Overstimulated: National Security and Information Programs as Economic Aid to Media and Advertisers

This paper examines the symbiotic relationship between media industries and American information programs from World War II through the early Cold War. Industry executives moved seamlessly between media and government, not only pushing for American advertising expenditures, but also to remake the legal and strategic environment in favor of media spending. Advertising and public relations experts at the helm of national security programs handed out lucrative advertising contracts to promote War Bonds, the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, the Crusade for Freedom, and the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization’s bomb shelter campaign, among others. This government stimulus helped fuel the explosion of media outlets after the war, most spectacularly the growth of television and the professionalization of the public relations industry.

Using archival sources from presidential libraries, ad agencies, foreign propaganda services, and private collections, this paper argues that after World War II, American media companies were firmly entrenched within the military-industrial complex, reliant upon national security policies for their success and profitability. After Pearl Harbor, advertising executives entered government service in droves as the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration embraced communications technologies and propaganda to win support for national security programs, encourage cooperation with allies, and degrade the enemy’s will to fight. These programs served as economic stimulus, creating and sustaining jobs throughout media, public relations, and advertising. National security continued to financially support media companies after the war, as successive presidential administrations embraced information campaigns to support the creation of the United Nations and to confront communism.