Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre

The basic principles of war propaganda (Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre) is a monograph by Anne Morelli published in 2001. It has not been translated into English. The subtitle recommends its "usability in case of cold, hot or lukewarm war" (Utilisables en cas de guerre froide, chaude ou tiède). The ten "commandments" of propaganda which Anne Morelli elaborates in this work are, above all, an analytical framework for pedagogical purposes and for media analysis. Morelli does not want to take sides or defend "dictators", but show the regularity of use of the ten principles in the media and in society:

"I will not put to test the purity of one or the other's intentions. I am not going to find out who is lying and who is telling the truth, who is believing what he says, and who does not. My only intention is to illustrate the principles of propaganda that are used and to describe their functioning." (P. 6)Nonetheless, it seems undeniable to the author that after the wars that characterize our epoch (Kosovo, Second Gulf War, Afghanistan War, Iraq War), Western democracies and their media must be discussed. As Rudolph Walther in his review in Die Zeit shows, Morelli in this work adapts the typical forms of various contents of propaganda to news of her time. She takes up Arthur Ponsonby's Falsehood in War-Time and George Demartial's La mobilisation des consciences. La guerre de 1914 about propaganda in the First World War, systematizes them in the form of ten principles, and applies them to both world wars, the war in the Balkans, and the war in Afghanistan. Four of the following principles, according to Walther just emanate directly from the principle of friend or foe, "we and them" mindset and simplistic thinking in terms of black and white.