IV. Propaganda Analysis
137. COLLECTION. Propaganda analysis is valuable to the
non-propagandist as a source of news and intelligence. The news or in-
telligence is in turn valuable for two unrelated purposes: first, for the
indication of national or military policy which the attempted mission of
the propaganda itself either forecasts or indicates; secondly, for the in-
cidental content of factual material which is used to make up the propa-
ganda. In order to analyze propaganda lines and to glean the valuable
fact out of the propaganda material, it is necessary to collect the propa-
ganda. This depends, in difficulty, on the remoteness of the area covered,
and on the controls involved. In peacetime, a great deal of propaganda can
be acquired by the process of subscribing or even asking for it. In wartime,
propaganda collection must be undertaken along with ordinary military in-
telligence collection from the enemy home area; from neutral areas, it can
be gotten by ordinary means; in one's own territory, the only problem is
that of definition. Radio materials can be collected by having a living
monitor listen to the programs, writing them down or summarizing them,
or by making recordings of appropriate material and processing them at
leisure.
138. MONITORING. Since even the non-propagandist cannot use
propaganda analysis unless it deals with up-to-date (sometimes up-to-the-
minute) materials, good monitoring is essential. Signal Corps receivers
require no modification unless recordings are to be made. Monitoring of
radio.material simply consists of putting it down in convenient form.
T39. SPOT ANALYSIS. The psychological warfare operator takes
the most current propaganda materials and prepares a brief summary of
the news content and of the probable motive of the enemy for using that
particular propaganda at that time. (See Paragraph 45.) He is then in a
position to develop his own propaganda with reference to the propaganda
situation as seen by the enemy. Slavish submission to enemy initiative is
a bad idea in propaganda. Normally, the sound operative uses the spot
analysis for his own information, but he does not necessarily try to confute
enemy propaganda point by point. He tries to counter with strong, inde-
pendent propaganda lines of his own.
140. AREA ANALYSIS. More systematic propaganda analysis
requires the collection of all available propaganda materials from a given
area for a specific period of time. These materials are then broken down
in terms of media which they employ, and each is searched for the probable
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