Propaganda and documentary filmmaking

Abstract

This thesis consists of a text and a videotape, entitled A Call For Survival: Personal Responses to the Nuclear Threat. The written thesis is an analysis of documentary filmmaking as a form of discourse. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, a French historian and philosopher, the two basic approaches to documentary filmmaking are explored: the observational documentary and the propagandistic documentary. The techniques of each approach are evaluated in terms of their effects as mechanisms of power and knowledge. The two approaches are then examined in terms of how each has been incorporated into mass media. The videotape that accompanies this thesis is 3/4-inch U-Matic, 28 minutes long, color, sound, and in the English language.