Cinema Newsreels provide a unique and up until now neglected opportunity to examine the beginning of the European integration (1949 1958) in the media of the post-war period. Newsreels were important in shaping opinions, especially by creating powerful images. This book aims at analysing and classifying these images and concepts proposed identities of the European integration in Austria, France, Germany and Great Britain of the the 1950s, especially by comparing the specific methods of photography and filmmaking used to produce a certain perception in the audience.
These newsreel items are not only records from the beginning and consolidation of the European integration but also political instruments. On the one hand, they informed a wider public about the new institutions, their purposes as well as their decision-making procedures; on the other hand, they intended to propagate a European identity. This audiovisual representation of Europe as a economical and political community, or, respectively the idea of European integration , was not only a result of a political discourse but also a continuation of a centuries-old iconographic tradition.