MA Thesis on cold war Propaganda - need primary sources - press articles

Jack-Jack · #1 10-20-2011, 11:45 AM

I have got a bit unconventional thing to solve - I need somebody from the US to help me.

I am writing my master's thesis in English Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis on propaganda language of cold war period in the american quality press. Do you happen to know anybody with or do you have yourself the access to library where press archives are available?

I need circa 12 articles.

I have chosen 4 events I'd like to focus on and that gives me 3 articles per event. And I need news reports or things and analyses written at the time of the events, not things that have been written in the 90s.

Events I have chosen are:
Belenko's deception of MiG-25,
Francis Gary Powers being shot down in U-2,
Cuban Missle Crisis
and last but not least
the Berlin Wall erection.

Can anybody help me? It would be great if you could go to your local or non-local library and check whether any press articles connected with these events is available and then scan or photocopy them for me.

Thanks in advance.
Jacek

Jack-Jack · #2 10-20-2011, 11:47 AM

Belenko is the guy who fled in MiG-25 from USSR to Tokyo and because of that US Intel found out the truth about the airplane. An article on MiG-25 from the times BEFORE that event would also be a great thing for comparative analysis.

stratovani · #3 10-20-2011, 11:55 AM

Not that I need to state the obvious, but there's got to be tons and tons of stuff on the Internet about the Cold War. For example, I just Googled "Francis Gary Powers being shot down in U-2" and I got 215,000 results! And I'm sure there's even much more than that on the Cuban Missle Crisis. Some of us here on TB were around for the Cuban Missle Crisis, could you use some personal recollections?

Relic · #4 10-20-2011, 11:58 AM

Czesc Jacek,

yes, stratovani is correct - there's a lot of info out there. You can also try for old newsclips via youtube, etc. "aparchive.com" for instance may have old pics and video....

Jack-Jack · #5 10-20-2011, 12:03 PM

The problem is that I need PRIMARY SOURCES.

Not documentaries or books written on the issues but press from that times, eg New York Times issues from the sixties. The material from that specific period.

Videos are unfortunately not of my concern. My thesis is a linguistic, not historical thing and it is the language I have to focus on.

Scans would do, I do not have to have the physical newspaper in my hand here in Poland.

BassMom88 · #6 10-20-2011, 12:05 PM

Not sure if this will have what you need but you can try the Library of Congress...they have tons of original stuff digitized and online.
http://www.loc.gov
I think that's free
Also...you can search the historic newspaper articles on
http://www.ancestry.com
Or at Fold3 -Historical Military Records
http://www.fold3.com
I have subscriptions to both and would love to get my money's worth!!
So just PM me the links or titles if you find anything and I can download and email.
Hope that helps!
Good Luck

Relic · #7 10-20-2011, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack-Jack

The problem is that I need PRIMARY SOURCES.

Not documentaries or books written on the issues but press from that times, eg New York Times issues from the sixties. The material from that specific period.

Videos are unfortunately not of my concern. My thesis is a linguistic, not historical thing and it is the language I have to focus on.

Scans would do, I do not have to have the physical newspaper in my hand here in Poland.

I understand that, but what I'm saying is that if you're attempting to capture the language of the era, news clips and news reels were very very popular and contain some of the best type propaganda. It's not a book or documentary, it's actually how news was publicized back then (in addition to newspapers) Example of a very typical story from the era:

Cuban Missile Crisis Newsreel and Stock Footage PublicDomainFootage.com - YouTube

EDIT - I see what you mean regarding primary sources, but clips like that contain the very typical linguistic aspects - the same as you would see in newspapers of the era. I'm not sure of the date in that clip but it's 100% from the cold war era and contains the usual propaganda-type language

Jack-Jack · #8 10-20-2011, 12:36 PM

Did not think about that!

That is a good idea, and I think it will broaden the scope of my search

Thanks!

satchmo · #9 10-20-2011, 12:42 PM

Also make sure you get multiple sources to give you a proper data set. I did a media analysis for my MA and the worst is to need to go look up more stuff because you didn't have enough variety.

Are you doing a qualitative or quantitative analysis?

Jack-Jack · #10 10-20-2011, 12:52 PM

Qualitative (Critical Discourse Analysis)

I want only the conclusions to be quantitative

Thanks for suggestion of using the TV materials. I think that If press is not obtainable I will focus on the news reels.

**Vorago** · #11 10-20-2011, 01:12 PM

Hmm, can't you access the New York Times archive (which goes back to 1851) through the library of your university?

You need to pay for the articles, but maybe your uni has a subscription to their archive?

You could go with the video option but then you'll have to transcribe all of that. And transcribing sucks.

Jack-Jack · #12 10-20-2011, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorago

Hmm, can't you access the New York Times archive (which goes back to 1851) through the library of your university?

You need to pay for the articles, but maybe your uni has a subscription to their archive?

You could go with the video option but then you'll have to transcribe all of that. And transcribing sucks.

Good idea, gonna check whether the Uni has the subscription...

Transcribing is not that bad a thing. Been through worse

XtreO · #13 10-20-2011, 03:29 PM

Teehee. You said erection.

Jack-Jack · #14 10-20-2011, 03:48 PM

erection /ɪrek.ʃ ə n/ noun BUILDING

1. [ U ] formal the act of building or making a structure
They approved the erection of an electrified fence around the prison.

Cambridge Advanced Dictionary

What the fuss is about? :P :P :lol:

Jack-Jack · #15 10-21-2011, 01:39 AM

Sorry for doublepost, but BassMom88 should be made saint!

MatticusMania · #16 10-21-2011, 10:36 AM

Not until she fills out her profile. J/k

Relic · #17 10-21-2011, 10:49 AM

And posts pics! (Just sayin)

link wray · #18 10-21-2011, 06:07 PM

Free Newspaper Archives in the US

that was not very hard with google. A master thesis you say?

SoonerMatt · #19 10-21-2011, 06:46 PM

JSTOR saved my hide when I was taking my humanities classes as an undergrad, so I'd imagine it would prove incredibly helpful for you as well.

I just deposited my MS thesis yesterday and most of my research came from the university library's databases and inter-library loan programs. Also, if you want a free copy of an article that you can't get from ILL it doesn't hurt to email the author (with your university email), say you're a graduate student, and you would like to use his article for your thesis. I did this a few times and always got the article the next day.

MakiSupaStar · #20 10-21-2011, 07:51 PM

Total tangent, but Dr. Suess did a lot of propaganda artwork during this time period. Pretty interesting stuff.