CEnsorship
The federal Department of Information (DOI) was established in September 1939 it played an important role in censoring all forms of media, specifically newspapers. Censorship was considered necessary to maintain the national security and continue to boost the public morale, therefore was a justifiable precaution (Gerald Carrodus, 2012, p. 110). It was seen important to downplay negative events could negatively impact the number of voluntary soldiers. Censorship was later on established on the home front to eliminate any information which could potentially tarnish Australia’s war efforts (Smith, 2008). The Department of Information also had the authority to censor private mail and phone calls between soldiers and family members, this caused communication between loved ones to become difficult. Any form of sensitive information was blocked out by the authorities (Smith, 2008).
In Source One, it shows a personal post card which was sent from Barcelona to Victoria. The information which was deemed sensitive was blocked out by a permanent pen. This was done to many personal letters between family and friends, causing communication to be a difficult task. The officials block out the information to ensure that no information relating to troop movements and locations was being enclosed or negative comments were being made from or to the home front.
Another technique of censoring which was used by authorities was completely cutting out a section of the letter in Source 2 it demonstrates this method. On February 19, 1942 the Japanese forced bombed Darwin it was reported by newspapers that there were 15 fatalities although, the true number of fatalities exceeded 240 (Smith, 2008). The DOI encouraged civilians to write cheerfully to the home front, in an attempt to keep high spirits and ultimately influencing the soldier’s attitudes (Smith, 2008). The severity of the censorship created hardships for soldiers and significantly impacted the amount of communication that they had with their family and friends. Australia’s present government still censors and withholds information which is seen to be damaging or sensitive to a certain extent. Today’s government officials are discrete with the amount of information they censor therefore, the current society is oblivious to the amount of withheld information.