Abstract

This article suggests supplementing Astrid Erll’s framework for analysis of memory making media with key insights from Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model. An analysis of the documentary The Battle for Hitler’s Supership that portrays the story of the German battleship Tirpitz, which the British Royal Air Force sunk in Tromsø in 1944, will illustrate the benefits of this approach. The combination of a formal analysis with an examination of the structural conditions that predispose the medium’s appearance provide valuable insights into how and why a specific dominant message that is conveyed by the documentary emerges. I show that the political economy behind the TV production has an impact on the documentary’s content and form and argue that the evolving narrative not only depicts a story about the specific events of November 1944 but also about current national self-perceptions and self-presentations.

Highlights

  • The screen is filled with darkness that gradually recedes and reveals the bow of a ship

  • These are the first seconds of the British documentary The Battle for Hitler’s Supership (Quinn 2005) that recounts the story of the German battleship Tirpitz

  • These seconds already set the tone for what Astrid Erll (2008) refers to as an antagonistic rhetorical mode of memory-making: black and white, good and evil, big and small—a mode that is retained throughout the entire documentary

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Summary

Introduction

The screen is filled with darkness that gradually recedes and reveals the bow of a ship. Four low-pitched accords accompany this image and underline a menacing character These are the first seconds of the British documentary The Battle for Hitler’s Supership (Quinn 2005) that recounts the story of the German battleship Tirpitz. I focus on how pluri-medial dynamics might be affected by the structural conditions behind the medium, meaning by those who hold power, capital and authority to predispose processes of production, distribution and reception To achieve this and add a critical dimension to Erll’s (2008) framework, I combine her work with Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model (Herman/Chomsky 2002 [1988]) that introduces a series of filters that guide news media production and coverage. I analyse three specific scenes to determine if the combination of Erll’s analytical approach with Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model offers new and unexpected insights

Combining Theories
Analysing Three Forms of Constructing Evil
Conclusion
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