Sociology of Journalism and the Press (Sociological Review Monograph)

SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW MONOGRAPH 29

The Sociology of Journalism and the Press Issue Editor: Harry Christian

Managing Editors: W. M. Williams and R. ]. Frankenberg University of Keele October 1980

The Sociology of Journalism and the Press Monograph 29 Editor: Harry Christian

Notes on Contributors

Contents

Introduction

Harry Christian

Page 5

Part One: The Press and Capital The British Press in the Age of Television

Jeremy Tunstall

19

Class, Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

Graham Murdock

37

Advertising as a Patronage System

James Curran

71

The Social Organisation of Newspaper Houses

Charles N. Tremayne 121

Part Two: Social Control and the Press Press Performance as Political Ritual

Philip Elliott

Chronicles of the Gallows: The Social History of Crime Reporting Steve Chibnall

141 179

Part Three: Women and the Press The \\'ol1lan" ,vlagaww

Marjorie Ferguson

219

Images and Equality: Women and the National Press

Roger Smith

239

Part Four: Journalism as an Occupation Journalists' Occupational Ideologies and Press Commercialisation

Harry Christian

259

The Politics of Socialisation: Recruitment and Training for Journalism

Oliver Boyd-Barrett

307

Philip Schlesinger

341

Alan Beardsworth

371

l:OVlT

l'holograph

Alan Beardsworth BA (Econ), PhD Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences, University of Loughborough Oliver Boyd-Barrett BA, Phd Lecturer, Faculty of Education Studies, Open University Steve Chibnall BA (Soc), MA Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Community Studies, Leicester Polytechnic Harry Christian BA, MA, PhD Lecturer in Sociology, University of Keele James Curran MA Senior Lecturer, School of Communication, Polytechnic of Central London Philip Elliott BA, MA Research Fellow, Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of I _eicester Marjorie Ferguson BSc (Soc), PhD Lecturer, Department of Social Science and Administration, London School of Economics and Political Science Graham Murdock BSc, MA Research Associate, Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester Philip Schlesinger BA, PhD Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Thames Polytechnic Roger Smith BSc (Econ), MSc Education Officer for the General and Municipal Workers' Union, Grange College, Hale. Formerly Lecturer in Sociology, University of Essex Charles N. Tremayne BA, MSc Journalist, B.B.C. Television Formerly at University of Strathclyde Jeremy Tunstall BA Professor, Department of Sociology, City University, London

Part Five: Research Methods in Media Studies " Between Sociology and Journalism Analysing Press Content: Some Technical and Methodological Issues University of Keele, Keele, Staflixdshire

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Cover Design by Cal Swann FSIAD

Editorial Board J. A. Banks, University of Essex, L. Baric, University of Saltord, P. Bourdieu, Centre de Sociologie Europeenne, Paris, S. Cohen, University of Essex, S. J. Eggleston (Chairman), University of Keele, R. J. Frankenberg, University of Keele, G. Fyfe, University of Keele, M. Harrison, University of Keele. M. Jeffreys, Social Research Unit, Bedford College, J. G. H. Newfield, Hatfield Polytechnic, W. M. Williams, University College, Swansea.

Note

All the material in this Monograph is copyright under the terms of the Brussels Convention and the Copyright Act 1956. Manuscripts to be considered for publication in the form of Monographs of the Sociological Re'view and contributors to be considered for inclusion on The Sociological Review should be sent to Professor Ronald Frankenberg, Managing Editor. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The Sociology of Journalism and the Press -('Sociological Review' Monographs; No. 29 ISSN 0081-1769). I. Journalism-Social Aspects-Great Britain I. Christian Harry, II Series 301.16'1 PN5124.S6 .80-40681 ISBN 0-904425-09-6 ISBN 0-904425-10-X Pbk

Printed and bound in Great Britain by J. H. Brookes (Printers) Limited, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent

.......

INTRODUCTION

Harry Christian

IT is ten years since James Halloran, in the introduction to the previous Sociological Review Monograph in this field, noted the limitations of sociological work in the area. I It is interesting to consider the tendencies discussed by Halloran in the light of subsequent work and the current debates to which the present Monograph is intended to contribute. The intervening period has been one in which considerably increased attention has been given to the field and development has taken place both in the quantity and the range of British sociological studies of the mass media and mass communicators. Two main points made by Halloran were that method was then ahead of theory and that there had hitherto been more focus on the effects of mass communications than on the production side. He thought that each ofthese was related to the other and could be understood in the context of the general historical development of studies in this field. 2 He particularly made the point that the studies which had been done on mass communicators had not covered the higher levels of economic planning and policy making, wider and bigger questions were still rarely put and few attempts had been made to study mass communicators as occupying sensitive positions in social networks, rejecting and selecting information in response to a variety ofpressures, all within a given social system. J He believed that the Monograph he was introducing was a sign that some attempts had been made to redress the balance and that gradually more attention was being given to the study of mass communicators. After discussing the principal previous theoretical contributions to this area he made the similar point that 'it is interesting to see the communicator emerging as part of a general pattern, sending his messages in accordance with the expectations and actions of other persons and groups within the same system. The communicator as well as the recipient is placed within a social structure' 4 and 'the mass communicator is gradually been given the attention which it is essential he should be given ifever we are to understand mass communications as a social process and mass media as social institutions'. 5 The past ten years have seen a substantial increase in the studies of social processes of mass media production and of the people engaged in them,6 and these have heavily emphasised news handling procedures. It 5

Harry Christian

Introduction

is heartening to note that most of these recent studies also ~hll\\ :I considerably heightened concern with the wider social struct II r'll cC lilt \" \1 of media activities, and the present Monograph is in lint' II II h tillS tendency, Not surprisingly this changed focus is closely conl1\'\ ,,,.I 1IIIh theoretical developments and has corresponding impli\'ltlllll~ lor research methods, The past decade has seen the growth of a dl'~I/l" 10 move away from attempts to develop a specialised theory till thl' ~t lid\' of mass communications treated as a field at least analyticall y d "tlllli I[Olll the rest of society, and towards a more integrated view ofthl' IlLl"" [llnlla as social institutions forming interdependent parts of the Wldl'[ ~llc [l''.V and therefore requiring to be incorporated into general SOl"lo!oglc ,J! ,llld political theories, The questions raised have become broadel II/ ""'I'l' and less amenable to positivistic and quantitative metholls, ~ll I hat instead historical, interpretive or dialectical approaches hall' Ill[I/ld greater favour. The shift in perspective is exemplified by an Open Universlt\' Inl of 1977 edited by Curran, Gurevitch and Woollacott. 7 As the editll[" of that Reader noted, some of the most interesting research in the llJi(h has emerged from theoretical traditions previously virtually unrcpn'''l'llted in mass communications research-the modern sociology of de\' J
An important area of broad theoretical and empirical interest which has been re-opened in the 1970s after a long period of relative neglect is what can be called 'the political economy' of the press, covering such matters as the ownership and control of the mass media, the relationship of these to the ownership and control of other important industries, dependence of the mass media on, and influence by, commercial advertisers and the significance of these matters for the basic capital/labour class relationship in society as a whole, whether expressed in the economic or the political sphere. Starting with an article in 1973 by Murdock and Golding, 9 concern with this complex area has raised anew many of the broad social structural issues that have interested social scientists and has brought into renewed critical scrutiny theoretical interpretations handed down from both the laissez faire and the socialist traditions. The current debate on these issues involves consideration of the significant changes as well as continuities in the pattern of press ownership, the influence of these on the production process of news, on media occupations, and a reassessment of the historical importance of advertising policies both in determining the range of newspapers-and therefore of political viewpoints-available for the public to choose among, and in affecting the internal structure of newspaper organisations and therefore relations between departments with divergent interests and goals, notably those ofeditorial and advertising. These matters are not, of course, of purely academic interest. The concentration of press ownership into fewer hands and the financial problems increasingly affecting national newspapers during the past two decades has led to the setiing up of two Royal Commissions on the Press since 1960, with but limIted new thinking being devoted to the matter in their Reports. 1 0 Serious academic sociological study of these problems has been late arriving but has begun to develop during the 1970s and promises to be one of the most important areas for future research. Part I of this Monograph is devoted to these concerns, though they are also evident, even ifless centrally, in nearly all the other contributions, so that Part I provides an essential introduction and continuing background to the later Parts. The articles by Tunstall and Murdock both attempt to trace the main outlines of changes in ownership and control of the press and JIl;l.Ss media generally in recent years drawing out implications for alternative theoretical approaches. Though they differ on certain matters of interpretation of the evidence they both help to clarify the trends and contribute fruitfully to the current debate.

6

7

Harry Christian

Introduction

Tunstall's article provides an overview of the principal changes in the ownership and control pattern of the British national press during the 'age of television', and especially since the emergence of commercial television. He shows a trend of ownership which he describes as being from family to conglomerate control and comments on the implications of this both for Parson ian functionalist and for lvlarxist theoretical explanations. He is also concerned with changes in the character and social orientations of the national press. concomitant with these organisational changes and draws attention to the markedly increased social class polarisation within the national press audience which has occurred, with the influence of television helping to eliminate the 'middle brow' sector of the British national press by the closure or the change of character of newspapers. He concludes that the content orthe national press is now highly polarised in social class terms to an extent which is probably greater than in any other major industrial nation, and that since 1960 Britain has become an extreme case of a society whose press is predominantly owned by conglomerate companies which are also usually multi-nationals and whose main profits and commitments are in industries other than the newspaper press. Murdock basically views newspapers as agencies of ideological domination in society but is not prepared to accept Marx's assertions about the class power of the press simply as assertions, but attempts to discover and assess the evidence needed to evaluate this interpretation. The problem as he sees it is to explore the relations between social determination of human actions and actual concrete actions themselves. He seeks to discover what linkage exists between economic possession, ideological domination and class power and how such a linkage might be articulated in practice. On the theoretical level he assesses the relative contributions of 'instrumental' and 'structural' explanations of class domination through the mass media and considers the problems of conceptualisation and evidence that each raises, as well as contrasting them with 'pluralist' accounts. I3Y contrast with Tunstall he argues that the trend to conglomerate ownership has been compatible with a continuing strong family control in newspaper-owning companies. He sees his analysis as pointing the way to future research which he hopes will produce a more adequate account of structural determinants in the press by exploring ways in which structural constraints are mediated through the actions of key groups in newspaper production, and which will relate in a systematic way the changes in press organisation and performance to changes in the structure of British capital and class

relations in general. Curran's article adds further to the pioneering work he has been doing on the changing structure and character of the national press. As he points out, despite the arrival of commercial television and radio, the press remains the dominant marketing medium in Britain and it is advel"tising revenue rather than circulation or readership figures that determine which publications will make a profit and which will not survive. Success in appealing to readers and retaining their loyalty does not guarantee success in attracting sufficient advertising revenue and therefore surviving. Even without any deliberate efforts of advertisers to influence press content, he argues, competition for advertising patronage influences editorial strategies, especially in terms of the definitions of target audiences aimed at. He seeks to demonstrate how advertising has influenced and continues to influence the functioning of the press as a system ofpolitical communication by examining the effects ofchanges in advertising practice on the development of the national newspaper press as a political agency since 1918. It was such practice, he argues, which permitted the rise of a left-of-centre reformist press in the 1930s and 1940s and which also produced subsequent trends which, he says, have 'deradicalised' and 'depoliticised' since the mid 1950s what remains of that element in the popular press. There is therefore a political imbalance in the national press with under-representation of the left. Advertising, by subsidising high editorial paging, staffing and promotional expenditure, raises costs, and so greatly increases the capital needed to launch a newspaper. The growth of advertising patronage, he argues, by thus substantially increasing the costs of admission, has sealed ofl- entry into the national newspaper market to all except those with enormous capital resources. It has therefore become all the more difficult to start a left wing national daily-which would in any case have difficulty surviving, even with a fairly large circulation, because the social composition ofthe readership would be unlikely to attract the advertising necessary for financial viability. The same advertising influences, he says, have also brought about a Metropolitan dominance of the press in England and Wales which has contributed significantly to the focusing of the national level political culture on London. The political implications of these effects produced by advertising patronage are pointed out. By contrast to Curran's locus on the broad market influences of advertisers, Tremayne's article approaches the problem at the organisational level. He examines the internal structure and operation of two newspaper houses under increased economic pressure to attract and

8

9

Harry Christian

Introduction

satisfy the needs of advertisers, and he is particularly concerned to study the effects of this on the inter-relations between editorial, advertising and production departments of newspapers. His discussion is highly relevant to the debate on press freedom since it considers the insufficiently researched issue ofcensorship, even ifoften unobstructive, by advertisers and by advertising executives within newspaper houses for commercial purposes. Tremayne shows that the occupational ideologies of journalists and advertising executives diverge and the marginal role ofSupplcments Editor is critical in bringing the two groups together to achieve compromise on editorial content. Significantly, he discerns changes occurring in recent years in journalists' attitudes, having the effect of bringing them more into line with an increasingly commercial approach to running newspapers. Journalists in the newspapers studied have tended to become more tolerant of managerial measures to transfer resources to the direct revenue-producing function of advertising. He discusses this in relation to well known sociological theoretical work on organisational change. The influence of advertising on the press has tended in the past, especially by Royal Commissions, to be seen largely in terms ofovert and direct external pressures affecting newspaper content. The articles by Curran and Tremayne in different ways both open up areas and modes of influence previously relatively neglected and therefore provide new dimensions for the development of this debate, with important implications for the political economy of the press. The general sociological question of social control in society when applied to the press is closely bound up with theoretical discussion and evidence on the ownership, control and other economic pressures on the press. The social control theme is more explicitly taken up in Part II of this Monograph. Since the publication in 1973 of Cohen and Young's reader II which built upon their earlier work in studies of deviance Il there has been considerable attention given to efforts at understanding press performance in this light. j J What could perhaps come to be seen as a seminal article by Elliott makes use of anthropological concepts, particularly that of 'ritual', to analyse two case studies of the news handling ofpolitical violence. Such press performances, he sees as having much more the character of political ritual than of objective communication of information to the public, and therefore as being examples of the operation of social control by and through the mass media. The significance of ritual as a perspective, he argues, goes way beyond

the analysis of particular examples of press performance. Ritual is less a communication about social reality than a customary performance giving symbolic expression to social relationships, and mystifying those social relationships by its use of symbolism. As he concludes, 'Some media performances are political rites carried out on behalf of the powerful, in which the powerless are invited to take part. The nature of the British media system is such that the invitation is difficult to refuse'. Chibnall's contribution to Part II places in longer term historical perspective the social control significance of crime reporting in general which again could usefully be viewed in terms of Elliott's use of the concept of ritual. The dual nature of much news, especially crime news, as a means of social control and also as a source of information and entertainment is discussed by Chibnall, and his article aims to illustrate the varying degrees to which crime news has been conceived and functioned in these two ways over the past four centuries. He also seeks to examine the social organisation of reporting underlying the presentation of crime and to identify the importance attached to ideological control through the printed word in general and crime reporting in particular in the establishment of a 'control culture' suited to the emerging industrial capitalist economy. He fmds that the two aspects of crime news-as a vehicle for social control and as commercial entertainment-have been apparent throughout its history in British society and that neither characteristic encourages the provision of accurate information or the impartial analysis of social deviance. Both encourage 'news creation' by journalists, in the sense of their providing contexts of interpretation and presentation not justified by the actual events, and this continues today. He concludes in fact that crime news and crime fiction are often difficult to distinguish. His article also provides a useful historical background to his earlier study of post war law-and-order news. 14 The areas of political violence and crime are particularly interesting from a social control point ofview in that it is precisely in these areas that dominant values appear to be acutely threatened and are therefore most clearly reasserted. The social control theme continues into another dimension in Part III, that of gender relations. The way in which male dominance is typically maintained, the factors affecting possibilities of achieving greater equality of the sexes, and the conditions underlying the growth of women's awareness ()f subordination and unequal opportunities are all themes which have come increasingly to the fore in the last ten years. The women's movement has, of course, been a significant development over that period and not surprisingly the press has come in for critical scrutiny

10

11

Harry Christian

from a feminist viewpoint. Again press content, by its use of cultural symbolism reinforcing traditional values of male dominance and superiority and female dependence and secondary status, can be seen to be performing an ideological social control function, and in the field of women's magazines stereotyped images of women's roles presented in pursuit of commercial goals have the same efTect. Ferguson examines the social world suggested by the cover photographs of traditional women's magazines, and constructs a typology of the mediated ideology offemaleness as culturally defmed and commercially produced for a female readership. After a consideration at the level of editors' selection procedures, audience understandings and 'reader identification', she presents a qualitative content analysis of three British women's weeklies, compared diachronically in terms of her typology for evidence of continuity and change. The significance of these cover photographs, she argues, is that they involve the exchange of social meanings shared between producers and audience and that they are selected and presented according to professional and ideological criteria. These images perform a series of functions which are interrelated with each other and combine the economic rationale of publishing for profit with the technical and creative competence of editors. The cover photograph is one means by which women's magazines transmit and at the same time reinforce recognised cultural symbols of 'femaleness', and for reasons of both editorial ideology and advertisement revenue these symbols signify a world of women which is a world apart. Smith's contribution to the debate on the position ofwomen in society is of a difTerent kind. Instead oflooking at how women are portrayed in the mass media he is interested in the position ofwomen among the ranks of mass communicators. He accepts both, that an ideological social control function is performed by the way that women are presented in the press through a narrow range of distorted and stereotyped images reinforcing an ideology of dependence which stresses the priority of women's domestic and familial roles, and that this treatment acts as a brake on the development of sex equality, and he argues that attempts to change the portrayal of women in the national press are likely to have little fundamental efTect in present circumstances because of influences both internal and external to the press. He presents evidence to indicate that the national press is a predominantly male preserve in terms ofhoth personnel and ethos and that there is a marked scarcity of female participants especially In policy-making positions in newspaper 12

Introduction

organisations. This situation implies that there is little basis for challenging the prevailing stereotypes of women conveyed by these newspapers. But even if women did somehow manage to penetrate the upper reaches of decision-making power in Fleet Street there are, he argues, external pressures opposing such a change, stemming from a massive reliance by the press on advertising revenue. He argues that this financial dependency on industry and commerce, within a society which has assigned distinctive and limited economic roles to women, means that newspapers are constrained to continue using those images of women regarded as appropriate to the needs of the economy. Once again the political economy of the press and the social control it exerts come clearly into view. Sociological work on journalists as an occupational group is still relatively scarce in this country though the gap has begun to be filled in recent years. Part IV is speciaily devoted to this area with articles by myself and Boyd-Barrett, but the already mentioned articles by Tremayne and Smith, and in a difTerent way a subsequent one by Schlesinger, also contribute to this field. Long term trends in the political economy ofthe British press since the late nineteenth century are. the essential backcloth to the evidence and arguments presented in my article on British journalists' occupational ideologies. The social situations experienced by them have been such, I argue, that four main divergent types of occupational ideology have emerged among them and have been expressed in conflicts within and between the two principal representative organisations that have recruited journalists over most of this period. Commercialisation over the past eighty odd years has altered the conditions of employment and work of the bulk of British journalists with the result that the trade union strategy has increasingly appealed to the great majority of them and the ideology of professionalism as a separate and rival strategy has gradually lost credibility. But the nature of trade unionism itselfhas also evolved as journalists actively responded to changing economic circumstances, converting an initially narrowly occupation-focused union into one which expresses a much more developed awareness of journalists' basic class position as employees of commercial organisations and having common interests with the wider labour movement. Nevertheless, I contend, two kinds of professionalism and a more narrowly focused trade unionism still retain an appeal and the interests of employers favour the encouragement of these, with the result that endemic within the occupatio!} are conflicts of a kind which are inimical 13

Harry Christian

Introduction

to the unification of the two bodies I j and also to the development of the sort of professionalism favoured by some commentators. I 6 The underlying development of the political economy of the press has set the limits within which journalists' choices of occupational organisation and action have taken place. It is unrealistic to expect the bulk of British journalists to behave like traditional professionals within emplovment and work situations which make impossible the kind ofautonomy needed for such behaviour. One aspect which would be required for journalism to be more like the established professions is a developed system of professional education and training controlled by the profession itself. But the training scheme which has grown up for British journalists since the early 19'50s is not of this kind. As Boyd-Barrett argues in the following article, the provision of formal training for journalists has not been determined purdy by the specific range of abilities seen as necessary by the profession but politicocultural factors have been equally or more important 'Professionalisation', he finds, is an inadequate hypothesis to explain the emergence ofthe national system of journalism training. The character of the training has been greatly influenced by the limited requirements of a specific sector of the newspaper industry on which the National Council for the Training of Journalists has been heavily dependent for finance and for support for its claim to legitimacy. The scheme has not been based on a careful consideration of the skills regarded as basic to the industry as a whole or of available career prospects for journalists, but on the immediate interests ofa section of newspaper managements. A form of occupational socialisation which is primarily geared to promoting a wide-horizoned understanding of society is hardly to be expected. Problems arising for the training scheme from competition over the past ten to fifteen years from a state-sponsored training board for the printing industry and from Polytechnic-based journalism courses, have brought some changes, but professionalisation has not been the net result. A stunted professionalism closely related to the political economy of the press is therefore an implication of both articles in this section of the Monograph. In the final part, two valuable contributions are included which sharpen our appreciation of the problems involved in applying sociological research methods in the study ofthe mass media. Schksingn provides a fascinating account of the vicissitudes of his research II1to BBC news production, providing salutary lessons for future research of this kind. He argues for the value of ethnographic fieldwork in media

studies, seeing it as complementary to forms of textual analysis and structural and historical studies. Nevertheless he acknowledges that such an approach has important limits. He thinks it is likely to be productive of worthwhile results only when guided by clear theoretical assumptions, the most relevant of which he believes to be ones concerning relationships between ideology, politics and the capitalist economy. Ethnographic studies, he says, can make available basic evidence about the working ideologies and social practices of cultural producers, can permit theoretically informed observation of their practices, and can act as important correctives to conspiracy theories which ignore the complexities of the liberal-democratic state. Ethnographic media studies are necessarily concerned with journalistic culture and so force concentration on news processing, which gets neglected when media products only are studied. Finally the ethnographic approach permits observation of crisis points in the production process which are hidden from those who simply study news content, and this corrects any idea that the process is automatic. Apart from giving us an interesting account of his fieldwork and his reflections upon it, he also provides further insights into journalism as an occupation and draws valuable implications about the various media theories. In the final article, Beardsworth presents a cautionary critique of quantitative content analysis of press output. He too places his discussion of a research method within a broad societal context -the significance of the mass media in modern society in mediating between individuals with their necessarily restricted personal knowledge of the world and those large social scale processes which constrain individuals. He suggests that computer-assisted content analysis can be seen as a measuring device lacking in any coherent theoretical basis, other than those of statistics and computer procedures, and that it is typically used in conjunction with purely common sense observational categories into which items are counted in the hope ofdiscovering regularities which can then be presented as generalisations about press content. He argues that the accumulation of such generalisations can never in itself produce scientific statements in spite of their impressively 'hard' quantitative appearance. This he thinks it is all the more important to emphasise because with the availability of sophisticated computer programme packages as well as computers capable ofhandling vast quantities of data, there is a great danger of crude empiricism unless these aids are used together with explicit theory of a kind which is not formulated with the sale object of using the available techniques.

14

15

Harry Christian

Introduction

Both these writers on methods therefore stress the priority ofexplicitly formulated theory in planning research projects-a sign, one hopes, that the discrepancy between theory and methods noted by Halloran ten years ago, is less likely in the future. To sum up, the present Monograph seeks to tackle some of the 'wider and bigger questions' which Halloran saw in 1969 as needing greater attention. The political economy of the press is examined from ditTering aspects: those of the changing patterns of ownership and control, the effect ofadvertising policies on the range ofviewpoints represented in the national press, and the influence of market conditions on the internal dynamics ofnewspaper organisations. The closely related question ofthe press as an agency of social control is approached by considering press activity as political ritual and by exploring the historical development of press handling of crime news. Social control of gender relations is examined in terms of the stereotyped, though changing, images of women presented in magazines and in terms of the organisational limitations on possibilities fo'r the advancement of women in Fleet Street and market restrictions on changing the imagery of women in press content. Both the political economy and the social control aspects underly two studies which analyse the range of occupational ideologies that have developed among British journalists and the scope and limitations ofthe recruitment and socialisation of journalists through the national training scheme. Finally problems and possibilities of research in the media by means of ethnographic and content analysis methods are assessed.

Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970; J. Tunstall: Westminster Lobby Correspondellls, Constable, London, 1970; and Journalists at Work, Constable, London, 1971; P. Elliott: The Making oj a Television Series, Constable, London, 1972; K. Kumar: 'Holding the Middle Ground: the BBC, the Public and the Professional Broadcaster', Sociology, Vol. 9, \975 pp. 67-88; S. Chibnall: 'The Crime Reporter: a study in the Production of Commercial Knowledge', Sociology, Vol. 9, 1975"pp. 49-66 and Law-and-Order News, Tavistock, London, 1977; D. Murphy: The Silent Watchdog, Constable, London, 1976; R. Smith: 'Sex and Occupational Role in Heet Street', in D. Barker and S. Allen (eds.): f)ependence and Exploiration in Work and Marriage, Longmans, London, 1976; J. Curran, M. Gurevitch and J. Woollacott (eds.): Mass Communication and Society, Arnold, Open Universitv, 1977; T. Burns: The BBC: Public lnstitucion and Private World, Macmillan, I,ondon, i 977; P. Schlesinger: Pu((ing Reality Together: BBC News, Constable, London, 1978. , Curran et aI, op. cit. • ibid., p. 2. , G. Murdock and P. Golding: 'For a Political Economy of Mass Communications', in R. Miliband and J. Saville (eds.): The Socialist RegISter, 1973, pp. 205-235. 10 The Royal Commission on the Press (Shawcross), Report, HMSO, London, 1962, and Royal Commission on the Press (McGregor), Reporr, HMSO, London, 1977.

II

S. Cohen and

J. Young (eds.):

The Manuj(JCture oj Ne,,'s, Constable, London, 1973.

J.

Young: The Drugtakers, MacGibbon and Kee, London, 1971; S. Cohen: Folk f)evils and Moral Panics, MacGibbon and Kee, London, 1972. 12

1.1 e.g. Curran, 1977, op. cit.; Chibnall, 1977, op. ciL, J. Curran, G. Boyce and P. Wingate (eds.): Newspaper History, Constable, London, 1978. 14

Chibnall, op. cit.

1.\ As called for by the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service in their report to the last Royal Commission on the Press, see ACAS: 'Industrial Relations in the National Newspaper Industry', Cmnd. 6680, 1976, para. 730; and recommended by the Royal Commission itself, see RCP Report, chapter 17, p. 167.

" Acton Society Press Group: The British Press, its problems and itsjuture, 1975, pp. 78 & 86.

University of Keele.

I 1'. Halmos (ed.): The Sociology or Aiass Afedia Communi,'
Halloran in Halmos, op. cit, p. 5. , ibid., pp. 6-7. , ibid., p. 15. ibid., p. 17. (, e.g.

