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The Struggle over The Valour and the Horror: Media Power and the Portrayal of War*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

David Taras
David Taras
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
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Abstract

The Valour and the Horror is a series of three documentary films describing Canadian participation during the Second World War which were aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 1992. The series aggressively challenged “official” war history, arguing that while ordinary soldiers served with dignity and bravery, the incompetence and immorality of senior British and Canadian commanders produced terrible blunders and losses and grotesque assaults against civilian populations in Germany. This article analyzes the controversy that surrounded the series, a controversy that mushroomed into a political struggle over who had the right to control “memory” and who had the right to produce and interpret “reality.” The struggle produced a Senate subcommittee investigation, placed the CBC under intense pressure and scrutiny and evoked strong reactions from veterans' groups and the journalistic and artistic communities. Three frameworks are used to assess the forces that contend against each other in media production: the hegemonic view (that the media celebrate and reinforce the dominant interests in society); the organizational or institutional perspective (that media organizations pursue their own interests even if these interests do not necessarily coincide with those of other dominant groups in society); and the journalist-centred framework (that journalists as professionals exercise considerable discretion over their own work). The article suggests that each of these perspectives can provide valuable insights, but that each by itself fails to provide a satisfactory explanation for the events. By utilizing multiple perspectives for the analysis, a wider range of questions is addressed.

Résumé

The Valour and the Horror est une séie de trois films documentaires portant sur le rôle du Canada pendant la deuxième guerre mondiale. Le réseau anglais de la Société Radio Canada a diffusé ces films en 1992. Ces films ont fortement contesté l'histoire «officielle» de la guerre. Reconnaissant que les soldats ordinaires s'étaient acquittéd de leur tâche dans le courage et la dignité, ils dénoncent néanmoins l'incompétence et l'immoralité des officiers supérieurs, tant canadiens que britanniques, dont les erreurs avaient causé des pertes terribles et des assauts démesurés sur les populations civiles en Allemagne. Cet article se penche sur la controverse entourant la série, rapidement devenue une lutte politique à propos du contrôle de la mémoire, du droit de produire et d'interpréter la réalité. Toute l'affaire a conduit à une enquête d'un souscomité du Sénat, imposé de fortes pressions et une surveillance étroite au réseau de télévision, tout en suscitant de fortes réactions chez les anciens combattants, de mêime que dans les milieux artistiques et journalistiques. Cet article emploie trois cadres d'analyse pour évaluer les forces en présence dans la production médiatique: l'hypothèse, dominante, selon laquelle les médias servent à dessein les intérêts sociaux dominants; la perspective organisationnelle ou institutionnelle (les médias n'en ont que pour leurs propres intérêts, fussent-ils divergents de ceux des pouvoirs établis); enfin, l'hypothèse de l'autonomie des journalistes, capables en tant que professionnels d'exercer de la discrétion dans leur travail. On soutient que chacun de ces modèles éclaire un pan de la réalité sans fournir une vue satisfaisante de l'ensemble. L'article se termine par un survol de questions qui débordent de son objet immédiat.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 725 - 748
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1995

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References

1 Collins, Anne, “The Battle over ‘The Valour and the Horror,’ ” Saturday Night (May 1993), 72.Google Scholar The one book about the controversy to appear so far is Bercuson, David and Wise, S. F., eds., The Valour and the Horror Revisited Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994).Google Scholar Another book, Weisbord, Merrily and Mohr, Merilyn Simonds, The Valour and the Horror: The Untold Story of Canadians in the Second World War Toronto: Harper Collins, 1991)Google Scholar, is based on the series.

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3 There are other important perspectives that could have been used had the focus of this case been different. The bureaucratic politics model, a pressure group approach or an audience studies analysis, among others, could have yielded different insights. See Allison, Graham, Essence of Decision Boston: Little, Brown, 1971);Google ScholarPross, Paul, Group Politics and Public Policy Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; and Hall, Stuart, “Encoding and Decoding,” in Hall, Stuart et al., eds., Culture, Media and Language London: Hutchinson, 1980), 128–138Google Scholar; Ang, Ien, Watching Dallas London: Methuen, 1985).Google Scholar

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31 Ibid, 65.

32 Ibid.

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37 Confidential interview.

38 Confidential intervie.

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50 Confidential interview.

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