The propaganda of universal fascism: peace, empire and international co-operation in British Union of Fascists' publicity from 1932 to 1939

Abstract

PurposeThis article presents a historical investigation into the foreign policy messages of the British Union of Fascists' (BUF) publicity and propaganda from its foundation in 1932 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, along with a discussion of the methods and institutional arrangements used to propagate its ideas of peace, empire and transnational co-operation.Design/methodology/approachThe historical investigation is based upon scrutiny of original BUF documents relating to the period 1932–1939 from various archives. After cataloguing of the relevant publicity and propaganda materials in time sequence and thematically, analysis was organised using a historical institutionalism approach.FindingsThe article explains the different phases of the BUF's message development and how publications, meetings and media were used to project its ideas. It also discussed the impact of support from Viscount Rothermere's newspapers and financial support from Benito Mussolini. Consideration of publicity materials alongside files from BUF headquarters enabled identification and investigation into the communicative actors who did the publicity work, including Director of Publicity, John Beckett.Social implicationsThe article reflects upon how the British Union of Fascists' publicity and propaganda relates to modern manifestations of the communication of authoritarian and nationalistic political propositions and the historical continuities that endure therein.Originality/valueThe project makes an original contribution to the history of British political propaganda and public relations through an inquiry based upon scrutiny of historical documents in UK archives relating to BUF publicity related to foreign policy.

Editorial 29.1: History (and professionalization) of public relations

“…The conference has resulted in several special issues and edited books, which have contributed towards the development of the discipline (IHPRC, n.y) and the CCIJ has also supported this conference with a special issue published in Volume 25, Issue 4 guest edited by Anastasios Theofilou (lead conference organizer), Dustin W. Suppa, Kate Fitch and Anastasia Veneti, a group of scholars based in the UK, US and Australia. In that first CCIJ PR history collection, scholars analysed issues such as fascist propaganda (Thompson, 2020), the writing style of a prominent Irish PR educator (McGrath, 2020), open diplomacy and the link between diplomacy, PR and journalism (Gellrich et al , 2020), 19th century PR campaign to defend national sovereignty (Tantivejakul, 2020), a historical account of creating Chartered Institute of PR in the UK contributing to writing the history of institutionalizing PR (Gregory, 2020), the post-war television and PR in the context of family planners (Borge, 2020), PR measurements in the 1920s (Anderson, 2020), the history of teaching PR in Saudi Arabia (Zamoum and Gorpe, 2020), history in the PR curriculum (Fitch and L’Etang, 2020) and the role of PR in sponsored national narratives (Kinnear, 2020). The issue alone has made a meaningful contribution to the emerging discipline of PR history scholarship; however, other papers have been published from the same conference in other journals.…”