The British documentary photograph as a medium of information and propaganda during the Second World War 1939 - 1945

The use of the documentary photograph as a means of recording war and human conflict is widely accepted, yet rarely analysed in terms of the evidence such images claim to portray. Existing studies have been directed towards the photograph as an end in itself, rather than as a means to an end in a broader context.
This Thesis will trace the development of the documentary
movement in outline, expanding in depth when referring to the British involvement within the tradition during the Second World War. The centrality of the Thesis will rest upon the need to discern between the actuality photograph as evidence when framed or presented within persuasive and propaganda terms, and the record photograph which informs and illustrates by factual content alone. Parallel to this study will be an analysis of the control and censorship process by which photography was disseminated within the media of the period when
employed as an instrument reflecting governmental concerns in matters of national morale and the maintenance of social cohesion. Such official considerations have affected the contemporary use of photographs, which in retrospect have created discrepancies and anomalies in our appreciation of chronological sequences of events and military enterprises. Furthermore, such propaganda constraints have been
instrumental in the creation of personas - and the myths that often surround them - both in terms of context and historical perspective.
A methodology will be offered by which these tensions of
control and censorship allied to the documentary tradition may be demystified, so that both the propaganda and record photograph can be assessed not only in their original contemporary context, but as sources of historical data and information.

A Thesis to be submitted to the Council for National Academic Awards (Committee for Art and Design Research Sub-Committee)
for the Degree of Master of Philosophy.