The Media and the State in the 1930s

Abstract

The economic crisis which enveloped the United States and much of Europe after 1929 undermined still further the fragile stability which had been created, both nationally and internationally, in the post-war period. It became a crisis of confidence in man’s ability to organise himself politically and socially for the benefit of all. The principles upon which the post-war world had been built, democracy and self-determination allied to international cooperation, had already been challenged by the success of Bolshevism in Russia and the advent to power of the Fascist movement in Italy. The former proselytised for an international society based upon communist principles, the latter for a nationally orientated political and social integration. The economic crisis of the early 1930s exacerbated this ideological struggle with many states attempting to solve their problems without recourse to either alternative.