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

信息部是由一个民主社会在其基本价值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，还使通信文化中的一系列网络变得可见，这些网络在和平时期通常是不可见的。教育部必须迅速适应一系列内部压力和外部环境，并在资源有限的情况下这样做。它的组织在一定程度上是利用现有的东西，并在必要时即兴创作的产物：因此，‘凑合着修补’特别合适。位于参议院大厦的教育部制作了大量的宣传材料，聘请艺术家、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。该部还协助其他部委制作和分发宣传材料，包括食品部、卫生部、贸易局和战争办公室。教育部还鼓励私营企业发布信息材料。对纸张供应的控制使经济部对严重短缺的出版业拥有相当大的权力。教育部审查局负责对报纸、期刊和书籍进行审查。该局需要强大的情报收集能力，并与报纸和出版商建立良好的工作关系。所有这些程序都充满了实践和道德上的困难，这是由于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而造成的。作为奥威尔《1984》中真理部的典范，教学语言的影响继续回荡，但不仅仅是作为隐喻。在公开性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。该项目将利用出版史学科来解决教育部提出的一些历史和文化问题，这是第一次有系统地将其应用于政府机构。出版史研究作者和出版商之间的关系；出版商、印刷商和书商之间的关系；探索读者和书籍关系的本质；也描述阅读材料在图书馆和档案馆生存下来影响下一代的方式。然而，我们的学科的复杂性和广泛性迫使该学科更上一层楼，接受它所属的更广泛的学科：传播史。该项目研究材料的运输(如小册子、海报、传单、展览)和通过各种媒体(如广播和电影)传递各种信息。该项目将分析一系列广泛的主要资源，包括国家档案馆(TNA)、帝国战争博物馆(IWM)、卡弗沙姆的BBC档案馆、参议院大楼和苏塞克斯大学的大众观察。此外，本十年是最后一个十年，在这十年内，积极参与教学语言活动或受教学语言影响的人士，仍会有相当数量的人仍然健在。除了一部全面的学术传播史之外，这个项目还将把我们调查中的所有材料都放在网上，它将包括一个虚拟档案馆，其中包含我们所做的所有材料，以及一个博物馆，通过使用档案馆中的醒目例子来解释教学语言，以及通过“拖放”创建个人收藏品的设施。因此，该项目将以一种易于理解的方式介绍其调查结果，这将使教师、学生、记者、广播员以及广大公众感兴趣。此外，我们还将在参众两院或帝国战争博物馆组织一次实物展览。

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.