J. Halloran, P. Elliorr and G. l\1.urdock:

16

Dnnons{l'L1(/"ons

tlllJ (:II/flnIlOI/,dlll)!l,

17

THE BRITISH PRESS IN THE AGE OF TELEVISION

Jeremy Tunstall THIS article seeks to provide an overview of some major trends in the British press during 'the age of television'. While the press industry remains in a broadly healthy financial state, television has played an important part in other major changes in the press. Social class polarisation within the press audience has increased, as have other related forms of polarisation such as the national/provincial and the popular/prestige divides. Television has indirectly played its part in major changes in the pattern of British press ownership. Broadly since 1945 there has been a change from a predominantly family pattern of ownership to a conglomerate pattern. This article concludes by noting that the empirical facts can be seen as illustrating both Marxist and functional accounts of mass media in market economies. The impact of television on the press

Firstly, in terms of advertising revenue, the press still does rather well. Ever since commercial television became firmly established around 1960, television has taken between 22% and 26% of total media advertising expenditure in Britain. The total press share has always since 1960 remained around 70%. However there has been a major change within the press-with national newspapers getting a smaller, and provincial newspapers a larger, slice ..While national press display advertising has been hit by TV, provincial press classified adv.ertising has expanded. I Secondly, in terms of audience time, the press has remained broadly static. Television has cut into radio time, and also greatly increased total audience media time. The British public now divides its media time roughly as follows: One quarter to lTV, a half to BBC television and to radio, and one quarter to newspapers and magazines. Thirdly, there is now a different social class pattern as between the media. Although the lTV audience is more working class, both BBCl TV and television overall in Britain have an audience relatively undifferentiated by social class (Table 1). But the national press has 19

Jeremy Tunstall

The British Press in the Age of Television

become much the most social class polarised of the major British mass media (Table 2). Television influences have played a large part in destroying the middle-brow, middle-market, sector of the British national press. TABLE I A"erage <1mOUllls of viewing and Iisrening per he<1d, pcr week, mid h'b,.u<1r\, 1.975

BBe's Three Socio-Economic (~rollps

Television

BBel BBe2

ITV Total TV BBe Radio I 2 3 4 Total Radio (BBe 1-4 & Luxembourg) Total TV and Radio

A

B

c

6.58hrs 2.15 4.47

7.4lhrs 1.47 7.08

6.47hrs 1.26 11.49

14.00

16.38

2ll.ll2

1.45 2.18 1.03 4.15 9.27

3,20 2.58 0.28 2,55 9.47

4.ll9 2.58 ll.lll

23.27

26,25

28.42

Radio

1.2ll

1930-1956: The Golden Period

8·l()

.Source: Annual Review of BBe Audience Research Findings.

TABLE 2 Newspapers and Social Class 1974-5 Percefllage 7",i[hin each of six social class Cel[egories reading [he newspaper

Upper Lower Skilled SubsisMiddle Middle Middle Working Working tence

Daily Mirror Sun Daily Express Daily Mail Daily Telegraph The Guardian The Times Financial Times Total

reader interest, because the two types of newspaper have two different forms of revenue. The prestige nationals are dependent on advertising revenue, which exaggerates their 'up market' inclinations (because premium rates can be charged for delivering 'AB' readers to advertisers). The popular tabloids, in contrast, are almost wholly dependent on sales revenues and these papers are locked into a sales war to the death which exaggerates their 'down market' inclinations. Another form of polarisation which takes an unusually sharp form in Britain is that between the national and provincial press. Provincial papers typically have an all-class audience, depend on advertising revenue, and do not confer prestige on their owners. Britain (apart from Scotland) is unusual in no longer having any examples of provincial papers which sell, not just in a single urban centre or county, but over an entire major region The Daily Star, a popular daily newspaper published in Manchester since 1978, has achieved a sizeable national readership.

In retrospect the years 1930 to 1956 can nostalgically be seen as the golden period, when records of all kinds were achieved. In Western Europe at large the Second World War obviously produced enormous dislocation for the press; but in Britain despite newsprint rationing-or more accurately because of it-the 1940s were a comfortable period of low competition and high profits. Then in 1955 both newsprint rationing finally ended and commercial TV arrived. After 1956 the British press was off the plateau and sliding. As Table 3 shows, the level of daily

Total

A

B

CI

e2

D

E

TABLE 3

32 29 21 12

7 5 24 15

13 II 23 16

26 23 25 17

40 38 20 II

41 39 17 9

22

Daily Press- To[al Cireula[ions

9 3 3 2

42 17 20 14

28 9 9 7

14 5 4 3

4 I I

2

I

I

III

144

116

116

115

III

17 17 9

I

1 68

Source: JICNARS

This social class polarisation is linked to other forms of polarisation. The divide in the British press between popular tabloids anJ prestige broadsheets now greatly exaggerate real differences in eJucat ion and

20

1920 1930 1938 1948 1956 1960 1966 1971 1976

National Morning

London Evening

Provincial Morning and Evening

Total Daily

5,430 8,650 10,400 15,500 16,780 15,880 15,591 14,176 14,006

1,940 2,030 1,850 3,500 2,810 2,220 1,886 1,461 992

7,300 7,270 7,000 9,970 10,320 10,400 8,780 8,653 8,141

14,670 17,950 19,250 28,970 29,910 28,500 26,257 23,290 23,129

Sources: N. Kaldor and R. Silverman, A S[a[iSli,'al Analysis of Ad"er[ising ExpendilUre and of [he Re"cnue of [he Press; Advertising Association, Ad"er[ising Expendi[ure 1960; RCP 1977.

21

Jeremy Tunstall

The British Press in the Age of Television

circulation by 1976 had fallen back by some six million on 1956, but was still above 1938 levels; on a per population basis, however, 1976 daily sales were almost identical to those of 1938. Indeed, on a per population basis daily circulations in 1976 were only slightly above 1930 levels. 2 Nevertheless since 1930 several important internal adjustments have occurred. Whereas in the 1930s daily newspaper reading was still heavily skewed towards the middle class (Table 4), it is now much more evenly spread (Table 2).

competition, whereas none have now. There was also a very considerable drop in the number of provincial mornings from ftfty-two in 1900 to only eighteen in 1970. TABLE 5

PetlelrLl/ion of Nul/o,.,a/ Ne7DSpapers -

IJcrily Express 1935 Daily Express 1975

Income Groups I

2

3

-

4

£1 ,000+ £500-1,L100 D50-500 [125-250 1'llderD25 ..

54,1 48.1 31.6 26.0 II. 5 12.3 ·1.1l 1.2

%

1%

20.7 35.6 35.0 19.1 8.4 16.8 5.6 1.2

2.6 14.0 317 12.8 7.5 26.4 1l1.2 6.2

I~J

I~)

D.l 2.D 12.3 52 4.1l .'1l.1l I J.1 21.,+

IUI2 IU 1.5 .'.Il 2.1 7.8 7,(, .'11.9

111,4

79.1l

15.3

14.3

57.5

2·1.0

--~._---

All national newspapers pcr Income group

188.8

142,4

-- - ' - - _ .., - - - - - , - - - - - - , - - - - - - - - ' . _ - -

Fan1ilit's in income group as percentage oftOlal popUlations

South East

(West) Midlands

l';orth West

20.7 19

15.0 16

14.8 24

- - - - - - - - - - - , - - _ ..

I laily Mail 1935 Daily Mail 1975

----------------

16.9 15

NE and Nnrth

Scotbnd

10.\ 17

20.2 29

-------

~---_._-

134 13

12.7 13

12.9 9

8.9 4

--------'---------

lfu

The Timcs Daily Telegraph/Morning Post Dailv"-hil Daily Mirror DailY Sketch Dad)' Express :-.:'ews Chronicle Daily Herald

regions, 19.'J5-1975

Percentage* Within reginll reading each newspaper

TABLE 4 Penetration of National Daily Ncwspapers by Income Groups, 19 J5

irl SC/CdCL/

0.9

-_._---

3,4

-

SOl/rce: I'ohucal and Economic Planning (1938) Repon on the British PreIs. p. 77 (Based on national sample survey conducted by Incorporated Society of Britlsh Advert ,,,'rs).

The geographical spread of national newspaper penetration has not greatly altered as Table 5 indicates. Nor has the sex composition of newspaper readership much altered-in 1935 as in 1976 men were slightly more likely than women to read newspapers. It was the 'Northcliffe revolution' of around 1900 which successfully rcached women as well as men readers and-by printing 1I\ Manchester-achieved a nationally spread sale. Nor has the loss of titles been very great compared with SOIllC other countries. For example the number of provincial evenings in Britain between 1890 and 1970 was always around eighty. But within this relatively stable overall number there has been much changc; in particular in 1921 twenty-four provincial towns had evening nL'wspaper 22

• For 1935 the data relatc to Cam illes, for 1975 to all adults. Sources: PEP (1938) Reporl on lhe Brilis;' Press, JICNARSJan.-Dec. 1975.

In 1900 both the national and provincial press were still organised on the basis of competition between political parties and factions. In London both the morning and evening press was organised on political party lines; today the London press is mainly a morning press organised on social class lines. Whereas in 1900 the larger provincial cities each had four or ftve partisan dailies under several ownerships, by 1970 the provincial daily press had been re-organised around the principle of monopoly; larger provincial cities typically had a lucrative evening and a weak morning daily under a single ownership. Small provincial centres had merely a monopoly evening. The evenings had also followed the spread of population into the suburbs... As if to emphasise the national/provincial polarity even more, by the 1970s local weekly newspapers were the ultimate in non-partisanship and often the ultimate in profttable local monopoly. Party Involvement No detailed study exists of the 'political involvement of the whole British press during the twentieth century. But several broad generalisations can be made. Firstly while partisanship has not disappeared, the partisanship in the press which remains tends to 'ftt' with the social class composition of the audience. Publications-like provincial evenings or weeklies-which appeal today across social class

23

Jeremy Tunstall

The British Press in the Age oj Television

and educational differences tend to be a-political. This focuses most interest on the middle of the national spectrum (Table 6).

press-the growth of chains and local monopolies-involved both the building of Conservative bastions for political ends and of commercial bastions for monopoly profit, Nevertheless between 1900 and 1970 the British press gave up many of its party concerns in favour of entertainment and/or information. While some partisanship remained, the common 1900 idea disappeared of the paper owned by a political figure or with the main purpose ofsupporting a party. Partisanship became more tactical and diffuse; the 'political' goal slowly evolved into a 'prestige' goal. Not that prestige is unconnected with power; but it is a different conception of how to use and pursue power through a newspaper.

TABLE 6

National Dailv Ne'lVspaper Circulall(Jns 1930-79 (in thousnnds) 1930

1947

1937

1961

1971

1979

------

The Times The Guardian Financial Times Daily Telegraph Morning Post Daily Express Daily HeraldlThe Sun Daily Mail News Chronicle Daily Sketch (Graphic) Daily Mirror

175 120 1,693 1,ll9 1,845 1,452 926 1,072

TOTAL

8,568

186

191

269

-

-

559

1,016

257 240 132 1,248

340 332 170 1,446

379 206 1,477

4,321 1,407 2,649

3,41 \ 2,29 \ 1,l9H

2,406 3,793 1,944

2,204 2,033 1,580 1,324 684 1,328

3,856 2,134 2,077 1,623 772 3,702

1,578

1,\,,1

9,903

15,449

15,823

11,17(,

Secondly, in this middle area the last two overtly partisan newspapers, the Liberal News Chronicle and Labour Daily Herald have dIsappeared. One lesson drawn from their deaths by the press at large is that partisanship should be flexible rather than permanent. Thirdly, the political coverage in newspapers has altered, 1'olitical speeches-one of the old partisan staples of the laIc Jutleteenth century-now get much less coverage. . Nevertheless it would not be correct to think ofpress parllsamhip as in rapid and steady decline throughout the twentieth cenllli \ hll one thing, as Alan Lee tells us 3 over a third of provinCIal dailil's were independent or neutral in 1900. And in the 1970s plenty ot 1'~111 1'''lIship still remained. Moreover during the period when the Labour Party W;JS I:rkllig over from the Liberals there appears to have been an increasl: III p:IIII':IIIShip, with the Labour Party receiving hostile partisan coverage 01 III, Il'asl:d ferocity. Indeed the relatively small increase in total dail \ l II' I iI at ion between 1920 and 1938 (Table 3) is probably partly accollllll',j 1111 hl'the unpopularity of a predominantly Conservative press with 1\\'111\ 01 the potential new readers. This was also par excellence the era OJ'I hl (', ( ('III ric press Lords-especially Beaverbrook and Rothermere, As so often in the press, political partisanship and business WIlli hand in hand. The transformation in the inter-war period of the prO\llll'ial

The mid Century Plateau One version of conventional wisdom presents the British press in mid century as the world's most competitive. But there is more image than substance to such a view. Newspapers were still a sheltered industry-until 1955 there was no competition for advertising from either television or radio. For a large slab of the period 1939 to 1955 newsprint rationing was operated in such a way as largely to freeze the circulation status quo. Even in the 1930s there was only one period of moderately fierce national press competition-and this was confined to the very early 1930s. The famous canvassing sales war of the early 1930s involved new readers being bought with subsidised copies of Dickens, saucepans, and other impedimenta. This is usually portrayed as extravagant and wasteful competition, Such a view is mistaken. The Daily Herald in particular was trying to acquire new readers-it was encouraging working class people to start taking a daily paper. As Table 4 shows, by 1935 the Daily Herald had met with some, but only s6me, success in this endeavour-about one-fifth of working class families took the Daily Herald. But in 1935 the Daily Mirror was an up market newspaper read as a second daily by wealthy families; like the Daily Sketch, it was not a tabloid in the more recent popular working class sense. But even the Daily Herald did not constitute severe head-on competition for the other dailies; true, it raised its sale from a few hundred thousand in 1929 to a million in 1930 and to two million by 1937-but Table 4 suggests that this was done largely by attracting readers completely new to newspaper buying. The ferocity of these sales wars (before the days of TV promotion) can be exaggerated-they ran only for a few months at a time in 1930, 1931 and finally from March to June 1933.

24

25

--_._------

.

--._-----------._-.

SOllrce: RCP, 1947. RCP, 1977, 1979, Gan,-June) The hllles was not appearing,

Dai~v

\,623

-

13,,,2H

Slur not inc111,h-d

The British Press in the Age of Television

Jeremy Tunstail These sales wars may be better understood as one of several occasional bursts ofcompetition which disturbed the rather uncompetitive-indeed semi-cartel-arrangements of the inter-war British press. Apart from the Daily Herald-which suddenly began to take competition so seriously in I 929-the only other national daily to adopt firmly competitive ways was Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express. In 1930, however, the Daily Mail still had the largest sale; moreover the Harmsworth family, in addition to the Daily Mail, still also owned the Daily Mirror. These three dailies-Mail, Mirror and Express-had 52% of national daily circulation; and the owners of these three dailies, the Harmsworth family and Beaverbrook, were business partners. Until 1934 the Harmsworths and Beaverbrook jointly owned on a 49:51 % basis, the London Evening Standard. The only other big daily sales belonged to the News Chronicle (it was a merger in 1930 ofthe Dai(v News and Dai(v Chronicle); under Cadbury management and with Liberal policies its competitive position continued to slip. Nor was the inter-war provincial newspaper scene exceptionally competitive. True, there was a war between the Berry and Harmsworth/Rothermere provincial chains-but this was largely confined to only two cities, Bristol and Newcastle, and was resolved by each group retreating from one city. 4 Why did the newspaper groups so dislike competition? One important reason was perhaps the very success of the Harmsworth group in the first decade of the century-which had shown how devastating competition could be. After 1918 the Rothermere/Harmonsworth competitive thrust weakened, while its political concerns strengthened; other groups went the same way. When the war came in 1939 circulations were pegged. Newsprint was very severely rationed and in 1945 paper consumption was down to only a quarter of 1939 levels; with dollar problems, this rationing continued. In 1947 the national dailies were still only a quarter or a third oftheir prewar size (Table 7). But in several other respects, newsprint rationing was the answer to a newspaper owner's prayers. While pages were cut back, the sale price stayed the same and there was a surplus of advertising; selling a one-third size paper at the full price was extremely profitable. For a short period after the war sales were allowed to expand- and the Daily Mirror's sale boomed-but in 1947 the dollar crisis brought back severe restrictions. Fleet Street managers liked some aspects of newsprint rationing and were reluctant to see it go. Beaverbrook in 1946 indicated his awareness

26

TABLE 7 Size o/Six nallona! New.lpapers (1937.1947,1975)

Mean number of pages

197'5

1947

1937 Mean number of pages

Mean printed area per Issue (sq. in.)

.---'

The Times I )aily Telegraph Daily Express Daily Mail Dailv Mirror Daily Worker! ,\lor'ning Star

Mean number of pages

l'vlean printed area per issue (sq. in.)

_..- - - - - - - _....

_-

22.'5

9.6 6.2 4.6 4.6 9.2

3,600 2,200 1,'560 1,390 1,320

26.2 28'5 17.3 33.7* 27.9

8.810 9,8'53 '5,270 4,975 3,9'52

8

6.1

1.170

6.0

1,442

2'57 2'5.0 20.0 19.3

• The Daily Mail changed (0 tabloid size in 1971. '\"""ee: Denis McQuail, Analysis of Newspaper COlJlOlf p. 1'5, Hl\lS0 for Royal Commission on the Press J 977.

of troubles to come; he claimed that the government had given the press (our new freedoms-freedom from competition, advertising revenue, newsprint and freedom from enterprise. 5 The Times became increasingly restless with the harsh restriction on pages. In 1955 as the ending ofthese controls approached, only The Times was enthusiastic. The others actually wanted the government to dismantle the controls more slowly. 6 Some of the ills to which Fleet Street was already prone in 1939, after 15 years in the deepfreeze, emerged in 1956 in impressively virulent strength. And 1956 was no ordinary year. This was the year in which commercial television turned the corner. Fleet Street was never to be the same again.

After Television: the Press in Decline? There is one explanation of the effect of television which sees it as an unmitigated disaster for the press. But the rival case is that the press has not been damaged at all; James Curran argued that the apparent circulation falls in the national press were misleading because the high sales fIgures had been ofvery thin paper-rationed newspapers. Television had hit, not newspapers, but other media more functionally similar to TV-such as consumer magazines, posters and cinema. On meaningful criteria-such as total page area of newspaper sold, or proportion of consumer expenditure-Curran argued, British national newspapers had not declined at all. 7 27

I The British Press in the Age of Television Jeremy Tunstall

There was some merit in Curran's arguments-certainly well into the sixties. But some significant signs of the press decline did exist, even in the 1960s. What might have happened without television and radio is a hypothetical question. There is little doubt that television has become the leading entertainment medium and it lays claim to being the leading news medium also; certainly many people-especially popular paper readers-think TV the leading news medium. This latter point seems at the very least to represent a relative loss of prestige by the press. Nevertheless the press retains some strong cards: It has the bulk of British advertising expenditure. The prestige press still remains the most weighty part of the mass media. The newspaper is still the only medium (apart possibly from radio) that people literally carry around with them. Table 8 shows that much reading of the j)allv Mirror is done at work, before work, and after work in the evening. Local newspapers and specialised magazines also remain strong.

-a+>. 'u >,32 .5:;;: &1

5~

~bl)

u c:: .5°a

""-

:> " 0:>

~

:>

~

0

\3 ~ .." '"u

"

§

....... co t:: I

£&Ji

.~

Rcuding the Daily Mirror (Time of day)

u .!:: u

32

'5 37 22 16 2

36

% of

.....l

Reading Time

~ .0 ::J

-<

~

(21) ( 3)

Ire Media Behaviour and opinions Studies,

\\'OIIll"n I ~ ,{ I

31

32 2

H

(26) (14)

·11

(12)

( I)

12 2

(23)

3IJ

1. '5

Average number of phases readllooked at

~

29

1.'5'5

3IJ 1'5 2IJ I

II

I.H

1972-1973.

f-

..!;

.."

]

~\

j

~: .-" ~§:=:.g

"t; _

'"

~

c:: t>D o c:: -0.-

" c ~

~

'"

t-

~

~

8

'-

Q.,

0\1D""f'

N

00«\-0

.,,;

("""\(':100

co

- "'"

t;

~ ~

-0

°o °

~~ I I I I I I

00

I I I l;::j

I ~II ;;; "'"

t-

i

°o

-000-0

i
~

S

~

'" 0 " ZP-.(/)

-

z~8

-0

§

00 I I I I I '" <Xi I"';

1-I

-

ti &

«\

-J:" 0:::

N

r-r-NO

"';""':N'-; I I I I -N("""\("""\

00 ~

~

t-

'" '" '" '"

~

~

~

Q::]

."t":

~ ~ C2

~ v e~ ,~u CIl

"is' c

.,,;

-

t- -0

V

~

..c:: u

It"

~

-B"

= v

g

E ......

c::

~

.9

Eo-a ~ ~§ 0..>:: = a~ ~~.g ~ ~ I ~ ~Z.g~ .~ ~ ~

Q.,~

1-0

C

1-0

·UCUO(,fj°a3·~8

~E·r= ~]~

~

~

;:Jo

z:iJi5s~ "'0 .... d,) c~ ~~l?=~~ I: ~ M .... _"O I-o..c ~

~

~

--a

I

~ ~

B-8 f-<01 ~s

-
29

~

·s

~

CIl

d,)

28

\0

('l"'\

c:

CU~rJ'J

et: The arrival of commercial television also played a key part in radically transforming the ownership of the press. In 1955 most of the press was still controlled by family groupings; by the time the third Royal Commission on the Press reported in 1977 the bulk of the press was owned by conglomerates whose major long term interests lay Il1 other industries (Table 9).

N

10

'"

c::'" 0"-0

0;:j

8 £&8 'e" E -" "u E t::i ~ ,,- " .g 5.~

g-

From Family Newspaper Company to Conglomerate Ownership

«\ -0' \ -\ "

I N I I <0", <Xi

cu~~

~on ......§~.~ co:-;::::

~

N

«\

£~

~

'" "3

U"ht'll Newspaper Reading takes place Up to leaving for work or up to 9 a.m. Between leaving home and starting work From starting work, or from 9 a.m. up to mid-dav meal time During mid-day meal timelbreak Up to leaving work or up to '5 p.m. Between leaving work and gelling home Between gelling home, or from '5 p.m. and going 10 sleep

SO/lrce:

g.Sc:: ._

G

.-~

l~'I)

1

~on

" ~

TABLE 8

Men

I "'° .-; «\

It'"

~

.:>J

~

Readers %

K"'N""::!"OO

~60N

It~i:i:l

~

All

~

Jeremy Tunstall

The British Press in the Age of Television

Roy Thomson and the conglomerate which bears his name played a key role in this transformation. Many of the old press families were both suspicious and disapproving of commercial television and refused the opportunity of an ownership stake; Roy Thomson, on his Canadian experience, made no such error. As owner of The Scotsman he went on to take an 800/0 interest in Scottish Television-the lTV station serving highly populated central Scotland; this was his famous 'license to print money'. In 1959 Thomson bought the Kemsley newspapers-including the Sunday Times and a major provincial chain. Thomson was now a major force in both television and newspapers. The next step in the sequence resulted from Thomson's unhappiness at being so heavily dependent on volatile advertising revenue. So he diversified into books and package holidays. In 1966 he bought The Times. And, he also diversified into North Sea Oil. This last was so successful that by 1976, when he died, the stock market already saw Thomson shares as oil shares. A press based company had become an oil based conglomerate. Equally instructive is the transformation of the Daily Mirror into IPC, and then into the Reed paper-based conglomerate. The Daily Mirror only finally threw off its upper class readers in the late 1930s; in the war and immediately after 1945 it acquired a massive working class audience. Like Thomson, the Mirror group went into commercial television and by the late 1950s was brimming over with cash. In two years-through a series of takeovers-it bought enormous heaps of London press, especially magazine companies; these heaps of publications were then called the International Publishing Corporation. Many of IPC's properties had a poor future-not only the Daily Herald but also the women's magazines, and the enormous printing plant capacity. By 1970 IPC was taken over by one of its former subsidiaries, the Reed paper company. Other press companies have gone the conglomerate way. The disparate Cowdray press interests in 1967 were re-organised into the Pearson- . Longman group, itself part of a banking-based conglomerate. The old Northcliffe/Associated group-owning the Daily Mail and the big Northcliffe provincial chain-has also struck oil and is also seen by the stock market as an oil share. Finally in 1977 just as the Royal Commission was reporting, the Beaverbrook group-the largest and most eccentric of the remaining family firms-was bought by Trafalgar House (a shipping, construction and real estate conglomerate): Within a decade conglomerate control had become the predominant form of press ownership in Britain. This pattern does not exist in most

lmnparable countries, and constitutes, therefore, an important form of uniqueness in the British media. What its consquences will be also, perhaps, constitutes the greatest conundrum in the British media.

30

II/creasing Polarisation The wave of conglomerisation is only one part of a series of major changes which pre-dated and coincided with the 1974-77 Royal Commission on the Press. As with diversification into lTV in the mid 1950s, the oil price rises of the 1970s promised a bonanza to those who had diversified into oil, while savagely penal ising those that had not. 1973 was a boom year for the British press, with advertising so plentiful that many papers could not accommodate it. But in 1974 the press was hit by mammoth rises in costs (especially of newsprint), general economic crisis, inflation and falling revenue. These were all background factors in increasing polarisation in the British press between the prestige and popular nationals, between nationals and provincials and between newspapers and magazines. But the most dramatic foreground factor was Rupert Murdoch and The Sun. Murdoch having acquired the News of the World (in 1968) applied his techniques to The Sun (which he bought from IPC in 1969). The Sun rapidly built sales by concentrating on the old formula of sex, crime and sport; the Daily Mirror was forced largely to abandon its 1960s middle market pretentions. The tabloidisation of the popular dailies was completed when the Daily Mail (1971) and the Daily Express (1976) went tabloid. Behind'this transformation were two significant financial facts: I;irstly the high cost ofpaper. Secondly the decline in advertising revenue available to popular nationals (Table 10) and the decline (or disappearance) in the profitability of such advertising as existed. In social class terms the effect is to split the national press into two nations with a vengeance. The prestige and popular national dailies in the 1970s acquired a different physical shape, different goals, different fixms of revenue, and different competition. The four prestige dailies were broadsheet, the populars tabloid. The prestige dailies had a guiding goal- 'prestige'; the popular dailies had aless clear goal or cluster ofgoals to do with entertainment, not losing money and not losing circulation. They also had different forms of revenue. (Table 10). The populars in the 1970s became less and less dependent on advertising-as the revenue from advertising sank down to, or below, the paper and production costs of printing the advertisements. But the 'prestige' papers-with much higher advertising rates per thousand more affluent readers-were 31

Jeremy Tunstall

The British Press in the Age of Television

TABLE 10 Adver[ising Revenue of Newspapers and Periodicals as a proporllvn of [o[al revenue, 1960, 1973, 1975, and Display and ClassIfied Adverllsing as a propor[ion of !O[al adverlising 1975. Percl'1Uages

Total advertising revenue as a proportion of total revenue 1960

1973

1975

Display

Classified

45 73 46 79 61 58 62

36 70 38 74 72

27 58 31 66 61

85 62 91 68 37

38 9 32 63

67

60

39

61

79

84

84

44

56

46 78

39 64

37 62

93 71

7 29

Newspapers

National popular daily National quality daily National popular Sunday National quality Sunday London Evening Provincial morning Provincial evening Provincial Sunday Provincial weekly Periodicals

General and leisure interests Trade and Technical

Display and classified advertising as proportions of total advertising in 1975

n.il.

and all national newspapers. Because Fleet Street still brings prestige are too many national newspapers, too little revenue and too much ,ompetition-competition which (in the TV age) is now all too real. This national press is subsidised in several cases directly by provincial chains, whose purpose is to make money some of which the nationals can then lose. Yet another form ofpolarisation exists between national magazines and national newspapers. Since in Britain very few national magazines are thought to confer prestige, their fate is to make profits or to die. I here

IS

Sources: 1960: Royal Commission on the Press 1961-62, 1973, 1975: national newspapers and London evenings, Royal Commission on the press 1974-77, remainder Business Monitor PQ 485.

n.a. =nor available. Source: Royal CommIssion on dIe Press 1974-7.

dependent mainly on advertising; thus their financial goal ofmaintaining the desired affluent readership, to deliver to advertisers, was in line with the more general 'prestige' goal. Prestige nationals had another kind of backing-subsidy. The Guardian has been massively subsidised ever since it began printing in London; The Times has been heavily subsidised since it was bought by Thomson. But again even this form of ' revenue' is consistent with a general 'prestige' goal. It is only if you make the equation 'prestige equals power' that you can't be quite Sure what the goal of prestige papers is these days. But polarisation between social classes is perhaps the most obvious consequence of this national press pattern (Table 2). In particular while many middle class people still read the Daily Mail or the f)(l1/v Express very few working class people read any of the four prest ige national dailies. A somewhat similar polarisation exists withlll provincial newspapers-working class evenings make profits, whIle Illornings lose money. But a more marked polarisation exists between ;111 prnvincials

rhe Goals of the Press

How, then, can we summarise the goals ofthe British press? One useful distinction may be that while magazines have single specialised and commercial goals, newspapers have a mixture of goals. The majority of British newspapers have been in existence since before the first world war. This means that newspapers have traditions; they have printing plants and printing workers-and production is commercially seen as the core of the enterprise. The dominance of the production orientation is seen not only in ancient plant and practices, but also in the widespread belief that 'new technology' can solve almost any problem. Newspapers have a closely related circulation goal-the sales figure is seen by everyone, including journalists, as the single key indicator. Related to this is the advertising revenue goal; and, as Graham (:Ieverley has argued, selling advertising can become a goal so blindly pursued that whether it is profitable becomes a minor consideration. 8 Finally there is the general prestige goal. Some forms of journalism are aligned with one goal, others with other goals. Politics aligns with the prestige goal, subjects like fashions and motoring with the advertising goal, while subjects of ever faithful audience appeal-like crime and sport-align with the circulation goal. 9 These various goals combine together into a mixture of goals, and most battles within newspapers are to do with defining what exactly the mixture of goals is or how it should be altered. Functionalism) Marxism and Ambiguity

Britain now has a daily press which is social class polarised to an extent probably greater than that in any other major industrial nation. Japan's newspapers, which are similarly nationally dominated are not similarly class stratified. The dominant press medium in most other industrial countries is a provincial daily press which appeals across a broad social

32 33

Jeremy Tunstall

The British Press in the Age oj Television

class spectrum. Secondly, Britain now also is an extreme example of a country whose press is predominately owned by conglomerate and multi-national companies whose main profits and concerns are in other industries. Britain has since 1960 become the leading example in the world of a pattern ofownership previously found in inter-war Germany and France and in more recent times in Latin-America and Italy. 10 In 1960 it would have been difficult to make the case that the British press was an Ideological State Apparatus. However, the empirical facts have come much more into line with what would previously have been a Marxist caricature; this is especially so in the case of British press involvement with the international oil industry-since oil, of couse, is an industry where the state is directly and commercially involved with multi-national companies. Almost any Marxist critique of the British press would presumably assert that it is mainly under cartel control with the bulk of press profits being monopoly profits, that big business has bought up the British press in order to silence radical criticism and to control the national polictical agenda, that the affluent readers ofLondon prestige papers like The Times are subsidised by working class readers of monopoly provincial papers, and the present national tabloid sales war is an illustration not only ofthe manufacture offalse consciousness but also of the inherently self-destructive tendencies of capitalism. The present state of the British press could, however, also be quite easily explained in functional terms. Talcott Parsons has indeed used the analogy of the commercial market in a basically optimistic view of the United States media. Parsons could point to the undoubted element of competition both between and within press and television in Britain. The expansion of the prestige press (and its underpinning of advertising) in recent decades can be seen as broadly benign; and while the tabloid sales war may be deplored, these papers can also be seen as relatively harmless products of mass culture which reflect the realities of popular taste, and which in any case are now only support-media to the main working class medium in Britain-the world's least worst television. As to the ownership of the press by oil companies, conglomerates and multinationals-this can be seen as a genuinely public-spirited act whose very overtness and obvious potential for corrupt self-interest is more likely to lead to exaggerated probity and an unusual degree of autonomy for journalists. Marxists and functionalists can often agree on the facts. Ambiguity is especially common in the mass media content; indeed news values

represent deliberate ambiguity-such as the preference for 'two sides' reporting which allows for selective audience perception, or the personality news canon which favours the building up ofpublic figures as a preliminary to knocking them down. Thus it should not be too surprising that radically different interpretations can be attached to events in the press industry itself.

