fall of France, Britain’s involvement in this theatre has undoubtedly drifted into the background of British memory of the Second World War. Though little known, the campaign holds many significances for the armed forces. Erupting on 9 April 1940 with Germany’s Operation Weserübung, Norway was the first land campaign of the Second World War for Britain, the earliest meeting of British and German troops on the battlefield, the first joint Allied land operation, and the first modern sea, land and air campaign. Despite these considerations, Britain’s military involvement remains all but forgotten, condemned as a humiliating background episode and often glazed over in the history books.

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Xuanchuan in China: Propaganda as the Art of Governance

Written by Timothy Cheek. In August 2013 Xi Jinping declared a propaganda war on independent political criticism on China’s internet. He urged his colleagues in the Chinese Communist Party to ‘seize the ground of new media.’ In early 2016 he reminded official Chinese media that their job is to speak for the Party, and this summer he has shut down a popular journal of political history run by retired senior Party figures. The Party has…

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