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Us and Them: The Myth of the Enemy in Protectorate Daily Press in June and July 1941

Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Faculty of Social Sciences |
2012

Abstract

Creating the image of the enemy and daily stand in opposition against him was one of the basic missions of the daily press in the protectorate. Propaganda controlled media utilized a wide array of iconic, index and symbolic means and signs - mainly connotation chains, that were used to create binary mytologies about the struggle between good and evil.

Namely: the struggle between the superior and inferior human race and the struggle between nazism and communism. These simple (and connected) mytologies were meant to shape the public opinion in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the right direction and legalise the occupation itself.

They were also used to enforce the desired ideological interpretation of the world and its natural order. This paper (article) analyzes the basic mythological concepts and the way they worked using preselected articles from protectorate daily periodics (Venkov, Večerní České slovo, Polední list, Lidové noviny) from June and July 1941.