The March of Time: News Documentaries and The Dramaturgy of Modern History as it Happens

In the present article, I undertake an in-depth elaboration on the dramatic and narrative conventions of news documentary series The March of Time (1935-1951) and their intertwining with popular forms of modern historical representation (Koselleck 2002), which in turn reveal the character of liberal mass media’s engagement with political culture. The focus is on the iconic representation of political personalities as embodiments of nations and the identification of historical forces in emotionally-driven dramatic structures. Thus, I argue on the importance of a dramaturgy that emphasises political personalities and disruption in the rhetorical construction of history in news documentaries.