Something to Compete with ‘Gunsmoke’
‘The Big Picture’ Television series and selling a ‘modern, progressive and forward thinking’ Army to Cold War America
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12060045 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jeffrey Crean (Texas A&M University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 204-218 |
| Publication date | 2016-06-23 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | War & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0729-2473 • E-ISSN: 2042-4345 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/07292473.2016.1196920 |
| OpenAlex | W2468497787 |
| Language | EN |
Airing from 1951 until 1971, ‘The Big Picture’ was the United States Army’s primary means of marketing itself to the U.S. public, particularly between the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Drawing for the first time on archival records concerning the show’s production, this paper documents how information officers sought to escape the stock-footage straightjacket embedded in the show’s origins and showcase an Atomic Age Army standing sentry at the Cold War’s ramparts. Ultimately, they fought dual losing battles against parsimonious budgets and public indifference, while their insistence on content control hampered potential exposure in more appealing prime-time entertainment programmes
Advertising · Business · Cold war · Entertainment · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Prime time · Sociology · Cinema and Media Studies · History · Law · Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis · Media Studies and Communication
| Highly cited | No |
|---|