Toward the end of the Second World War, a race began. Mistrust that had been brewing beneath the surface bubbled over as the Soviet and Western armies chased the prize: Berlin. In the years that followed, as the smoke from the battlefields dissipated, a chill settled over the great powers and split most of world into two spheres. Whispers and murmurs of suspicions and secrets replaced the din of artillery. From a distance, the Soviets and the Americans observed each other. From what little they saw or knew, they began to speculate about one another, to create their own images of the “other,” the enemy. In this way, the media became the primary architect of the Cold War narrative in the United States.

This narrative was constantly evolving, as understandings of the conflict, the enemy, and the collective “we” took on new meaning. In the form of advertisements, newscasts, and films, information blended with propaganda; the narrative fed back into the reality, framing the way in which people perceived one another and shaping their interactions. The media was both an instrument and an independent actor in the Cold War. It created a pseudo reality that, in the end, may have collapsed upon itself by virtue of its speed, outpacing the capacity of the public to adapt; after forty years, people grew tired of it. As Arno and Dissanayake comment, “Intercultural awareness has lagged behind the means of communication” (Arno and Dissanayake, 13). When it all began, the enemy was simple, concrete, distinct, and identifiable. By the end, the enemy was amorphous: anyone or no one. Who could tell anymore?

Propaganda came into prominence as a wartime tool in the United States during WWII. Racialized portrayals of the Japanese as twisted, heartless animals sought to remove them from the sphere of humanity and make it easier for the troops to conceptualize and kill the enemy without remorse. The Germans received different treatment, as the propaganda often distinguished between “good” Germans and evil Nazis. Propaganda galvanized the war effort by glorifying the strength of the American way and presenting the war as a zero-sum conflict. The media’s message was one of dire urgency; we had to confront the enemy or risk losing our American liberty. The conflict was framed ideologically; our liberty became that of the world as we faced off against the forces of tyranny. The enemy had attacked us and was therefore one we could not coexist with.

Ever since the Bolshevik Revolution, the American media had looked upon Russia with mistrust. When the Soviet Union became an ally against Nazi Germany, the mood somewhat shifted to portray them as such, yet the underlying perceptions remained. The film Ninotchka (1939) contrasted the communist life with Western life from the perspective of a Soviet woman sent on business to Paris. She is overwhelmed by the splendor of the city and tempted to stay when she finds love. Her experience in the West is contrasted with that back home, where life is more difficult and individuality is unfamiliar. This film starkly sets the Soviet Union apart from the West as a stifling and backward land. Unsurprisingly, the West claims her and grants her love in the end. This early/pre-Cold War film does not present the Soviets as an enemy per se, but rather as the “other.” Their system is inferior and artificially imposed upon the people. They are confused, but once they have experienced Western life, who could go back? There is confidence that the West will win them over.

When the Cold War fully got under way, however, the relationship turned to one of rivalry in which each side feared falling behind the other. Both powers endeavored to position themselves to better their images while entrenching themselves within their particular spheres. In this phase of the Cold War, the concern arose that if the United States did not actively “win over” other states, then they would fall to the Soviets. America had to show the superiority of its capabilities and ideology. Its capabilities came in the form of military, economic, and cultural strength. Its ideology was one of morality, individual liberty, and equality (if only in theory). These “pure” American characteristics were set against those of the Soviet Union.

Hollywood aided in espousing these characteristics with The Ten Commandments (1956). Though set in a time thousands of years before the founding of either state, some have argued that this film allegorically portrays the ideological differences between the Soviet Union and the United States (Shaw), with the Egyptians representing Soviets and the Hebrews representing Americans. The Americans are the chosen people of God, who through their persistence, virtue, and faith overcome their oppressors. All they desire is to live freely. The Soviets are powerful yet misguided, placing their faith in false gods who fail to guide and protect them. They are cruel and take advantage of those whom they have enslaved. The film grants religious and moral authority to the allegorical Americans. At the same time, it strips the allegorical Soviets of their artificial authority. America is destined to prevail while the Soviet Union is destined to crumble. In this film, the Soviet Union is portrayed as a more direct threat to Western civilization, actively suppressing liberty and with no regard for humanity. By enhancing the identity of the enemy, it made the Soviet Union all the more important for the United States. The greater you make or perceive your enemy, the more your enemy comes to define you. By raising up the Soviets as such a profound threat, America bound itself ever tighter to them.

