Political documentary, YouTube and the 2008 US presidential election: Focus on Robert Greenwald and David N. Bossie

This essay investigates elements of the changing media landscape between the 2004 and the 2008 US presidential elections, focusing on the audio-visual works of two prominent independent organizations: Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films and David Bossie's Citizens United. After Kerry's...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in documentary film 2009-12, Vol.3 (3), p.199-218
Main Author: Musser, Charles
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Barrack Obama
Brave New Films
campaign films
Citizens United
David Bossie
Democrats
digital video disks (DVD's)
documentary
Hillary Clinton
Internet
John McCain
media
politics
presidential elections
Republicans
Robert Greenwald
YouTube
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Summary:This essay investigates elements of the changing media landscape between the 2004 and the 2008 US presidential elections, focusing on the audio-visual works of two prominent independent organizations: Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films and David Bossie's Citizens United. After Kerry's defeat in 2004, Greenwald's organization gradually shifted from its production of political documentaries such as Uncovered: The Truth About the War in Iraq to a heavy reliance on YouTube and video campaigns such as "The Real McCain." Citizens United, stung by the success of the numerous liberal-left documentaries of 2004 (by Greenwald, Michael Moore and others), produced a number of documentaries in 2008 including Hillary: The Movie and Hype: The Obama Effect, but put little energy into exploiting video streaming, video sharing and related technologies. Although Brave New Films videos were widely viewed on the Internet and played a significant role in the campaign, the flourishing of music videos on YouTube-over 1,000 embracing "hope" and expressing a pro-Obama sentiment-was arguably the most unexpected and a highly influential dimension of the 2008 campaign season.
ISSN:1750-3280
1750-3299
DOI:10.1386/sdf.3.3.199/1