"Useful Cinema," of What Use?: Assessing the Role of Motion Pictures in the Largest Public Relations Campaign of the 1920s
Using testimony and subpoenaed exhibits published in the seventy-two-volume record of a Federal Trade Commission investigation, this article traces the role of motion pictures in the private utility industry’s public relations campaign against municipal ownership and federal regulation in the 1920s. This article reconstructs the utility companies’ decision to employ films in its campaign; the production, distribution, and exhibition strategies for its motion pictures; and the relationship of producers to sponsoring organizations. Ultimately, the article argues that the use of film in this campaign was experimental and, relative to other media, limited, but by investigating such experiments with film, we can identify institutional agents struggling to find a “use” for cinema, thereby enabling media historians both to identify what determinants might cause an organization to find cinema more or less useful at different historical moments and to better assess cinema’s changing cultural status and social functions.
The “Light” of Publicity in the Progressive Era
This article examines the connotative evolution of the term “publicity.” An historical analysis of articles written in magazines, journals, and newspapers from 1890 to 1930 illustrates how corporations and government co-opted ideas of the progressive movement into self-serving practices. Progressives viewed publicity as a moral reform that would open politics and business to public scrutiny and help prevent corruption. Over time, publicity evolved into a communication strategy for corporations seeking public approval. This study found that the change from a “broad searchlight” of publicity to a “narrow flashlight” of positive information in the hands of public relations experts allowed business and government to shape public opinion rather than be influenced by it.
The Mound on the Mount: A Possible Solution to the Problem with Jerusalem
Following Knauf's suggestion (2000), the article raises the possibility that in most periods in the second and first millennia BCE the main built-up area of Jerusalem was limited to a mound on the Temple Mount. This mound, which may have covered an area of five hectares and more, was boxed-in under the Herodian platform. At these periods activity in the City of David ridge was restricted to the area near the Gihon spring. In the Iron IIB and late Hellenistic Periods the fortified settlement expanded simultaneously to both the City of David ridge and the southwestern hill. In these two periods there was no need to fortify the western side of the City of David, as this line ran in the middle of the city.