Abstract
When the films of the United States Information Agency (USIA) first began arriving at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the 1970s, the Smith-Mundt Act stood as a barrier to access. Congress blocked distribution of the films within the United States to avoid the appearance of propagandizing its own citizens with content created for foreign audiences. In 1990, the legal prohibition was lifted and researchers could begin to probe the contents of the massive collection, but broad access was not possible until NARA archivists and preservationists put in a great deal of work behind the scenes. With the continuing shift from analog to digital reference copies, more researchers than ever before have been able to view and study the films of the USIA. Over the course of the films’ existence, they have progressed through stages of usefulness, from their origin as tools of public diplomacy to their re-emergence as the raw material of scholarship and filmmaking that allow us to better understand the past. If a film's initial use is considered as a first act, and the work of the archives allows for a second act of widespread accessibility, the researcher is the director of the third act, as it is reinterpreted and repackaged for a particular audience and purpose.
Recommended Citation
Austin, Criss; Amidon, Audrey; Donnell, Ivy; and Holmstrom, Heidi
(2022)
"Resurrecting USIA: A Second Act at the National Archives,"
The Journal of e-Media Studies: Vol. 6:
Iss.
1, Article 8.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1349/PS1.1938-6060.A.481
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/joems/vol6/iss1/8