1914–1918, the first media war of the twentieth century: The example of French newsreels

War newsreels distributed in France from 1914 to 1918 comprise a body of work which has long been ignored by traditional film historians. In order to draw attention to this material, this article, summarising many years of the author's work on the subject, places these films in their context of production and analyses them in detail, showing that they are valuable sources both for documenting the socio-cultural history of the time and for the history of the cinematograph.