My, what a critical response, without any criticism.

They seem to me an effective means to deliver important bits of propoganda to the enemy. A series of clear, simple messages explaining the best way to survive the war, with unsubtle reminders of why this should be important to you.

Of course, neither of us is on the ground in Iraq, but I've described why these leaflets seem effective. What's your beef? You have a blog so that you can articulate ideas beyond your simple visceral disgust at anything perpewtrated by the Bush regime, neh?

Thanks,
-danny

I'm not sure you'll find my rationale for finding the leaflets offensive any more palatable than my simple visceral disgust, but I'll give it a good college try.

First, I'm not at all opposed to the concept of the leaflets. What I was reacting to was the visual imagery on them, which, at this point in time, I find very problematic. This reaction is similar to the one I had in response to the Dragga and Voss article in the August 2001 issue of STC's journal (see https://idblog.org/archives/000034.html for that blog entry).

In a case of somewhat serendipitous timing, Gunnar Swanson posted an interesting snippet from the thesis I blogged yesterday (see http://www.katebrigham.com/thesis) on the citizendesign list. The quote he pulled reads "Barry's position that messages can be skewed and manipulated by their creators, or by designers later on in the process, implies that such practices are always intentional, remeditated process. While I agree that in some cases they might well be, I would also suggest that those creating visual messages are as susceptible to the subconscious processes of perception as are viewers. As a result, such manipulations might actually be unintentional responses that are emotionally driven, or otherwise affected by inherent perceptual processes that are as poorly understood by the creators of messages as they are by most viewers." P 37

I don't ascribe malicious intent to the designers of these leaflets (though your choice of the word "propoganda" suggests that you may be infering some kind of American bias unrelated to describing ways for the Iraqi's to survive the war). For me, I am just concerned that the imagery, however well-intentioned, will be received poorly by the Iraqis.

In her fab book, "Dynamics in Document Design," Karen Schriver talks about a research study she conducted that looked at drug education literature for teens. They collected over 100 brochures developed by well-meaning drug prevention agencies. They talked to nearly 300 teens in their study, and basically found that these brochures, though essentially well designed, "did not work very well for the intended audience" (p. 171) and that students "remarked that many of the illustrations across the set of brochures were 'insulting,' 'corny,' and even 'pitiful.' (p. 172)

If the designers working on the drug prevention brochures (who presumably had some advantages, including time to design and cultural similarity with their audience) failed to reach teens, what are the odds that these hastily produced leaflets designed for a decidedly non-American culture won't similarly fail? Or make it worse for the Iraqi's or the coalition soldiers they may come across?

When you factor in that we're bombing the shit out of their country (so maybe they have just a slight reason to distrust us), I just can't help but be concerned that these leaflets are in fact creating as many problems as they are supposed to be solving.

"I don't know if these are real, but if so (..)"

Yes, they are real. See also the original source, the Leaflet Gallery on the website of CentCom:
http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leaflets/showleaflets.asp