A critical analysis of the California state railroad museum's orientation films

Abstract

This paper examines the California State Railroad Museum's (CSRRM) 1981 and 1991 orientation films’ contribution to defining California railroad history. Orientation films are often over‐looked in terms of their contribution to the production of memory and public history. As a case study, the CSRRM's films are interesting because they replaced their original orientation film in 1991 with a main change being the addition of ethnic minorities in California railroad history. Examining these films for changes and similarities in their messages provides an informative contribution to the field of communication in terms of how the museum location and the documentary film form work together to naturalize dominant ideology. I argue that the CSRRM visitor is not situated as agent and that both orientation films represent a hegemonic ideology that defines technology as exclusively positive by using a nostalgic lens that denies voice to those who experienced the railroad's racial and economic inequities.