Newstalk Magazine is available now for free from the Apple app store.

We all have movies we turn to in moments of emotional and entertainment need. From the sweeping epics to the soppy tear fests, there’s a celluloid solution for every mood.

But what if the movies we watch not only have the power to affect our feelings, but our thoughts and ethics too? In this era of free thinking and media transparency is it conceivable that we are still being puppeteered by a propaganda machine?

A recent study by the University of Notre Dame in Indiana found that Hollywood movies had more influence over audience attitudes than advertising and news reports combined. The research—published in the journal Social Science Quarterly—was based on a study of 268 students who were asked about their political views, shown a film and then questioned again. 

More than half of the subjects were deemed to exhibit more liberal and left wing ideals after watching the selected films. The study’s lead author Dr Todd Adkins explained the finding as thus: “Viewers come expecting to be entertained and are not prepared to encounter and evaluate political messages as they would during campaign advertisements or network news.”

Using the medium of film to sway the allegiance of millions is nothing new, having first been utilized in 1898 during the Spanish American War. But it wasn’t until World War II that its power was truly realised. In 1933, Adolf Hitler created the Reich Ministry for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda and appointed Joseph Goebbels as its head. The insidious hatred towards the Jews and thirst for Aryan purity were trickled through cinema screens across the country.

By the time Germany had gone to war, her people were used to processing their views via the seventy foot screen, facilitating the mass brainwashing objective of appeasing, justifying or simply masking the atrocities around them.

In fact the use of German cinematic propaganda was so effective that the then American president Franklin D Roosevelt soon followed suit. He pressured the movie industry into supporting the war effort, the results being classics such as Casablanca and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. America continued to churn out anti-communist films and TV shows during the Vietnam and Cold Wars, but it was after the 9/11 attacks that the reels really started to roll.

While conspiracy films such as Fahrenheit 9/11 aimed to turn the spotlight on the White House itself, popular entertainment was flooded with depictions of terrorist Muslims intent on destroying the very things the western world held dear. Surely, when faced with such a destiny, waging war was the only option for the restoration of the happy ending?

President John F Kennedy said, “No matter how big the lie—repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth.” How many of us have recalled a memory or recited a fact only to later remember its source as a fictional piece of entertainment? The blurred lines of reality and fantasy are the final frontiers of our individual thought processes.

So the next time the credits roll and the sweeping score sends you off into the night with the desired emotional response, ask yourself if you still think the same way as you did when you bought the ticket.

This article originally appeared in Newstalk Magazine for iPad in February, for more details go here.