War Is Sell (2004)

War is Sell delves into the history and tactics of war propagandists - soldiers armed not with guns, but with words, pictures and commercial advertising techniques in their "battle to win hearts and minds." How do you sell a war? How do the techniques of government propagandists, public relations consultants and commercial advertisers work, and why are they so effective? How did the United States become a master of domestic war propaganda over the course of the twentieth century? If, as many claim, human beings are biologically "hard-wired" to wage war, why should propaganda be necessary at all? Is it possible to train people to critically evaluate, and ultimately resist, deceptive propaganda messages? War is Sell uses archival films, television news coverage, propaganda images from WWI and the Iraq War and interviews with a diverse set of researchers to answer these and other questions in a lively, absorbing manner.