'Make Do and Mend': A Publishing and Communication History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-45

新闻部是一个民主社会在其基本价值观受到严重和直接威胁的历史时刻设立的。它不仅戏剧化了信息战争，而且还使和平时期通常看不见的通信文化中的一系列网络变得可见。内政部必须迅速适应一系列内部压力和外部环境，而且资源有限。它的组织在一定程度上是使用手头的东西的产物，必要时，即兴发挥：“凑合和修补”，因此，特别合适。内政部设在参议院，制作了大量的宣传材料，雇用艺术家、作家、记者、研究人员和电影导演设计电影、广播节目、海报、书籍和展览。内政部还协助其他各部，包括粮食部、卫生部、贸易委员会和陆军部制作和分发宣传材料。内政部还鼓励私营公司出版信息材料。对纸张供应的控制使内政部对严重短缺的出版业拥有相当大的权力。内政部的审查局负责报纸、杂志和书籍的审查。该局需要有强大的情报收集能力，并与报纸和出版商保持良好的工作关系。所有这些程序都充满了实际和道德上的困难，这是在一个与一系列封闭社会交战的开放社会中实行公开审查造成的。作为奥威尔的《1984》中真理部的典范，内政部的影响力继续回荡，但不仅仅是隐喻。在开放和社会凝聚力之间取得平衡的困难至今仍是激烈辩论的主题。该项目将利用首次系统地应用于政府机构的出版史学科来解决内政部提出的一些历史和文化问题。出版史研究作者和出版商之间的关系;出版商，印刷商和书商之间;探索读者和书籍之间的关系的性质;并描述了阅读材料在图书馆和档案馆生存的方式，以影响下一代。然而，我们的学科的复杂性和范围迫使该学科加快步伐，并拥抱更广泛的学科，它是其中的一部分：传播史。这个研究物质的运输（例如小册子、海报、传单、展览）和通过各种媒体传播各种信息该项目将分析广泛的主要资源，包括国家档案馆（TNA）、帝国战争博物馆（IWM）、位于卡韦尔舍姆的英国广播公司档案馆、参议院、和萨塞克斯大学的《大众观察》此外，这十年是最后一个在此期间积极参与或受内政部影响的人仍然大量活着的十年。我们仍然有机会采访他们，并创造一个口述历史资源，否则我们将失去。除了一个全面的，学术性的传播史，该项目将使我们的调查的所有材料在网络上提供的形式'MoI数字'，这将包括一个虚拟档案，包含所有的材料，我们已经工作，还有一个博物馆，通过使用档案馆中引人注目的例子来解释MoI，“导游”，以及通过“拖放”创建个人收藏的设施。因此，该项目将以易于理解的方式介绍其调查结果，使教师、学生、记者、广播员以及广大公众感兴趣。此外，我们将在参议院或帝国战争博物馆举办一个实物展览。

The Ministry of Information was set up by a democratic society at a point in history when its fundamental values were under serious and immediate threat. It not only dramatised the war of information but also made visible a whole series of networks in the culture of communication that were usually invisible in peace time. The MoI had to adapt rapidly to a series of internal pressures and external circumstances, and did so with limited resources. Its organisation was partly the product of employing what was to hand and, when necessary, improvising: 'Make Do and Mend', therefore, is particularly apt. Located in Senate House, the MoI created a vast amount of publicity material, employing artists, writers, journalists, researchers, and film directors to devise films, radio programmes, posters, books, and exhibitions. The MoI also assisted other ministries in the production and distribution of publicity materials, including the Ministries of Food, Health, the Board of Trade, and the War Office. The MoI also encouraged private firms to publish informational material. The control of paper supply gave the MoI considerable power over a publishing industry suffering from acute shortages. The MoI's Censorship Bureau was responsible for the censorship of newspapers, journals and books. The Bureau required significant intelligence-gathering capacity, and good working relationships with newspapers and publishers. All these procedures were fraught with practical and ethical difficulties created by the exercise of overt censorship in an open society at war with a series of closed societies. As the model for the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984, the MoI's influence continued to reverberate, but not just as metaphor. The difficulties of striking a balance between openness and social cohesion are subjects of fierce debate to this day.The project will address some of the historical and cultural problems raised by the MoI by using the discipline of publishing history which, for the first time, is being applied systematically to government institutions. Publishing history investigates the relationships between author and publisher; between publisher, printer and bookseller; explores the nature of the relationship between reader and book; and also describes the ways in which reading materials survive in libraries and archives to influence the next generation. The complexity and range of our subject however obliges the discipline to move up a gear and embrace the broader subject of which it is a part: communication history. This studies the transport of materials (e.g. pamphlets, posters, handbills, exhibitions) and the transmission of all sorts of information through a wide variety of media (e.g. radio and film).The project will analyse an extensive array of primary resources including materials available at the National Archives (TNA), the Imperial War Museum (IWM), BBC Archives at Caversham, Senate House, and Mass Observation at the University of Sussex. Additionally, this decade is the last in which those who were actively engaged with, or affected by, the MoI during the period will still be alive in significant numbers. There is still the chance to interview them and create an oral history resource that will otherwise be lost to us.In addition to a comprehensive, scholarly history of communication, the project will make all the materials from our investigation available on the Web in the form of 'MoI Digital' which will consist of a virtual archive, containing all the material we have worked on, and a museum that explains MoI by use of striking examples from the archive, 'guided tours', and the facility to create personal collections by 'drag and drop'. The project will thus present its findings in a highly accessible way that will interest teachers, students, journalists, broadcasters as well as large numbers of the general public. Additionally we shall organize a physical exhibition in either Senate House or the Imperial War Museum.