Fahrenheit 9/11 Propaganda Analysis

Introduction “George Bush does not care about black people.” This statement made by Kanye West in 2006, at “NBC’s A Concern for Hurricane Relief was made to defame the former president George W. Bush. Kanye however was not the first person to slander the President. Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 uses current events and patriotism as a framework to discredit the authority of the President. Frank Capra’s Why We Fight: Battle of Russia does the same, using patriotism and current events to prepare American citizens for the idea of entering World War II. This purpose of this paper is to compare the propaganda tactics used in two documentaries: Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and the World War II documentaries Why We Fight. In this paper I will describe each movie’s purpose and how each movie is a form of propaganda. Furthermore, I will show how each movie uses propaganda devices to convince its viewers and I will place them in a historical, social, and political context. …show more content…
Bush and John Kerry. The film’s intended purpose was to show the American people that George W. Bush was not fit to be the President of the United States.
According to Jowett & O’Donnell (2015), “propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. “Michael Moore’s film is an example of propaganda because it attempts to shape perceptions, (ideas about President Bush), manipulate cognitions, (get the American public to reason with him) and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist (convince the American public to vote for John Kerry) (Jowett & O’Donnell,