Malaya Today, Picture Set D, no. 4: Learning to fire a Bren gun (English photo poster distributed in Malaya)
A close photograph of a man in a bush hat lying prone and aiming a Bren light machine gun, with seated onlookers blurred behind him. The caption says he is learning to fire it. The tell is card-stacking: the sheet presents military training as a plain, orderly activity and says nothing of the purposes or costs of the forces it promotes.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- September 3, 1953
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia series
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Eisenhower Administration
- Leader
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Audience
- Foreign public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- War and the military, Empire and colonialism
- Event
- Cold War
- Source
- Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- Source
- U.S. National Archives (NARA), Record Group 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306)
U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, September 3, 1953. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 5729996, 306-PPA-95).
Text on the object
MALAYA TODAY PICTURE SET "D" FEDERATION ARMED FORCES LEARNING TO FIRE A BREN GUN [4]
Sheet number appears in a circle at lower right.
