Before we do that though let have a brief overview and the elements of the media that have been covered in HCJ so far:
1. History of the printing press, which started with the flat bet Gutenberg press of the reformation era during The Enlightenment, according to Einstein reductively. This started with the first recorded knowledge of speech over 30,000 years ago and the first known written scriptures was by the Sumerians (now known as Iraq) 7000 years ago.
2. The storm driven rotary press of the 19th Century. This referred to "The necessary conditions of press, industry, demographics, technology and law. These conditions was suited in England and other European "nation states" after 1848 including the strong press if France and Germany.
3. American and "The Wild West", which included The Gold Rush and the rise and fall of the American press mogul WR Hearst and the portray of his life in Orsen Welles acclaimed performance in Citizen Kane.
4. The Telegraph and the rival of Hearst's media empire in the New York circulation wars E.G. "The Yellow Press" Hearst vs Pulitzer.
5. This was reflected in England and the rising power of newspapers masterminds Northcliffe and Rothermere (First part of Chris Horrie's Tabloid Nation)
6. Photograph and the genius of both Harry Guy Bartholomew and Hannah Swaffer E.G. The creation of the Bart-line, which enabled the ability for photographs to be wired from America to Britain and the first portal of real photographs in British newspapers, which increased the popularity of The Daily Mirror
These are all the key elements of the media that we have learnt and now we had to explore everything from the 1920's and the invention of radio and the arrival and emergence of cinema.
This will refer me to the "necessary conditions" model, which consists of the three main elements that form and control the media up to the presents day:
1. Technology (affordable use allowed radios sets and transmissions).
2. Demographics (distribution costs were reduced across the western world and this allowed the American press to boost their profits and audience).
3. Law and Regulation (licensing system and the nationalisation of the radio by the British Government in 1922, nearly as soon as it was created. This meant the BBC were the only transmitted legal radio output throughout the United Kingdom and it was a state monopoly and resorted in pirate radio stations being transmitted from boats across the English Channel E.G Radio Caroline)
This will now allow me to take a break from our normal scheduled blogging to transmit a message from our pirate radio sponsors and present the trailer from The Boat That Rock (or also to be known as the British film that flopped in 2009)
Ok now even you have fallen asleep after watching that I am sorry, but it had to be done. back to our normal scheduled blogging.
In the media these three key elements are seen as the venn diagram of three factors. With radio in the UK, the BBC were now seen as "The Times" of the airwaves and would broadcast hour after hour of countless, monogamous classic music, which would be interrupted by two hours of prime time details of the ongoings debate in parliament. Now I am glad I was born in 1990, not 1950.
Newspapers in the 1930's were at their biggest circulation across the country with the Daily Herald, run by the TUC and the Labour Party and their main competition, which was seen as the conservative supported, Beaverbrook run Daily Express.
Within The Sunday newspapers, the now defunct (still is taking me a while to get used to saying this) New of the World and The Sunday Pictorial (now known today as The Sunday Mirror) were the most popular. The Daily Mirror itself, which was now conceived as "The American picture paper", however the newspaper was unpopular in the 30's as it was seen as the sister paper of The Daily Mail and were both influenced by Rothermere ("Hurrah of the Blackshirts). Picture papers at the time were seen as the most realistic visual depiction of human life until the invention of the television.
The first experiments of television in the UK were pre World War 2, but it was seen that TV essentially happened" historically in the 1950's. In the 50's Keynesian demands management and the consumer society reigned supreme. Huge levels of debt were seen from the WW2 debt, but also through Keynesian"stimulus" and "infrastructure" investment and was seen as it was better to employ someone to dig a whole and then fill it back up again. In 1940's Southampton was an example of that hole, but in the 50/60's full employment ensure that the city was rebuilt.
Now I am sorry, but I feel that being a resident of Southampton that I am quite proud of my city being one of the best places to live on the south coast and even though some parts of the city look more like ghettos within North London, but I feel that overall the city is a great place to live and with a very good football club. Not to be mean to Chris Horrie, but when was the last time I saw Manchester was not the most loveliest of places and Richmond did not have a football team to talk about. Ok, rant over, I will agree to disagree that all cities have their fair share of bad areas.
Now this lead to vast government spending on many key areas including:
1. The military including the arms race and the MIC.
2. The Welfare State: NHS, free universal education including "red brick" universities. This lead to the eventual inclusion of robins, polytechnics and then "new universities" e.g. Warwick.
3. Council Housing, which could be seen as a tale of two stories. On one hand you have the nice terrace housing that at the time you would pay £100 a month to rent from the local council and nowadays some of these houses are worth nearly £500,000. On the other hands you councils houses were seen as luxury high-rise tower blocks, but can not be know as pop out a child and live on the 18th floor skyscrapers of doom. This is where you can describe Southampton as "a hole" with this being the prime example of high-rise gone common:
4. Social security, which ensured full employment and the liberation of women.
Now after this week's changes to welfare and benefits proposed by Working and Pensions minister, Ian Duncan Smith I will not dwell on the phrase that the unemployed and incapacitated in Britain have "Never had it so good, I mean Bad."
This bring me onto the subject that will be the focus point of my seminar paper on parts 2 and 3 of Tabloid Nation; Hugh Cudlipp. The Daily Mirror under Cudlipp was seen as The Beatles as it appealed to young, working class males and campaigning Journalists of the left, all fuelled by the growth of advertising. This was caused by the Keynesian wave of deficit and the baby boom brought upon by the life cycle of the "Babybloomers."
The Mirror was all conquering as it had a 12 million circulation and 8 million sales. The complacency
scene at the mirror was it ignored television and "the summer of love" in 1968 and not attracting the boomers during their teenage year. If they had they may have been able to secure a readership, which is now a slowly, diminishing trend. These women who gave birth aged 20 in 1948 were 40 in 1968, meaning their offspring would of been in their teens and in the peak of their rebellion.
What was so attractive for television during this time was the commercial nature of ITC and the imported American programming. This would still be felt today with everyone favourite baby bloomer:
Everyone's favourite sliver fox there in Ken Barlow. Now with commercial TV emphasis on key demographics and with disposable income invested in what teenagers craved at time time; women and soap operas, which is proven today with the nation's continued infatuation with Coronation Street.
A lot of the records and films produced in the 1960's were seen as "cultural", but television was seen as a different animal to print (more majestic and elegant like a gazelle). The journey of The Enlightenment was ended by television, caused by the social and political reference of television "dumbing down" and was linked with advertising and commercialisation.
This is where The Sun profited as it was born in the age of which we live in and accepted the social demographic aspirations of society at the time. But it was seen as a market failure until it's eventual rebrith by Rupert Murdoch who crucially understood the significance of TV and exploited gaps in the market created by the revolutionary framework. This reflected in the 1990's and up to the present day with slow death of newspaper in Great Britain.
That is all for now tune in next week with my seminar paper of Part's 2 and 3 of Chris Horrie's Tabloid Nation until next time I recommend you visit the picturesque southern city of Southampton when you next get the chance!
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