34

The City University, London

I

Based on Advertising Association annual estimates.

J

41 per 100 population in 1976 against 39 per 100 in 1930.

J

Alan Lee: The.Originsofthe Popular Press, 1855-1914, Croom Helm, London, 1976, p.

286 .

• Political and Economic Planning: Report on the British Press, P.E.P., London, 1938, pp.59-60 , J. E. Gerald: The British Press under Government Economic Controls, University of Minnesota Press, 1956, p. 34. 6

op. cit. pp. 47-49.

James Curran: 'The Impact of Television on the Audience for National Newspapers' in Jeremy Tunstall (ed.): Media Sociology, Constable, London, 1970, pp. 104-131. 7

, Graham Cleverley: The Fleet Street Disaster, Constable, London, 1976. , Jeremy Tunstall: Journalists at Work, Constable, London, 1971. 10

Jeremy Tunstall: The Media Are American, Constable, London, 1977.

35

CLASS, POWER, AND THE PRESS: PROBLEMS OF CONCEPTUALISATION AND EVIDENCE

Graham Murdock

/1I(mduetion 'I he central truth about newspapers (is) that they are what they are because human nature is what it is .. , Their content cannot go beyond the range of their readers. It is Iherefore the readers, in the end, who are the figures of power',' 'whatever else the immense output of the mass media is intended to achieve, it is also intended to help prevent the development of class-consciousness in the working dass, . ,the fact remains that "the class which has the means of material production at lis disposal" does have "control at the same time of the means of mental production"; and it does seek to use them for the weakening ofopposition to the established order."

\'11 E term

'capitalist' has often carried a double meaning in discussions of British press. On the one hand it is a straightforward description of r he industry's economic organisation. Indeed, of the major mass media \lTtorS, it remains one of the most purely capitalistic. Ownership is still ,oncentrated exclusively in private hands and unlike broadcasting, key alll1cative decisions are hedged around by the minimum of statutory Il·gulation. For many commentator's however, 'capitalist' also specifies I he ultimate source of control over press production and content and lilt! icates the uses to which this power is put. They regard, newspapers as a,~encies of domination, run by or on behalf of the capitalist class, to disseminate images and explanations which legitimate their privileges ;11Il] powers. The locus classicus for this position is of course Marx's celebrated ;Issertion that the 'class which has the means ofmaterial production at its disposal' can and does regulate the production and distribution of ideas III order to ensure that their view of the world becomes pervasive and dominates the mental horizons of the non-possessing classes. The problem with this is that it is an assertion. While it suggests crucial ,onnections between economic possession, ideological domination and ,lass power, it does nothing to show how these linkages operate in practice. It is a programmatic statement awaiting substantiation. Marx periodically returned to this problem throughout his later writings and outlined two parallel approaches, which I shall call for convenience, the 'instrumental' and the 'structural' J The 'instrumental' approach which IS most evident in his polemical writings, presents the press as an Instrument ofthe capitalist class or segments within it, and focuses on the t he

37

Graham Murdock

ways in which they influence and control production in line with their interests. Since direct evidence of the pragmatics of control is comparatively rare however, 'instrumental' analyses tend to fall back on inferences drawn from the patterns of interconnection between press personnel and key segments of capital, and from the ideological complexion of newspaper content. 4 In contrast, the 'structural' approach which is embedded in Marx's mature economic work, directs attention away from the intentions and actions of press proprietors and capitalists and concentrates instead on the ways in which the underlying dynamics of the capitalist economic system structure both the operational strategies and output of newspapers. Both these approaches continue to dominate radical critiques down to the present. Of the two, 'instrumentalism' has enjoyed the greater popularity and influence. At its crudest it slips easily into assertions of conspiracy and direct manipulation, but more sophisticated variants, such as the one developed by Ralph Miliband, continues to command a central place in current academic debates. Recent years however, have also seen a renewed interest in structural analysis. This has generated two main currents of work; one grounded in the work of Louis Althusser and the other stemming from the revival of Marxist political economy and applied to the press by John Westergaard, and others. These differing radical approaches are strongly opposed in turn by the vigorous pluralism which underpins both the newspaper industry's own account of its structure and operations, and the analyses offered by prominent commentators and academics such as John Whale and Jay Blumler. Although newspapers are consistently assigned a key place in both pluralist and radical discussions of power and legitimation in contemporary Britain, there has been surprisingly little sustained sociological discussion of the problems involved in analysing the relations between class, power, and the press. The present paper attempts to begin filling this gap by taking a critical look at the problems of conceptualisation and evidence raised by the major approaches currently on offer. Pluralist Perspectives 'Queslion. What are the misunderstandings about the press which tend to invalidate current criticism? Answer. Most of the misunderstandings about the press arise from a narve belief that what appears in the papers is the product ofa conspiracy by owners or editors, perhaps in collusion with advertisers or with the Establishment. Life is not so simple. The truth is ... that things get left out of newspapers by accident, and by personal blunders ... Newspapers are al ways in the last resort, improvisations; the end product is often very different from the one planned the previous midday'. '

38

Class, Power and the Press: Problems oj Conceptualisation and Evidence

Against the radical claim that ownership of the means of production remains the paramount source of power in advanced capitalist societies, pluralists assert that power has been progressively dispersed, producing a plurality of independent elites and interest groups all competing to strengthen their position and extend their influence. Capital ownership is simply one source of power among a number of others, significant certainly, but not necessarily dominant. As the prominent American I heorist Robert Dahl has put it; 'because one centre ofpower is set against another, power will be tamed'. 6 Despite the barrage of withering criticism directed against it by a succession of radical commentators, pluralism has proved remarkably resilient, and nowhere more so than in analyses of the press. Versions of pluralism continue to permeate a good llcal of academic commentary and to underpin the industry's self presentations. The quotation which heads this section, taken from the Alirror Group's evidence to the recent Royal Commission on the Press, I ypifIes the assertive tone of this professional ideology. As in this Instance, the plausibility of the argument is often strengthened by l'lmtrasting it with the weakest of the available alternatives-the crude Il1strumentalism of conspiracy theory. Pluralists de-centre the power of capital in two main ways; by concentrating on the relations between the press and the spheres of the slate and the political, and by stressing the progressive separation of llwnership and control within modern newspaper enterprises. Against the radical stress on the growing concentration of capital, pluralists point to the increasing centralisation and extension of the modern state and to the consequent increase in the power of state functionaries and politicians. Within this definition of the situation, the I'n:ss presents itself as an autonomous force, independent of both the slate and the political parties. This claim is endorsed by two prominent katures ofBritain's press structure. Firstly, there is the fact that no major lIewspapers are owned or directly controlled by the state. Of course their loutine operations are hedged around in a number ofother, less directive, ways. They are subject to a range of legislative restrictions on the Il'porting of state and political affairs and emersed in a network of Illformal rules governing the relations between journalists and their sources within the various state apparatuses. Not surprisingly, these l'mbargos are a prominent and perennial source ofcomment and concern ;l1l1ong newsmen. Even so, they argue, within the limits set by these ll'strictions, the press's financial independence enables it to fulfil its historic role as the 'Fourth Estate'; the custodian and representative of 39

Graham Murdock

the public interest, vigilant against abuses of state and municipal power, ready to expose mismanagement, self-serving and corruption among bureaucrats and civil servants. The press's claim to independence is further reinforced by the fact that unlike the situation in a number of continental countries, none of the major British newspapers is financed by the main political parties. As a consequence, it is argued, they are released from the pressure to follow partisan political interests, and are free to criticise the behaviour of politicians and the performance of their parties without fear or favour. Taken together then, the papers' financial independence from the state and from the major parties is seen as guaranteeing their autonomy from powerful vested interests and underwriting their ability to act as the guardian and voice of the general interest. Within the prevailing professional wisdom of the newspaper industry then, 'freedom' of the press is synonymous with the 'free' play ofmarket forces and the absence ofdirect state control. At first sight this emphasis on the market seems to open the way for the reintroduction of the power ofcapital. However, as we shall see presently, this possibility is neatly deflected by the tenet of 'consumer sovereignty' which turns the radical account of economic power on its head. The pressmens' concentration on their relations with the state and with political interest groups is reproduced within academic studies of the press where these areas have long been a dominant focus oftheorising and research. Nor is this attention entirely misplaced. On the contrary, it touches on real and important issues. The ways in which the various divisions of the state, particularly the military, police and intelligence services, exercise control over news gathering and publishing certainly merits sustained investigation. Similarly, there are important questions to be asked about the press's relation to politicians, to the government of the day, and to the political process in general. Nor is the newspaper's claim to be independent and critical without foundation. They are relatively autonomous, they do criticise politicians and state personnel, they do expose malpractice and mismanagement. They certainly are not the passive mouthpieces of the political establishment. Nevertheless, by decentring capital and concentrating so centrally on the spheres of the state and the political, pluralism necessarily produces a partial account. Most crucially, it glosses over the relations between these spheres and the core segments of monopoly and finance capital. 7 The second major way in which pluralists downgrade the power of capital is by presenting a variant of the 'Managerial Revolution' thesis 40

Class, Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

stressing the separation of ownership and operational control within contemporary newspaper companies. They point to the passing of the 'Press Barons' and to the fact that present-day proprietors are less and less inclined to intervene in editorial decision making. Whereas the old-style press magnates like Beaverbrook saw their newspapers as mouthpieces for their pet ideas and political convictions, modern owners it is argued, confme themselves to taking general decisions about resource allocation and market strategy and leave their editors to translate them into journalistic practice. As the country's largest press group told the recent Royal Commission: 'There was a time when the group's central policy was imposed by the Chairman. This is no longer the case. The Chairman behaves towards editors like a constitutional monarch. He may encourage and warn .... Within these mild limits editors are free to edit their papers'."

However, pluralists argue, this strengthening in the position ofeditors has been checked in turn by the growing power of journalists which has accompanied the rapid expansion of specialist correspondents and the growth of investigative journalism. According to one senior pressman, Anthony Howard, this 'emergence ofthe individual journalist as a star in his own right' constitutes the most significant change in British lIewspapers over the last 25 years'. 9 This dispersal ofoperational control, has it is argued, produced a greater diversity of press output and viewpoint. Since decision-making is decentralised newspapers are now more likely than in the past 'to give notice to those diverse ways oflooking at social issues that a pluralistic society will generate'. 10 According to this view then, press presentations are shaped primarily by the interests and dlTisions of journalists and editors and by the accidents and exigencies of t he daily production schedule. As John Whale has put it; 'Our product is put together by large and shifting groups ofpeople, often in a hurry, out of an assemblage of circumstances that is never the same twice. Newspapers could almost be called random reactions to random events . Again and again, the main reason why they turn out as they do is aL·cident'.ll As with all effective professional ideologies this one contains a considerable core of truth. Modern British newspapers are not a simple rei ay system for the interests and opinions ofproprietors, advertisers and other members of the capitalist class. Editors and journalists do enjoy a large measure of autonomy in their day-to-day operations. What appears III print does reflect their decisions and their professional judgements. (:onsequently, an adequate critical approach must take account of these 41

Graham Murdock

features. At the same time however, research has consistently undermined the claim that accident, contingency and personalised journalistic response are the major determinants ofpress coverage. In the first place, analyses ofnewspaper content have revealed that the coverage in a number of important areas-race, welfare, industrial relations-displays a high degree of consistency both across papers and through time. Despite the immediate appearance of constant flux, the underlying repertoires ofstereotypes and styles ofpresentation appear to be remarkably resilient and resistant to change. 12 Secondly, evidence from studies of news production firmly indicates that these Continuities in content are securely rooted in routinised practices of news gathering and processing underpinned by stable criteria of newsworthiness. Moreover, it can be plausibly argued that these professional values and practices evolved historically as accommodations to the changing market situation of the press, a point I shall return to presently. At this juncture then, the question of external constraints and the limits of journalistic autonomy re-enter the argument.

i

I'I

I

Pluralists acknowledge the importance and impact of market constraints but they locate the decisive economic power with the readers. In the end they argue, it is the tastes and demands ofconsumers which set the limits to editorial autonomy. As the Mirror Group told the McGregor Commission:

II 'The editor has to produce a newspaper which the management can sell and if he cannot do that, he has to go. He may produce a beautiful paper, loved by the staff, praised in every bar in Fleet Street, spoken well of in uni versity departments and at dinners attended by statesmen. But if sales are going persistently down, the editor cannot be kept in office.' IJ

Reader satisfaction is not the only factor shaping newspaper policy however. There is also the need to attract advertising revenue, and this imperative eXerts its own determinations. As Nora Beloff, a staunch pluralist, has recently conceded; 'the editor's knowledge that his paper's survival depends on attracting advertisements cannot fail to affect the nature of the product. In the present economic situation it has come to mean that he must either produce a newspaper which will be read by the millions or one which will attract the big spenders. The rich and the business executives are the only minority groups fully catered for'. 14 While they concede that the market power ofadvertisers poses a problem for their position, pluralists refuse to accept this as a key instance of capital's continuing influence over the range of available newspapers and coverage. Instead they fall back on the tenet ofconsumer sovereignty and 42

Class, Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence ~iterate

that since what advertisers are buying is readers' attention, it is who exercise the final control. As John Whale reaffirmed in his latest hook; 'the broad shape and nature ofthe press is ultimately determined by //0 one but its readers'. 15 Radical approaches to the relations between the press and the distribution of power offer a head-on challenge to this argument by I~asserting the continuing and decisive power of capital. As noted above however, they are sharply divided on the question of how exactly this power is exercised and made effective. I

Ih~y

l'arieties of Instrumentalism 'All the national newspapers have large property holdings, and substantial links with a wide range of financial and industrial undertakings . . . They are thus closely integrated with Monopoly Capita! as a whole. In the light of (this) it is not surprising that the national capitalist newspapers strongly defend private enterprise ... and are overwhelmingly biased in favour of the Right Wing in politics'."

Radical commentaries on the press generally begin by highlighting two aspects of the contemporary situation; the increasing concentration of n~wspaper ownership in the hands oflarge concerns with links to other leading corporations; and the generally unfavourable coverage accorded III the Left. Both these tendencies have been documented by recent lesearch. Investigations of ownership have clearly shown that over the last two decades, newspaper proprietorship has become both more ,ollcentrated and more closely integrated with the core segments of lIlonopoly and finance capital (see Murdock and Golding I 'J78). 30 Similarly, recent research on press content has lent empirical \llpport to the claims that newspapers tend to present a negative image of 1 he Left and the Labour Movement. On the basis of their own extensive review of the evidence for example, the Royal Commission concluded 1hat there was 'no doubt that over most of this century the Labour lIlovement has had less newspaper support than its right wing opponents and that its beliefs and activities have been unfavourably reported by the majority ofthe press.' 17 However, pointing to a correspondence between patterns of ownership and patterns of coverage simply poses a problem f(Jr investigation, it does not explain the nature ofthe linkages involved or how they operate in practice. Instrumentalism approaches this prolem of explanation by examining the social composition of the major press llwning groups, tracing their inter-relations with other dominant s~gments of capital, and by making inferences about the pressures they exert on production. The simplest variants of instrumentalism focus on one-to-one relations between individual capitalists and particular newspapers or press groups. 43

Graham Murdock

Work in this vein therefore concentrates on the influence exercised by newspaper Owners and on the pressures exerted by advertisers to ensure that their products and activities are POrtrayed in a favourable light, Concern with proprietorial manipulation reached its height on the Left during the depression when the propagandist activities of Beaverbrook and the other major Press Barons was widely seen as a major factor in arresting the growth of a general oppositional consciousness among the working class. Although less popular now, conCern with proprietorial news management still retains a certain currency, nor is it solely the prerogative of the Left. The image ofnewspaper owners as 'a tightly knit group of politically motivated men' finds considerable support on the radical right. In their evidence to the Royal Commission for example, the National Front attempted to explain their unfavourable press COverage by evoking their own particular version of the Capitalist-Zionist plot. 'Many patriots have wondered why the Brighton Evening Argus gave such hostile Coverage to the National Front during the local elections ... The reason is that (the paper) along with seventy others, (is) owned by the Westminster Press Group. Sitting on the board is Mr. Jim Rose a Race Relations Industry hack (who) sustains a close liason with the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is devoted to promoting Zionist racial nationalism and multi-raCial cosmopolitanism. The Board exerts a tremendous power Over the press through its ability to organise advertising boycotts of any newspaper that steps out of line'. 18

Despite the fact that this style of argument relies entirely on unsubstantiated inference and innuendo, this stress on the machinations of proprietors and advertisers still finds a niche among the cruder left critiques of the press. According to one recent Soviet analysis for example, fear of lOst revenue leads American papers deliberately to suppress unfavourable information about the products and Operations of the food, drug and insurance companies who are their major advertisers. 19 While instances of Oven pressure may occasionally occur, as a basis for a general approach to the relations between class, pOwer and press performance, this focus on direct intervention is totally inadequate. In the first place it ignores the genuine operational autonomy granted to editorial staff and the strength of their resistance to pressure from proprietors and outside agencies. The Mirror Group's claim that; 'on national newspapers the heavy hand of the proprietor has been generally removed from editors' is by and large an aCcurate characterisation ofthe 20 contemporary situation. Similarly, Nora Beloff h:)s the weight of available evidence on her side when she argues that editors do not 'kowtow to the businessmen who provide the advertisements' or 'accept political strings for column inches of publicity'. 21 For One thing the 44

( :(uss, Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

withdrawal of a single advertiser, even a major one would make only a ,mall dent in the newspaper's overall income. According to one recent ot imate for example, The Times' largest advertiser contributes less than 22 '"1C half of one percent of its total revenue. Moreover, for every case where unfavourable copy can be shown to have been spiked or advertisers' products given a free puff, there are counter instances of ncwspapers printing stories which are highly critical of advertisers' npcrations. The more sophisticated versions of instrumentalism attempt to get around these objections by shifting the analysis to a more general level. Instead of focussing on the way in which proprietors and advertisers seek In influence particular papers, they concentrate on the ways in which the prcss as a whole represents and reflects the general interests of the ,apitalist class. Taking their cue from Marx's famous definition of the 'cxecutive ofthe modern state' as 'a committee for managing the common :Iflairs of the whole bourgeoisie', proponents of this second variant of Illstrumentalism argue that newspapers 'act as a kind of secretariat for ,ommon ruling class interests, and seek to have (them) accepted'. 23 In nrder to argue this case convincingly however, it is necessary to show that press proprietors share the same interests and general outlook as the dominant blocs within the capitalist class. One approach to this problem nr class cohesion, and one which has been widely employed by radical power reseachers working in other areas, is to detail the social ,nnnections and communalities linking the groups. 'The assumption which is at work here is that a common social background and origin, cducation, connections, kinship, and friendship, a similar way of life, Icsult in a cluster of common ideological and political positions and attitudes, common values and perspectives'.24 Support for this line of argument is provided by current research into media elites which point to a number of communalities and connections bewen the leading press owning groups and other key segments of contemporary British capital. 25 Despite the structural shift towards conglomeration (examined below) the traditional pattern of family ownership has shown considerable resilience within the British press. In five out of seven leading concerns, the controlling interests remain in the hands of the original founding families and their associates. Three of these are the direct inheritors of press dynasties founded in the early part of this century or the latter part of the nineteenth. Lord Northcliffe's Daily Mail group remains in the hands ofthe Harmsworths, the Berry family retain control over the Daily 45

"

Graham Murdock

r 1,/11',

Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

Telegraph, and the controlling interest in S. Pearson and Son (which owns the Financial Times and the country's leading chain of local weeklies, The Westminster Press) is still in the hands of descendents of Weetman Pearson, the First Lord Cowdray. The other two-The Thompson Organisation and News International-are dynasties ofmore recent making, but in both cases the controlling interests in the ultimate holding companies are in the hands of the originating families; the Thomsons and Murdochs respectively. Only two out of the top seven, Trafalgar House Ltd (owners of the old Beaverbrook Group) and Reed International (proprietors of the Daily and Sunday Mirror and of The People) approximate in varying degrees to the modern pattern of nonfamily ownership.

Patterns of family ownership are translated into effective allocative control through the members ofthe relevant kin networks Occupying key executive positions within the companies and their major operating subsidiaries. In 1976-77 for example, the board of the Harmsworth holding company, The Daily Mail and General Trust Ltd, was headed by the late Viscount Rothermere, son ofthe co-founder, and included his own son, Hon Vere Harmsworth, his son-in-law, The Earl of Cromer, and his former private secretary, Gerald Sanger. Similarly, the 1977 board of S. Pearson and Son was headed by Lord Cowdray with his cousin Lord Gibson as Deputy Chairman. His nephew, the Duke of Atholl Was chairman of the Westminster Press, and his sister's brotherin-law, the Hon Victor Hare, was Managing Director of the Financial Times. The members of these key kin networks were linked in turn by common patterns of education and a shared pattern of social life. As Table I shows, Viscount Cowdray, the two Berry brothers (Lord Hartwell and Viscount Camrose) together with David Robards and the Earl ofArran, directors ofthe Daily Mail and General Trust Ltd, were all contemporaries at both Eton and Oxford. Oxbridge and Eton also figure prominently in the curriculum vitae of the younger press magnates. ]oclyn Stevens of Beaverbrook Newspapers and the Hon. Vere Harmsworth both went to Eton. The current heads of the two great Commonwealth based press dynasties-Lord Thomson and Rupert Murdoch-although schooled outside England, both Went to Oxbridge, Thomson to Cambridge and Murdoch to Oxford. There ilre of COurse exceptions to this pattern ofprivileged education. Victor Matthews, the Managing Director ofTrafalgar House and the new head ofBeaverbrook Newspapers, went to a state school in Highburyand worked his way up 46

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from the shop floor. Nevertheless this is the exception rather than the rule. Ifwe take the chairmen and vice chairmen of the ten leading press owning concerns and their major newspaper publishing subsidiaries, the resulting group educational profile is remarkably similar to the known profiles for other segments of contemporary capital. In all, 66% of the press sample attended a public school, compared with 71 % of the directors on the boards of Britain's top 200 companies, and 70% ofJohn Wakeford's cross-section of industrial and other elites. 16 Similarly, 62% of the press sample went to either Oxford or Cambridge, as against 60% of the directors of clearing banks and 61 % of those on the boards of merchant banks and discount houses. 27 These educational communalities are further cemented by shared membership of the exclusive social clubs. The most popular club choices among members of the press sample were White's and the Royal Yacht. Both ofthese feature in John Wakeford's list of the twelve most important elite clubs, while Richard Whitley's research indicates that White's is a pivotal node in the social network which links the leading industrial companies to key financial institutions. 28 These shared social and educational communalities, so the argument goes, connect the owners and directors of the leading press concerns to each other and to other key blocs within the capitalist class, and provide a basis for common views and values. Moreover these social connections are further underpinned and reinforced by economic links between the press owning groups and the core sectors of British capital. Table 2 highlights several important features of the newspaper industry's contemporary economic structure. Firstly, it clearly shows that market control is highly concentrated with the seven major daily newspaper publishers accounting together for 85% of the total circulation ofall daily and Sunday papers (provincial as well as national). Smaller firms have fared rather better in the local weekly market and concentration is consequently lower. Even so, the major daily publishers account for almost a quarter (22%) of overall circulation. Secondly, the table shows that the leading press owning concerns are now among the largest companies in the economy. Four out ofseven featured in the list of Britain's top 150 corporations for 1976, with the remaining three in the top 500. The contemporary press has become part of Big Business and as such is more firmly integrated than ever into the structure of monopoly capital. As Table 2 shows, most of the leading newspaper publishing companies are part of diversified conglomerates with interests in a range of industrial and commercial sectors. According to their published 48

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contribution to this volume, is to confuse structures of enterprise with structures of control. Conglomeration does not automatically mean the withering away of family ownership and control. On the contrary, some of the largest and most diversified press empires (S. Pearson and Son and The Thomson Organisation for example) remain under family control. Whatever the resulting pattern of share-owning and control, however, there is no doubt that both movements towards conglomeration have rcinforced and extended the substantive connections between the press and other key sectors of British capital. The emerging links between the press and other sectors are further l'l'mented by the intricate pattern of interlocking directorships. Directorial interlocks can be usefully subdivided into three main types; those connecting corporations to key financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies; those linking them with suppliers, competitors and other organisations in their immediate business environment; and I hose integrating them into the wider network of monopoly capital by Il11king them with the leading enterprises in the economy. Each of these three types fulfills a particular function. l3 Links with financial Illstitutions offer sources ofadvice and expertise and provide channels for I hc negotiation of insurance, loans and so on, on favourable terms. They I hcrefore contribute significantly to the formation of corporate financial policy. 34 Connections with other concerns in their field ofoperations aid nJlllpanies in their efforts to monitor and control their business l'nvironment. Interlocking directorships provide points of information gathering and channels for bargaining and negotiation. 3l Finally, hoardroom links with leading concerns in other sectors play an important I (ile in generating solidarity and common consciousness among the various segments within monopoly capital. They supplement the contact Ill'! works provided by exclusive social clubs, political organisations, and philanthropic and policy committees. However, it can be argued that hoard contacts, along with those within employers' associations, are lIIore significant since they are centrally concerned with the key dlll1cnsion of class consciousness, the opposition between capital and lahour. Recent work certainly suggests that boardroom experience plays .1Il important role in generating a sense of solidarity and common class Illlerests, over and against those of the workforce. 36 The pattern of interlocks among the leading press concerns shown in lahle 3, offers some evidence for the operation of all three of these fUlIctions. With the exception of the Daily Telegraph Ltd all the major pless concerns have directorial links with leading corporations in the

