Category: Media History
Determined, Brave and Loving Her Job: A Female War Correspondent in the First World War
In wartime, communication is of most importance, especially when it comes to shaping public opinion. In fact, journalists play an indisputable role in deciding what information, in what form, and with what content reaches the readers. This significance was even more crucial at the turn of the century, during the birth of journalism. Throughout the …
Resilience in Media Ecologies: Mapping the Converging Histories of Magic Lanterns, Omocha-e (Toy Prints) and Kamishibai (Paper Theater)
Histories of kamishibai (paper theater) typically trace its roots to early magic lantern shows, but Iwamoto Kenji questions this development: “At a time when many different audiovisual technologies were tied in some way to modern scientific instruments, kamishibai was made of just pictures and narrative and seemed to be a throwback to Edo-period spectacles” (2002). …
The Reduction of Domestication of Anime on American Television Over Four Decades
The importation of anime into the United States began in earnest in the 1980s, although a few titles were imported before that time. One aspect of this anime boom in the US that has not been explored fully is the process of localizing anime for American audiences, and gradual reduction of that process. Early anime …
Using Newspapers and Films as Tools for Cultural History Research
This paper demonstrates how media historians can gain valuable insight by using newspapers as well as fiction films as their primary source materials. In recent years, cultural historians have increasingly drawn on a wide range of primary texts to gain a rounded picture of popular history. Fiction films and newspapers, however, are not commonly considered …
Challenging the Cultural Amnesia of Historical Video Art
With an increased presence of exhibitions focusing on video art’s history since the turn of the century there is a need to develop curatorial strategies that challenge the amnesic effects that time has had on this past which have been accelerated by the obsolescence of technology. For the curator of video art histories this presents …
Exploration in the Mist of the History: Review of Blind Spots in Research on History of Taiwanese Cinema
Past discussion on the history of Taiwanese cinema rarely focused on the Japanese colonial period. By literature review and new findings of historical data, this study explores past arguments on the history of Taiwanese cinema from three dimensions in order to probe into the mist and perspective of the research on the history of Taiwanese …
Whither the News: Problematizing the Gendered Limits of Coverage on Women’s Wartime Labour in Canadian Newspapers, 1939-1945
During the Second World War, women’s involvement in Canada’s ‘total war’ effort meant increased domestic responsibilities, volunteering, enlisting, and joining the civilian workforce. Women’s labour force participation more than doubled throughout the war, blurring gendered divisions of labour and rendering women’s labour a subject for discussion in the public sphere. But what about in the …