MST 100 - Projecting Canada Documentary, Cultural Policy, & the National Film Board

From Media text to media institution

When studying media, we can ask:

• Text

  • What does this film show?

• Representation

  • What image of Canada does it construct?

  • What do we watch?

    • Ex. Indigenous peoples not represented in documentary

    • Hockey

• Institution

  • Who produced it? Under what mandate?

• Policy & power

  • Why is the state involved?

Druick’s starting point: documentary + cultural policy

Two things come together at the NFB

• Documentary film representing social reality plus cultural policy government involvement in cultural production equal the NFB

  • Decisions, institutions, etc.

What is cultural policy?

• Government decisions and programs that shape:

  • Cultural production and participation

  • What cultural institutions exist

  • What kinds of media are supported

  • What gets produced and circulated

  • Who gets access

  • How national culture is represented

• Druick asks us to think about cultural policy as something that can help produce citizenship and belonging

More than “supporting Canadian culture”

• Cultural policy doesn’t simply fund culture

• It can also help establish:

  • Institutions → practices → knowledge → belonging

• Druick:

  • Cultural institutions provide ways for citizens to “map the social world”

    • Think about this in relation to shows we watched

Media can help make society visible to itself.

The NFB doesn’t just represent culture

• The NFB represents a population

  • Who are canadians?

  • How do they live?

  • What problems do they face?

  • How should society respond

• Documentary becomes a way of producing knowledge about society

Documentary + Social Science

Both claim to tell us something about “reality”

The case becomes the population

• One person → a social type

• One community → a social condition

• One story → a claim about society

Documentary =/= unmediated reality

• Elect → frame → interview→ edit → narrate → generalize

• Druick argues that documentary’s claims to reality should not be confused with unmediated observation

  • Our access to reality has been organized to a media form

• Documentary produces a way of knowing

The “voice of God”

• Druick connects the documentary “voice of God” to similar claims of authoritative knowledge in social science

• The voice seems to come from nowhere

There is no “God’s eye view”

There is no view from nowhere

• Every representation involves:

  • A position

  • A selection

  • An institutional context

  • A way of organizing knowledge

• Who gets to observe whom?

From imagining the Nation to Knowing the Population

Media can participate in:

• Imagining the nation

• Knowing the population

They create shared field of imagination

The NFB shows Canada back to itself

• Druick argues that NFB documentaries: show the nation back to itself

• The population is

  • Observed → categorized → represented → circulated

• Canada becomes something Canadians can see.

But audiences matter

• The NFB did not simply address: “EVERY CANADIAN”

• Its films often created:

  • limited • temporary • targeted publics

• Different films addressed different:

  • communities • needs • social problems • audiences

• There isn't necessarily one national audience

“Film Acts”

• A documentary does not merely describe reality.

• It can:

  • Inform

  • Educate

  • Define a problem’propose a response

  • Shape how people understand policy

• Films are acts of meaning making

so…Propaganda?

She is cautious about “propaganda” because it can imply: powerful message → passive audience

Communication as a struggle over meaning

• Not: producer → message → passive audience

• Instead: meaning is never final

  • Films enter an ongoing dialogue

  • Institutions have objectives

  • Filmmakers make choices

  • Audience interpret

  • Meanings change over time

  • Films can be exceed their interested purpose

Canada returned in an “Altered Form”

• Everyday Canadian lids is:

• Filmed → framed → narrated → edited → retired to Canadians

• Druick:

  • The familiar can be validating… but it is always mediated

Projecting Canada

• Anderson - The media helps us imagine the national community.

• Gasher - Canadian media develop within a tradition of nation-building

• Druick = Documentary and cultural policy help make Canadian society visible and knowable

• NFB - Government • Institution • Filmmaker • Film • Citizen