Siegfried Kracauer stands out as one of the most significant theorists and critics of the twentieth century, acclaimed for his analyses of film and popular culture. However, his writing on propaganda and politics has been overshadowed by the works of his contemporaries and colleagues associated with the Frankfurt School.This book brings together a broad selection of Kracauer's work on media and political communication, much of it previously unavailable in English. It features writings spanning more than two decades, from studies of totalitarian propaganda written in the 1930s to wartime work on Nazi newsreels and anti-Semitism through to examinations of American and Soviet political messaging in the early Cold War period. These varied texts illuminate the interplay among politics, mass culture, and the media, and they encompass Kracauer's core concerns: the individual and the masses, the conditions of cultural production, and the critique of modernity.The introduction and afterword explore the significance of Kracauer's contributions to critical theory, film and media studies, and the analysis of political communication both in his era and the present day. At a time when demagoguery and bigotry loom over world politics, Kracauer's inquiries into topics such as the widespread appeal of fascist propaganda and the relationship of new media forms and technologies to authoritarianism are strikingly relevant.

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsGeneral IntroductionPart I: Studies of Totalitarianism, Propaganda, and the Masses (1936-1940)1. Exposé. Mass and Propaganda. An Inquiry Into Fascist Propaganda2. Totalitarian Propaganda3. Abridged Restricted Schema4. Schemata5. DispositionPart II: The Caligari Complex (1943-1947)6. The Conquest of Europe on the Screen: The Nazi Newsreel, 1939-407. The Hitler Image8. Below the Surface: Project of a Test FilmPart III: Postwar Publics (1948-1950)9. Re-education Program for the Reich10. How and Why the Public Responds to the Propagandist11. Popular Advertisements12. A Duck Crosses Main Street13. National Types as Hollywood Presents Them14. Deluge of PicturesPart IV: Cold War Tensions (1952-1958)15. Appeals to the Near and Middle East: Implications of the Communications Studies Along the Soviet Periphery16. Attitudes Toward Various Communist Types in Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia17. Proposal for a Research Project Designed to Promote the Use of Qualitative Analysis in the Social Sciences18. The Challenge of Qualitative Content Analysis19. On the Relation of Analysis to the Situational Factors in Case Studies20. The Social Research Center on the Campus: Its Significance for the Social Sciences and Its Relations to the University and Society at LargeAppendix 1: T. W. Adorno, "Report on the Work 'Totalitarian Propaganda in Germany and Italy' by Siegfried Kracauer, 1-106"Appendix 2: John Abromeit, "Siegfried Kracauer, and the Early Frankfurt School's Analysis of Fascism as Right-Wing Populism"BibliographySourcesIndex