Found in the Chung Collection at RBSC at UBC’s Vancouver campus, is this piece of history in the form of a photograph and what seems to be a section of a newspaper describing the scene, in French. This photo depicts the departure of the King George VI from Portsmouth, England in 1939 for an unknown location in Canada. The genre of a photo, especially found in the setting of an archive, usually lacks context. Thankfully, being accompanied by this excerpt from a newspaper, as the audience, we are able to understand a larger fraction of the story.
Because the newspaper excerpt describes what is in the photo, one could only assume that the photo was included in said newspaper, although one can not be fully certain. The medium of a newspaper attracts those who are interested in being up to date on current events, and particularly in the early 20th century, this group would encompass more of the population compared to the popular and social media capabilities of today that can reach an extended audience. The genre of a newspaper serves the purpose of informing its readers about current events, but it can also encourage its readers to engage in their communities, whether local or abroad. This is evident due to the nature of this newspaper in particular, being of French origin, documenting events that occurred in England, and soon Canada.
The medium of a newspaper contributes largely to public identity and memory, in the way that it is a relatively simple and straightforward way of documenting an event to the public. Having said that, by its nature of contributing to public memory and identity, a newspaper thus also produces a gap in what is known private memory and identity of the event being documented, a perspective from the individual. Furthermore, by choosing to document this experience through this public domain, the writer of this newspaper column is choosing to contribute to the public’s experience of this event. Namely, in the expert that was found with the photo, all that is included is an objective account of what occurred. Illustrating and capturing this public event in this domain allows for this experience in history to be the only narrative of this event.
Analyzing this piece of history as a common news source, one should question any biases that might exist from the perspective of a news source. A few important questions that could be asked about any potential biases include how the events might have been portrayed differently had this not been a public news source, how this source contributed to the public’s knowledge of the events, and if this kind of source can be a trustworthy account of the events, as discussed in UBC’s ASTU 100 class about the ‘Documenting Ferguson’ archive website and if solely coverage from news sources of those events can be reliable.
Works Cited
Photographic postcard. 1939. CC-PH-03619. Chung Collection. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver, Canada.