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Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

n'onomy, including several in the 'Top Ten'. In addition, four out ofthe wv\:n are connected to leading insurance companies, five to the clearing hall ks, and five to the elite merchant banks which comprise the Accepting II ouses Committee. In addition to linking the leading press groups to the 'Ill'\: sectors of contemporary British capital, existing interlocks also I'[{)vide channels of communication between them, For example; the fact ! ILl! directors from both News International and Trafalgar House sit on illl' leI board, offers a point of contact between them and facilitates the Itllerchange of information and views on matters of common concern. :\ 1\ o~ether, these 'mediated' interlocks connect Trafalgar House to six of ! hI' other eight leading press concerns; S. Pearson and Son and the Daily ,'\ail group to five; The Thomson Organisation to four; Reed Itllcrnational to three; and News International to one. Analysing the structure of interlocking directorships produces a kind "I 'sociometries of capital' which reveals the patterns of interconnection hel ween newspaper organisations and other leading industrial concerns, .wL! llldicates the key nodes on this network. When it comes to using this Ill;l1aial as the basis for an analysis of power however, an intractable 1'1 oblcm presents itself. This difficulty is also shared by the studies ofthe s
53 52

Ii

Graham Murdock SI alles

into dynamics, and to infer processes of power and control from Itlrmal patterns ofsocial and economic relations and from the patterns of news presentation they produce. Inevitably it fails. However, the fact that it remains rooted within an action-oriented concept ofpower means that it is unable to transcend the problems posed by pluralism and deVelop an alternative explanation ofthe coincidence between patterns of press coverage and the interests of capital. Even more than pluralism, instrumentalism fails to explore the ways in which the repertoire of effective choices open to both owners and editorial personnel is framed and limited by the underlying economic dynamics of newspaper production. It is this emphasis on structural determinations which distinguishes the second major current of radical work. The dominant tendency within this 'structural' current, starts from the 'objective necessities of corporate conduct and the imperatives of the political economy' and goes on to explore the dialectical relations between structural constraints and the actions of press personnel'. 38 Structures and Determinations 'The media work in such a way as 10 create the ideological conditions for the success of conservative politics ... this is not a matter of ,bias' or panisan reponing or conscious distonion of Ihe truth; no evil-minded capitalistic plotters need be assumed. It is an outcome oflhe normal, regular processes by which commercial mass communications work in a capitalist system'. J9

Structural approaches locate the primary connections between class, power and ideology in the mode of production or political economy and the limits it imposes on the choices and actions of press proprietors and personnel, whatever their social origins, social connections or personal commitments. Recent years have seen the emergence of two distinctive styles of structural analysis based on differing characterisations of the organisation of cultural production under modern capitalism. The first, which originates in the work of Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas, stresses the 'political' in political economy and focuses on the role of the state. The other emphasise the 'economic' term in the couplet and concentrates on the structure and dynamics of the private sector. Althusser follows Gramsci in dividing the institutions of the capitalist state into two major types. On the one side ~tand the 'repressive' agencies of the army, police, courts and prisons which underwrite the rule of capital through coercion. On the other side stand the 'Ideological State Apparatuses' (ISAs) which work to engineer the consent of the dominated by disseminating ideology. These ideological agencies include the family, the education system, political parties and trade 54

j

(:Iass, Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

unions, cultural institutions, and last but by no means least, the press and other branches of the communications industries. This formulation Immediately poses a problem. Whereas the 'repressive' apparatuses are all clearly in the public sphere and therefore easily subsumed under a l'onventional definition of the state, a number of the key ideological agencies nominated by Althusser, including the press, remain firmly in I he private sector. As he recognises, anyone spotting this rather obvious anomaly is bound to ask 'by what right' he regards 'as Ideological State Apparatuses, institutions which are quite simply private'.40 Althusser, and Poulantzas, who follows him in this, offer two answers. The first ~t retches the normal definition of the state to include all institutions that maintain 'the cohesion of a social formation and which reproduce the L'(ll1ditions of production by maintaining class domination'. Hence, they argue since 'the institutions in question-the State ideological apparatuses-fill exactly the same function' they must necessarily be part Ilr the state. 41 Two immediate objections can be lodged against this argument. Firstly, it is clearly tautological. Secondly, by abolishing the lrucial empirical distinctions between different forms of capital-state lelations it makes it both unnecessary and impossible to distinguish hetween fascism, corporatism and liberal democracy. Althusser and Poulantzas's second line of defence is to argue that the distinction between public and private institutions is 'purely juridical', an ideological smokescreen which operates to obscure the profound Identity between the two arms ofruling class power. 42 Although the ISAs are relatively autonomous in their operations, their conditions of nistence are nonetheless ultimately guaranteed by the institutions of repression. They therefore operate in Althusser's phrase 'behind the "~hield" provided by the repressive State apparatus', 4J They may be the ",love on the fist of class domination but it is the fist that shapes the glove and which carries the force of the final punch. Again there are problems with this argument. In liberal democratic capitalist states such as Britain, 'he autonomy of the press cannot be reduced simply to a legal fiction. On the contrary, a large measure ofgenuine and substantive independence is absolutely necessary if the press is to operate effectively as an ideological apparatus. It enables newspapers to present themselves as tribunes of the people, representing 'us' (the ordinary folk) over against 'them' (the politicians, civil servants and bureaucrats) thereby decentring the lontradictions between capital and labour. Now while this opposition hl'tween the state and the press-people is ideological it is not entirely illusory. The press frequently criticises the personnel and operations of I he

55

'I Graham Murdock

state institutions and consistently opposes further state intervention in the private sphere. Althusser's cavalier dismissal of press autonomy stems from his tendency to treat state power and class power as more or less synonymous. This is the second major problem with his argument. As Ralph Miliband has forcefully pointed out, although 'the state is in all respects the ultimate sanctioning agency of class power' in liberal democratic states it is not the only channel through which this power operates. 'Class power is the general and persuasive power which a dominant class exercises in order to maintain and defend its predominance in "civil society". This class power is exercised through many institutions and agencies'. Some, like the educational system are operated by the state, but others including the press, remain under the private ownership and control of members of the dominant class. 44 It is not necessary to endorse Miliband's particular brand of instrumentalism in order to accept the necessity of maintaining a clear distinction between class power and state power. Without it, it is impossible to address the complex and contradictory relations between the dominant segments of capital and the key groups commanding the state apparatuses. As a Marxist, Althusser insists on 'the determination in the last instance' by the economic mode of production, yet he consistently fails to specify or examine how exactly economic determinations operate to structure the range and forms of ideological production. Indeed, he displaces the dynamics of capital from the centre of his analysis and concentrates on the state. Having set out to combat economism he inadvertently ends up reinforcing the structure of attention of pluralism. The second current of structural analysis, which I shall call for convenience 'the political economy' approach, attempts to redress this imbalance by focusing on the ways in which economic dynamics shape the operations and output of the press and the other mass media. This position is underpinned by a particular concept of power, which John Westergaard has recently outlined as follows: 'Many social sciemists talk about power-or control as if these necessarily involve action by individuals or groups. On this view it is indeed only people-individually or collectively-who wield power; and their power is recognisable by their actions. So, to fllld out where the power lies in a society, one must identify an elite, or several elites, who make decisions. It is certainly relevant to do that. But it is hardly enough.l'or that sort ofapproach, on its own, neglects the poim that individuals or groups may have the effectlve benefits of "power" without needing to exercise it in positive action ... They do not need to do so-for much of the time at least-simply because things work their way in any case.'"

56

(:lass, Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

According to this argument, it is the structure and dynamics of the ,apitalist economy which principally determines the organisation and performance ofthe press. Proprietors and other capitalists do not need to Illtervene in newspaper productiuon since the logic of the prevailing market structure ensures that by and large the output endorses rather than opposes their general interests. As a result to quote Westergaard a~ain: 'the character of media "dependence on capital'" is 'more a matter ofthe logic ofinertia than of subjection to active manipulations'. 46 While direct intervention is not ruled out by this argument, it is seen as symptomatic ofa breakdown or interruption in the normal working ofthe system and not as the dominant mode through which class power is exercised and made effective. The press is therefore regarded as operating on behalf of the capitalist class but not necessarily at its behest. In developing this analysis, 'the political economy' approach tackles the twO basic tenets of pluralism -consumer sovereignty and the autonomy of production. As noted earlier, pluralists argue that 'the broad shape and nature ofthe presS is ultimately determined by no one but its readers'. 41 The available evidence tends to contradict this assertion however. 48 The closures ofthe Daily Herald and the News Chronicle clearly demonstrated that consumer satisfaction is no guarantee of economic viability within the existing market structure. Surveys indicated that both papers commanded loyal and enthusiastic readerships that were considerably larger than those for the Times, Financial Times and Guardian combined. Unfortunately they did not fit the prevailing market logic which demanded either mass ,"irculations or affiuent minorities. Their sales were not sufficent to put them in the former category and the fact that their readers tended to be concentrated among the unaffiuent working class made them an unviable minority in the eyes ofadvertisers. Consequently they closed, against the wishes of their readers. The consumers' relative lack of sovereignty is further confirmed by the recent history ofthe titles which have survived. According to the information gathered by the recent Royal Commission, most national daily newspapers were operating at a loss in the mid 'seventies. Their survival depended solelyon their owners' desire to keep them alive and their ability to sustain the losses involved. Conversely, as the collapse of the Scottish Daily News clearly showed, papers run by companies lacking the necessary financial backing will inevitably go under. In fact, only the major concerns are in a position to sustain existing titles or launch new ones in the major newspaper markets, since only they have the resources to underwrite the requisite launch costs and

57

Graham Murdock (/tlSI,

the inevitable losses on the first year or two of trading. In the prevailing market situations then, 'the underlying logic of cost operates systematically, consolidating the position of groups already established and eXcluding groups who lack the capital base for successful entry. Thus the voices which survive will largely belong to those least likely to criticise the prevailing distribution of wealth and power' while 'those most likely to challenge these arrangements are unable to publicize their dissent or opposition because they cannot command the resources needed for effective communication to a broad audience'. 49 But, pluralists reply, exclusion from the market cannot be equated with the denial of an effective voice because the range of social and political opinion is already adequately presented by the existing range of titles. Since the newspaper's content 'cannot go beyond the range of their readers' it is still 'the readers, in the end, who are the figures ofpower'. 50 This is at best a half truth. Throughout its history, the popular commercial press has operated through incorporation. It has consistently taken central elements in popular culture and attitudes, reworked and embellished them, and played them back to their working class readers. To that extent the popular press does articulate the interests and concerns of its audiences. However, it is a sizeable jump from saying that press presentations tap genuine strands in working class consciousness to saying that the two are co-extensive. Certainly there is evidence to indicate that the mass press offers at best an incomplete and partial reflection of popular consciousness. It tends to play upon those ideological currents which are consonant with the status quo-nationalism, sexism, deference to inherited wealth and so on. Conversely, it tends to underplay and downgrade the radical socialist currents embedded in the left wings ofthe Labour Party and trade union movement. Moreover, during the last two decades support for these radical currents within the national press has declined still further. Ofthe two major popular dailies prepared to give a sympathetic hearing to socialist ideas and policies, the News Chronicle has folded and the Dally Herald has been transformed into the 'new' Sun. Under Rupert Murdoch's proprietorship, the Sun more than doubled its circulation in six years, climbing from 1.6 millions in 1970 to 3.7 millions in 1976. This spectacular SUccess was based on reviving the tried-and-tested formulas of popular Sunday and tabloid journalism-pin-ups, sensation, human interest stories, contests, giveaways, and saturation coverage of the 'heroes of consumption', the stars of film, television, pop and sport. In response, the Sun's main 58

I

Power and the Press: Problems oj Conceptualisation and Evidence

•Illllpetitor, the Dai(v Mirror, has adopted many of the same strategies 11I1l~ressively distancing itself from its previous support for socialism in [he process. Clearly, the Sun formula does speak to a strong current Within working class culture, but it does not exhaust it. Paradoxically, the III llgressive deletion of radical opinion within the press has coincided With a resurgence of political radicalism and industrial militancy. SlIl1llarly, at the local level, the consolidation of press monopoly and llilsensus presentation has coincided with a resurgence of radical •'lll1lTIunity action. According to the 'political economy' argument, these \ 'HllIter currents are denied effective representation within the major /ll'wspaper market, not only because their proponents lack the resources Il'q uired to enter the market as competitors, but also because the plevailing market dynamics operate to push existing titles towards nonI llillentious and consensual forms of presentation. Hence, so the .11 ~l1lTIent goes, although journalists have a high degree of operational ;lulonomy, their range of choice is framed and determined by the l'lllnomics of newspaper production. These determinations are seen as working at several levels. Some stem directly from current market "lnditions while others carry the imprint of the press's commercial l·volution. But in both instances, it is argued these determinations operate to structure the coverage in ways which are consonant with general interest and ideologies of capital. lktween 1961 and 1976, the aggregate daily circulation of the popular /lal ionals dropped by two millions, from 13.9 millions to 11.9 millions. 51 Surviving papers have therefore been competing for a steadily shrinking market against a background ofrapidly escalating costs. In response, they have attempted to broaden their circulation bases by cutting across Ideological and class divisions and appealing to the widest possible cross~eetion of the potential readership. This has had several important l'lHlsequences for the range and nature oftheir coverage. In the first place 11 has led to an increasing concentration on the areas ofpersonal life and l'lmsumption-health, fashion, leisure, personal relations, holidays, motoring, and so on. Commercially these areas have the obvious appeal of being non-contentious, broadly appealing and attractive to potential advertisers. Ideologically however, these emphases have several Important effects. By reinforcing the division between public and private spheres, between production and consumption, they sever the connections crucial to the development of critical consciousness. Moreover, they bolster what Jean Braudillard has called the 'ideology of leisure' by suggesting that shared access to consumer and leisure styles I

59

II I Graham Murdock

can transcend structured inequalities and that 'Opposed to the hierarchy of power and social origins there would be a democracy ofleisure, of the motorway, and the refrigerator'. 52 Secondly, it is argued, attemps to reach a broad cross section of available readers has meant a progressive convergence on the ideological middle ground and a concentration on values and assumptions that are already widely accepted and endorsed. Increasingly therefore, the press works within the prevailing consensus formed around the core values of capitalism-private enterprise, profit and the 'free' market-is generally critical of the public sector and opposed to the further extension of public ownership and control. Although this argument still awaits substantiation from detailed content analysis, it receives some support from a recent pilot study of the press coverage of the public sector and private enterprise. Whereas, over two thirds (67.8%) ofthe sampled articles on private business and commerce presented a positive image, the corresponding proportion for stories about the public services was just over a tenth (11.1 %).5) Certainly the major dailies were unanimously against the recent suggestions for nationalising the banks, and perhaps not surprisingly, were even more adamantly opposed to the modest proposals for public newspaper printing facilities put forward by the dissenting minority report to the McGregor Commission. In this way, the argument goes, the popular press deftly combines the endorsement of consensus with a vociferous populism presented as radicalism. In John Westergaard's words: 'when they attack and "expose", their targets are not the routine power of capital, property and profit in common affairs: occasionally of course, business malpractices-the "unacceptable face of capitalism"-but far more regularly officialdom-bumbledon, the "big battalions" of government, of unions rather than business'. 54 Over and above these immediate consequences of adaptations to the current market situation, the commercial structure of the press is also seen as exerting more surreptitious but no less important determinations in the form of residues from past accommodations to the market. Sociological studies of newspaper production have consistently shown that the manufacture of news is framed by a distinctive set of journalistic criteria ofnewsworthiness, and by the routine practices ofgathering and processing through which these values are operationalised. These 'new values' and practices it is argued, evolved historically in response to the press's changing market situation and still carry the imprint of this legacy. 55 There were two main phases in this development. In the first, the press succeeded in freeing itself from direct government control and

('I
Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

nlahlished itself as a commercial service catering for the needs and Intl:rests of elite groups. This development had an important and I llntinuing impact on notions of news. Content studies have repeatedly ,illlwn that news is still predominantly about the actions and opinions of ..111l:S. Not all elites are equally attended to however. News tends to \ llllCentrate on political elites and to give comparatively little coverage to financial and industrial elites. This skew of attention is explicable in I nms of the press's struggle to establish itself as an independent Fourth ht ate and the continuing importance of this self conception of its I llntemporary practice. Nevertheless, it has the pertinent effect of divorcing power from property ownership and identifying political and ,'all' office as the prime sources ofpower. In this way news presentations Lilitly endorse a pluralist model of contemporary capitalim in which the I apltalist class virtually disappears from view as a key power bloc. In the second major phase of its modern development lommercialisation accelerated and the press reached out for a mass audience. This movement has had several important consequences for I hl: cvolution of news values. Intensified competition further reinforced the stress on recency and speed and identified news firmly with current evcnts. This has several pertinent effects. The concentration on the IlIlmediate present edges out the accounts of process and history nl:l'Cssary for critical understanding. Despite the appearance ofrapid and I (Instant change, news ultimately presents an image of stasis, of the I ydical recurrence of familiar happenings-Murders, natural disasters, IOUP d'etats, strikes. News severs events from their historical preconditions and reconnects them through a stable stock of images. They appear the same because they look the same. News naturalises history. In addition, news personalises events. Again there are sound (ommercial reasons for this. Focusing on individual action fits easily with daily production schedules and offers points of intelligibility, Interest and identification for readers. Nevertheless, together with the 'event orientation' it offers a particular view of social structure and process. It tends to transform structured inequalities into individual differences. 'No more classes, only a cloud of individuals; no more history, only a mosaic of events; this is the daily message'. 56 Events only qualify for presentation as news when they reach a certain magnitude and visibiltiy and assume forms that are amenable to processing within the twenty four hour cycle of newspaper production. Ilence industrial relations become news in the form of disputes and strikes, social and political conflict in the form of demonstrations and

60 61

II

Graham Murdock

public disturbances. This emphasis on 'negative' events, on fractures in the social fabric surreptitiously normalises the status quo. Everyday life under capitalim becomes the taken-for-granted base from which to describe and assess interruptions and challenges. This tendency is further reinforced by another historic compromise with commercialism. The attempt to reach a broadly based mass audience habitually tugs newspaper presentations towards the terrain of consensus, towards images of communality; of peoples' shared location as consumers, as citizens ofthe Nation, and inheritors ofthe 'British way ofIife'. It invites participation in the rituals of solidarity which Philip Elliott explores in his contribution to this volume. The convergence on consensus described above is therefore best seen as an intensification of a general historical tendency rather than as a novel departure. According to proponents of the 'political economy' argument therefore, the press's successive adaptations to its changing market situation has generated an evolutionary coincidence between the structures and emphases of news presentations and the central tenets of the dominant ideology. It is not necessary to invoke direct intervention to explain this consonance, it arises out ofthe normal commercial dynamics of the newspaper industry. News then, is doubly determined, firstly by the specific logic ofthe field of production and by the professional values and interests of production personnel, and secondly by the wider logic of the capitalist market within which this production is embedded. 57 Moving On: Directions for Future Work

The opposition between instrumental and structural approaches is rooted in a fundamental division of opinion on how best to analyse the relations between class and power in advanced capitalism. It is a variant of the perennial sociological conflict between methodological individualism and structural determinism. The polarisation between the two sides has emerged particularly clearly in the polemical exchange between Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband. Poulantzas regards 'social class as objective structures and their relations as an objective system of regular connections, a structure and a system whose agents "men" are "bearers" of it. '58 This system exists independently of the people who comprise it at anyone time. It has its own logic and momentum which effectively determines the limits of their actions. Hence for Poulantzas the object of analysis is not the capitalist class-its composition, interconnections and actions-but the structure and dynamics of the capitalist system. According to Miliband however, this 62

, II II, Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

.x,llIsive stress on "objective relations'" results in a mechanical super-determinism' which ignores the importance and . II "'I ivity of concrete social relations and actions and so misses the , '"1I plcxities and nuances in the relation between class and power. 59 In "'ply. Poulantzas argues that Miliband's own attempt to redress this 1111 "a lance leads him to evade the problem of structural determinations ,dlogelher, and to centre his analysis entirely around 'a problematic of ..II. lal ~ctors' with the result that he tends to represent 'social classes (as) III \ollle way reducible to inter-personal relations' and to look for 'the "'I/:lIl ofsocial actions' in the interests and 'motivations of conduct ofthe IIHllvidual actors'. 69 !loth these positions carry a considerable amount of force. Poulantzas " •orrect to single out Miliband's neglect of structural determinations as ,I ";ISIC source of weakness in his analysis and in instrumentalist accounts f''''lllT~lly, However, Miliband's charge that Poulantzas's evacuation of .IIl1tTele social action leads him to miss the substantive subtleties in ,.. lations between class, power and legitimation, is also valid. As the ".lI Iin discussion of the evolution of news values indicated however, this " Itlrimately a false dichotomy. In the end it is not a question ofchoosing h.. , ween structural determinism or methodological individualism, but of nl'lming the relations between determination and concrete action, and ways in which they have been formed and transformed historically. This III III rn suggests three major areas for future work: (1) constructing a more .•,il'q llate account of structural determinations, (2) exploring the ways in \\ illlh structural constraints are mediated through the responses and .1. lOlllmodations of the key groups involved in newspaper production, .111.1 ()) developing a sociologically informed history which systematically , ..J at l'S shifts in press organisation and performance to changes in the '1llIl'lure of British capitalism and class relations. 1\1 the level of structural analysis there is still plenty of scope for the dl'vdopment of a more adequate political economy of the press. ,'\Ithough the notion of economic determination is widely evoked in Iadical commentaries, its implications have seldom been followed through in research. What is needed now is a more thoroughgoing .lJlalysis of the ways in which economic dynamics operate to structure hOI h the range and forms of press presentations. This requires detailed Investigations of the changes in the market situation of the major press \el'tors, oftheir consequences for the collective and operational strategies or newspaper companies, and of the resulting impact on the distribution and styles of coverage. In addition, an adequate political economy will '.1' lid ural

63

Graham Murdock

need to incorporate an analysis of challenges to the prevailing market structure; to chart in detail the attempts to develop a radical press both nationally and locally, and to examine the preconditions for success and failure. As well as developing these areas ofempirical work, there are also important questions of conceptualisation to be worked through. The inadequate theorisation of capital-state relationships in particular, remains a major stumbling block to the development of a more adequate structural analysis. In their eagerness to oppose pluralism the proponents of the 'political economy' approach have tended to concentrate on the press's economic base and more or less to ignore its articulations to the state. Conversely, Althusserians have tended to subsume the press under an expanded definition of the state and to pay relatively little sustained attention to the impact of economic dynamics. Both these positions are unsatisfactory. Neither deals adequately with the complex relations between capital and state, and between class power and state power. A vigorous and promising debate is currently opening-up around these issues but as yet it has had little or no impact on the sociology of the press. 61 Unravelling the implications of the emerging formulations is therefore a necessary next step. A more fully developed structural analysis, although necessary, is not sufficient. For, as Steven Lukes has forcefully pointed out: 'To use the vocabulary of power in the context of social relationships is to speak of human agents, separately or together, in groups or organisations, through action or inaction, significantly affecting the thought and actions of others. In speaking thus, one assumes that, although the agents operate within structurally determined limits, they nonetheless have a certain relative autonomy and could have acted differently ... within a system characterised by total structural determinism, there would be no place for power.'61

Questions of power in this sense are central to both pluralism and instrumentalism, and although the accounts they offer are seriously flawed, the problems they address, remain, and require investigation. Firstly, there are a number ofquestions to be asked about the location and dynamics of allocative control within press organisations. Who has the effective responsibiltiy for formulating allocative strategies? What is the role of boards ofdirectors? How do they relate to key shareholders and to senior management? How has the recent trend towards conglomeration affected the distribution of allocative control? Secondly there are questions about the relations between different levels of control, about the ways in which allocative strategies frame day-to-day operations, and about the varying modalities of intervention. And lastly, there are questions about the relationships between newspaper organisations and 64

( '/dSS,

Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

hcr key institutional domains and class segments. What for example is rhe role and significance of interlocking directorships and of patterns of

III

s",'ial and kin connections? To provide satisfactory answers to these kinds of questions would I< kally require extensive access to levels ofdecision making and corporate .Il I ivity that have traditionally been closed to sociological investigations. .\\oreover, recent experience suggests that access is unlikely to be any Illure readily granted in future. 63 Given this closure it is therefore necessary to develop more oblique approaches. Something of the dynamics of power in newspaper organisations is revealed when normal llperations are interrupted in some way. In these circumstances, relations alld processes that are usually concealed are likely to become more visible. Relevant instances would include; take-over and merger battles, lonflicts between shareholders and boards, and factional struggles within hoards; together with newspaper responses to important changes in their llperating environment such as: the introduction of new technologies; proposals for the extension of government control; and the introduction of potential competitors such as commercial television, commercial radio, and most recently, the electronic information systems like Viewdata and Ceefax. Since they deal with atypical situations intensive studies of particular instances can only offer a partial account. Even so, recent research on television organisations suggests that carefully selected case studies can contribute considerably to the analysis ofpower, It s distribution and dynamics. 64 All ofthe approaches discussed in this paper are grounded in assertions about the changing structure of capitalism over the last hundred or so years. Pluralism emphasises the progressive dispersal of power, the rise Ill' competing elites, and the separation of ownership from effective lontrol over production. In opposition, radical critiques have stressed the accelerating concentration of capital and the continuing centrality ofthe power accruing to economic possession. Despite their obvious Importance for the contemporary accounts offered, however, these models of historical change have remained implicit and have not been systematically investigated in their own right. As yet, sociologists interested in the press have made comparatively little attempt to develop an historical analysis. Nor have historians ofthe press made much use of sociological frameworks and concepts. The next step then, is to work towards a sociologically informed press history, drawing on recent advances in the sociology of class, and on the wealth of contextual and comparative material provided by the 'new' social, economic and cultural 65

Graham Murdock history. A whole series of historical questions present themSelves for detailed investigation. How do changes in the structure and operations of the newspaper industry relate to broader changes in the structure of British capitalism? Relevant tendencies here include; the growth of monopoly, conglomeration and internationalisation; changing patterns of ownership and relations of control; expansion and change in consumption and advertising; and shifts in the nature and extent of state intervention. How are changing patterns of press proprietorship related to changes in the wider composition of the capitalist class? Rubenstein's recent work on the nineteenth century for example, underlines the importance of the shifting relations between the major class segments (landed, industrial and financial) and of the cross-cutting geographical di visions between groups based in London and those located in the major provincial centres. 65 To these we could add the changing relations between British capital and American, Commonwealth and European capital operating in Britain. All three of these dimensions are indispensable to an adequate understanding of changes in press proprietorship and their relations to shifts in the capitalist class. In addition, there is the complex problem of tracing ways in which these changing economic relations were mediated in the political sphere through shifts in party structure and ideology. Beyond this again, there are a number of important issues concerning the production, coverage and consumption ofnewspapers, and their relations to general changes in class structuration and patterns of culture and ideology. Even in outline, these suggestions present a formidable task, but I would argue, a necessary one. If debate is to move on from polemics and work towards a more adequate account ofthe changing relations between class, power and the press, a broad programme oftheoretically informed reseach in the areas indicated here is absolutely essential. Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester.

