The term »mass media« emerged in the 1920s to describe a novelty in human history that developed in the preceding years and continues to define our culture today: Mass media around us, also referred to as the »Fourth Estate«. World War I is also known as the first global media war. Illustrated newspapers, posters, photography, and the new emerging cinema with moving film images offered unimagined propaganda opportunities. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's exhibition Imagined Fronts: The Great War and Global Media explores how artists, often out of imagination, shaped the image of war into representations and thus laid the groundwork for mass media. On view in Los Angeles from Dec. 3, 2023, to July 7, 2024, are more than 200 exhibits.
Newsreels in cinemas in particular promised objectivity, but this was propaganda. In Germany, for example, only patriotically minded production companies were even allowed to film for the news at the front: Not only editing and intertitles manipulated viewers − even the raw footage shot had already been massively biased in a certain direction. Moreover, the military post-censorship prevented any possibilities, for example, to sprinkle in hidden criticism or to show the true suffering and dying of the soldiers before broadcasting. The miserable conditions in military hospitals also remained secret. The longer the war lasted, the more film footage was misused for emotional propaganda, which was supposed to strengthen the population's stamina and convey a sense of the meaning of war. The First World War became a constructed media event in people's minds. An example is the Battle of the Somme, which broke off after several months without a result and with over 1 million soldiers killed, but was staged as a victory by both warring parties.
