Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
Ph.D.
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Degree Granting Department
History
Major Professor
David K. Johnson, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Julia F. Irwin, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Philip Levy, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Golfo Alexopoulos, Ph.D.
Keywords
Cold War, Cultural History, Media, Propaganda, Television, World War II
Abstract
This dissertation is a cultural history of the Cold War’s influence on the portrayal of World War II on American television. In it, I chronicle the production, reception, and presentation of the war of three prominent American-produced documentary series from three periods of the Cold War – Victory at Sea (1952-1953), The Twentieth Century (1957-1966), and The Unknown War (1978). The dissertation posits that from the 1940s-1960s, the television portrayal of World War II was an embodiment of the values- that the United Sates was “fighting” for through a “triumphalist” narrative of a “just war” which recast the role of each Allied and Axis power to fit the needs of the Cold War. This was achieved through a developing series of mediators on the presentation of the war dictated by the Department of Defense, the show’s sponsors, the networks, and the perceptions of the series creators who were veterans. By the 1970s, the dynamics of relations between the East and West, coupled with the fallout of the Vietnam War, led to a move away from the triumphalist narrative to one which stressed the need to avoid future conflict, as seen in The Unknown War. However, as Cold War animosities heightened in the 1980s, a renewed emphasis was placed on the valor and morality of the wartime generation, which led to a renewed veneration by the end of the Cold War conflict, albeit one complicated by matters of the United States injustices towards its racial and ethnic minorities as well as its use of the atomic bomb. Collectively, this work adds to the understanding of the Cold War’s influence on representations of World War II, the distinct image of the war propagated by television, and how the image evolved with developments in the Cold War.
Scholar Commons Citation
LoSasso, Michael A., "“Good War” on the Cool Medium: The Cold War's Influence on the Portrayal of World War II on American Television" (2022). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/10322
