a similar public communication effort tried before

Submitted by myth (Germany), Nov 28, 2012 at 23:07

I have a collection of historical radio recordings going back 90 years. It contains a radio show broadcasted on christmas during late WW2. It seems to me, the Israeli telephone exercise had been tried before.

The WW2 radio program contacts all fronts held by German military live in short succession. Soldiers report their location and enthusiastically send merry christmas wishes home. The show conveys an optimistic and seemingly authentic image of Germany winning the war, happily enjoying christmas together across the distances. Actually Germany was losing the war at the time of the broadcast with no way back for many of the soldiers . Propaganda efforts like that turned around public opinion and support.

The contrast of distributed locations against a shared experience account for the effectiveness of the broadcast. The Israeli telephone exercise improves on that recipe by adding multiple languages. In any event, it sucks the audience into the shared experience.

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