WWI propaganda pioneered totalizing capture of every available medium

Evidence

Following the British example, Creel sought a massive and totalizing seizure of the nation’s attention. For this, a flood of government communication was necessary, for he understood that “to conduct as well as accommodate this torrent he needed to command every possible sluice, the broader the better.” Toward this end there was “no medium of appeal that we did not employ. The printed word, the spoken word, the motion picture, the telegraph, the cable, the wireless, the poster, the sign-board—all these were used in our campaign to make our own people and all other peoples understand the causes that compelled America to take arms.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 156

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to all three published articles’ theme of how attention and persuasion infrastructure evolves; the ‘every sluice’ totality parallels the attention-merchant pluralism idea.
• XREF: connects to: Britain pioneered state-controlled broadcast propaganda before Nazi Germany did. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 414; World War I forced the first systematic state-run propaganda campaigns. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 127; Effective propaganda requires total coordinated use of all available media — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 146 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Nazi Germany institutionalized state attention capture through a propaganda ministry #expands (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 411
• World War I propaganda reached 134 million Americans via volunteer speakers #exemplifies (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 158