A influência da mídia na formação da opinião pública norte-americana na Segunda Guerra Mundial: um estudo semiótico de curtas de animação da Disney

Abstract

Propaganda is often used by leaders to win over public opinion in order to perpetuate themselves in power and justify their political maneuvers. During World War II (1939-1945), the Disney studios produced animated short films - in this study, three are analyzed: The New Spirit (1942), Food Will Win the War (1942) and Reason and Emotion (1943) -, which are examples of the use of propaganda as a way of influencing public opinion, in addition to showing the American point of view. Assuming that the discourses of war propaganda contributed to the construction of public opinion, the objective of this dissertation is, first, to systematize how the formation of public opinion occurs and, then, to examine the war propaganda used in the selected short films centered on some of Peirce's semiotic categories. This study is founded on the theoretical support by Jean-Marie Domenach (2001), Patrick Charaudeau (2015, 2016) and Edward Carr (1946) on media, propaganda, political ideology and the formation of public opinion; Charles Sanders Peirce (1994, 2017), Lucia Santaella (1994, 2000, 2012, 2018) and Winfried Nöth (1990) on semiotics; and John Baxter (2014) on war propaganda produced by Disney. Based on the understanding of how the speeches used in the short films influenced the formation of Americans' public opinion, this research seeks to encourage attention and critical thinking towards everything that is broadcast in the media, especially in the virtual world. With technological development and the rise of social networks, there is an excess of information at all times, and the initiative to verify the veracity of speeches remains as relevant as in the period of World War II. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]