A defining characteristic of many historical accounts of media development is their tendency to present an essentially liberal interpretation of the complex interaction between media institutions and wider socio-political relations and processes. One aspect of this narrative is that the media has become increasingly free from state interference and politically independent. Starting with the press in the mid-nineteenth century, liberal media historians argue that the abolition of the so-called ‘taxes on knowledge’ and other financial restrictions was a defining moment in the establishment of a ‘fourth estate’, a phrase that is still used to this day – particularly by newspaper journalists and proprietors – lest we forget the historical struggle to secure press freedom and the continuing threat of state censorship.
Although the term itself is usually attributed to T. B. Macaulay, a wellknown Victorian parliamentarian and historian, the idea of the press as the fourth estate of the realm was born out of the development of Western liberalism between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Normally associated with the writings of John Milton, John Locke, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, James Mill and John Stuart Mill – at least within a British context – liberalism is best understood as a political ideology that places special emphasis on individual and civil liberties (e.g. free enterprise and the freedom of speech and political assembly) in the quest for prosperity, happiness and enlightenment.
One of the necessary conditions for ensuring the aforementioned, according to classic liberal theory, is that the polity be made up of a plurality of representative institutions that facilitate critical debate and democratic decisionmaking. Of these institutions, liberal thinkers consider the press to be fundamental to the formation of public opinion and a trustworthy bulwark against political corruption and social injustices. In other words, the press has a constitutional role to play, which is to facilitate and strengthen the wider process of democratization – still in its infancy – by making government and other power elites more accountable to the public. However, it can only fulfil this role if it has unlimited freedom of expression, which has since been interpreted as an argument for absolute market freedom, including the freedom to self-regulate.
While the foregoing arguments still form the basis for the classic liberal defence of press freedom, some liberal media historians are critical of the way in which the press has become increasingly commercial and populist, arguing that the golden age of journalistic professionalism peaked in the late Victorian period, culminating in W. T. Stead’s advocacy for ‘government by journalism’. Although laissez-faire economics secured press freedom and facilitated the expansion of the British press, on the other hand, Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ was failing to promote the public interest. The main reason for this is that, as the press became increasingly industrialized, it fundamentally altered the nature of its ownership, resulting in more and more of the local and national press being owned by a handful of enterprising individuals, otherwise known as press barons (e.g. Rothermere, Northcliffe, Beaverbrook, Harmsworth), whose prime concern was to sell as many newspapers as possible, thereby increasing their advertising revenue and profit margins.
It is at this point in the liberal narrative that we see the emergence and development of a more socially responsible media, viz. public service broadcasting in the 1920s, under the aegis of the BBC. Like the press, broadcasting was soon heralded as yet another estate of the realm, the ‘fifth estate’. Commonly perceived as an exemplary public institution whose principal role is essentially a democratizing one, liberals have argued that broadcasting has been invaluable in contributing to the ongoing cumulative empowerment of the people. The BBC’s public service ethos, especially its commitment to educating and informing its listening public, is particularly important in this respect, not least because it filled the void created by an increasingly commercialized press. That this coincided with early twentieth-century extensions of the franchise is of further importance for liberal historians; if representative democracy and parliamentary sovereignty were to function in a meaningful way, it was imperative that the newly enlarged electorate be politically informed and taught how to be responsible citizens. Liberal media historians have also argued that broadcasting has helped to facilitate communication between different social groups who might not otherwise have anything in common, thus mitigating any extreme antagonistic social relations.
Unlike the press, broadcasting has always been subject to an unusual degree of public control and officialdom in comparison with other media, the press in particular. For a start, licence to broadcast has always been regulated by stateappointed regulatory bodies. Broadcasters also have a statutory obligation to ensure that programmes observe certain standards of taste and decency, among others. Having said this, although broadcasters have come under a good deal of pressure from governments in the past, and continue to do so, liberal historians argue that they have nearly always resisted such pressures, thus asserting their editorial autonomy and commitment to impartiality and representing a diversity of competing social interests. Curran (2002a: 5) probably best summarizes the way in which liberal histories of broadcasting have been woven together to illustrate the above: the lifting of the ban on broadcasting controversial issues in 1928; the consolidation of the BBC’s status during the Second World War; the coming of commercial television in 1955; the abolition of the ‘fourteen day rule’ forbidding broadcast coverage of any issue that was due to be debated in parliament within the next fortnight; the BBC’s refusal (unlike during the 1926 General Strike) to capitulate to government official policy during the Suez crisis and the Falklands conflict; through to the recent spat surrounding the war on Iraq and the controversial Hutton Report.
