In any war, a key aspect that helps a certain side to win is if the majority of the people support what they are fighting for. One way that that support can be influenced is through propaganda. Propaganda is a common form of war-time media, and will encourage people to see things a certain way, and even change people’s views. The Civil War was no different to any other war, in that it had a fair amount of propaganda in both the Union and the Confederacy. There were many different types of propaganda used in the Civil War as well, and they all had major effects on the Civil War.
Propaganda is media sources that are typically wrong, misleading, or biased to a certain point of view, and is used to promote ideas and convince people to believe in
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In the North, the propaganda attempted to further pro-abolition causes, make the South look bad, and dehumanize the Confederacy and what they stand for. They depicted the South as barbaric, strange, and scary. Also, in pictures of Lincoln, they used specific outfits and props to make him look tall, powerful, smart, and in control so northerners would believe in him and be confident in him. His speeches were great examples of Union propaganda, as they rallied and inspired northerners.
The Confederate propaganda had similarities and differences to that of the Union. Their propaganda was pro-secession and anti-abolition, and they used it to demonize the North and make them look like they are stupid and don’t understand to Southern way of life. A major difference in the propaganda from either side is that the South’s propaganda frequently featured intense, horrific, and scary details and themes, and the North’s propaganda didn’t as commonly.
They did this in order to scare people into agreeing with the causes that were shown, and it was generally pretty affective. Another quality in Southern media was that they made Northerners look small and foolish, especially Abraham
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People were often inspired to participate in the war. They could also be convinced of a particular viewpoint, pressured or scared into agreeing with things, and subconsciously made to think a certain way. This was all caused by the media that they were observing every day. This led to people putting a lot of passion and effort into the politics of the war and the war itself, which, in turn, largely impacted the occurrences and outcome of the Civil War.
Without propaganda’s effects, the Civil War might have been very different. People may not have been as enthused, passionate, or opinionated as they needed to be to affect the war in both the North and the South. It also may have caused either side to become more or less supported if the influential propaganda hadn’t existed. In conclusion, the propaganda that was used in the war was used for a multitude of reasons, and ultimately had a large effect on the whole of the Civil