Abstract

Since the advent of film in the 1890s, it has been used for political or propaganda purposes. However, propaganda is a larger phenomenon than film propaganda; it also encompasses the written and spoken word, music, pictures, and as technology advances, propaganda’s reach likewise advances to include YouTube videos and Gifs. Propaganda can involve the moving image in all its complexity. Hence, as a broad social phenomenon, propaganda and the moving image reward philosophical contemplation, and it is important to have a rather broad conception of philosophy when subjecting the moving image to philosophical analysis because much of the scholarship about propaganda and the moving image occurs across several academic disciplines. The task here is to integrate a large body of scholarship in order to give an overview of how thinking about propaganda can enrich our understanding of film and how thinking about film can deepen our insights into propaganda’s machinations.