Denotation and Connotation in Silence Propaganda

Silence Propaganda has been using since the World War 2 until now. 'That is evident in autocratic regimes: in Fascist Italy, in Nazi Germany, but also in present-day states like China, Iran, or North Korea, huge state efforts are made not only to propagate the ideological tenets of the regime, and not only to detect, censure, and repress dissidents, but also and especially to make sure that people keep silent about certain areas of private and public life' (Leone, M. 2017). To make sure the people keep silent during the World War 2, they made posters or even postcard for the soldiers to remind their nation about it.

Most of the posters and postcards had used denotation and connotation in it. For example, this postcard  made by Italian Fascist which shows two men talking and a man reading newspaper at the back and also with a sentence 'Il nemico vi ascolta' which means 'the enemy listens to you'. The sentence would act as a denotation because it is the most straight-forward element in this postcard but it would lead the viewers to observe and comprehend the three men in the postcards.

If the viewers look carefully at the postcards, they would notice that the man sitting behind is not just reading the newspaper but also peeping at them. That man might be just a strangers who is curious about their conversation or worse, he could be a spy. And not just that. The man in soldier uniform who is talking to another man is a connotation of telling the soldiers to keep silent even though they think they are in a safe environment.

According to Massimo Leone, because of this Silence Propaganda, the majority of the citizens who were under the Fascist regime not only obeyed the ideology but also became part of their inner being.


References:
Leone, M. (2017) Silence Propaganda: A Semiotic Inquiry Into The Ideologies Of Taciturnity. Available at: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/690660 [Accessed 30th June 2018]

Figure:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ae/62/ef/ae62ef36af003ff2698ef207182e05fe.jpg

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