Infrastructure Wars and Media Nationalisms in Neutral Cold War Cambodia (1953-70)

• In Event: National Identities and Transnational Science and Technology during the 20th Century: Cold War

Abstract

Based on research in Cambodian and US National Archives, this paper describes competing Cold War national and transnational influences on media infrastructures in Sihanouk’s Cambodia (1953-1970). I discuss how shortly after Cambodian independence (1953), Sihanouk’s national radio became a symbol for sovereign and neutral Cambodia. Through two cases (describing Chinese and American aid) I discuss the ways that foreign powers strategically developed media infrastructures to influence Cambodian people in the newly independent state. In the first, I describe the establishment of an American film center in the regional capital of Battambang and the dissemination of film by “cine-boat” between Battambang and Phnom Penh from 1956 and 1962. The second case focuses on the Chinese development of the Stung Mencheay radio station just outside of Phnom Penh, from 1959 to 1962. These two cases are emblematic of the way that Sihanouk let these two powers play off of each other for Cambodian interest while maintaining neutrality. I discuss the ways that their ‘donated’ media infrastructures were not simply ‘disseminated’ but taken up and made into new products by media creators in Cambodia; in fact, they made a material baseline for some of the most important cultural products in 20th century Cambodian history. I also empirically describe and theoretically investigate the ways that these media infrastructures constructed social spaces where Cambodians watched film (cinema) and listened to radio (on the street and in markets) and where these media artifacts transformed into products specific to Cambodian culture (and nationalisms).

Author

• Margaret Jack