Manipulation of the Masses in the United States during the Interwar Period (1919-1941): Legislative Research as a Response to Popular Concerns
Abstract
During the interwar period, a deep concern spread across the United States regarding activities of manipulation of public opinion. Faced with the impossibility of applying certain coercive measures that would have been unconstitutional, Congress undertook numerous legislative investigations of the propagandistic activities of subversive groups, private corporations and government agencies. This paper proposes to reconstruct the climate in which these committees were instituted, by analyzing the manner in which the popular anxieties of the period influenced the committees’ modus operandi and the results presented before the legislative chambers and the communications media.
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