, :./ \\, /'ower and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence I I", distinction is adapted from Mollenkopfs discussion of Capital-State relations, I -1111 Mollenkopf: 'Theories ofthe State and Power Structure Research', in G. William ",1,,,11 kcl.): New Directions

in Power Structure Research, University of Oregon, 1975.

\ \.I! ,', polemical article of 1861, 'The Opinion of the Press and the Opinion of the

,01,' p[ovides perhaps the best illustration of the 'instrumentalist' current in his ,'." ,,1 rhe British press. SeeK. Marx and F. Engels: The Civil War in the Un;tedStares, publishers, New York, 1974. r 1<",',11 Commission on the Press: Minutes of Evidence: Docket 9E2-Mirro Group

"1.11""1,,1

1'''I,,'n, HMSO, 1975-77, p. 7. 1<"I'rri Dahl: Pluralist Democracy in the United States, Rand McNally, New York, I' .~.1. \\.I!" original term 'fraktion' has been translated both as faction and fraction. To ,. I , ""'llSion I have followed Zeitlin in preferring the term class 'segment' to describe

,'I "'1\" within the capitalist class, who, while sharing the same basic general """,,1111' to the ownership of productive property, nevertheless occupy distinctive "''''1' WIthin the social process ofproduction with their own specific political economic 1"" ",",."tS. See Maurice Zeitlin; Lawrence W. Neuman and Richard Earl Ratcliff: '" s<'f',lllents: Agrarian Property and Political Leadership in the Capitalist Class of I,' .Ima;n'" Sociological Review, Vol. 41, Dec. 1976, pp. 1006-1029 r 1(,1\,,,1 Commission on the Press: Minutes of Evidence: Docket 9E2-Mirro Group

'/','/""'1, HMSO, 1975-77, p. 5.

"

,\11' "lilly Howard: 'Wide-Eyed in Fleet Street', The Sunday Times, Dec. 11th, 1977, "J

s,r<, .lay G. Blumler: The Social Purposes of Mass CommunicationS Research: A ", ,.,,1,1>1"" Perspective, Unpublished paper. Centre for Television Research, University I, ,d" 1979, p. 7. I"hl! Whale: 'News', The Listener, Oct. 15th, 1970, p. 510. I 1m has been a consistent finding across a range of studies of press coverage

", I," In] at the LeICester Centre. See for example, Paul Hartmann: 'Industrial Relations

~rws Media', Industrial Relations Journal,

'I"

Vol. 6, No.4, Winter, 1975, pp. 4-18;

"I I !:JlIlIlann, Charles Husband and Jean Clarke: 'Race as News: a studyofthe handling I , "

the British national press from 1963-1970', in J. D. Halloran (ed.): Race as News, Press, Paris, pp. 91-173; and Peter Golding: Information and the Welfare \In published research report, Centre for Mass Communication Research,

,. " '

\ 'I!"'CO

II"

"'.

",""Slry of Leicester, 1978. 1<"",,1 Commission on the Press: Minutes of Evidence: Docket 9BD1-Mirror Group

'1"'1"'1'1, HMSO, 1975-77, p. 31. , 'sJ ",,' Beloff: Freedom under Foot: The Battle Over the Closed Shop in British I

"",.""111, Temple Smith, London,

1976, p. 14.

Hnl Whale, 1977, op. cit. p. 85. 1("1',,1 Commission on the Press: Minutes ofEvidence: Docket lOE1-Morning Star Co-

Note

. ,;"'.,. Society Ltd. HMSO, 1975-77, p. 2. l<"yaJ Commission on the Press: Final Report, HMSO, London, 1977, pp. 98-9.

I am grateful to the Social Science Research Council for funding the work from which this present paper derives.

I("yal Commission on the Press: Minutes of Evidence: Docket 86El- The National !.

, John Whale: The Politics of the Media, Fontana Books, London, 1977, p. 82. Ralph Miliband: Marxism and Politic;~ Oxford University Press, London, 1977, p.

II MSO, London, 1975-77. \'I1"ly Petrushenko: Monopoly Press, The International Organisation o[Journalists,

"If,

: 'J,

I,. I' 11.

50.

66

67

Power and the Press: Problems of Conceptualisation and Evidence

1\ \,

Graham Murdock Royal Commission on the Press: J.Jinutes of Evidence: Docket Newspapers, HMSO, London, 1975-77, p.32. 20

9EJ~Mirror

Group

\ \."lricc Zeitlin: 'Corporate Ownership and Control: the large corporation and the ,lass', American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 79, No.5, 1974, pp. 1073-1119.

".,[ "I

\ ",,"dl: op. cit., p. 195.

" Nora BelotT, op. cit., p. 14.

I """ Althusser: Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, New Left Books, London, 12

John Whale, 1977, op. cit., p. 91.

14

Ralph Miliband: 1977, op. cit., p. 96.

" The empirical information provided in the text and tables which follow is derived from a continuing study of patterns of mass media ownership and control. All the information cited here refers to the period 1976-77. Rank orders are taken from The Times Top 1000, Times Publishing Ltd., market shares are derived from figures given in the Annual Report of the Press Council and refer to 1975. Other information is derived from the annual reports of the respective companies and from standard biographical sources. 16 Robert Heller: 'Britain's Boardroom Anatomy', Jtfanagement Today, May 1973, pp. 81-83: John Wakeford, Frances Wakeford and Douglas Benson: 'Some Social and Educational Characteristics of Selected Elite Groups in Contemporary Britain', in Ivor Crewe (ed.): British Political Sociology Yearbook, Vo!. J: Elites in Western Democracy, Croom Helm, London, p. 177. 17 David Boyd: Elites and Their Education, National Foundation for Educational Research, Windsor, 1973, pp. 80-92; Richard Whitley: 'Communalities and Connections Among Directors of Large Financial Institutions', The Sociological Review, Vol. 21, No.4, 1973,p.619. 28

1\7. l'oulantzas; 'The problem of the Capitalist State', New Left Review, No. 58,

i'

" Paul Hoch: The Newspaer Game, Calder And Boyars, London, 1974, p. II.

Wakeford et al: op cit. p. 179; Whitley: op. cit. p. 621.

" "
""11'1' h7-78. Illid.

.\llhllsser: op. cit., p. 142. '\\t!lhal1d: op. cit., p. 54-5. H'" \\'estergaard and Henrietta Resler: ClaH in a Capitalist Society: A Study of ',"'!"",i/'y Britain, Heinemann, London, 1975, p. 143. 1,,!l11 Westergaard, 'Power, Class and the Media', in James Curran et al. (eds.}: Mass ", """//,
1"1 "n extended critique of 'consumer sovereignty' see Peter Golding and Graham ,1<1, k: 'Confronting the Market: Public Intervention and Press Diversity', in James ".1"

",,1.1, I
" Royal Commission on the Press: Final Report, HMSO, London, 1977, p. 149.

\\'h,Jie: 1977, op. cit., p. 82.

See Graham Murdock and Peter Golding: 'The Structure, Ownership and Control of the Press', 1914-1976', in James Curran et al: Newspaper History: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day, Constable, London, 1978, pp.130-148. III

.II See Graham Murdock and Peter Golding: 'Beyond Monopoly-Mass Communications in an Age of Conglomerates', in Peter Beharrell and Greg Philo (eds.); Trade Unions and the Media, Macmillan, London, 1977, pp. 93-117.

1<"1',,1 Commission on the Press: Final Report, HMSO, London, 1977, Cmnd.

1,"'" Marceau: Class and Status in France: Economic ChaNge and SOCIal Immobility, ./. I!//';" Oxford University Press, London, 1977, pp, 180-1. "('ll'!' Draper et a1.: Health, the Mal'S Media and the National [{ealth Service, Unit for "llidy of Health Policy, Guy's Hospital, London, 1977, Appendix A.

For a discussion of this transition see Steve Nyman and Aubrey Silbertson: 'The Ownership and Control of Industry', Oxford EconornJ( Papers, Vol. 30, March 1978, pp. 74-10 1. J2

]] John A. Sonquist and Tom Koenig: 'Examining corporate interconnections through interlocking directorships', in Tom R, Burns and Walter Buckley (eds.): Power alld Control: Social Structures alld Their Transformation, Sage Publications, Beverley Hills, 1976, pp. 53-83. )4 JetTrey PfetTer: 'Size and composition of corporate boards of directors: the organisation and its environment', A.dministrati1)e Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, 1972, pp. 218-228,

11'11.): The British Press: a Manifesto, Macmillan, London, 1978,

".lham Murdock and Peter Golding: 'Capitalism, Communication and Class ,I""", in James Curran et al. (eds,): Mass Communication and Society, Edward I

/,01111 Westergaard: 'Power, Class and the fl.1edia' in James Curran et aI., op. cit., i' 101,

Golding and I briefly outlined this argument in 'For a Political Economy of "1l11l1unication', in Ralph Miliband and John Savile (eds.): The Socialist Register , ,. \\crlin Press, London, 1974, pp. 226-30. It has subsequently been developed in I I ,,,Iding and Philip Elliott: Making the News, Longmanns, London (forthcoming), 1','Il'!'

'\", 1

.' iI'lel"

2 i.md 7.

I "'Ilg, quoted in Marceau, op. cit., p. 13.

Mayer N. Zald: 'The power and functions of boards of directors: a theoretical synthesis', American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 75, 1969, pp. 97-111; Michael Patrick Allen: 'The structure of inter-organisational elite co-operation: interlocking directorships', American Sociological Rem'ew, Vol. 39, 1974, pp, 393-406. jj

36 J. T. Winkler: 'The ghost at the bargaining table: directors and industrial relations, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. XII, No.2, 1974, pp. 191-211. J7 R. W. Connell: Rulz'ng Class, Ruling Culture, Cambridge University Press, London, 1977, p. 46.

I Ill' notion of 'double determination' has been borrowed and adapted from Pierre "

,'" ,111'11:

I' """

'Symbolic Power' in Denis Gleeson (ed,): Identity and Structure, NatTerton

))rd1ield, 1976, pp. 112-119,

, !',,,dantzas, 1969, op. cit., p. 70. 1<.lIl'h Miliband: 'The Capitalist State: a Reply to Nicos Poulantzas', New Left

" ,:-.lo, 59, 1970, p. 57.

69

68

Graham Murdock ,(I

Poulantzas: op. cit., p. 70.

ADVERTISING AS A PATRONAGE SYSTEM

" See for example John Holloway and Sol. Picciotto (eds.): State and Capital. Edward Arnold,London. London, 1978 and Gary Littlejohn et al. (eds.): Power and tlte State, Croom Helm,

James Curran 1

" Steven Lukes: Power: a Radical View, Macmillan, London, 1974, p. 55.

I'JlI"c!llction OJ

R. E. Pahl and]. T. Winkler: 'The economic elite: theory and practice' in Philip

Stan worth and Anthony Giddens (eds.): Elites and Power in Britislt Society, Cambridge University Press, London, 1974, pp. 102-122. 64 The potential of case studies is well illustrated by chapters 9 and 10 of Michael Tracey: Tlte Production of Political Television, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1977.

" W. D. Rubenstein: 'Wealth, Elites and the Class Structure of Modern Britain', Past and Present, No. 76, 1977, pp. 99-126.

II ~I 70

I III importance of the press as a marketing agency is generally "I ,'1 luoked. In every year since 1934, when reliable advertising statistics '.I<'l" first collected, the press (broadly defined to include all press l"lhlications) has accounted for over two-thirds of total media 2 .1' lInt tsing expenditure. Even after more than two decades of . tltllllll:rcial broadcasting, advertisers continue to spend well over twice ,', Illlll'h on the press as on commercial TV and radio. ] The press thus "Iliai ns, in terms of promotional expenditure, the dominant marketing tll<'dllltl) in Britain. "hl' promotional role of the press distorts its economic structure. The I"lil1 ication of a large volume of advertisements substantially adds to its . tI,l., At the same time, the sale of space to advertisers subsidises the I" Ill' at which most publications are sold. For this reason, the lIlTlwhdming majority of press publications, outside the juvenile 111;11 kd, sell to consumers at net prices that do not cover costs. 4 I'his gives to advertisers a far-reaching, iflargely unsought, influence till"! (he press. How advertisers spend their money generally determines II IlILh publications, selling at competitive prices, make a profit. The I'lofits generated by advertising also affect the resources available to ,tlmpeting titles and to competing sectors of the press for editorial and I" otl1otional investment. Competition for advertising patronage I rII' vi t abl y also infl uences the editorial strategies 0 f the press-sometimes , Imldy in terms of what is published, but more often discreetly in terms III (he target definition of audiences sought by press publications. This strategic influence of advertising has far-reaching implications I hat need to be more fully explored. In particular, we need to ask in what 11:1)' demands made upon the press as a marketing system have influenced lis functioning as a system of political communication. This question 1It11 be approached, in this article, by examining how changes in the rl"quirements and policies of advertisers have influenced the political ,tlilcture and character of national newspapers since the First World \X·a!. While the conclusions that emerge from this enquiry are necessarily 'lilly directly applicable to the national newspaper press, it is hoped that 1hey will throw light on the processes by which advertising patronage Inf1uences the broad spectrum of publications constituted by the press. 71

.lames Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

An historical approach is made difficult by the lack of adequate research. The influence of ad vertising on the historical development of the national newspaper press after the death of Lord Northcliffe is scarcely considered in the best available general histories of the press;5 nor is this omission rectified in any of the more specialised historical studies. There is not even a single academic study of the development of the British advertising industry during the twentieth century. 6 Nonetheless, an historical perspective has been adopted because it provides a changing context that reveals the varied influence of advertising on the press in a way that is not possible in a study relating to a particular point in time. Before assessing the cumulative influence of advertising on national newspapers, it is necessary first to consider the economic role of advertising within the national newspaper press. The decisive shift to an advertising-based system occurred during the late Victorian period,7 though the large majority of London commercial papers were dependent on advertising-in the sense that they relied on advertising to make a profit-long before that. M A wealth of data suggests that this advertising dependency persisted during the inter-war period, though no reliable industry-wide statisitics are available until 1937. At that time London dailies made an annual loss of £9,782,000 on sales to the public: this loss was only recouped through advertising which accounted for 530/0 of the revenue of the London daily press. This dependency was drastically reduced during the 1940s when there was stringent newsprint rationing, to the extent that two out of nineteen national newspapers, with greatly reduced costs since they were only a third of their pre-war size, actually made a profit on their sales, without taking advertising into account, in 9 1946. But with the lifting of strict newsprint rationing, advertising dependency was restored (see Table I) 10 While industrial statistics conceal important variations between quality and popular papers, II a supplementary analysis reveals that, although popular papers derive a much smaller proportion of their revenue from advertising than do quality papers, they are still dependent on advertising (see Table 2).12 This historical dependency on advertising has provided the material basis for the formative influence of advertising on the development ofthe national newspaper press.

Advertising Bias: The Historical Legacy The allegation that advertisers discriminate against the left press has been a recurrent feature of left-wing commentary on the press for over 72

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'ltlvcrtising media selection as being a subjective one in which political Jlld~ments playa significant part. I J This view has been sustained more hI' rt:current assertion than by anything else: it has not been supported by l"llIplrical investigation in any serious form. Yd as a characterisation of advertising media planning, it has some 11I'lOrical validity, During the early 1920s, a number of leading ,\dvt:rtising executives attached great importance to intuitive assessments "I 'at mosphere', 'force of impression', 'pulling power', 'the confidence LI\\or', and other intangible aspects of communication value, informed \ 'I' a simplistic belief in the power of the media to condition readers' ll"'pOnSes to advertisements. 14 Characteristic of this intuitive approach \\;\, \he conclusion of one expert, for instance, that the sobriety of the /1I11i'S disposed the reader to order through the tradesman, whereas the ll\m~ vivacious style of the Daily Mail induced the reader to respond .!lIwtly to mail order advertisements 'because when he reads the Daily .\1.111, he is in a 'Daily Mail' frame of mind-rather eager, rather l'x"itable, rather energetic, not so dignified and formal .. .' 15 This highly subjective approach gave political prejudice a free rein. Radical publications were liable to be rejected as advertising media on I Ill' ~rounds that they did not provide the right 'mood' and 'atmosphere' III Induce a favourable response to commercial advertising. On the other hand, right-wing newspapers like the Daily Mail, alert to advertisers' I'll'Judices, were at pains to emphasise in their advertising promotional hll'lature their 'fearless advocacy of every measure and movement likely '" bt: of benefit to British commercial enterprise'. I' l r nderlying this subjective approach was a dearth of adequate 1IIIl1rl1lation on which to make informed judgments about media o"kl'lion. Advertisers could not be sure how many and what sort of t l'alil'rs they could reach when they bought space in the national press. ( :11 nllation figures were notoriously unreliable during the early 1920s I7 ,II HI this made advertisers wary of basing their decisions too heavily on '1lnl1ation claims. These did not, in any case, indicate the 'quality' of , IIc'ldation offered by papers, and 'quality' was often judged to be more '\ll\,ortant than quantity. As the head of one leading advertising agency I'llt It, 'a very limited circulation, but entirely among the wealthy ... may lw more valuable than if the circulation were quadrupled'.IK In the .d''''nce of reliable survey evidence on the social composition of the ,I\ldit:nces reached by newspapers, conclusions had to be drawn largely lln tbe basis of editorial content and casual observation. As the Pitman's

75

James Curran advertising handbook of the period explains, 'the class of reader reached by different papers can usually be judged fairly accurately from the general appearance of the paper and the nature of its contents'19 This impressionistic approach encouraged the stereotyping of the socialist press with a lumpen proletariat audience. 'A stodgy paper', wrote Cecil Freer, a Polytechnic lecturer in advertising, for instance, 'is read by stodgy people; the socialist press has a following of people who ... cannot persuade the world to share its wealth with them! This simple projection of the attributes of readers from the editorial content of papers could offer an apparently sound economic justification for excluding the radical press from advertising schedules. 'You cannot afford', continued Freer, 'to place your advertisement in a paper which is read solely by the down-at-heels who buy it to scan the "Situations Vacant" column.'20 The only means of attempting scientifically to assess the effectiveness of different advertising media during the early 1920s was through interpretation of sales returns and coupon analysis (i.e. the analysis of keyed advertisement cut-outs mailed by readers). No way was found then (or for that matter later) of gauging from the analysis of sales figures the differential effectiveness of individual media. Coupon analysis, though pioneered in the Victorian era, does not appear to have been used widely during the 1920s,21 and offered in any case an inadequate indicator of advertising media effectiveness except in the case of mail order firms. The subjective orientation of advertisers in the early 1920s exacerbated the underlying weaknesses of the radical press as an advertising medium. In terms of national publications, the radical press consisted in the early 1920s only of one national daily (Daily Herald), with a modest circulation, and a few small circulation political weeklies. The socialist press also appealed primarily, although nothing like as exclusively as was widely thought, 22 to the working class. Its working class readership limited its utility to advertisers, since working-class consumers had less disposable purchasing power than the more affluent readers reached by, for instance, the Daily Express or Daily Mail. The extent of poverty within the working class was graphically illustrated not only by early social research but also by consumer research pioneered during the 1920s. For instance, when researchers for a cereal manufacturer asked the question, 'Do you believe in light, highly nourishing breakfasts, or making breakfast a very substantial meal?', they reported that in some northern districts the question was 'very difficult to ask, and in some cases proved to be cruel'. 2] The significance of the low purchasing power of many readers of the 76

Advertising as a Patronage System radical press was exaggerated, however, by a frequently distorted view of social structure. It is clear that a number of manufacturers and agency ('xl:cutives underestimated the number of working class consumers and I ol1sequently their importance as a market. Indeed, this bias was even huilt into the pioneer market research surveys ofthe 1920s, which rarely IISl:d adequate sample controls. For instance, the first readership survey III bl: conducted on a syndicated basis for advertisers represented the 24 rll iddle class to constitute 53070 of the population in 1928. Advertisers' reluctance to support down market, radical publications lIad important consequences. Radical papers were able to survive with low costs in small audience ghettos, since their modest losses could be made good by private donations, public subscriptions, even whist-drives .llld other expedients for raising money. But once their circulations IlllTl:ased, their losses threatened to become unmanageable because their losls increased (notwithstanding some unit cost reduction through 1I11wased production) without a corresponding increase in advertising. The success of the Herald, for instance, when it was relaunched as a dady paper after the First World War, almost forced it to close down. 'l 1m success in circulation', recalled the editor, 'was our undoing. The 1I1ml: copies we sold, the more money we lost'. 25 Ministerial attacks on IIll' paper as a Bolshevik publication funded with 'red gold' merely Ill'! pl:d to increase its circulation still further. 'Every copy we sold', 1I1ourned the editor, 'was sold at a loss. The rise in circulation, following till' goverment's attacks, brought us nearer and nearer disaster'. 26 The f),111v Herald was forced to increase its price, thereby charging a price ,Iouble that of its principal rivals for a paper that was often half the size. It S circulation growth was arrested and reversed, although it regained 111ll111entum in 1925 and by 1929 had built a circulation over four times Ilial of the Times. 27 Because it obtained little advertising, the Daily !/t'/'uld continued to make a heavy loss, however, and was kept alive by ,uhsidies from the Labour movement amounting to over £500,000 I,,·tween 1922 and 1929. 28 There were other factors which inhibited the development ofa radical 1'11·SS. The very large costs involved in establishing a newspaper in the llatllJnal mass market ensured that control of the press was largely in the lI;mds of capitalists, hostile to the Labour Movement. The proportion of I;thour voters reading a national daily was almost certainly very much 'Illaller than the proportion of Conservative and Liberal voters who took .1 Ilational daily. 29 But advertising discrimination in the context ofa press lkl'l:ndent on advertising undoubtedly contributed to a situation in

I Ill:

77

James Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

which the Labour Party's support in the country was not reflected in the press. In the 1922 General Election, for instance, the Labour Party was not supported by a single national Sunday newspaper and was backed by only one national daily (accounting for perhaps 4% of national daily circulation), 30 whereas the Labour Party received 29.5% of the vote.

,plead over a larger number of accounts. Probably typical of the leading f: rlJUP of agencies was the London Press Exchange founded in 1892, which had its own merchandising department by 1925. This department ,pi it in 1927 into a research department, mainly concerned with Illarketing and consumer research, and a statistical department rl'sponsible for media data analysis and the preparation of media \l hcduling plans. The records of the company show that it was largely t Ill' work of these two departments which transformed the planning of .Idvcrtising campaigns within the London Press Exchange during the late

The Revolution in Advertising Media Planning: The Transition A profound change occurred in the way in which advertising media was selected during the inter-war period. An intuitive approach to media planning gave way to a more objective mode of evaluation in which technical criteria of assessment, informed by scientifically derived data, played a more important part. This change was gradual and uneven: some small agencies as late as the early 1960s relied upon methods similar to those prevalent in the immediate post-First World War period, while certain innovations pioneered in the early 1930s-notably product media analysis-did not come into their own until the late 1960s. But the crucial period of change was undoubtedly the late 1920s and the 1930s, when developments in the process of media selection and market analysis, combined with important market changes, positively fostered the development of a left press. The adoption of more sophisticated techniques ofmedia planning was due largely to the development of service agencies. Most of the large service agencies of the inter-war period were founded between 1889 and 1910. 31 Their development was hindered, however, by a prolonged period of cut-throat competition in which agencies offering a range of services from media planning and marketing to copy-writing and artwork competed against small companies which functioned mainly as space-booking agents and which, due to their low costs, were able to rebate a large part of their commission from publishers to their advertising clients. Service agencies also competed, in effect, with advertisers who attempted to keep down the costs by dealing direct with publishers. Price competition was limited, however, by a series of recognition agreements between leading publishers and advertising agencies during the 1920s, excluding agencies which split their publishers' commission with their clients, and preventing advertisers from buying space with publishers on the same basis as agencies. These restrictive agreements encouraged competition through service rather than price, and contributed to the development of media planning and marketing expertise within agencies. The growing volume ofadvertising handled by the larger agencies also enabled the cost of research to be 78

1'120s and early 1930s. 32 An important development, facilitating the transformation of .,dvLftising media planning, was the increasing provision ofmore reliable 'Ilculation data. After the First World War, the Association of British Advertising Agents (ABAA) campaigned for the release of circulation dal a, even establishing its own audit bureau ofcirculations in 1921. JJ By !l127 sufficient publishers had been persuaded to provide not merely , Ilculation figures, but also a 'territorial" breakdown of their sales, for it tP be possible for the London Press Exchange to provide 'a coverage .lllalysis' estimating the gross number of households in different regions lit the country which could be reached by alternative schedules. J4 The :\ BAA's initiative was consolidated in 1931 with the establishment ofthe :\llJit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) with the backing of advertisers, .Igencies and some publishers. A number ofleading publishers refused to ,lJ-operate with the ABC, and their circulation claims were often highly 'll,sleading.35 By 1936, however, the ABC monitored the circulation of I H6 publications 36 and circulation estimates of varying degrees of I rliability were available for most important publications not scrutinised I,v the ABC. The increasing availability and reliability ofcirculation data I allsed cost per 1000 circulation to become more important as a criterion lit media assessment. The principal beneficiaries ofthis shift were papers with cheap advertising rates and substantial circulations, regardless of t heir politics. The records of the London Press Exchange reveal, for Illstance, that the Daily Herald came to be included for the first time in major campaigns aimed at the mass market from 1927 onwards. The provision of more reliable circulation data was overtaken by a development of still greater importance for the development of media planning-the growth of readership research. Although the first lommercial readership survey was conducted in 1924, and was followed by subsequent surveys using extremely primitive methodology, it was lIot until 1930 that readership research gained some degree of 79

James Curran

respectability when the Institute of Incorporated Practitioners in Advertising (IIPA) sponsored the first official readership survey. This was followed, in the next nine years, by no less than five surveys sponsored by official advertising bodies, and over ten substantial readership surveys conducted by advertising agencies, publishers and market research companies. J7 Although readership research continued to be treated with a good deal of scepticism in some quarters, improvements in methodology and in presentation ensured that by the mid -19 30s the findings ofreadership research were accepted as a basis for media selection by many progressive advertisers and agencies. Readership research enabled advertisers to identify specified characteristics of newspaper and magazine audiences on the basis of survey data. This caused advertisers to revise some conventional stereotypes of newspaper readers, most notably those ofthe Daily Herald and Reynolds News (acquired by the Co-operative Movement in the 1920s) as being exclusively proletarian. A London Press Exchange executive advised the manufacturers of Farmers' Glory, for instance, to advertise in the Daily Herald because 'though primarily it caters for an artisan and lower middle class market, it also reaches a considerable percentage of the population of slightly higher earning capacity'. 38 This observation was perhaps influenced by the official readership survey of the previous year which had shown, among other things, that the Daily Herald reached over 50% more middle class readers than did the small circulation Times. 39 The provision of detailed statistical information encouraged in some agencies a more impersonal approach to media selection in which subjective assessments of impact played a less important part. The classic textbook of the 1930s advised that 'the first test that must always be applied to a press advertising medium is the cost of placing an advertisement of a given size before a given number of suitable readers'. 40 Whilst this precept was not new, the ability to put it into practice was-as a consequence of readership research. The shift towards a less intuitive approach was futher reinforced by an increasing tendency to conceptualise the press as a system for distributing advertisements, rather than as a conditioning and all-powerful agent of persuasion; this more realistic model, induced by disappointing responses to advertising campaigns, made the cost of exposure to the target audience seem more important compared with the putative 'atmosphere' of a publication. The trend towards a more mechanistic approach was perhaps also influenced by a feeling of marginality that encouraged a search for what appeared to be more scientific methods of

