DISPUTABLE TRUTHS:

The American Stranger, Television Documentary and Native American Cultural Politics in the 1950's

by

Pamela S. Wilson

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Communication Arts) at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON 1996 Under the supervision of Professor John Fiske

ABSTRACT This interdisciplinary historical analysis--from a post-structuralist, cultural studies perspective--examines the medias involvement in the cultural politics of Native America during the postwar termination period. Part I reviews the journalism medias constructions of American Indian culture and politics, culminating in the 1958 television production of NBC news departments The American Stranger, a documentary harshly critical of the Eisenhower-era Congressional policies and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The broadcast focused upon the Blackfeet, Flathead (Salish-Kootenai) and Menominee Tribes and reservations in Montana and Wisconsin, providing the first national television voice to indigenous Americans who were critical of federal policy. Part II analyzes the responses to and reception of the documentary, focusing upon the contested intercultural truths underlying the political controversy, the ideological basis for the altruistic, Christian audience response, and the regionalized grassroots activism in Montana that appropriated the documentary and informally circulated the television film text as a tool for social change. Part III provides a larger critical and cultural interpretation of the case of The American Stranger. Defining Indianness extricates discursive constructions of race, ethnicity and nation, focusing on issues of civil and human rights, tribal sovereignty and the legacy of whiteness. Television and Its Publics: Shifting Formations in the Public Sphere theorizes televisions ability to constitute and mobilize a temporary alliance of publics and counterpublics, including various localized interests, into a national political forum to effect public policy changes and humanitarian action. The final chapter, influenced by critical ethnography, questions the political effectivity of mainstream

media representation and examines alternative strategies used by Native Americans for self-representation. Methodologically, this dissertation attempts to reconstruct the multiple and competing discourses circulating about American Indians in the 1950s, focusing upon archival voices from a wide range of sources, including tribal members, Christian activists, legislators, bureaucrats, media producers and the general public. The project also provides insight into the cultural and political implications of how we research and write "history," supporting Foucaults notions about the existence of institutionalized regimes of truth and the alternate sources of knowledge and truth represented by less powerful social groups.