Both the chapters in this section contribute openly or by implication to this debate, while also questioning some of the broad-brush accounts one often associates with liberal histories of media development. Mark Hampton’s opening essay offers an authoritative and thought-provoking reappraisal of the liberal narrative in the context of the twentieth-century British press. Contrary to the widely held belief that the press ceased its democratizing role from the late nineteenth century onwards, Hampton suggests that radical criticisms of the popular press have possibly overstated its influence and political bias. He argues that the press is still a key facilitator of public debate, especially during moments of crisis. However, while he thinks that liberal accounts of press history are valuable in aiding our understanding of how the press and other related media have developed – and ought continue to develop – he argues for what he calls a ‘post-radical’ liberal narrative of media history that is context specific and takes account of the possible articulations between liberal-pluralist and radical approaches to the study of the media. In doing so, he draws upon the rich empiricism of existing historical case studies of the newspaper press, on the one hand, and contemporary media theory, on the other.
Hugh Chignell provides an interesting analysis of the ebb and flow of change and reaction in BBC current affairs radio. Starting with the 1930s, he argues that there was a progressive shift from the elitist programmes that characterized much early radio to a more inclusive and democratic approach to current affairs broadcasting. Such changes were particularly noticeable in the 1950s and 1960s, a period that saw all kinds of challenges to traditional BBC cultural values, including innovations to current affairs and news-related talks. Chignell also notes the ways in which the BBC became less deferential to political authority, evident in the organization’s coverage of foreign affairs, and its institutional support for the satire boom of the 1960s. Like Hampton, he too argues for a more nuanced liberal narrative, one that is more accepting of populist changes, rather than judging such developments to be undemocratic, just because they are not explicitly educational. His main focus, however, is a case study of the 1970s Analysis programme, which signified a return to non-populist current affairs broadcasting. On the one hand, such developments were clearly elitist and no longer aimed at the listening public in general. Yet, Analysis was also an attempt to uplift and challenge the listening public into thinking more deeply about contemporary affairs. How one interprets this contradiction is precisely what this book is about.
For those interested in the history of liberalism as political theory, and its renaissance in the late twentieth century, see Callinicos (2007) and Heywood (2007) for wide-ranging introductions to the key ideas and most current debates. For a discussion of the early development of liberalism and, more crucially, liberal theories of press freedom, Siebert et al. (1963) is widely regarded as essential reading. Equally important is Habermas’ (1989) account of the public sphere in the work of John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville. As well as summarizing the key writings of traditional liberal theorists, J. B. Thompson (1995) reformulates the liberal emphasis on the freedom of expression into what he calls the principle of regulated pluralism; see also Boyce (1978), Briggs and Burke (2002), Bromley and O’Malley (1997), Keane (1991) and Williams (2003).
Although subtly different in terms of narrative and emphasis, liberal histories of the press are plentiful, of which the following are key: Aspinall (1973), Barker (1998, 2000), Boston (1988), Cranfield (1978), Harris (1996), Koss (1981/1984) and Somerville (1996). Just as the press became increasingly free from state interference, a similar narrative exists for British cinema: see, for example, Mathews (1994), Pronay (1981, 1982), Pronay and Croft (1983) and Richards (1997b), among others. This said, not all liberal media historians are critical of state intervention. Although disparaging of government censorship, a good many of the aforementioned are in fact broadly supportive of state support in the form of public funding and subsidies, particularly for media or cultural institutions that have an educational rationale. This is particularly so in relation to the BBC: see, for example, Briggs (1961–95), Crisell (1997), Scannell (1992) and Wyndham Goldie (1977). Probably the most rounded example of this particular narrative, with regard to a variety of media, and the arts in particular, is Janet Minihan’s (1977) The Nationalisation of Culture.