80

Advertising as a Patronage System

.I\Sl:ssment. 41 I'urely subjective judgements ofinfluence continued to play, ofcourse, .1 significant part in media selection. But during the inter-war period a .ktcrmined attempt was made even to quantify influence. Between 1933 and 1939, at least five surveys were conducted-in two instances with samples of over 20,000 respondents-into the levels of attention given to advertisements, in different positions, in national newspapers. 42 Massive I rsources were also invested in the thirties by some agencies in the .lIlalysis of keyed advertisements in an attempt to evaluate the 'pulling power' ofdifferent publications. These attempts to evaluate scientifically rhe communication value ofpublications, even if based on methods that wne to be largely repudiated in the postwar period, indicated an Increasing concern to professionalise media planning and reject the llltuitive approach from which radical publications had suffered previously. This shift of emphasis in the process of media selection was part of a wider change in marketing. Although market research first developed in Britain during the 1920s, it was not until the 1930s that market research became a significant influence outside a few agencies and a smaller number of progressive businesses. The development of market research brought home the importance of the working-class market, and consequently the advertising value of media reaching working-class consumers. Typical of this shift in market orientation was the radically different advice given by J. Walter Thompson (U.K.) to its principal client, Sun-Maid Raisins, during the late 1920s. 'Research shows', wrote a J. Walter Thompson executive, 'that 91.2% of the families of Great Britain have incomes of under £400 . . . we should concentrate on reaching the immense D class market to the greatest extent possible'. 43 This belated recognition ofthe size of 'the D class' within an increasingly research-oriented agency caused J. Walter Thompson to recommend a ~hift from 'superior womens' magazines', the backbone of Sun-Maid Raisins' advertising campaigns between 1924 and 1929, to newspapers and periodicals with a mass, working-class appeal. The increased awareness of the physical size of the working-class market was accompanied by a more sophisticated analysis of the pattern of consumer demand. Whereas the first good market research textbook had treated wealth as an index ofconsumption, 44 subsequent handbooks stressed the importance of disposable income. The realisation of the intense concentration of wealth in a few hands', wrote Harrison and Mitchell, 'has led to serious undervaluation of the importance of the 81

James Curran

"mass market" ... We may sum up the position in the statement that inequalities of consumption are less than inequalities of income and inequalities of income are less than inequalities of wealth. H5 These insights derived from a synthesis of market research, academic research and government statistics, were dramatised by Odhams, the publisher of the Daily Herald, John Bull, and other publications with a mass appeal, in a sustained campaign aimed at selling the working class to advertisers. 'If the housewives who read John Bull', ran a typical advertisement, 'put their purses together next year, they could buy the Golconda diamond or Da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' hundreds of times over, then they could spend the change on the richest treasures of Bond Street or the Rue de la Paix.' 46 Another important consequence of market research was to highlight the crucial importance of women as consumers and, therefore, of advertising media with a mass market appeal among women. In contrast to Chisholm's pioneering marketing textbook of the 1920s, for instance, its best-known successor repeatedly stressed the importance of women, even claiming that 'women purchase 80% ofthe goods sold in retail shops in the country'. 47 The increasing attention given to women in advertising campaigns was reflected in the way in which readership surveys, commissioned by advertising agencies, classified readers of newspapers in terms of their sex from 1934 onwards, although this innovation was not adopted in the more conservative official readership surveys until 1939. The shift in orientation of advertisers was recognised by publishers who began in the mid-1930s to stress in particular the appeal of their publications to women readers in advertisements published in the advertising trade press. 48 The market reorientation of advertisers during the inter-war period reflected not only the development of marketing expertise but, more important, the growth ofmass market consumption. Per capita consumer expenditure at constant (1913) prices rose from £42 in 1921-to £49 in 1930 and to £54 in 1938. 49 This substantial increase led to rising levels of consumer spending on a wide range of commodities produced for the mass market: between 1924 and 1935, for instance, consumer expenditure on electrical appliances rose by 438%, on bicycles by 231 %, on cosmetics and perfumes by 1380/0, with further substantial increases on wooden furniture, radios and gramophones and women's clothing. so Notwithstanding striking differences in the level of commodity consumption between middle and working-class families during the inter-war period 51 these increases were due, in part, to rising levels of real 82

I

Advertising as a Patronage System

Illl'ome among working-class wage-earners during the 1920s and the 1l) Hls. 52 In effect, increased consumption by the working class generated Illcreased advertising expenditure on publications reaching working,lass consumers. This trend was probably further reinforced by the ,ontinued development of brand marketing of commodities in the I hirties, supported by heavy advertising expenditure on mass market 1I11:dia designed to register brand awareness and foster brand loyalty. These market changes, combined with improvements in advertising and marketing practice, caused a shift in the growing volume of ad vertising patronage of media with a strong working-class and female appeal, irrespective of their politics. This was reflected in the substantial advertising gains made by the Daily Herald during the 1930s. Its IInproved advertising position also reflected, of course, its spectacular Increase in circulation, notably during the period 1928 and 1932, when 11 s circulation increased from 317,299 to 1,600,000Y The available ..vidence suggests, however, that the Daily Herald made disproportionate gains 54: its display advertising volume increased by 32% between 1932 ,lIld 1936, a larger increase in relation to its circulation growth than any llther national daily during the same period, apart from the News (:hronicle, also with a large working-class readership. 55 The Daily Herald's massive increase in circulation probably would not have been possible without a substantial infusion of advertising money. Admittedly, the Daily Herald continued to receive less advertising revenue than most other popular papers. In 1936, for instance, its display advertising revenue per copy (an index of comparison that takes into account differences in circulation) was little over a quarter of that of the Times, and only just over halfthat ofthe Daily Mail. 56 Due to its relative shortage of advertising at a time of heavy promotional expenditure, the Daily Herald actually made a loss ofbetween £10,000 and £20,000 a week when it became the western world's largest-selling daily in 1933,57 Despite its subsequent advertising gains, the Daily Herald continued to make heavy losses. 58 Nonetheless, the Daily Herald secured a sufficient increase in advertising patronage (obtaining over one and a half million pounds in advertising receipts by 1935) not only to keep its losses manageable despite its enormous circulation at a time when net cover prices did not cover costs, but also to compete successfully with its main rivals, spending heavily on promotion and selling at the same price. Similarly, the much smaller circulation, pro-Labour Reynolds News was able to attract a sufficient increase in advertising (over £70,000 by 1936) to survive with containable losses. 83

James Curran

The increase ofworking-class consumption, combined with changes in the process ofmedia selection, thus facilitated the survival and growth of a Labour loyalist press. 59 No less important, it also encouraged the development of a new, reformist press under commercial ownership. The increasing concern of advertisers to reach the mass market provided an increasing incentive for publishers to expand into the working-class market. Furthermore, the working-class market was highly 'accessible', partly because the pressure formerly exerted by advertising on popular publications to stay in the middle market 60 had caused the working-class market to be under-exploited by publishers. A market re-orientation implied, however, an editorial-and political-adjustment. These pressures underlay an historic event in British journalism-the 'relaunch' of the Daily Mirror in 1934-36. The Daily Mirror in the early 1930s was a right-wing newspaper with a disproportionately middle-class readership and steadily declining circulation. 61 It was also a special case in that, despite its disproportionately middle-class readership, it obtained relatively little advertising. During the 1930s there was a strong advertising prejudice against 'illustrated mornings' (Daily Mirror and Daily Sketch) on the grounds that they were looked at rather than read, and consequently commanded less attention than other papers. The Daily Mirror was thus a middle-class paper denied the advertising rewards that a middle-class readership normally produced: in 1936 it received less display advertising revenue per copy than any other paper-including the Daily Herald (see Table 3). Faced with the imminent prospect of closure, the Daily Mirror was relaunched down-market -towards the working-class public least adequately served by the press, but increasingly sought after by advertisers. This redirection was consistent with the progressive centrist views ofa number of influential people working on the Daily Mirror, who were unhappy about the extreme conservatism ofthe paper and who were able to exercise a powerful influence in the absence of a dominant shareholder after 1935, when Rothermere sold many of his shares in the paper's parent company.62 Commercial advantage thus seemed to fuse conveniently with enlightenment. As the paper's then advertising director put it, 'our best hope was, therefore, to appeal to young, working-class men and women ... Ifthis was the aim, the politics had to be made to match. In the depression ofthe thirties, there was no future in preaching right-wing politics to young people in the lowest income bracket'. 63 The new Mirror was born in muted form. Though backing the 84

Advertising as a Patronage System

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James Curran Conservatives in the 1935 General Election, it became increasingly critical ofthe Conservative government in the next few years. There were other important aspects of the new Mirror, apart from its cautious move leftwards, which will be considered later. What is important to note in this context is that the Mirror's adoption of reformist politics was rewarded, rather than penalised, by advertisers. Backed by Unilever, a leading advertiser, and J. Walter Thompson, a leading agency, during the difficult period of its re-Iaunch, the Daily Mirror's success in recruiting working-class readers was repaid handsomely. In 1938-39 the Daily Mirror claimed a net increase of 670 columns of display advertising at a time when six other London dailies suffered a decline. 64 The Sunday Pictorial, a sister of the Daily Mirror, responded to a similar set of economic pressures to follow the same trend in the Sunday newspaper market. A right-wing, middle-class paper with a falling circulation, it was converted in 1937 by the Daily Mirror's former Features Editor, Hugh Cudlipp, into a paper with a rising circulation amongst the working class, with a political complexion more in character with its target market. Its rise, like that ofthe Daily Mirror, was indicative of a new era in which the marketing requirements of advertisers provided a positive stimulus for some newspapers to move left. Wartime Liberation It was not until the Second World War that the Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial moved much further to the left. This shift reflected the growing radicalisation of British society during the war 65 which created the material conditions for a move to the left-a bigger mass market for radical journalism. It was accompanied in the case ofthe Daily Mirror by an increasing reliance on reader's letters and documentary-style reporting which, according to an admirable study by Smith et al. was crucial in pushing the paper to the left. The Daily Mirror, they argue, 'placed itself in a position to hear, and then to articulate (in what must be counted one of the most sustained insrances of journalistic ventriloquism ever practised) what its readers were feeling and thinking. Thus, in a sense, it found itself supporting Labour when the election came'. 66 What this culturalist analysis leaves out of account, however, is an important change in the economic pressures on the popular press which enabled an empathetic and radicalising rapport to develop between the Daily Mirror and its readers, and which facilitated the radicalisation of the reformist press as a whole. The leftwards move of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial before 86

L

Advertising as a Patronage System Ihe Second World War had been cautious, partly for fear ofalienating the traditional readership of both papers, and partly for fear of alienating advertisers by becoming identified with a lower class readership. The Sunday Pictorial was at pains to reassure advertisers in 1935 that 'its A l'!aSS readership (the wealthiest 5% of the population) is greater than that of any other Sunday paper'. Similarly, the Daily Mirror advertised in II} 38 its success amongst A class readers- 'Only one of the six popular national papers', boasted the Daily Mirror, 'can claim more.' 67 This llaim echoed the ambiguities of a hybrid product that included features aimed at upper-class ladies as well as young working people. Newsprint rationing, introduced in 1940, effectively freed the press Ii'om advertising influence. It created a 'space famine' with the result that advertisers had usually to book well in advance for insertions in the national press, while newspapers effectively ceased to compete for advertising in a seller's market. 68 Newsprint rationing also reduced costs without bringing down the prices at which newspapers were sold, Ihereby inaugurating a period of unprecedented profitability. 69 It was only in this very different economic environment that the brakes on the Daily Mirror's and Sunday Pictorial's development were lifted. Both papers were free to build solidly proletarian audiences without fear of the consequences in terms of lost advertising revenue. The Daily Mirror changed from being a carefully judged middle-market paper with 70 the most 'classless' appeal of any national daily in Britain in 1939 to hecome a progressively more working-class paper in the cloth-cap tradition ofthe Daily Herald. 7 I The Sunday Pictorial made an even more marked change of direction. In 1939 it was still a paper with a disproportionately middle-class readership, but by 1947 it had become a radical working-class tabloid. 72 Two papers under commercial ownership (Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial) thus joined the ranks of the left-controlled press (Daily Herald, Reynolds News and Daily Worker) to constitute a powerful pro-Labour ll)rce in 1945. Indeed, the pro-Labour daily press accounted for no less Ihan 35% of national daily circulation compared with the Labour Party's .18% share of the vote in the 1945 General Election. 73 Media Planning Revolution Consolidated During the late 1940s and early 1950s, newsprint controls were relaxed, culminating in their statutory repeal in 1956. The left press had once again to adjust to an advertising-based press economy in which selective advertising allocation determined the economic viability of 87

James Curran

competing publications. The adjustment was cushioned, however, by important development in advertising and marketing practice. The initiatives ofthe inter-war period became established practice after the war. The Audit Bureau of Circulations gained the full co-operation of nearly all leading publishers and was able to provide accurate surveillance of most newspaper and magazine circulations by the late 1940s. Readership research covering the national press became available on a cheap syndicated basis from 1947 14 and became fully accepted within advertising agencies as an indispensible aid to media planning. Computerisation ofmedia scheduling since the early 1960s made it much easier to calculate quickly and efficiently the cost of reaching a specified market through alternative combinations of media. The development of product-media analysis (the classification of media audiences in terms of consumer behaviour) developed in the postwar period by Odhams, Attwood, BMRB and AMPS, but only used on a widespread basis with the introduction of the Target Group Index in 1968, also helped media planners to calculate the cost of reaching groups of consumers in terms of categories widely used to define target markets in market research. These various developments undoubtedly assisted the left press by giving greater salience to cost of exposure to the target audience as a criterion of advertising allocation compared with more imponderable assessments of impact. This important shift is reflected in the very different approaches to media planning adopted in the two official textbooks on media planning, published under the auspices of the Institute of the Practitioners in Advertising during the postwar period. The first text, written by J. W. Hobson and published in five revised editions between 1955 and 1968, devoted a whole chapter to the 'character and atmosphere' of advertising media, heavily laden with speculative and sometimes bizarre judgements about 'the intangible effects of accompanying editorial and advertising.' 75 Its successor, written by J. R. Adams, was brief and disparaging about this qualitative approach. 'Atmosphere, context and impact. These three words, once so important in media planning, have become less popular, largely because of the difficulty of measuring them'. Implicit in this approach, Adams suggests, are value judgements that can be highly misleading. 'It has been thought that advertisements benefitted from appearing in media which, whatever their audience characteristics might be, had the 'right' sort of editorial. Very often this was a way ofsaying that the advertiser wished to see his advertisements in the publication he read'. 76 88

Advertising as a Patronage System

The adoption of a less intuitive approach to media planning was accompanied by a rapid expansion ofMarket research during the postwar period. The Market Research Society grew from only 23 members in 1947 to over 2,000 members in 1972. 77 The relatively small-scale 'Icrivity of the 1930s expanded into a small industry with a proliferation of independent companies and the development of marketing and research departments within large corporations. This growth was characterised by a much greater degree ofmethodological sophistication, ~raphically illustrated by successive postwar textbooks, 78 which helped 10 improve the status and credibility of market research. Whereas there were bitter complaints amongst market researchers that their work was regarded by manufacturers as 'an expensive form of witchcraft' in the early postwar period, 79 this scepticism had been largely overcome by the 1970s. The growth of market research encouraged, as it had done to a lesser lkgree during the inter-war period, an increased awareness of the Importance of the working-class market. As one of the first postwar marketing manuals argued, 'as far as the distribution of purchasing power is concerned, we have become a much more egalitarian economy based on a solid and substantial block of working-class preferences and resources'.8(1 Reappraisals like these, grounded in market research and increased use of marketing statistics, encouraged a more positive assessment of working-class media. Typical ofthis shift of opinion is the lilllowing evaluation of the Daily Mirror, published in an advertising r rade paper: 'As an advertising medium there are inevitably reservations, in spite of its high circulation ... A section ofits readership consists ofwhat used to he called 'the lower classes' and is supposed, quite wrongly, to have in aggregate less purchasing power than that of other newspapers. It conducts well presented advertising campaigns which demonstrates convincingly that the working classes, who constitute a high proportion of its readers, are regularly employed and fairly prosperous people. They may earn less than £600 a year, but they are apparently so well off that t hey own ... 55% ofall television sets, 49(1/0 ofall cars, 58% ofall washing machines and 72% of all motorcycles in the country.' 81 Furthermore, the development of market research encouraged a more sophisticated conceptualisation of the mass market that made labels like 'lower classes' increasingly redundant. Even by the 1950s, market researchers were stressing that age cycle and family structure were crucial and neglected influences on the demand pattern for a product. 82 With 89

James Curran the development of more complex systems of market segmentation, social class came to be seen as an increasingly inadequate predictor of consumer behaviour, and even as being positively misleading as an indicator of family disposable income. 83 These changes in market cognitions have assisted left publications with a strong appeal to women and young people-and provided an increased advertising incentive to reach these groups. Above all, the more positive assessment of the markets reached by the left press reflects the growth of working-class affluence. Between 1939 and 1965, for instance, consumer expenditure per capita at constant prices increased by 49%.84 This fed a massive increase in spending on heavily-advertised products ranging from cosmetics to cars, canned foods to cleaning products. 85 A large, and probably, by comparison with the inter-war period, an increasing proportion of this spending came from working-class households. Certainly, there would appear to have been a significant redistribution of personal income after tax in favour of the working class between 1938/39 and 1973/74. 86 This substantial increase in working-class purchasing power has generated increased advertising patronage for publications with a working-class appeal. The real value of increasing advertising patronage of the left press has been eroded by sharply rising costs, notably during the 1970s. 87 But the overall growth of advertising generated by increased working-class consumption, and by changes in advertising and marketing, has been of crucial importance nonetheless in sustaining the growth ofa left press in Britain, charging the same prices as its rivals and able to spend heavily on editorial outlay and promotion. Operating within this more favourable economic environment, the pro-Labour press's share of circulation has increased significantly between 1945 and 1970, rising in the case of the national dailies from 35% in 1945 to 44% in 1970. Indeed, the proLabour national dailies' share of circulation in 1970 was marginally larger even than the Labour Party's share of the vote (43%). The growth of a pro-Labour press as a formidable force in commercial journalism on this scale would not have been possible if Labour papers had faced the same pattern of widespread advertising discrimination that it experienced at an earlier period. The development ofa left press as a major force in popular journalism has important implications, not least in terms of its influence on voting behaviour. A number of empirical investigations indicate that newspapers playa significant role in reinforcing and mobilising political loyalties at election time amongst readers whose political predispositions 90

Advertising as a Patronage System concur with the editorial views of their papers. 88 No less important, empirical evidence also suggests that, to some extent, newspapers can weaken party loyalties, encourage abstention, and even contribute to vote-switching when their editorial policies conflict with the predispositions of readers. 89 Some of this evidence derives from voting studies conducted outside Britain, however, and the development of the left press has taken a form, as we shall see, that has severely limited its political impact. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the electoral position of the Labour Party was significantly strengthened by the development of a mass-circulation left press. [jmitations of the Media Planning Revolution Notwithstanding the important changes that have taken place in the process of advertising media selection during the twentieth century, some continuities with the past persist. The political prejudice that characterised media selection in the early 1920s did not wholly disappear during the post-war period. One agency bluntly told the second Royal Commission on the Press, for instance, that it would never recommend a client to advertise in 'papers of extremist outlook'. 90 A larger and more influential agency, S. H. Benson, singled out the editorial policy of the Daily Worker as being 'so diametrically opposed to those ofbusiness as to prejudice the chance of successful advertising'. 91 -a view seemingly echoed by the official organisation representing advertisers. 92 More generally, Service Advertising indicated that 'a publication might be excluded from a schedule if it were unreasonably pursuing an editorial policy inimical to a particular industry'. 93 Another agency denied that there was any political discrimination against publications 'unless the political creed it supported was, in the eyes of public opinion, and our sense of fair policy, against the national interest'-a qualification that almost rendered the original denial inoperative. 94 A number of agencies admitted that there was occasionally some political bias in media selection but attributed the bias, in all cases, to their clients. 95 Testimony to this bias comes from a number of quarters, including the conservative general manager brought in from P.A. Management Consultants to oversee the radical Scottish Daily News. One potential advertiser told him, for instance, 'ifyour newspaper is going to back strikers just because they're strikers then the sooner your paper's dead the better. I'm not going to keep alive a newspaper which, the first time I get a strike, will back the strikers .. .'.96 The extent and range of crude, self-aware political prejudice in 91

Advertising as a Patronage System

James Curran

advertising allocation should not be exaggerated, however. Most of the advertising agencies that have openly declared their political bias were extremely small, handled relatively few accounts and have since closed down; they tended also to be untypical in adopting a highly intuitive traditionalist approach to media selection. 97 Crude advertising discrimination has tended to be directed at the socialist rather than social democratic press, thereby exempting the mass-circulation, pro-Labour papers that have flourished; on the other hand, small-circulation publications further to the left which have tended to be poor advertising media, judged by the commercial criterion employed by advertising agencies, have probably also suffered as a consequence of overt political discrimination. Such political prejudice as has persisted in media selection has more often taken the mediated form ofan unfavourable, qualitative assessment of impact rather than a self-conscious political veto. One agency, for instance, had a policy of avoiding publications whose editorial policy 'competes with the appeal of the product to be advertised',98 while another made a point of always considering 'the suitability of a paper as the carrier of advertisements of certain products and ideas'. 99 The inclusive nature of this form of assessment was underlined casually by another, extremely influential agency: 'the "atmosphere" of a publication-which may include its political leanings-is always taken into account'. 100 Judged by the criterion of whether its editiorial content conflicts with or complements product ideas, some radical publications are likely to be found wanting. Such qualitative judgements continue to be invoked because attempts to 'measure' impact and effectiveness have proved to be inadequate. Attempts to measure media effectiveness through coupon analysis and through keyed advertising became increasingly discredited during the postwar period. 101 The heavy investment in 'attention value' research, designed to measure the quality of attention given to advertisements, has proved to be oflimited predictive value. The recent development of 'life style research', though classifying media audiences in terms ofattitudinal characteristics, does not provide an adequate way of assessing audiences' responsiveness to different advertising messages. More sophisticated methods of assessing the effectiveness of advertising media through the analysis of sales returns still continue to yield inconclusive results. 102 The absence of adequate techniques for measuring media effectivness, as distinct from the cost of media exposure, has left a gap that remains unfilled. As the managing director of one agency commented, 'we 92

, .dnllate mathematically what can be calculated and create myths to cope With the rest,.103 This said, the increased stress on the measurable , Illerion of cost of exposure that has characterised, as we have seen, the .kvdopment of media planning, ensures that these 'mythologies'-and I h(' Ideological value judgements they bring into play-have a diminished in advertising allocation. ,\;\uch more important, however, than the residual political prejudice .against the left press has been the continuing discrimination against it on •Illllmercial grounds. Despite the growth of working-class consumption, lhl' left press has continued to appeal to an audience that has less purchasing power, wealth and influence than the right press. Its .Idvntising position has also been adversely affected by structural • hanges in advertising expenditure. Since the late 1950s, classified .tdvertising has increased very much faster than display advertising 104 a llend from which national newspapers on the left, consisting largely of 111 ass-circulation 'display' media, have benefited relatively little. On the lither hand, the growth of manufacturers' consumer advertising-the principal source of advertising revenue for the left press-has slowed down largely due to changes in retailing and marketing practices, notably I he greater emphasis on promotion in shops and on 'own label' hrands. l05 The introduction of commercial television has also retarded I he growth of popular newspaper advertising-including that of the left press-more than quality newspaper advertising, because popular papers are more directly competitive with television as an advertising

lllk

medium. 106 There have consequently been marked inequalities in the advertising revenue obtained by the left and right press, reflecting differences in the lesources commanded by their readers and underlying changes in pattern of advertising expenditure. The greatest differences have been between (:onservative quality papers reaching small elite audiences, and proLabour papers reaching predominantly working-class audiences. 107 In 1955, for instance, the Times obtained £24.4 advertising revenue per 1000 copies, compared with £3.86 per 1000 copies obtained by the Daily IleraId. With the lifting of newsprint controls and the boom in classified advertising, the gap widened. The Sun, the successor to the Daily I/erald, obtained only £4.28 advertising revenue per 1000 copies in 1965 compared with £40.51 per 1000 copies received by the Times in the same year. The difference in advertising revenue per copy between the two papers remained almost unchanged as a ratio ten years later. A similar, hut more marked, pattern of difference emerges in a comparison of the 93

.James Curran Liberal Conservative Sunday quality and Labour Sunday tabloid press. The Sunday Times received, for instance, £22.83 per 1000 copies in advertising revenue in 1955, compared with the Sunday Pictorial's £3.69 per 1000 copies. The difference between the two papers widened to £232.90 and £19.82 per 1000 copies respectively in 1975. There were also significant differences in the advertising revenue obtained by Conservative middle-market papers and Labour downmarket papers during the postwar period. 108 These differences were negligible in 1945 due to strict newsprint rationing and were still relatively modest during the early 1950s. By the mid-1960s, however, the difference in the advertising position of the two categories of paper had become marked. The Conservative middle-market Sunday Express, for instance, obtained almost three times as much advertising revenue per copy as the Labour, down market Sunday Mirror in 1965. Similarly the Daily Express received over twice as much advertising revenue per copy as the Daily Herald in the same year. These increasing inequalities of patronage occurred during a period of mounting economic crisis within the press industry. There was a very rapid increase in costs accelerating at a faster rate than revenue. 109 This generated increasing pressure on popular newspaper publishers to generate more advertising revenue by attracting more readers and, particulary during the late 1950s and 1960s, by attracting more affluent, more women and more young readers that advertisers would pay higher rates to reach. J 10 The pressure to maximise sales was further intensified by a catastrophic decline in circulation levels, largely caused by declining multiple purchase ofnewspapers. 111 The combination ofthese pressures had important consequences [or the development of the left press. Deradicalisation of the Left Press The postwar career of the Daily Mirror illustrates one response to these pressures. The bloc of left opinion that had swept Labour to power in 1945 and provided a market for the Daily Mirror's rapid circulation growth began to erode seriously during the 1950s. The Daily Mirror's circulation started to crumble badly and it became increasingly apparent that the demotic radicalism ofthe type developed by the paper during the 1940s no longer constituted the common denominator of a mass readership in the changed circumstances of the Macmillan era. The Daily Mirror began to drift into the middle market partly also out of a concern to attract the affluent young that generated increasing advertising rewards. Indeed, in 1965-6 it achieved the remarkable 94

Advertising as a Patronage System ,lISt inction, for a paper that had once been an overwhelming working, lass tabloid, of being the national daily most read by the young middle , lass. 112 Its readership became more heterogeneous politically as well as ,,,,'ially. In 1963, for instance, almost a third of its readers were \ llmmitted Conservatives or Liberals II] a proportion that significantly IIILTeased during the next eleven years 114 as the Daily Mirror sought to !>llladen its appeal still further. Against this background, the Daily Mirror's radicalism inevitably !>rcame muted. As the Chairman ofthe Mirror Group himselfexplained, 'Imlay newspaper circulations are vast assemblies of people of all social \ lasses and all varieties of political view. A controller who tried to \ alllpaign for causes profoundly distasteful, even to large minorities of hiS readers, would ... put his business at risk'.115 The campaigning I adlcalism that had been a regular feature of the old Daily Mirror did not \hsappear altogether, but it became more intermittent and less \ lliltentious. The class divisiveness of its 'us and them' rhetoric of the 1940s softened in the 50s and early 60s into the more inclusive and al'Ceptable rhetoric of 'the young at heart' against 'the old', the modern a~ainst the traditional, 'new ideas' instead of 'tired men'. The former positive commitment ofthe Daily Mirror to a Labour Party committed to 'llcial reconstruction during the 1940s was significantly modified in the 19')Os and early 1960s to a more negative commitment, based more on "pposition to conservatism than support for Labour 'dogma'. The Mirror drveloped, moreover, an increasingly bi-partisan stance in its daily r rrorting, though during the brief periods of campaigning at General I-:lection time, it dropped all pretence ofbi-partisanship. But increasingly I hese displays of commitment were like old clothes taken down from the ilt t ic for a brief airing: they were no longer the clothes worn by the Daily .\1irror every day. 116 The change was not simply a response to the economic pressures ofthe mass market. It is indicative of the outlOOk of the Mirror Group board of dl rectors that they should have chosen Robens, Brown and Marsh to give lrtainers to in order 'to make it possible for them to stay in politics'. 117 .\11 three politicians were on the right ofthe Labour Party, and eventually kit it to move further to the right. King, the chairman of the Mirror ( ;roup for seventeen years and a director for over thirty years, reveals II1ITIseif in his memoirs and diaries to have long been a man of the centre lather than of the left. 118 His highly traditional brand of centrism leached a somewhat absurd apotheosis when he sought to establish a lIational government under Earl Mountbatten to replace the Labour

