Propaganda and documentary filmmaking

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.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1985

Author dc:creator

• Roper, Michael (Michael Dean)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Richard Leacock.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77319

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/77319