Identity and Practice Issues Surrounding News Films during the Cold War Era — Focusing on Liberty News —

News films require a multifaceted analysis, as they allow “the viewers to develop a shared identity and enable them to establish a nation or society around this shared identity,” yet are simply audiovisual materials made up of “images” and “narrations” as well as a communication medium that has both senders and receivers. Moreover, news films have been accepted by the public within a specific time period through unique “cinema experiences.” In the 1950s and 1960s, the world was embroiled in a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States, who used the Cold War as a tool or strategy to claim world hegemony. Films, in particular, were chosen as a powerful tool in the Cold War, and the specific films used by the U.S. to wield influence in Korea was the Liberty News. As a result, Liberty News became a platform in which the U.S.’ intentions and the context of Korea’s acceptance of such intentions competed. This paper explores the complex nature of Liberty News through the statistics and analysis of all Liberty News episodes, as well as the comparative analysis of Daehan News and News of the Day using visual materials, scripts, and catalogues. Through this, it examines the role and the significance of news films during the Cold War as well as the rupture between the news films’ identity and practice. Until now, research on Liberty News has discussed Liberty News as a concrete realization of the American policy toward Korea. This study takes it a step further and investigates news films that have been used as a propaganda tool for the United States and their distribution around the globe, as well as the powerful and secret Kingfish Project that funded the production and distribution of the films. Moreover, through the analysis of specific video clips, this paper observes the moments in which the U.S.’ strong intentions were restructured and distorted, and encountered unexpected points of rupture. Various factors were involved and clashed in the competition of the U.S. intentions and the Korean acceptance of those intentions in Liberty News, including the interventions of those who selected and reorganized clips for the Korean audience from imported videos and videos that were thoroughly coordinated, produced, and distributed in line with the USIA’s public diplomacy strategies; Liberty News’ competition and mutual negotiations with Daehan News, as well as the awareness of the Korean public who consumed the films. In this process, the U.S. and the idea of Korea that was developed by the U.S. were reconstructed through the experience of the Korean audience who saw through the “propaganda quality” of Liberty News and determined that they were too “political,” yet preferred them because of the quality of the filming and editing as well as the diversity of the subjects introduced.