Changes in visual news
A series of lectures about newsreels and the transition to television news
Within the scope of current research on non-fiction, newsreels and
television news, the Working Group Film and Television Studies organizes a
series of lectures about newsreels and the transition to television news. In
this series specialists will express their opinions about the subject. One
of the foreign speakers is the Dutch film historian Bert Hogenkamp
(University of Utrecht), who will talk about the workers’ film news in the
twenties and thirties, while Stig Hjarvard (University of Copenhagen) will
deal with the transition from newsreels to television news. John Corner
(University of Liverpool) will shed light on the British context.
These lectures will be intensively illustrated with authentic film/video
material, including footage from the Imperial War Museum, the
Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, the VRT Beeldarchief and the DR television
archives.In relation to these lectures, the working group also organizes a
series of master classes for university graduates as well as a series of
films in Film-Plateau about the imagination of journalists and editorial
staffs in the cinema http://www.psw.rug.ac.be/comwet/wgfilmtv/)
PROGRAMME
Introduction to lectures : DANIEL BILTEREYST (Ghent University, B)
November 19, 2000 BERT HOGENKAMP (NIBG/University of Utrecht, NL) on
workers’ film news in the twenties and the thirties
November 26 ROEL VANDE WINKEL (Ghent University, B) on film news and
propaganda in occupied Belgium
December 3 STIG HJARVARD (University of Copenhagen, DK) Against the very
nature of the medium (lecture in English)
December 12 JOHN CORNER (Liverpool University, UK) Seeing Behind the news:
the World in Action project (lecture in English)
December 17 LIEVE DESMET (Ghent University, B) on the early beginnings of
television news on the Flemish public broadcasting corporation
ABSTRACTS
BERT HOGENKAMPThe news differently or different news: workers’ film news in
the 20s and 30s
In the ‘20s and 30s, the need was felt within the left wing movement to
introduce an alternative to the ‘commercial’ or ‘middle-class’ film news.
Film editing was an important means with which even images from the
middle-class news could be given a new meaning. Besides that, the workers’
news showed events which were left aside by the commercial news.
ROEL VANDE WINKEL: Film news and propaganda in occupied Belgium
This lecture, an introduction to a Ph.D. which will be defended in 2003,
shows how the German occupying forces obliged the projection of propaganda
film news. At first, these newscasts were made in Berlin, including the
French or Dutch comments. After a few months though, a local editorial staff
was installed in Brussels which was supposed to give a Belgian look to the
German propaganda. Next to comparing the German original to the Belgian
clone, the attention is focused on the way in which television producers use
this material in historical documentaries nowadays. The material shown
originates from the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv collections.
STIG HJARVARD: the very nature of the medium
It was not until 1965, that Danish television began its regular news
programming, and although it was much awaited, it was met with harsh
criticism. This way of reporting the news, the public verdict sounded, "was
against the very nature of the medium". Earlier on, the factual programming
on Danish television had consisted of newsreel formats and different kinds
of documentaries and current affairs programmes. In this lecture particular
attention is paid to the analysis of the non-personal, very formal and
highly institutional mode of address that characterized the early years of
news broadcasting in Danish television. How - and why - it departed from
both earlier and later audiovisual news formats is discussed in relation to
both aesthetic conventions, technological possibilities and institutional
constraints.
JOHN CORNER
Seeing Behind the News: the World in Action project
The series World in Action ran in Britain from the early 1960s and was a big
influence on the development of television journalism. It set itself the
challenge of crafting a new kind of pictorial reporting, drawing on the
methods of broadcast news, the tradition of documentary film-making and new
currents in newspaper feature-writing. It attempted to be both serious and
popular, holding the audience within a strong narrative and scopic design.
This lecture looks at some of the key elements of the WIA recipe, drawing
particularly on the ways in which it often attempted to place itself ‘inside
’ the stories it told, opening up new pictorial space for reportage.
Screenings will be from WIA material.
LIEVE DESMET
Start and development of television news on the Belgian PSB
Processes of news production are aggregates of meaningful practices always
embedded in a historical, social, political, technological and economic
context. Television news can be considered as a culture form. The
perspective is to see the newscast not only as a report of reality, but to
examine it as reality unto itself. Three assumptions will be considered.
Firstly, the long-term development of television news can’t be understood
simply as a linear and continuous trend over time. Secondly, the impact and
influence of political, cultural, economic, social and technological
circumstances vary in time. Thirdly, the expansion, the monopolization and
the protection of an own authority lead to common standards of what
television news is and should be and to typical news formats, news contents
and news representations. This lecture will discuss and illustrate those
three topics for the television news on the Belgian PSB.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Place: Film-Plateau – Paddenhoek 3 – 9000 Gent - Belgium
Entrance: free
Information: Tel. : **/32/ 9 264 91 85 – E-mail:[log in to unmask]
and website:
http://www.psw.rug.ac.be/comwet/wgfilmtv/
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