Transmission Impossible: American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, 1945--1955 (Eisenhower Center Studies on War and Peace)

In this study, Jessica Gienow-Hecht challenges long-standing analyses of the Unites States' cultural imperialism that emphasize the determination of policy makers to export U.S. culture to spread capitalism and gain access to overseas markets and raw materials. She also contests scholars of reception theory who claim that foreign audiences deliberately condition the reception of U.S. culture abroad. Studying the example of the U.S. Army newspaper, the Neue Zeitung - published for the German population from 1945 to 1955 - she demonstrates that U.S. officials actually exerted little direct influence on their cultural and information programmes in postwar Germany, leaving the initiative to binational mid-level agencies. This work proposes that the selection of agents who transmit political and cultural values to the foreign world is as crucial to the success of the enterprise as the package of values itself.