The Reconstruction of Visual Archive: Independent Documentary as Public History

SONG Jiawei

Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2015, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (9) : 157-176.

PDF(1860 KB)
PDF(1860 KB)
Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2015, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (9) : 157-176.

The Reconstruction of Visual Archive: Independent Documentary as Public History

  • Song Jiawei is a Ph.D Candidate at the School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University of China and a visiting scholar at King’s College London. Email: gawesong@gmail.com.
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Abstract

In addition to the function of communication, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have a function of transmission. Due to the developing of new communication technologies, the historical writing shifts from elite history to public history. Based on how the visual media enriching the historical writing, the paper discusses the China historical independent documentaries of 21st century by combining the basic theory of Debray's Mediologies and the theory of Public History. It points out that both the directors and subjects of this kind of documentary are nameless, the basic film aesthetics is visual oral history and the era in films are mainly focused on 1949-1978, which reflects a common fact that the directors have a strong impulse to establish alternative visual archives. This is an effort to reestablish the historical sense and its subjectivity in contemporary China.

Key words

Public History / independent documentary / alternative archive / Folk Memory Project / Regis Debray

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SONG Jiawei. The Reconstruction of Visual Archive: Independent Documentary as Public History[J]. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication. 2015, 37(9): 157-176
PDF(1860 KB)

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