The symbolic act may be referred to as a form of nonverbal communication. The authors of "Symbolic Acts as Psyop" see the importance of the symbolic in the meaning that it conveys to the target group and not in the physical impact that may result from it.

The use of individuals as channels for communicating messages and appeals is taken up in the last two essays of this section. "The Older Vietnamese as a Communicant" ascribes to aged individuals in Vietnamese society the role of disseminating ideas. In "An Unknown Warrior," the use of ralliers or returnees as a medium for reaching guerrillas and their families is discussed.

Many of these essays focus on a single incident or technique. In the final essay of this section, Morris Davis indicates the diverse communication interaction taking place simultaneously in the course of a civil conflict.

COMMUNICATION AND THE USE OF MASS MEDIA*

BY JOHN DENNIS LANIGAN

Making it easy for the target audience to receive a propaganda message or appeal will depend in large part on the communicator's choice of media.

No matter how primitive or oppressed a society is, there will normally be more communication presented to it than can possibly be received by everyone. We can only listen to one radio station at a time and can only read so much material in a day. . . . Hence, communicators (propagandists, of course included) should attempt to make it easy and beneficial for a target audience to "tune in." That is, they want to decrease the effort required to receive a message and increase the expectation of reward that will accrue from having received it. [Although] the problem of increasing the expectation of reward is primarily one of message content, . . . decreasing the effort required to receive a message is highly dependent on the media used to propagate it. . . . For this reason, we shall discuss the types of mass media in some detail.

THE MASS MEDIA

Numerous studies have been conducted to test the effects of the various forms of mass media on the understanding and retentive capabilities. of a target audience. Such studies and experiments should be interpreted carefully. Laboratory tests may suggest that television is the most effective means of electronic communication. However, this result would prove to be virtually meaningless if the "real world" audience with which we wished to communicate had different characteristics than the "test" audience; or, in the extreme, if there was only one television set per

*Excerpts from "A Media Allocation Model for Psychological Operations," M. A. thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterrey, California, June 1968. AD 841104. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

million people in the "real world" audience. The point to be made is that laboratory results do not necessarily reflect "real world" happenings. There is no hard and fast set of rules to govern choice of media. The attributes and drawbacks of the various forms of mass media will take on different values for different target audiences. For instance, depth of treatment is considered to be one of the attributes of print, but this "attribute" would be of minimal import if the target audience was illiterate. Hence, the general considerations of each form of mass media discussed below should be interpreted liberally.

FACE-TO-FACE DISCOURSE

Almost all studies on the subject of advertising or psychological operations are in agreement that face-to-face discourse is the most effective individual instrument of persuasion. The following psychological advantages are considered to be the primary reasons for its success:

1. It is more casually engaged in and will often attract an audience that would not trouble itself to receive the same information by other forms of mass communication.

2. The perpetrator of face-to-face discourse can mold his manner of presentation to suit a particular target audience. In this way, he can largely reduce resistance to his message.

3. By expressions of pleasure or displeasure, the target audience can be rewarded or punished for their reaction.

4. The source of face-to-face discourse may be a trusted or intimate friend of the target audience from whom information is believable; e.g., a clergyman.

5. It is sometimes possible to accomplish objectives without first instilling conviction. For instance, if the leader of a local young men's organization tells its members to sign up for service in the militia, some may join just to keep from discrediting themselves in the eyes of their leader.

We recognize that there are many cases when face-to-face discourse is not a practical method of communicating with a target audience. It would hardly be worthwhile for the United States to try to infiltrate men behind the "Iron Curtain" or into Communist China to start a program of faceto-face confrontations on the evils of communism and benefits of "free world" life. The costs would be great and the gains comparatively small. The Nationalist Chinese have on occasion attempted to infiltrate men into the mainland of China to instigate dissatisfaction in the populace. In every recorded case they have been captured almost immediately upon entering the country.23 (We pre-suppose that the people of Communist China are more afraid of the consequences of not reporting an intruder than they are willing to chance a possibility of bettering their way of life; that is, the expectation of reward is negligible as compared to the effort required.)

Face-to-face discourse may also be considered to include the spectrum of discussions that take place daily throughout the world. Tests have

23

shown that casual conversations, as differentiated from formal addresses, are potentially more influential than any form of formal communication. 25 For this reason, the proponents of a propaganda campaign should be careful not to alienate any major fraction of the target audience, for the initial harm done could be greatly magnified through dissemination of discontent from that portion of the target audience alienated.

RADIO

In the recent past, radio proved to be an efficient means of mass communication to various target audiences. In the field of psychological operations, Radio Free Europe and The Voice of America have been broadcasting for years in an effort to "educate" peoples of the Communist world. The advantages of radio include: 2

1. The number of people that can be reached at one time is usually large.

2. The propagandist can gain a nation-wide audience by using networks or by increasing the power of this transmitter. He can also pinpoint a specific target audience by properly establishing a low-power transmit

ter.

3. Audience selectively can also be gained by scheduling at different times and by use of different types of radio programs.

