Censorship and propaganda during the two World War

The Ministry of Information was created during the First World War and then reformed for the Second World War for propaganda purposes

I) British censorship and propaganda during the World War I

Britain had no propaganda agencies at the war's outbreak, but an organisation was soon established in response to propaganda activities in Germany. During the World War I, various organisations were established during the war, and several attempts at centralisation and greater coordination between these agencies occurred.

Various methods of propaganda were used by British propagandists during the war.

Various written forms of propaganda were distributed by British agencies during the war. These could be books, pamphlets, official publications, ministerial speeches or royal messages. They were targeted at influential individuals, such as journalists and politicians, rather than a mass audience. Pamphlets were the main form of propaganda in the first years of the war, and were distributed to various foreign countries. These pamphlets were academic in tone and factual in nature, distributed through unofficial channels. By June 1915, 2.5 million copies of propagandistic documents had been circulated by Wellington House in various languages; eight months later, the figure was 7 million.

It also censored many press reports that were not deemed to be sufficiently patriotic, or that listed military operations to a level of detail that could be used by the enemy

Recruitment was a central theme of domestic propaganda until the introduction of conscription in January 1916. The most common theme for recruitment posters was patriotism, which evolved into appeals for people to do their 'fair share'.
Among the most famous of the posters used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I were the "Lord Kitchener Wants You" posters, which depicted Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener above the words