Government Propaganda in Film

Screen policies are necessarily conceived in line with the historical and political specificities of the country or region in which they are devised . Deciding what projects should be supported, how and why is always predicated on the political orientation of specific governments. This panel is part of the current research project of the French academic association CinEcoSA (cinecosa.com), which organized two conferences in Paris in 2013 and 2014 dedicated to film and television policies. In order to further explore the complex and fascinating issues that arose during these conferences, two CinEcoSA members are proposing panels for the 2016 SCMS conference. (The panel ‘‘Screen Policies: Confronting and Responding to International Challenges and Developments’’ is submitted by Julia Hammett-Jamart). The present panel is dedicated to the intermingling of politics and screen policies in the name of national interest. The idea of national interest can be understood severally in terms of culture (defending a country’s identity), politics (advancing a government’s foreign policy/national security agenda) and economy (developing a profitable economic sector). While the film and television industry can try and align the State’s interest with its own, it is also often used by the State to further different political and economic objectives. This panel explores the reasons behind certain policies, the diverse objectives pursued, as wellas the discursive battles fought. It proposes four papers, over different media and continents. Van Esler deconstructs the MPAA’s rhetorical imbrication of its intellectual property objectives within national security issues. Brassard explores the manner in which Russia’s state-run television programs are used to rebuild national pride. Kowalik & Meers analyze the evolution of South Africa’s film policies from nation-building objectives to economic ones. Leotta shows the recent development of film policies in the United Arab Emirates as part of a larger governmental plan to ensure economic growth and visibility. In proposing these two screen policy panels to SCMS, CinEcoSA hopes to advance the work of early- and late-career researchers from around the world and to enrich global academic debate about this important area of cinema and media studies.