The controls must go along with the raw materials. The actual propaganda
operator should be given the news as fast as possible; he should be given
such background information as he may need to make his presentation
sound; but he cannot be trusted, because of the strain of his job, which
keeps him in touch with the enemy, with information of high security value.
How to control the propagandist without spoiling him at his creative job→→
how to guide him without interfering unnecessarily in his work--how to
watch him without slowing down the actual output--how to observe all con-
trols and regulations while staying up-to-the-minute on schedule: such
problems are not readily solved. Yet they must be solved, if the propa-
ganda is to work. Without intelligence materials and guidances, propa-
ganda becomes an expensive and ephemeral kind of literature, giving neither
credit nor profit to its authors, and maintaining no particular advantage to
the government which pays for it.
T50. AUDIENCE INTELLIGENCE. Propaganda must be directed
at specific goals. It must be conducted with reference to a known audience,
taking the characteristics of the audience into account. It must meet the
current opinion of the audience addressed. Therefore, all intelligence con-
cerning audience opinions, reactions, fads, slang, rumors, new interests,
etc., must be relayed to the propagandist if he is to do his job well. (The
Japanese in World War II occasionally showed their lack of such intelligence
materials by referring to things which were hopelessly out of date. More
frequently they missed their cue by failing to understand actual conditions
in wartime America. All they knew was pre-war America.)
T51.
OPINION ANALYSIS. The interrogation of prisoners and,
under ideal conditions, the interrogation of enemy home opinion will give
indications of enemy morale and of the fluctuations of opinion in the target
country. Opinion can also be found negatively by watching the antagonistic
propaganda and seeing what things it seeks to oppose or to correct; those
very things can thereupon be reinforced by appropriate propaganda measures.
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