Research Insight | Promoting Economic Recovery After War: A Critical Look at Vietnam’s 1976–1986 Propaganda Posters
After the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese government used propaganda posters to rally public support for national reconstruction and economic recovery. This study examines Vietnam’s failed postwar economic policies through a look at its 1976–1986 propaganda posters.
State-employed artists created posters using visual storytelling and slogans to promote a country unified under Communist Party leadership. The posters featured idealized characters working in factories, fields, and production sites. Familiar images such as farming tools, livestock, and landscapes were displayed alongside symbols of modernity like power lines and multistory buildings to promote visions of a new Vietnam.
Missing from the state propaganda posters were efforts to promote reconciliation between the North and the South. The propaganda posters might have failed at changing negative stereotypes and helping former adversaries see one another as worthy members of society—a fundamental condition for reconciliation.
While recovery is the utmost goal after conflict and war, careful examination of the context is necessary. Propaganda posters can serve as a powerful communication tool, but poorly aligned campaigns can be counterproductive.
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What You Need to Know
- Propaganda posters combine visual communication and slogans to mobilize action by a target audience.
- Posters must be created with a clear understanding of the audience.
- Posters may be ineffective or even counterproductive when the policies they promote are flawed.
Abstract
The Vietnam War left a newly reunified Vietnam with innumerable challenges following the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Through an interpretive analytical approach using propaganda posters as the visual data source, this study examines how the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese government disseminated economic, political, diplomatic, military, and social policies to the public in order to rally support for the ambitious goal of rebuilding the country as an industrialized socialist nation. In doing so, this study shows how a national reconstruction discourse could be modalized in textual, visual, and symbolic spaces to maximize its persuasiveness in conflict recovery efforts. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that while recovery is the utmost goal of governments following the end of conflicts, basing it on a specific ideology without careful examination of contextual factors can be deleterious and even calamitous. Propaganda posters can serve as a powerful communication tool for policy makers, but poorly aligned campaigns can be counterproductive.