95

James Curran 119

Cudlipp, King's successor as chairman and a key government in 1967. figure before that in the development of the Daily Mirror, was a more committed Labour supporter than King, but moderate and pragmatic in outlook. J 20 The consensual orientation of the Daily Mirror's controllers-and many of its editiorial staffl21- were thus broadly in keeping with the consensual pressures generated by catering for a relatively heterogeneous audience. The development of the Daily Herald presented a marked contrast to that of the Daily Mirror. It did not compromise and adapt to the conservative consensus ofthe 1950s: it remained a Labour paper that was openly partisan and committed to the furtherance of the Labour Movement. Partly because of this, its readership declined to the dangerously low level (for a working-class paper) of just under 5 million by 1961. Its appeal was confined to a highly differentiated, loyal readership of whom 87% were classified as working-class in 1963-4 122 and of whom 83% were Labour supporters. 123 The political commitment ofthe paper's editorial controllers, the TDC, prevented the adoption of an editorial strategy that would have deradicalised the paper, as in the case of the Daily Mirror, in order to make it profitable. The TDC lost editorial control ofthe Daily Herald, however, when the paper's fmancial controllers, Odhams, was acquired by the Mirror Group in 1961. The paper's new owners sought new ways ofbroadening the paper's market appeal, culminating in the paper's re-launch as the Sun in 1964. The thinking behind the new launch was that the Sun would reach two markets-youthful, middle-class 'social radicals' and the former readers of the Daily Herald: the common denominator of the new market coalition would be a loosely-defined radicalism. The new paper, it was hoped, would be economically viable because it would attract a better class of reader who would generate more advertising revenue for the paper. 'The new paper', confided an internal memorandum, 'is to have the more representative make-up essential to advertisers'. 124 The political implications of reaching a broader audience were spelt out in pre-launch research. 'Social radicals' (defined largely in terms of their attitudes towards social and civil liberty issues) who were only a little more likely to favour the Labour party than the Conservative and Liberal parties, constituted almost as high a proportion of Daily Telegraph as of Daily Herald readers, and were, among other things, above average readers of the society gossip columns in the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. 125 The new paper was a muted and less radical version of the old Daily 96

Advertising as a Patronage System Herald. The new product did not impress former Daily Herald readers and failed to recruit new, young middle-class readers in significant numbers. 126 Falling between two stools in its attempt to reconcile two l:ssentially dissimilar groups, the Sun never rose. It was sold in 1969, at a bargain price, to News International, which secured the future of the paper by diversifying its product appeal in another way. Instead of attempting to build a coalition ofmiddle-class and working-class radicals, the new management sought to build a new mass readership based on a product that carried little overtly political content. The result was a paper that almost quadrupled its circulation between 1969 and 1978, to become the country's largest-selling national daily. But the new Sun, as it ultimately developed, bore very little relationship to the old Daily Herald. In the February 1974 General Election, it supported the Heath (~overnment and has since become firmly identified with the right of the political spectrum. In short, the careers of both papers illustrate the dynamics of the mass market in the postwar period. The Daily Mirror's radicalism was muted as it successfully adapted to the necessity of catering for a mass heterogeneous audience with divergent political loyalties and interests. The Daily Herald did not adapt and was silenced. The Depoliticalisation of the Left Press The transformation of the Sun was the latest manifestation of a long historical process-the increasing depoliticalisation of the left press, and more generally of the popular press as a whole. 127 This has contrasted with the continuing high level of attention given to political, social and l:conomic issues in the quality press. The growing polarisation between quality and popular newspapers lloes not appear to reflect an increasing division between the political Interests ofelites and an increasingly a-political orientation ofthe mass of the population. A recurrent finding of 'reading and noting' research for over forty years is that the pattern of reader interest between the two I ypes of paper is remarkably similar. For instance, a major survey Investigation into what people read in national dailies in 1933, based on a national quota sample ofover 20,000 respondents, revealed that the most Il:ad categories of article in the quality daily press were reports of court .-ases and divorce-not very different in character from the most read lategories of story in the popular daily press of the same period, namely ll-ports of accidents and disasters. The least read categories of news in both classes of paper were also the same-news about foreign politics, 97

]ames Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

and news about industry and commerce. Furthermore, the amount of attention given by readers to domestic politics relative to other categories of content was broadly similar in both quality and popular dailies. While comparison was being made between different quantities of space, it is clear that the pattern of reader preference in both quality and popular papers was remarkably similar. m The same pattern ofreader interest persisted in the postwar period. For example a survey, based on a quota sample of7 ,752 respondents, of what people read in eighteen issues of four popular dailies compared with one quality daily in 1963 showed that the most read categories of items in all five papers was the same-tragic stories about ordinary people and stories about celebrities. The least read news categories were also the same-city and fmancial news, news about international affairs, 'special news' and industrial news. 129 Similarly, a series of investigations into what people read in the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and Observer between 1969 and 1971 showed that themost read categories of stories in the Sunday quality press were also human interest stories about ordinary people and stories about celebrities I)U -precisely the most read stories in the Sunday Mirror and People during roughly the same period. IJI Any lingering doubt that there is a marked difference in the reading preferences between quality newspaper reading elites and (he mass public is further confounded by evidence of heavy duplication of readership of quality and popular papers in both the inter-war and postwar periods. 1)2 Although there has been an increasing divergence between quality and popular papers, this reflects not so much the differences in their audiences as the differences in the economic pressures to which they are subjected. Quality papers have been under strong pressure from advertisers to restrict their audience appeal, whereas popular papers have been under strong pressure from advertisers to maximise their audience appeal. Indeed, in order to survive, popular papers have needed to establish mass readerships several times the size of those reached by quality papers. This has only been possible by reconciling the very ditTerent interests ofsub-groups within each mass readership. In particular, survey research into what people have read in newspapers has long shown that humaninterest stories about disasters, accidents, tragedies, crime, sex, love and celebrities have a common-denominator appeal: their interest transcends differences between men and women, young and old, middle and working classes. The same is true, to a lesser extent, ofa range offeatures,

\llCh as letters, strips and cartoons, with a broad audience appeal. In .lddition, there are two categories of content -sport and women's katures-that have a strong appeal to audience segments so substantial (II\W and women respectively) that they receive substantial space, and a \mall cluster of minority interests such as travel and motoring which, I hough low on audience appeal, attract linked advertising. Current affairs , llverage, on the other hand, does not attract related advertising and has a markedly sectional appeal: it is read very much more by men than by women, and by older rather than young people. The pressure to maximise circulation in the mass market has inevitably led, therefore, to a I eduction of current affairs coverage in favour of content with a more hroadly based audience or more direct advertising appeal. A decisive shift occurred during the 1930s with the relaunch of the f),lIly Mirror. The avowed market strategy ofthe relaunch was to build a mass circulation. 'The news pages', recalled the paper's new features nl1tor, 'were filled with condensed items of maximum interest to the maximum number of people'. IJJ Coverage of public affairs gave way to human interest stories, entertainment features and sport with a wider audience appeal. By 1937, the proportion of space devoted to political, \ol'ial and economic news in the Daily Mirror was precisely half what it had been ten years earlier. 1)4 The same economic pressures that l'nl'ouraged a cautious shift to the left - 'politics that had to be made to l!latch'-ensured that this shift took' the de-politicised form of a , ommodity processed for the mass market. The trend towards depoliticisation of the popular press was tl"mporarily reversed when the economic pressures that gave rise to it wae temporarily suspended. As has already been noted, economic ,ontrols on the press during the 1940s eased competition for advertising .1I1d guaranteed a high level of profitability. The reduction in the size of lIl"wspapers at time of international and domestic crisis also encouraged a I;lr~er proportion of space to be given to current affairs in the popular I'Il:SS. As a result, the growing gap between quality and popular papers in tams of the degree of attention they gave to political news and analysis \\as, for a time, reduced. 1)5 The resumption of competition, against the background of a deterioration in the cost and revenue position of the popular press, led to .1 reversion to the prewar pattern of space allocation. Mounting pressure III maximise audiences encouraged the downgrading of public affairs \ owrage. The fact that some popular publishers paid particular attention Il\ the needs of women and young people, increasingly sought after by

98

99

James Curr< Ii

Advertising as a Patronage System

advertisers, but with a below average interest in public affairs coverage, probably reinforced this process. The results of a content analysis of selected popular newspapers show that coverage of public affairs had declined by 1976 to the small proportions of 1936 and, in the case oftwo pro-Labour papers (Sunday People and Sunday Mirror) to much less than in 1936 (See Table 4). The biggest reduction occurred in relation to the Daily Herald/Sun, whose coverage of public affairs declined from 33% of editorial space in 1936 to a mere 13% in 1976. TABLE 4 Public affairs coverage I of selected national popular newspapers, 1936-1976 as a percentage of editorial space 1

1936

Daily Express Daily Herald/Sun Daily Mail Daily Mirror Sunday Express People/Sunday People Sunday Pictorial/Sunday Mirror

... ... ...

1946

1976

0/0

0/0

0/0

18 33 19 12 18 14 17

39 45 39 25 34 26 26

18 13 20 13 17 8 II

(I) Defined as news and comment about; a) social, economic and political affairs; b) industry; c) financial and commercial matters; d) medical, scientific and technical issues; e) other public affairs. (2) Sample: 198 issues.

The popular left press is now composed of papers given over almost entirely to entertainment. Not one popular left paper in 1976 devoted more than 13% of its total editorial content to public affairs (defined in the broadest and most inclusive sense to comprise news or comment about social, economic and political affairs, industry, financial and commercial matters, medical, scientific and technical issues and 'other public affairs '). Indeed, not one ofthese papers even devoted half as much space to public affairs as to sport in 1976. In marked contrast, the quality press has continued to devote a large proportion of space to public affairs coverage. 136 Underlying this is not only a strong professional commitment within quality newspaper organisations to public aflairs coverage as an important newspaper service, but also a powerful economic interest that underpins and reinforces this commitment. 137 The principal utility of quality 100

llewspapers to advertisers is that they reach small, affluent and influential audiences that are the prime targets for certain forms of advertising. 'A publication may have a small circulation', wrote Russell over fifty years ago, 'but its readers may be of so select a class that everyone ofthem is a probable customer for certain advertisers. If they used a more popular paper, they would have to pay for addressing an enormous proponderance ofuseless readers'. 138 The same guidance has been given 13O 10 specialised advertisers in advertising textbooks ever since. The ahility of quality papers to charge very high advertising rates has depended upon their capacity to reach elite audiences that advertisers want to reach without undue 'wastage' (i.e. what Russell bluntly called 'useless readers'). This has been central to their profitability since, despite high cover prices, quality papers have long derived over threequarters oftheir revenue from advertisements charged at premium rates. This has influenced the way in which quality publishers have I rsponded to divergent interests among their readers. A similar pattern of dIfferences in reading preferences exists within quality press readerships to that amongst the mass readerships ofthe popular press. In particular, women readers ofthe quality press, like those of the popular press, have markedly less interest in public affairs coverage than men: yet common to 11{11 h is a shared interest in human interest news. Quality newspaper editors have nonetheless been deeply reluctant to reconcile these and I II her differences amongst their readers by publishing more common denominator material at the expense of public affairs coverage, partly hl'cause this runs counter to what they believe to be important, and partly hl'cause this would undermine their economic base-their specialised OIdvertising appeal. Any editorial strategy that involves broadening their parer's appeal too much threatens to dilute the social quality of their I eadership, and consequently their utility to advertisers. The pressure generated by advertising on quality papers to limit their OIppeal to a specialised elite audience is graphically illustrated by the II oubled history ofthe Times during the late 1960s. The Times achieved a \pl'ctacular 69% increase of circulation between 1965 and 1969 through I hL' adoption of a more popular diet of news and features and an .Iggressive promotion campaign. This caused its costs to rise sharply, \Ince each additional copy was sold at a loss. This increase in costs was llol matched, however, by an equivalent increase in advertising, because luany ofthtnew readers recruited to the Times were lower-middle class .mJ even working class-not people that advertisers wanted to pay high .Idvertising rates to reach, when they could be reached more cheaply 101

James Curran

through other media. The management of the Times learnt its lesson by changing both its editorial and promotional strategy in a deliberate attempt to shed its popular intake of readers. As the Royal Commission on the Press wrote without comment, 'in the early 1970s, the Times reduced its circulation from a peak of432,000 in 1969 to 340,000 in 1971 ... This was a policy decision by management'. 14lJ In short, the only minorities able to read detailed coverage of public affairs in national newspapers structured broadly in accord with their political disposition and interests are the minorities that advertisers will pay high prices to reach. Other minorities exist with a comparable interest in public affairs structured from a different perspective, 141 but they have been incorporated into mass readerships and their interests have been subordinated to the marketing imperatives of reconciling competing interests in the mass market. This has had important implications for the development of British political culture. The quality press has given force, clarity and coherence to the narrow range of class interests constituted by the majority ofits readers. Representing a narrow spectrum ofopinion from the centre to the right, it has come to command the freld of serious national newspaper journalism in the absence of serious competition from an increasingly depoliticised left press. This has given to the quality newspaper press disproportionate influence and further reinforced middle-class domination of British political life.

Advertising as a Patronage System TABLE 5 Political affiliaTions of national newspapers 1924·74' (;eneral Elections: NuT ional Duilies ( :onservative 1.lheral J I.ahour (:nmmunist None

1924

1935

1945

1955

1964

1974

8 2 1

8 1

6

6

6

I 1

4 2 3 I

2 1

3 I

10 4

13

9

8

4 I 3

2

2 I I

/IJ'I/ ional Sundays

( :onservative 1.lberal I.ahour ;'\lDne

1 1

3 2

1

3 3

2

( I) National newspapers have been classified as papers, providing general political COVerage, with a nationwide distribution. (.!)

The Finuncial Times has been classified as a national newspaper, providing general political coverage from 1955 onwards.

II) When papers have urged (independent) Liberal membership of a coalition government, these have been classified as Liberal.

The qualitative difference in the political coverage provided by left and right papers is only one aspect of a political imbalance within the press. The growth of a pro-Labour press has been based upon the circulation success of a few papers rather than on a substantial increase in the number of titles sympathetic to the Labour Party. The number of national newspapers on the left has always been smaller than on the right (see Table 5). Partly for this reason, the range of opinion represented in the national press has been greater on the right than on the left. Moreover, the rise of a mass circulation left press has not fully redressed the overall balance ofthe press in favour ofthe right in terms of circulation. Although the Labour press marginally exceeded, as we have seen, its share of national daily circulation in relation to its share of the vote in one General Election (1970), the Conservative press has consistently had a larger daily circulation than its share of the vote in every General Election since 1918. 142 Sometimes this imbalance has been quite substantial as in the polarised February 1974 General

Election, when the pro-Conservative press accounted for 71 % of national daily circulation and the Conservative vote accounted for only 38% ofthe vote. The practical result of this over-representation is that the pro(:onservative press has had a higher penetration ofthe working class than has the pro-Labour press amongst the middle class. As Seymour-Dre succinctly puts it, 'the Conservative party thus has much greater access to I hose whom Labour thinks of as its natural supporters than does Labour to natural Conservatives'. 14J The under-representation of the left press is, in part, an historical legacy inherited from the past. During its formative period of development before 1918 the national press was established in a form llverwhelmingly biased to the right. 144 The growth of advertising patronage ofthe press discouraged, however, a significant realignment of I he press through the launch ofnew papers after 1918. Between 1924 and 1938 media advertising expenditure (of which probably a rising proportion was spent on national newspapers) increased from an estimated £45 million to £56 million. 145 Between 1938 and 1970, advertising spending on national newspapers rose by a further £83

102

103

The under-representation of the Left

James Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

million, 146 This massive and sustained increase in advertising patronage of the press helped to fund much higher levels of editorial paging, staffing and promotional expenditure, thereby substantially raising costs. This was partly reflected, for instance, in the increase in the annual costs of an average London daily from £I ,650,666 in 1938 to £28,140,111 in 1974. 147 Steadily rising costs increased the capital needed to start a new paper in a highly competitive market both by increasing operating costs and by effectively raisi.ng the circulation level (and consequently extending the loss making 'establishment period') that papers in the mass market needed to reach in order to break-even. In short, the growth of advertising helped to seal off entry into the national newspaper market by increasing the costs of admission. The pattern of advertising patronage also made it more difficult to launch left-wing papers than right-wing papers. Not only have left papers encountered some political prejudice from advertisers, particularly in the past; more important, they have also suffered from the fact that traditionally their appeal has been greatest amongst working-class readers who generate per capita less advertising than more affiuent, middle-class readers. In order to attract sufficient advertising, left papers have consequently been forced to make up in quantity what their readers have lacked in 'quality'. This has meant building very large circulations, thereby increasing their 'establishment' costs. Odhams, for instance, was forced to spend £2,000,000 on the Daily Herald in its first few years after its launch in 1929. 148 Partly for these reasons, only two wholly new national papers have been successfully established since 1918-a right-wing, middle-class minority newspaper (Sunday Telegraph) and a subsidised, consistently loss-making Communist title (Sunday Worker/Daily Worker/Morning Star). Their ranks have recently been joined by a new paper (Dai~v Star) with an uncertain prospect of success. The historial legacy of the past was thus artificially perpetuated by limitations on market entry. Furthermore, the small number of left papers was reduced during the post-war period, partly as a consequence of the continuing inequalities of advertising allocation. The Daily Herald's demise was hastened by being progressively squeezed out of advertising schedules when competition for advertising was resumed. Moreover, it died with, in its last full year of publication, a readership almost double that of the Times, Financial Times and Guardian combined. 149 Its readership was too male-dominated, ageing and lowpaid to generate adequate advertising support. The case of the Sunday

(:itizen was rather different in that it closed in 1967 with a smaller "irculation than quality paper rivals. Its decline was nonetheless not unrelated to the unequal allocation ofadvertising support. It received per IDOO copies in 1965, for instance, one-tenth of the net advertising levenue of the Sunday Times and one seventh of the net advertising revenue of the Observer. 150 Deprived of the same level of subsidy, it Illl'vitably offered an editorial service that was inferior, in many respects, 10 t hat of its competitors. To summarise, the advertising patronage system has had a varied but Illlportant impact on the political structure of the British national IIrwspaper press. The increasing concern ofadvertisers to reach the mass lIIarket during the 1930s, combined with important changes in media 1'1 anning, provided a positive stimulus for the emergence of a reformist I'Il'SS, sympathetic to the Labour party. But the advertising pressures I hat encouraged the growth of a left press have also helped to ensure that II has developed in a depoliticised, deradicalised and disabled form.

104

I I", ,/(!lment from Party System ("he disappearance of a Labour-controlled national newspaper press in I hl' 1960s was the culmination of a long historical process in which .Il!\".rtisers have replaced politicians as the principal patrons ofthe press. I ';illicular attention has been paid by historians to the first phase in this I'll" esS in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth centuries, \\ l\l'n the growth ofadvertising played a crucial role in emancipating the 111lddlc-c1ass commercial press from government control. Increased Jdn'nising patronage helped to finance newsgathering resources I r1.1 l' pcndent ofgovernment, and to render less effective the subsidies and 10, t1H"S in the form of secret service grants, official advertising, sinecures ,111.1 pCllsions, by which successive governments sought to manage the Ilf 1'\\. 1 ~

I

I ,'ss attention has been paid to the second overlapping phase extending

the twentieth century when the growth of advertising undermined control of the press. 152 This control was exercised in a variety of I" I,·",!lt ways-by party ownership of papers, the subsidy of papers by I' ,II Ill'S or party nominees, and by the ownership or support of papers by 11,1, I"lduals with close party connections. 153 These various forms ofparty "'i1lol were progressively undermined, however, by the rapid increase .11 lu'wspaper costs, to which, as we have seen, the growth of press t ISIng substantially contributed. Advertising subsidies for ' " \l '1':lpers reached a level which political parties and their supporters

111'"

I ',11 I \'

I.","

105

James Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

found increasingly difficult to match. Papers that were not viable as advertising media could no longer be sustained, as before, through political patronage. The Daily Chronicle, which Lloyd George had acquired in 1918, to secure additional press backing, could not be saved in 1930 despite attempts to find Liberal money to keep it alive. 154 The Morning Post, kept alive with injections of substantial sums of money from Conservative supporters, during the 1920s and 1930s, 155 finally died in 1937. It went the way of the Globe which closed in 1921 after being sustained partly by Conservative Party funds channelled through a private agency.156 Similarly, the News Chronicle incurred losses that were too heavy to be sustained by the Cadbury family in the Liberal interest, and closed in 1960. 157 Heavy losses caused the TUC to relinquish financial control of the Daily Herald in 1929 158 so that it was unable to prevent its subsequent closure, while the losses of the Sunday Citizen became too great for the Co-operative Movement to sustain after 1967. In each case, political funds were not sufficient to provide an alternative source of patronage to advertising. The growth of advertising also contributed to the decline of a partycontrolled press in another way. Increasing advertising support for the press helped, as we have seen, to increase the costs of launching and establishing a new national paper. This deterred both political organisations and individual politicians from starting new national papers, or attempting to resuscitate old papers, as occurred frequently during the period of expansion before the First World War. Indeed, the last ambitious politician to buy a popular newspaper to further his political career was Beaverbrook. His initial involvement in the press stemmed from a concern to have a launching-pad for a political career at a time when the financial commitments ofnewspaper ownership were still r~atively small by comparison with the later period. 159 He was perhaps the last of the old style of proprietor-politicians whose role is now being taken over by multinational corporations which have the necessary resources to sustain newspapers at a high level ofcapitalisation and which have acquired an increasingly dominant position within the British press during the last decade. 160 The papers they control are not run in a party interest, even if they tend to favour, albeit critically, the Conservative Party. The shift from political to commercial control of the press has been characterised by a steady decline ofpartisanship in the press, during both the inter-war and post-war periods. Whereas papers run in a party or political interest tended to be highly partisan, commmercial papers run

with a greater profit goal orientation, catering for audiences with divergent political loyalties, have provided more bi-partisan coverage. This decline in partisanship, systematically documented in relation to the last decade by Seymour-Ure, has been reinforced by an enormous Illcrease in the output and consumption ofTV coverage ofcurrent affairs, with a formal commitment to political balance, and an increasing loss of \nntrol by politicians over the agenda of TV current affairs coverage. 161 These important changes have undermined the ability of political parties III maintain stable loyalties amongst the electorate, and have perhaps lontributed to the marked decline of partisan allegiance and stable voting l1l'haviour during the last two decades.

106

.\lcrropolitan Domination of the Press The increase of brand marketing of products produced cheaply for the Il\ass market in the early twentieth century generated increasing demands Ill!" cheap promotional media with a national distribution. The Londonhased press was a cheap advertising medium since, owing to its larger \ Irculation by comparison with the provincial press, it enjoyed \llbstantial economies of scale enabling it to charge lower advertising I at es per 1000 circulation. The overriding attraction ofthe London press 10 advertisers was that it was much cheaper to advertise in than the provincial press-a point constantly stressed in the inter-war advertising lI\anuals.162 It was also often credited with making a bigger impact, part icularly among retail agents. 163 The London press obtained a disproportionate increase in the growing I'n!ume of mass market display advertising during the inter-war period. l'he rising level ofadvertising patronage enabled the London daily press, III particular, to spend lavishly on promotion drives recuiting new I caders. The Daily Mail is reported to have spent £1,000,000 on reader IllSurance alone between 1920 and 1928, setting aside the other forms of l,romotion it employed during the same period. 164 By June 1933, four l.nudon newspapers were estimated to be spending between them /,!ll,OOO to £50,000 a week on free gifts and canvassing. 165 Even in 1937, when the circulation war had abated, canvassers constituted about 400/0 "I t he staff of a typical national popular daily. 166 The disproportionate IlIlTeaSe in advertising patronage thus assisted the London daily press to expand. The concern of most mass market advertisers to reach a national lI\arket also provided an additional incentive, as well as resources, for a \ llllcerted push by London publishers to expand their circulation )',\'ngraphically. In particular, it both encouraged and helped to fund the 107

James Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

establishment of regional production centres in the north ofEngland and in Scotland by a number of national newspapers, (e.g. Daily News 1912, Daily Chronicle 1925, Daily Express 1927, Sunday Express 1927, Daily Herald 1930, News Chronicle 1930, Sunday Dispatch 1930 and Sunday Graphic 1932), which played an important part in the national expansion of the London press. Indeed, it was during the inter-war period in particular that the London daily press greatly expanded its national distribution. Its expansion can be monitored in the imperfect inter-war readership surveys cited earlier. It is also reflected in the circulation growth of the London daily press, which almost doubled from 5,430,000 in 1920 to 10,570,000 in 1939, compared with a small reduction in the circulation of the regional daily press from 7,300,000 to 6,990,000 during the same period. 167 The impact of advertisers in fostering the development ofthe London daily press as a cheap and efficient national marketing medium has had important political implications 168 It has contributed to the growing nationalisation of British political culture, reflected in, for instance, the marked decline in the salience oflocal issues in General Elections during the twentieth century 169 It has also reinforced the centralisation of British political life, conferring increased status upon national compared with local political leaders and bringing into greater prominence national compared with local political institutions.

'naturally predispose their readers to be interested in the latest goods available in those fields. They not only pre-select a type of reader, but they put that reader in a mood receptive to the advertisers' message'.I?1 .I'his belief has generated pressure on publishers to provide features that enable advertisers to pick out specialised groups-holiday-goers, buyers or fashion products, investors, motorists and so on-packaged in a suitable editorial ambience. Publishers have willingly responded to this pn:ssure by publishing a growing volume of consumer features with IlIllited reader appeal in order to generate more advertising. 172 Such katures tend to be advertising-goal orientated, and in contrast to the main sections of newspapers, highly susceptible to direct advertising mtluence. l73 This said, the direct impact of overt advertising pressure is largely IlIllited, in the case of the national newspaper press, to these advertising 'sponsored' features. Although this form of influence has been the main locus of attention in much commentary on the press, it does not compare III significance with the other more important ways in which advertising pat ranage has influenced and shaped the development of the national Ilewspaper press. 174

A detailed examination of direct advertising influence lies outside the compass of this article. It is sufficient to say that advertisers have sometimes sought to influence editorial policy directly by promising additional advertising, by withholding or threatening to withhold advertising, and very occasionally by inserting advertisements in an attempt to neutralise editorial hostility. Examination of the archives of one advertising agency, with a public relations subsidiary, demonstrates conclusively that advertising was used deliberately and often quite successfully to generate editorial publicity for clients' products. 170 This publicity was usually secured, however, in the features columns of the newspaper press, closely linked to advertising, and in the consumer magazine press. The flow of influence is not one-sided in the sense that it originates only from advertisers and is strongly resisted by publishers. There has long been a belief among some advertisers that certain types of feature

( ;"I/clusion Advertising has had an important cumulative influence upon the political structure of the national newspaper press. The early pattern of political and commercial discrimination in the selection of advertising media inhibited the development of a radical press during the early part lit the twentieth century. This political legacy was artificially I"'rpctuated by the subsequent rapid growth of advertising expenditure \Ill the press which made the launch of new left papers more difficult by IlllTeasing newspaper costs. And while political prejudice declined as a 1.11 tor in advertising media selection, centrist and right-wing papers-most notably quality papers reaching elite audiences-have '"111inued to receive more advertising support per copy than left papers, l1Lllltly due to the greater purchasing power and influence of their ,,·:,tlers. 175 Advertising has thus contributed in a number of ways to I'llltillcing and maintaining a press weighted to the centre and right. :\tlvertisers have also indirectly influenced the political content of the I"llilmal press by influencing the market strategies adopted by publishers III Illaximise revenue. In particular, the needs of specialist advertisers h,I\'l' helped to maintain a political press catering for relatively small elite .11It!leIlCeS by encouraging quality paper publishers to limit their papers'

108

109

Advertising Sponsorship

James Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

market appeal. The requirements of mass market advertisers, on the other hand, have encouraged popular papers to maximise their audience by reducing their political coverage. As a consequence, there has developed a growing polarisation between elite and popular journalism that does not reflect a growing divergence between quality and popular newspaper publics. Lastly, advertisers have influenced both the ownership and distribution ofthe newspaper press. The growth ofadvertising patronage has displaced political patronage of the press, thereby loosening the ties between national newspapers and the party system. And increased advertising expenditure on the press has assisted the London press to expand at the expense of the regional press mainly because national newspapers provided a cheaper means of reaching the national market. Whilst this examination has been confined to the national newspaper press, there is no reason to suppose that some of its conclusions do not also apply to other sectors ofthe press. In particular, it would seem likely that the market structure of the magazine press has been even more powerfully influenced by the marketing requirements of advertisers than the newspaper press, not least because a substantial number ofmagazines have been launched with the main purpose of exploiting the concern of advertisers to reach certain selected target markets. 176 The greater salience ofrevenue goals within the consumer magazine press, compared with the national newspaper press, has probably also resulted in advertising considerations playing a larger role in shaping the editorial strategies of consumer magazines. Indeed, further investigation may reveal that advertising has played an even more important role in the development of the magazine press than that of national newspapers.

