Cold War Classrooms: Educational Film and the Construction of Post-War American Culture.

冷战课堂：教育电影与战后美国文化的建设。

• 批准号: 2417598
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2417598
• 关键词: Cold; War; Classrooms; Educational; Film

The study of non-theatrical film or "useful cinema", has seen a growth in scholarly research in recent years, some of which has begun to look at the use of short film by governments and business in shaping the conduct of populations. The immediate period following WWII witnessed a boom in the production of films intended to educate the American youth as a confluence of new technologies, ideological imperatives, and business opportunities led school boards and local government to turn to film to help ease the strain on the expanding education system. The classroom film industry attracted the attention of independent producers and their corporate clients, among them, the most powerful industrial corporations in the world including General Electric, General Motors and du Pont, many of whom were already engaged in the production of sponsored film and advertising. Films were produced that endorsed emotional self-control, social conformity, American supremacy and the moral certitude of capitalism. Owing to a combination of the utilitarian nature of these media forms, their eventual obsolescence as a media format, and a lack of formal preservation until recent years, the social history and cultural significance of classroom films has remained largely unstudied. This research project will build from a body of existing theoretical work on the utility of industrial, educational, and ephemeral films that includes work by my UCL supervisors Lee Grieveson and Claire Thomson, as well as works by Haidee Wasson, Patrick Vonderau, Rick Prelinger, and Kelly Ritter to explore the ways in which classroom films have interacted with culture, Cold War political economy, and the governance of populations. The research is informed by three key ideas: firstly, that the involvement of corporate sponsorship in the production of classroom films visualised a model citizenry largely in the interests of sustaining industrial capital. Secondly, that this facilitated in the closure of progressive New Deal educational endeavours. Thirdly, that this attempt to shape the behaviours and actions of populations can be best understood as conforming to what Michel Foucault described as the process of liberal governmentality. This research aims to achieve several significant objectives: To examine classroom film beyond conventional understanding of educational utility to analyse how it was being used to influence the thoughts and behaviours of American youth. To explore the historical entanglement of corporate sponsorship in the production of classroom film, and the role that various producers played in bridging the gap between corporate advertising and educational film. To situate classroom films within the context of America's Cold War culture by examining the motivations of government in dovetailing educational initiatives with and for the benefit of foreign policy. Accordingly, the research will address the following questions: How did the experience of the WWII propaganda filmmaking and the imperatives of the Cold War inform the post-war educational film boom? In what ways and for what purposes have corporations, government, and film makers influenced the style and scope of post-war American education and visualised a new set of ideals and values? How do these values correlate with the later emergence of neoliberalism in America? In exploring these questions, this research will add to a growing body of scholarly work on non-theatrical film. By focussing on the economic and political logics that have shaped this media, this research will generate new critical perspectives on the intersection of educational film, political economy, and Cold War history. At the core of this thesis is an argument that the overt endorsement by these films of consumerism, conservatism, nationalism, economic liberalism, and anti-communism, aided in the radicalisation of liberalism and the emergence of neoliberalism as a socio-political reality in America by the late 1970s.

近年来，对非戏剧电影或“有用的电影”的研究出现了学术研究的增长，其中一些研究已经开始关注政府和企业利用短片来塑造民众的行为。二战后不久，随着新技术、意识形态要求和商业机会的融合，旨在教育美国年轻人的电影的制作蓬勃发展，导致学校董事会和地方政府转向电影，以帮助缓解不断扩大的教育系统的压力。课堂电影业吸引了独立制片人及其企业客户的注意，其中包括世界上最强大的工业公司，包括通用电气、通用汽车和杜邦，其中许多公司已经从事赞助电影和广告的制作。制作的电影支持情感自控、社会一致性、美国至高无上地位和资本主义的道德确定性。由于这些媒体形式的功利性，它们作为一种媒体形式最终会被淘汰，以及直到最近几年才得到正式保存，课堂电影的社会历史和文化意义在很大程度上仍然没有得到研究。这个研究项目将建立在一系列关于工业、教育和短暂电影效用的现有理论工作的基础上，其中包括我的伦敦大学学院主管李·格里夫森和克莱尔·汤姆森的工作，以及海迪·瓦森、帕特里克·冯德罗、里克·普雷林格和凯利·里特的工作，以探索课堂电影与文化、冷战政治经济学和人口治理互动的方式。这项研究受到三个关键观点的启发：首先，企业赞助参与课堂电影制作，在很大程度上符合维持产业资本的利益，体现了模范公民的形象。其次，这促成了进步的新政教育努力的关闭。第三，这种塑造民众行为和行动的尝试可以被最好地理解为符合米歇尔·福柯所说的自由治理的过程。这项研究旨在实现几个重要目标：超越对教育效用的传统理解，审视课堂电影，分析它是如何被用来影响美国年轻人的思想和行为的。探讨企业赞助在课堂电影制作中的历史纠葛，以及不同制片人在弥合企业广告和教育电影之间的差距方面所发挥的作用。将课堂电影置于美国冷战文化的背景下，通过考察政府将教育倡议与外交政策相衔接并为其造福的动机。因此，这项研究将解决以下问题：二战宣传电影制作的经历和冷战的必要性如何推动战后教育电影的繁荣？公司、政府和电影制片人以什么方式和目的影响了战后美国教育的风格和范围，并设想了一套新的理想和价值观？这些价值观与后来在美国兴起的新自由主义有何关联？在探索这些问题时，这项研究将增加越来越多关于非戏剧电影的学术工作。通过聚焦于塑造这一媒体的经济和政治逻辑，这项研究将产生关于教育电影、政治经济学和冷战历史交集的新的批判性视角。这篇论文的核心是一种观点，即这些消费主义、保守主义、民族主义、经济自由主义和反共产主义电影的公开支持，有助于自由主义的激进化和新自由主义在20世纪70年代末在美国作为社会政治现实的出现。