4. It has a special persuasive quality as a companion, a friend, and a prime source of information for the listener.

When we consider the use of radio in communicating with a target audience we should not only be concerned with the present density of radios within the population. We should also project the costs and benefits that would accrue if we were to distribute radios to members of the population. In some cases it may be more cost-effective to give ten or twenty radios to every village within a country than it would be to attempt to communicate with the people by any other means. Of course, if we are considering giving away radios we must also consider that our intended audience may, in fact, use the radios to tune in on our enemies. PRINT

The printed word, whether it be in the form of newspapers, magazines, leaflets, or any other form, has distinct advantages over the other types of media. The primary ones are: 23

1. The reader is able to pace himself as he desires. He can ponder over important points and skip those that hold no interest for him.

2. Printed matter remains available for the reader to peruse for months or even years after the initial reading.

3. Difficult or complex topics can be treated in depth for the reasons given in (1) and (2) above.

4. It is possible to specialize appeals by utilizing the knowledge that certain people read particular types of magazines or sections of the newspaper.

5. Print may have greater prestige than the other forms of mass media. This is attributed to the fact that it is one of the oldest of the mass media and that print and "culture" have been traditionally associated.

A recent radio advertisement stated, "Montaigne once wrote, 'What do we do about those people who will not believe anything unless they see it in print?'" The advertisment went on to give the answer, "Print it, of course." As one might guess the advertisement was for a printing and lithographic company. However, it is probably true that some of these people who will not believe anything unless they see it in writing, will believe anything that is written.

When planning the use of print, we must take into account the literacy of the target audience. (The fact that a certain audience may be illiterate may not negate the use of print but it will certainly affect the amount of pictorial or symbolic material required.) We also need to consider the ease of dissemination. If we control the press it will certainly be much easier to reach the people than if we have to rely on covert publications or leaflet drops.

SCREEN

When we consider the use of screen, television or movies we are implicitly assuming that our audience is indigenous to a contry in which we have some degree of control. The present state of the art in television is such that signals cannot be projected satisfactorily over great distances without a purposeful receiving station in the proximity of the target audience. Further, a television signal is considerably easier to "jam" and the prevalence of television sets in the areas of the world that are of major concern in our propaganda efforts is low. Likewise, there is little opportunity to show movies favorable to the "free world" in such countries as Cuba, Russia or Communist China. Hence, the benefits that we ascribe to the screen are greatly diluted by the opportunity for its use. The benefits are: 2

1. Concrete visual material is presented.

2. Recall of what has been seen is generally excellent.

3. Children are particularly impressed by what they see.

INTERACTIONS AMONG MASS MEDIA

Almost every propaganda campaign will include the use of more than one type of media to communicate with the target audience. If the target audience receives the same message by more than one medium, his belief in what he is receiving will normally be fortified. However, if different messages relating to the same incident or different interpretations on a particular propaganda theme are received via two different media, then, the target audience becomes confused, probably believes neither message, and loses some faith in both media. Credibility is hard to establish initially, but virtually impossible to re-establish once it is lost; hence, a cardinal rule for the use of mass media is to be consistent in all communication.

REFERENCES

2. Roger Barton, (ed.) Media in Advertising New York: McGraw Hill Book Company 1964.

23. Readings in Psychological Operations, St. 33-151. Fort Bragg, N.C., U.S. Army Special Warfare School, 1963.

VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS IN THE NIGERIAN
CIVIL WAR*

BY MORRIS DAVIS

Pictures may well be "worth a thousand words" in impact, but they are not necessarily an objective source of information.

Like Vietnam, the Nigerian-Biafran War involved not only men and material and words, but widely disseminated visual representations. It was a television war, a picture-magazine war, a newspaper-photographs war. Nigerian officials never really understood this sector of communications. When (to demonstrate their quick justice) they executed before the cameras the Nigerian officer who had a short time earlier (to show his serious intent) executed before the camera a captured Biafran, all they accomplished for most viewers was the piling of one revulsion upon another. The Biafrans, too, did not fully appreciate the graphic media. They rarely disseminated pictures, either directly or through the Bernhardt agency [see Chapter IV of this casebook]. Nor did they carry through with Robert Goldstein's plans for a full-length color film. But they really did not have to accomplish any of this for themselves. The sole necessity was that photographers and cameramen be let in; and that Biafra quickly learned to do.

In visual reporting, Nigeria could not win and Biafra could not lose. Pictures of nice Nigerian soldiers feeding and playing with smiling children in recaptured areas of the East looked phony and staged, no matter how frequent and genuine such conciliatory practices may have been. Pictures of malnourished, pain-wracked, half-dead Biafran children were instantaneously moving and plausible. Some of the imbalance in photocoverage, to be sure, was due to Nigerian failures to cooperate with visiting crews. (The C.B.S. program “60 Minutes" struggled manfully in order to present a balanced report from both Biafra and Nigeria.) But even if Nigeria had been more adept and open-armed, its Biafran opposition would still have garnered most of the favorable visual reporting.

*Excerpts from "The Structuring of International Communications about the NigeriaBiafra War," a paper prepared for delivery at the Eighth European Conference, Peace Research Society (International), London School of Economics, August 20, 1971. Reprinted with the permission of The Peace Research Society (International), copyright holder, and the courtesy of the author.