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Visual Propaganda in Wartime East Asia - The Case of Natori Yōnosuke

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Andrea Germer
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Visual propaganda that targeted the home-front in wartime Japan has recently been examined by scholars who have drawn attention to such aspects of material culture as clothing and textiles (Atkins 2002; Dower 2002), postcards and ephemera (Barclay 2010; Kishi 2010; Ruoff 2010) and propagandistic photo magazines (Kanō 2004, 2005; Earhart 2008) that normalize and popularize colonial and militarist policies by way of aesthetic artefacts of everyday use and consumption. Others have examined underlying developments in political infrastructure and mass media as channels of propaganda transmission (Kasza 1988; Kushner 2006). Still other scholars have focussed on visual and other propaganda that targeted Western and later Asian audiences by way of cultural diplomacy by the Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai (Society for International Cultural Relations) affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Shibaoka 2007; Park 2009) and thereby highlighted the State's efforts to distribute an alternative image to the militaristic state portrayed in the West, as well as to enhance its image in the occupied territories.

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Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 9 , Issue 20 , May 2011 , e3
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Copyright © The Authors 2011

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