Some have argued that the media fueled and perpetuated the Cold War while others have credited it for helping to bring down the Soviet Union (Arno and Dissanayake). Both arguments offer interesting insights into the media dynamic of the Cold War. By creating a villain, you inherently create a hero. In this unity of opposition, both sides mutually reinforce each other, and by doing so constitute each other. One of the reasons that the Cold War was so “stable” was that at a certain level, both superpowers realized that they needed one another. As the portrayed villain became greater, so did the portrayed hero. The media elevated both sides to a hyper real plane, which gave the Soviet Union and the United States, in one form or another, power. This self-reinforcing thrust of the media likely promoted the vitality of the Cold War.

Nonetheless, the characteristic thrust of consumerism by the media may have simultaneously contributed to the downfall of the Soviet system. Tony Shaw posits, “The Cold War was won as much in the shopping basket as at the negotiating table” (Shaw, 33). Not only was media intended for consumption itself, but also it pictured and promoted American goods to those around the world. By flaunting capitalist luxury, the media indirectly compared the bounty in the West to the dearth in the East. Such a disparity in the quality of life could not endure, because you cannot wall in your own deprived people and expect them to loyally submit forever. In this light, the dissolution of the Soviet Union resembles Moses leading his people out of Egypt, with the Pharaoh powerless to stop him, just like Moscow was unable to suppress the social movements in its satellite states in the late 1980s. In these ways, the media maintained the Cold War and yet constantly chipped away at the enemy.

Eventually the enemy grew so great and complex that it became more than itself. The enemy ceased to have concrete meaning anymore and became more of an idea creeping around in American social consciousness. In Three Days of the Condor (1975), a book reader for the CIA thinks that his section has been taken out by some enemy force. When he tries to bring himself in, he is attacked by his superior and escapes. He soon discovers that the enemy is not a hostile, foreign group, but rather one of their own. This enemy was created by the hyper reality in which the intelligence community operates. In this film, the Soviets are no longer the enemy; we are our own enemies. This is what happens when the rivalry and conflict are taken too far and are played out for too long. This is what happens when surveillance and simulation are coupled with the accelerating speed of technology and interactions; reality cannot keep up and is enveloped by the hyper reality. Arno and Dissanayake put it this way: “Mass media began to mediate government-citizen communication. People became alienated from one another as cultures moved inexorably from association (Gemeinschaft) into abstraction (Gesellschaft)” (Arno and Dissanayake, 30). As the pace of media, technology, and information accelerates and people move farther away from each other into abstraction, will we become so ensnared in the hyper reality that the only enemy we can find is ourselves?

Works Cited/Consulted:

Arno, Andrew and Wimal Dissanayake, Ed. The News Media in National and International Conflict. Westview Press, Inc., Boulder, Colorado, 1984.

Chilton, Paul, Ed. Language and the Nuclear Arms Debate: Nukespeak Today. Frances Pinter Publishers, Dover, New Hampshsire, 1985.

Clayton, Koppes R. and Gregory D. Black. Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, 1990.

Der Derian, James. “The (S)pace of International Relations: Simulation, Surveillance, and Speed.” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3, Special Issue: Speaking the Language of Exile: Dissidence in International Studies. (Sep., 1990), pp. 295-310.

Shaw, Tony. Hollywood’s Cold War. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, Massachusetts, 2007.

Three Days of the Condor. Produced by Stanley Schneider and Dino De Laurentiis. Directed by Sydney Pollack. Paramount Pictures. 1975.