Enemy Images in War Propaganda
Editor: Marja Vuorinen
Date Of Publication: Apr 2012
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3641-8
Isbn: 1-4438-3641-9
In the post 9/11 world the emotionally charged concepts of identity and ideology, enmity and political aggression have once again become household words. Contrary to the serene assumptions of the early 1990s, the history did not end. Civilisations are busy clashing against one another, and the self-proclaimed pacified humanity is showing its barbaric roots. Religion mixes with politics to produce governments that abuse even their own citizens, and victorious insurgents too often fail to carry out the promised reforms. Terrorists blow up unsuspecting pedestrians and allegedly democratic nations threaten to bomb allegedly less democratic ones back to the Stone Age. Mass demonstrations materialise like flash mobs out of nowhere, usually prepared to hold their ground until the bitter end.

Where does all this passionate intensity come from? To better understand how ideological enmity of today is moulded, spread and managed, this book investigates the propaganda operations of the past. Its topics range from the ruthless portrayal of female enemy soldiers in an early 20th century civil war setting to the multiple enemy images cherished by Adolf Hitler, and onwards to the WW II Soviet Russians as a subtype of a more ancient notion of the Eastern Hordes. Of the more recent events the book covers the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the still ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. The closing chapter on cyber warfare introduces the reader to the invisible enemies of the future

Dr. Sarah Gendron is an Associate Professor of French at Marquette University, Milwaukee, USA. She has authored multiple articles and one book on literary theory, entitled Repetition, Difference, and Knowledge. She has also published several translations, including Simone de Beauvoir’s Notes for a Novel. Gendron’s current research and most recent publications focus on visual and textual representations related to genocide in Europe, Cambodia, and Rwanda.

Professor Aki Huhtinen, Ph.D., LTC (G.S.), is docent of Practical philosophy at the University of Helsinki , docent of Social consequences of the media and information technology at the University of Lapland and docent of Information security and information operations at the University of Technology in Tampere. Huhtinen works in the department of Leadership and military pedagogy at the Finnish National Defence University. His research interests include information warfare, media wars, psychological operations and the social media in battle space.

Dr. Tiina Lintunen is a research fellow at the Department of Political Science and Contemporary History, University of Turku, Finland. Her main research interests are war propaganda, particularly that of the Finnish Civil War of 1918, and the history of National Socialist Germany.

Dr. Ron Schleifer is a senior lecturer at the School of Communications at the Ariel University Center of Samaria. His research focuses on psychological warfare and the Middle East. His recent book Perspectives of Psychological Operations was published in 2011 by Sussex Academic Press.

Dr. Vesa Vares is associate professor of Political History in the University of Turku, Finland. He is Docent in the universities of Tampere and Jyväskylä and has been a visiting scholar at the Humboldt University of Berlin as a scholarship holder of the Humboldt Foundation. He has published many books and articles about Finnish political history, especially on Finnish Conservatism, Liberalism and Populism. His current research interests include the German-Finnish relations from the late 19th century to 1944, history of European political parties, and the use of cinematic films in creating historical myths and images.

Dr. Marja Vuorinen (editor) is researcher at the Department of Political and Economic Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She has authored several articles and a book about historical enemy images and historical cases of hate speech, particularly as they appear in political propaganda. Her current research focuses on the interplay of self-images and enemy-images in identity construction, and on the complex role of aggressive rhetoric vis-à-vis political violence.

Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
Price Us Usd: 52.99