The topic for the two artifacts I chose surrounds the idea of fake news shaping a society. Now, the relation between my two artifacts may seem surface level as just being about misinformation, but there is a deeper connection between the two. My primary artifact is an image of a plane being propelled by the “hot air” (lies) of Joseph Goebells, the chief of propaganda for the Nazi party. In the secondary artifact, Facebook serves as the source for the lies and fake news. In both of these cartoons there is a main source serving as the valve of this false information. 

Not to say that Nazi Germany is the same as U.S. society today, but parallels can be drawn between the state of society during both and how reliant people were on news. Though, the fault cannot be put directly on the people. It is of certain civic duty to keep up with the news and absorb media. However, the fault is more on these people/outlets that seemingly spew this false news. 

For my primary artifact, or the one that I will focus my speech on, the main aspect that really drew my eye was the fact that it was produced by a woman. Anne Mergen dubbed the “first lady of editorial cartoons during WWII” was the only woman cartoonist during her time working. This fact is a rather fresh, interesting viewpoint of the war. Many times it would have likely been a man making comments on the war, let alone publishing them. This point will draw an interesting connection to ethos, or credibility, behind the piece. 

The main call of the pieces is to be aware of the media and information that is spreading, more likely than not it is not true. As pointed out behind the similarity of the message behind the two artifacts, this is an issue that has caused problems for society for well over 70 years, but really longer than that. In a way, much of the propaganda during mid-american history was built as a scare tactic, so sometimes that meant including lies. 

The main reason why I chose these artifacts is because I find it honestly fascinating how a movement, such as the Nazi party uprising, was able to gain such popularity, even though inherently immoral, through the spread of media and propaganda. It is during a time where much media cannot be trusted that we, as a society, are forced to look back on the repercussions that fake news had on a society, hence the comparison from past to present.