The image of the woman in the iconographic propaganda of the World War One.

We know that war propaganda was born with the First World War. The countries involved developed a massive iconographic propaganda: from the posters that invited to enlist and to took out a loan to finance the conflict, to the posters that instigated to the hatred of the enemy; on the other hand there were the newspapers that by means of the photograph put in contact the readers to the reality of the frontline. In addition to the new technological means of struggle, the psychological war appears for the first time in a warfare, developing itself through different channels. Among these there was the press that through posters, postcards and stamps provided the maximum contribution to the spread and the use of the mass of a certain kind of images. With this paper I want to submit a semiotic inquiry about the iconography of the propaganda through the analysis of the most famous posters disseminated by the countries involved in the conflict. In addition, we will analyze the State as an organ of control of public opinion and the relationship between propaganda and censorship: through the propaganda the interests of the nations were enhanced in order to get the greatest consensus, through the censorship the State protected itself from any dangerous truths publicized by the press. Finally, we will propose a reflection on the legacy of the iconographic propaganda in the arts (in particular in the first post-war avant-garde) and in modern and contemporary political communication.