Research project Navigating audiovisual legitimacy
The PhD research project 'Navigating audiovisual legitimacy: Films and television commissioned by Norwegian and Swedish mining companies and their useful networks 1945-75' is led by Ole Johnny Fossås, PhD candidate, Department of Media Studies. Supervisors: professor Marina Dahlquist and professor Bo Florin, Department of Media Studies.
This dissertation explores how mining companies navigated their legitimacy through their commissioned film and television programs in Norway and Sweden from 1945-1975. Exploring largely forgotten yet central part of audiovisual history, it is argued that legitimacy of industrial media was influenced by institutions beyond the companies themselves.
Based on national, regional and company archival material in Norway and Sweden, this project aims to describe how film and television programs were useful to mining companies between 1945-1975. Industrial companies in Norway and Sweden commissioned and used films and television throughout the 20th century as part of their information campaigns, as part of education and instruction of employees, for public relations and as advertisement. However, companies themselves rarely had extensive knowledge of how to get a wide array of audiences in contact with their media and their messages. Other actors, including state and private institutions were therefore central to how the films were "packaged" and understood, and this project aims to describe how this happened with films and television programs on and by mining companies in what is deemed as "useful networks".
Project description
The research into sponsored film and television within cinema studies, so-called "useful cinema" or "industrial film / television" have largely focused on how the films worked for the company and/or the producer towards these goals. Expanding on recent research on such sponsored media as transient yet robust objects, this project considers these films as co-authored by institutions outside of companies themselves. Examples throughout the thesis influencing their legitimacy include political parties using industrial film for their election campaigns, educators aiming to provide an extensive catalogue of audiovisual media for instruction of workers, the competitive aspect of film festivals and the cultural ambitions and environmental consciousness of broadcasting corporations. Rather than analyzed as standalone historical objects, the functions of commissioned film and television programs towards legitimizing corporations is understood through the institutions they moved in-between. How the films were formed outside of the companies that commissioned them is central to understand how they were deemed useful.
Project members
Project managers
Ole Johnny Fossås
Universitetsadjunkt
Members
Marina L. Dahlquist
Professor i filmvetenskap
Bo Florin
Professor i filmvetenskap