, H. Herd: The March of Journalism, George Allen and Unwin, L~ndon, 1952; F. \X'dliams: Dangerous EJlale, The AnalOmy of Newspapers, Longmans, Green, London, 1(/')7; G. Boyce, J. Curran and P. Wingate (eds.): Newspaper Hlslory, Constable, London, .1I,d Sage, Beverley Hills, 1978.

Polytechnic of Central London. , My thanks to the Advertising Association for a grant to investigate the historical development of advertising media planning, the results of which are reported in an abridged form in part of this article. My thanks also to Leo-Burnett (incorporating the London Press Exchange) and to J. Walter Thompson (UK) for permission to examine their old company records.

" For a justifiably critical review of the available literature, see T. Nevett: 'The II l\loriography of Advertising', Ad1'erllslng Quarrerly, Vol. 44, 1975. For additional 11l\lorical studies covering the post-1918 period, not available to or cited by Nevett, see 7WI" London, J. Walter Thompson, n.d: S. Piggott: o.B.M.A. Celebra 1Ions, Ogilvy, IIm'on and Mather, London, 1976; L. Sharpe: The Llnlas SlOrv, Lintas, London, 1964; I"hll Watson: 'Thomas Russell and British Advertising in the Early Years of this 1 "'IlI11ry', Business Archives, 1973; and, in particular J. A. P. Treasure: The HlslOry of /l"',,h Adverllslllg Agencles 1875-1939, (Edinburgh University Commerce Graduates' \\\IlCiation Lecture 1976), Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1977. In the absence of .11 ;"·,,Jemic history of a British advertising agency, the best (but sometimes misleading) .",,,,, it ute is a history of an American advertising agency of which R. M. Hower: The I/"',,rv of an Adverllslng Agency: N. W. Ayer and Son al Work 1869-1949, Harvard t '1Il\Trsity Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1949, is perhaps the most useful. A.

, Howl Commission on lhe Press 1947-9 Reporl, HMSO, London, 1949, p. 83.

(:leverley argues, in a stimulating polemic, that fierce rate competition at a time of prices has resulted in popular national newspapers publishing advertisements at a "" III real terms when total publishing costs related to advertisements are taken into , '"11111. See G. Cleverley: The Fleel Sneel Dlsasler, Constable, London, and Sage, Beverly 11,11\. 1476. His assessment overstates the extent of loss-making and the duration of the '''''. 10 judge from the calculations of the third Royal Commission on the Press: Final I,', I', '>I. IIMSO, London, 1977, p. 329, which had access unlike Cleverley, to the detailed 1,11.1111 I;d accounts of all popular national newspapers. And while Cleverley's argument is '" IIIII"Htant one, it is academic in the sense that popular national newspapers have ""lllllll'd to be sold at uneconomic prices and to rely upon advertising receipts to make a ; '''III. "ven if a more realistic apportionment of costs suggests that during the mid-I 970s ",,,,,. advertisers were subsidised by some readers rather than the other way round. It ",,,,,dd perhaps be added that advertising profit margins have not yet been eroded in other ., , '"'' of the newspaper press on a scale comparable to that of popular nationals. . "1111:

h)r data about variations between indiVidual titles, see Economist Intelligence Unit: of lhe Narlonul Newspaper Induslr)', E.I.U., London, 1966, T12; National II"." .I Il,r Prices and Incomes: COS1S and Revenue of Nallonal Newspapers, HMSO, I ""d,,n, 1470, 1'04. : I"

ibid.

110

.\IO"i'CV

I"hle 2 is based on a selection of data that are readily comparable. For other sources ""11'llling the economic importance of advertising within the popular press over a ",'," IIlne-span, see in particular Political and Economic Planning: Reporr on lhe Brilish ',II. PEP, London, 1938, PI'. 73-4; J. E. Gerald: The Brillsh Press under Economic """ll, University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, 1956, PI'. 228-30; Economist ,I, 11'1:1'1Il'l' Units, 01'. cit, T12.

R. A. Critchley: u.K. Advertlslllg Slallsllcs, Advertising Association, London, 1972, 1'.9; 'Advertising Expenditure 1960-77', Adverllslllg Quarler/v, Advertising Association, London, J 978, 1'04.

4 The best summary of the contribution made by advertising to the revenue of different sectors of the British press-incidentally revealing that national newspapers derive a smaller proportion of revenue from advertising than do many other classes of publication-is provided in Business AfollilOr (PQ 485 Series).

Lee: The Origins oflhe Popular Press, 1855-1914, Croom Helm, London, 1976.

R L. Haigh; The Gazerreer 1735-1797, Southern Illinois University Press, ( ." ""ndale, lllinois, 1960; I. Asquith: 'Advertising and the Press in the Eighteenth and I .111 v Nineteenth Centuries: James Perry and the Morning Chronicle, 1790-1821', 1/",,"HuIJournal, Vol. XVII, 1975, and his 'The Structure, Ownership and Control of the I'"·,, 1780-1855, in Boyce, Curran and Wingate, 01'. cit: G. Cranfield: The Press and \'" ,,")': jrom CaXlOn 10 Norrhcllffe, Longman, London, 1977; et al.

2

J

J.

.\lIgl'll: The Press und lhe Organisalion of Saclely, Labour Publishing Company,

"".1,,". 1<)22; G. Lansbury: The Miracle ofFlcel Slreel, Victoria House, London, 1925; H. Steed: The Press, Penguin, London, 1938; G. Orwell: 'London Letter to Review', April 15, 1941, reprinted in S. Orwell and I. Angus (eds.): The Col/eeled 7""""ullsm and Lellers of George Orwell, Vol. 2. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970;

\ "' ,1,.1111 ;'" '1\.111

!

"".

III

James Curran Labour Research Department: The Milliona,'re Press, LRD, London, 1946; Daily Worker Co-operarive Society: Evidence to Royal Commission on the Press 1961-2, Documentary Evidence, Vol. I, HMSO, London, 1962; P. Hoch: The Newspaper Game, Calder and Boyars, London, 1974, et al. Russell 1919, op. cit. and his Advertising and Advertisements, Modern Business Institute, London, 1924; and A Working Text-Book of Advertising, Russell-Hart, London, 1925; A. Richardson: 'The Daily Press' in T. B. Lawrence (ed.): What I Know About Advertising, Spottiswoode, Ballantyre and Co., London, 1921; N. Hunter: Advertising Through the Press, Pitman, London, 1925; C. Higham: 'The Advertising Agent: His Value and Function' in Lawrence op. cit., and Advertising, Williams and Norgate, London, 1925; C. Freer: The Inner Side ofAdvertising: A Practical Handbookfor Advertisers, Library Press, London, 1921; et al.

Advertising as a Patronage System Widespread amongst the middle class than amongst the working class, although the ,II Il"renee was very much less marked in the case of national Sunday papers.

'" Calculated principally from the circulation estimates reported by Browne, op. cit., 1'121, though these should be treated with caution.

14

lS Russell, 1919, op. cit., p. 195. In the same vein, Russell argued that the Daily Telegraph was 'the unequalled medium' for advertising musical instruments because it has 'a big Jewish circulation, and everyone knows the Jews are the most musical race in the world'. T. Russell: Commercial Advertising, Putnam, London, 1919, pI. These bizarre pronouncements earned Russell an awesome reputation: he was described by a leading trade journalist as 'the leader of the profession until his death', (E. C. Field: Advertising: The Forgotten Years, Bain, London, 1956, p. 118) and to judge from a contemporary survey, his many books on advertising reached a wide audience. J. Murray Allison: First Essays on Advertising, Cecil Palmer, London, 1926, pp. 166-206

16 Associated Newspapers: n.d. p. 9. 17 Russell (1921), p. 24 estimated that only 5% of press publications in Britain published circulation figures. While publishers of national papers were less secretive about their circulation figures than publishers of provincial papers and magazines, their circulation claims were often false or highly misleading, being based on figures that were inflated by a competition, special event or attraction. 18 Higham, 1925, op. cit., p. 166.

These two departments were temporarily amalgamated during the early 1930s and III .. functional differentiation between the two was never clear-cut even when they were '''parate. But the many company files that have survived from the inter-war period leave Iltl doubt as to their impact within the agency. " Browne, op. cit., 1921. " London Press Exchange: 'Proposals made to Messrs. Lipton Ltd. in Relation to the ·\dvertising of their Multiple Shops and of Lipton's Tea', LPE Ltd., records, London IIln.

" P. Redmayne and H. Weeks: Market Research, Butterworth, London, 1931; H. W. I, I'T Advertising Media, Butterworth, London, 1932.

", Statistical Review of Press Advertising: 'F1ash-backs-1935', Vol. 4, No. I, 1936. " Oflicial readership surveys, sponsored by the lIPA or ISBA, in 1930, 1931, 1932, \·1, 1936 and 1939, were paralleled by national surveys conducted by the London Press "x,hange (1934, 1938 and 1939), J. Walter Thompson (1936), Crawfords (1934), I(q,lords (1932 and 1937) and readership surveys conducted or commissioned by Illdlvidual publishers (Bolton Evening News, Associated Newspapers, John Bull, Morning 1',"1, Daily Sketch among others) during the 1930s, by the London Research Bureau Ltd., wlIose first efforts were published by Associated Newspapers in The Nation's Newspaper 11112'1)-now destroyed-and in its syndicated survey of 1928 (London Research Bureau III

l'I.'Ii).

19 Hunter, 1925, p. 52. 20

" Anon: 'Advertising Agents Established belore the King's Accession and Still in !lllsmess', The Statistical Review of Press Advertising, Vol. 3, No.3, 1935.

" London Press Exchange: 'Farmer's Glory: Memorandum on an Advertising Policy', I I'E Ltd. records, London, 1935.

Freer, 1921, p. 203.

11 It does not appear, at any rate, to have been extensively used by two leading advertising agencies, London Press Exchange and J. Walter Thompson, during this period, to judge from their company records, although coupon analysis is generally referred to in the advertising textbooks of the 1920s.

" Institute of Incorporated Practitioners in Advertising: 'An Analysis of Press , Ill'ulations', IIPA, London, 1934, p. 128. ." Eley, op. cit., p. 172.

22 That the Daily Herald did not appeal only to 'the down-at-heels' is borne out by the first major extant readership survey (London Research Bureau: Press Circulations Analysed, LRB, London, 1928, p. 133) showing it to have a substantial lower-middle class readership.

., Throughout the inter-war period, there were frequent demands in the advertising Iill'fature to establish advertising as 'a profession' linked to demands for professional ,!'Ialifications, entry restrictions and scientific procedures. For an insightful assessment of ,h.. status and psychological insecurities of advertising men in the post-war period, see J. Illnstall: The Advertising Man, Chapman & Hall, London, 1964.

2J London Press Exchange: 'Report of an Investigation made in Relation to the Consumption of Breakfast Cereals in General and Grape Nuts in Particular in the British Isles', LPE Ltd, records, 1926, (Leo-Burnett), London.

" These were conducted for the Daily Sketch (1933), Daily Herald (1933), News( '/",,/lide (1934), Daily Herald (1936), and London Press Exchange (1938).

" London Research Bureau 1928, op. cit., p. 133. 25

Lansbury, 1925, op. cit., p. 160.

26

ibid.p.161.

J. Walter Thompson: 'Sun-Maid Plan 1929-30', 1929, p. 6. .. Redmayne and Weeks, op. cit. " G. Harrison and F. C. Mitchell: The Home Market: A Handbook of Statisitics, Allen ,,,,- Unwin, London, 1936, p. 6.

" T. B. Browne: Ad,'ertisers' ABC, Browne, London, 1930. " W. Fienburgh: 25 Momentous Years: A 25th Anniversary in the History of the Daily Herald, Odhams, London, 1955, p.8. " The early readership surveys show that readership of national daily papers was more

112

'" John Bull: 'Each Week the Shopping Bills of "John Bull" Families Exceed Three .\\I1lion Pounds', Statistical Review of Press Advertising, 1935, p. 2.

C. Chisholm: Marketing and Merchandising, Modern Business Institute, London, 1'124; Redmayne and Weeks, op. cit., p. 163.

113

James Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

48 e.g. Daily Mirror, 1934, p. 18; Sunday Graphic, 1934, p. 22; John Bull, 1934, p. 7; in Slalistical Review of Press Adverlising, VoL 3, 1934.

62 H. Cudlipp, Publish and Be Damned, Dakers, London, 1953; Al Your Peril, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1962; Walking on Warer, Bodley Head, London, 1976; M. Edelman: The Mirror: A Polilical HislOry, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1966; Cecil King: Slricrly Personal, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1969.

49

u.K.

C. H. Feinstein: Slalislical Tables of Nalionallncome, Expendilure and OUlPUI of lhe 1855-65, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976, p. 42.

R. Stone and D. A. Rowe: The Measuremenr of Consumers' Expendilure and Behaviour in lhe Uniled Kingdom 1920-38, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1966, pp.8, 12, 17,21 and 58.

6.1

King, op. cit., p. !OI.

64

Slalislical Review of Press Adverlising, 1939, p. 9.

50

'I

R. G. D. Allen and A. L. Bowley: Family Expendilure, London, 1935; Harrison and Mitchell, op. cit; M. Abrams: The Home Markel, Allen and Unwin, London 1939; Stone and Rowe, op. cit. '1 J. Stevenson and C. Cook: The Slump: Sociely and Polilics During lhe Depression, Cape, London, 1977, pp. 16-39; S. Pollard: The Developmenl of lhe Brilish Economy 1914-67, Second edition, Arnold, London, 1969, pp. 268-277; A. Marwick: Brilain in lhe Cel1luryof Toral War, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp. 226-34; N. Branson: Brilain in lhe Nineleen Twenries, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1975, pp. 151-65: N. Branson and M. Heinemann: Brilain in lhe Nineleen Thirlies, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1971, pp. 133-47. ,.1 T. B. Brown, op. cit. 1929; W. Belson: The Brilish Press, London Press Exchange (mimeo), London, 1959.

54 This disproportionate increase in the Daily Herald's advertising could be attributed, however, to a delayed response to the Daily Herald's circulation growth during the preceding period. Changes in advertising volume do not take into account possible changes in rating policy, and so provide an imperfect indication of advertising trends.

London Press Exchange; 'A Statistical Survey of Press Advertising during 1936', LPE Ltd. records, London, 1937, p. 19.

6'

P. Addison: The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War, Cape, I.ondon, 1975; A. Calder: The People's War 1939-45, Panther, London, 1971; H. Pelling: Social Geography of Brilish Elecrions, 1885-1910, London, 1967; T. Harrison: Living Through lhe BliIZ, Collins, London 1976. 66 A. C. H. Smith, E. Immirzi and T. Blackwell: Paper Voices: The Popular Press and Social Change 1935-65, Chatto and Windus, London, 1975. 67 Daily Mirror, Slalislical Review of Press Adverrising, 1938, p. 35; c.f. Sunday Pictorial, ibid., 1935, p. 10.

68

London Press Exchange Ltd. records 1941-46; cf. Gerald, op. cit.

69

Royal Commission on the Press, Report, 1949, op. cit., p. 81.

" Institute of Incorporated Practitioners in Advertising: Survey of Press Readership, IIPA, London, 1939. 71 P. Kimble: Newspaper Reading in lhe Third Year of lhe War, Allen and Unwin, I.ondon, 1942; L. Moss and B. Box: Newspapers and lhe Public, The Social Survey, Central Office of Information, June-July, 1943; HullOn Readership Survey, 1947, 1948; Mass-Observalion: Press and ilS Readers, Art and Technics, London, 1949.

\j

" ibid. p. 12. The London Press Exchange estimates are based on applying ordinary position rates to the total volume ofadvertising published in the publications it monitored. It made no allowance for agency commission, and its definition of 'display' advertising includes some advertisements, notably financial notices, not normally classified as 'display' advertising. J1

R. J. Minney: Viscounr Sourhwood, Odhams, London, 1954, p. 243.

58

ibid. pp. 286, 291.

59 Other factors facilitating this growth were the increase in national newspaper readership amongst the working class and, above all, the injection of large capital resources by Odhams in the development and promotion of the Daily Herald. 60 This pressure is reflected in the care taken by popular papers during the 1920s and early 1930s to promote themselves to advertisers as mainly middle-class papers. Typical was the Dai(v Mail which describes itself in its promotional literature (in 1930?) as 'the national daily newspaper of the "Class A" and "Class B" families (constituting less than a third of the population), which form the backbone of the great purchasing public of Britain' (Daily Mail n.d. p. 84), and which later claimed to reach a smaller proportion of working-class families than any other popular daily, and to appeal within the workingclass to the better-paid, 'responsible type of newspaper reader' (Daily Mail, 1936, p. 36; cf. Daily Mirror 1933, Sunday Picrorial1933, et aL). The pressure on papers to stay in the middle market is also echoed in the routine advice given by one of the most distinguished pioneer market researchers in Britain (Lyall) to avoid slum and poor areas: they were not deemed worth bothering about. A. G. Lyall: Markel Research: A Pracrical Handbook, London Research Bureau, London, 1933. 61 IIPA 1934, op. cit; Incorporated Society of British Advertisers: Readership of Newspapers and Periodicals, ISBA, London, 1936.

114

~'"

,1

IIPA, op. cit., 1939; Hulton, op. cit., 1947.

C. Seymour-Ure: 'National Daily Newspapers and the Party System', Royal Commission on the Press Working Paper No.3, HMSO, London, 1977. 7l

" Hulton, op. cit., 1947-56; Institute of Practitioners in Advertising: Nalional Hcadership Surveys, IPA, London, 1956-67; Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Surveys: Surveys, JICNARS, London, 1968-78. 7l J. W. Hobson: The Seleelion of Adverlising Media, Business Publications, London, 1419, pp. 20-31; cf. Hobson: revised edition, 1968, pp. 10-22.

,. J. R. Adams: Media Planning, Business Books, London, 1971, p. 69. " Henry Durant: 'The Market Research Society'S Early Days', Journal of lhe Markel Hl"Search Sociely, VoL 14, No.2, 1972. '" R. N. Wadsworth and B. D. Copland: Markel Research, Butterworth, London, 1951; 1\. H. Davies and O. W. Palmer: Markel Research and Scienczjic Dislribulion, Blandford

I'ress, London, 1957; R. M. Worcester: Consumer Markel Research Handbook, McGraw Ifill, Maidenhead, 1972. e.g. Wadsworth and Copland, op. cit., p. 2. M. Abrams: 'Introduction' in Harrison and Mitchell, op. cit., p. 7. "' R. Elvin: 'The Daily Mirror', Adverlising Review, VoL I, 1954. " e.g. D. Wheeler: 'A New Classification of Households', Brilish Markel Research IIlireau, June 1955. " e.g. Brian Alit: 'Money or Class: New Light on Household Spending', Adverlising (jllarlerly, VoL 44, 1975.

115

, Advertising as a Patronage System

James Curran " Feinstein, op. cit., pp. 42-3.

.5 ibid., pp. 151-69. 80 Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth: Report No.4, HMSO, London, 1976, pp. 101-9. " The national popular daily and Sunday press made an estimated 40"10 and 35"10 profit respectively in 1960; this had declined to 15"10 and 5"10 by 1972 and nil profit and 150/0 loss by 1975 (Royal Commission on the Press, Final Report, 1977, p. 39). ,. e.g. P. Lazarsfeld, B. Berelson and H. Gaudet; The People's Choice, Columbia University Press, New York, 1948; J. E. Gregg: 'Newspaper Editorial Endorsements and California Elections', 1948-62' Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 42, 1965; M. Hooper: 'Party and Newspaper Endorsements as Predictors of Voter Choice',Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 46, 1969. D. Butler and D. Stokes: Political Change in Britain, Macmillan, London, 1969; J. Blumer and J. M. McLeod: 'Communication and Voter Turn-Out in Britain', in T. Leggatt (ed.): Sociological Theory and Survey Research, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1974; J. P. Robinson: 'The Press as King-Maker: What Surveys from last 5 Campaigns Show', Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 51, 1974. 89

Central News Ltd.: Evidence to the Royal Commission on the Press 1961-2, Documentary Evidence, Vol. 5, HMSO, London, 1962, p. 15.

101 All advertising revenue figures cited in this paragraph have been supplied by publishers. The marked inequalities of revenue they reveal understate the true position, moreover, since quality papers reaching a predominantly middle-class audience did not suffer from the marked erosion of advertising profit margins to the same extent as popular nationals, RCP 1977, p. 39. 108 All cited advertising revenue figures are supplied by publishers. 109 RCP 1961-2; Economist Intelligence Unit, op. cit.; National Board for Prices and incomes, op. cit., 1970 and Costs and Revenue of National Daily Newspapers, HMSO, London, 1967; RCP 1974-77, op. cit. 110 The pressure on popular papers to target their appeal to sub-groups particularly sought by advertisers eased up during the 1970s as popular nationals became less advertising-dependent. III J. Curran: 'The Impact of TV on the Audience for National Newspapers' in J. Tunstall: Media Sociology, Constable, London, 1970, republished in K. J. Garry (ed.): Mass Communications, Bingley, London.

III

Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, op. cit. 1965-6.

IIJ

Butler and Stokes, op. cit., p. 187.

114

Seymour-Ure, 1977, op. cit., p. 187.

liS

Cecil King: The Future of the Press, MacGibbon and Kee, London, 1967, p. 88.

00

9J

Benson Ltd.: Evidence to ibid., p. 10.

" Incorporated Society of British Advertisers: Evidence to ibid., p. 51. 9]

Service Advertising Ltd.: Evidence to ibid., p. 113.

94

Notley Advertising Ltd.: Evidence to ibid., p. 100.

lib For a detailed examination of the editorial development of the Daily Mirror, to which I am indebted, see Smith et aI., 1975, op. cit.

111 King, 1969, op. cit., p. 132.

I"

" Hobson Bates and Partners Ltd.: Evidence to ibid., p. 45; Hirst Ltd.: Evidence to ibid., p. 41.

ibid. and With Malice Towards None: A War Diary, (ed. William Armstrong), Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1970; Without Fear or Favour, Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1971; The Cecil King Diary 1965-70, Cape, London, 1972.

96 Eric Tough cited in R. McKay and B. Barr: The Story of the Scouish Daily News, Cannongate, Edinburgh, 1976, p. 108.

119 Cudlipp 1976, op cit. Cudlipp's account of this accident is contested by King, not entirely convincingly.

OJ This is reflected in their responses to the Royal Commission on the Press 1961-2 questionnaire to advertising agencies. See RCP 1962 Documentary Evidence, Vol. 5.

120

Cudlipp 1953, 1962, 1976, op. cit.

Certainly, Tunstall found in 1967-8 that only a small minority of specialist correspondents working for moderate left national papers identified themselves as being further to the left than their papers Journalists at Work, Constable, London, 1971, p. 122. III

'. Samson Jackson and Co. Ltd.: Evidence to the Royal Commission on the Press, 1947-9, Memoranda of Evidence, Vol. 5, HMSO, London, 1949. 99

Pritchard Wood and Partners Ltd.: Evidence to ibid.

lOll

Young and Rubicam Ltd.: Evidence to RCP 1962, op. cit., p. 136.

""

e.g. Eley, op. cit., p. 43.

102 See, for instance, the reluctant consensus reached by advertising and marketing executives advising the last Royal Commission on the Press, RCP 1977, op. cit., Appendix

E. 10J W. Fletcher: The Ad Makers, Michael Joseph, London, 1973, p.53. Ill'

Critchley: op. cit.; Advertising Quarterly, 1978, op. cit.

Advertising Quarterly: 'Advertising Expenditure 1960-75', Advertising Association, London, 1976. 10.<

10. For a useful, if inconclusive, discussion of the impact of TV on newspaper advertising, see N. Hartley: 'Advertising Trends and the Press', Royal CommIssion on the Press, 1974-77, Memorandum Ad. 6, November 1976. ?

116

"' Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, op. it., 1963-4, p. 118. II]

Butler and Stokes, op. cit., p. 230.

'" Odhams Research and Development Services Department: Newspapers and Newspaper Reading', D.H. 75, London, 1964, p. 3.

'Attitudes to

," ibid. and 'National Daily Newspaper Readership Studies: 2. Attitudes to Newspapers and Newspaper Reading', D.H. 76, London, 1964. While these internal research studies reflect the economic pressures that shaped the evolution of the Daily IleraldlSun and indeed chart the broad direction that was to be taken by the newspaper, the extent of their influence on detailed editorial change is open to question. II.

e.g. IPC Marketing and Research Department, 1968.

The trend towards depoliticisation of the left press refers only to the decline of its explicitly political content. This is not intended to signify agreement with the view that entertainment features are necessarily a-political. Indeed, human interest stories nltl'll 127

117

James Curran

Advertising as a Patronage System

provide a view of the world that complements and reinforces the conservative, consensual themes of much current affairs coverage in the press.

144 ]. Curran: 'Capitalism and Control of the Press, 1800-1975' in ]. Curran, M. Gurevitch and ]. Woollacotl (eds.): Mass Communication and Society, Arnold, London, 1977; republished by Sage, Berverly Hills, 1979; and ]. Curran: 'Advertising and the Press' in ]. Curran (ed.): The British Press: a Mamje.'to, Macmillan, London, 1978.

128 News-Chronicle: A Survey oJ the Reader Interest in the National Morning and London Evening Press 1934, London Press Exchange Ltd., 1935. This and all subsequent 'reading and noting' studies cited in this article employed the methods developed by Daniel Starch for reading measurement, which avoid the major problems associated with measurement based on respondents' aided recall. For an interesting discussion of problems in reading measurement, see R. Fletcher: 'Reading Behaviour Reconsidered', Journal oj the Market Research Sociery, Vol. 12, No. I, 1970.

'" Odhams Research and Development Services Dept.: 'Feature Readership in National Dailies', D.H. 77, London, 1964. IJII

Sunday Times Research Dept., 1969-71.

I] I IPC Marketing Research and Development Services Department, 1969-70. III Institute ofIncorporated Practitioners in Advertising 1934; Incorporated Society of British Advertisers 1936; IIPA 1939; Hulton 1947-56; IPA 1956-67; ]ICNARS 1968-78. 1.1\

Cudlipp, 1977, op. cit., p. 59.

IH Royal Commission on the Press, 1949, Appendix 7, p. 250. 135

ibid.

I J6 For evidence on the continuing high level of public affairs coverage in the quality press, see the results of the content analysis by McQuail. (D. McQuail: Analysis oj Newspaper Content, Royal Commission on the Press, Research Paper 4, HMSO, London, 1977). Our content analysis revealed that the two quality papers that were examined between 1936 and 1976-the Daily Telegraph and the Observer -increased their public affairs content as a proportion of total editorial space from 220/0 to 300/0 and 260/0 to 300/0 respectively.

'" Indeed, differences in advertising pressure have contributed to different defmitions of non-revenue goals within quality and popular newspaper organisations. Prestige tends to be defined in terms of circulation success within popular newspaper organisations (i.e. in a form consistent with maximising the advertising revenue of popular newspapers), but more in terms of 'quality' and influence upon elites within quality newspaper organisations (i.e. in a form consistent with maximising the advertising revenue of quality papers). '" Russell, 1925, op. cit., p. 102. 17'

e.g. Eley, op. cit.; Hobson, 1959, op. cit.; Adams, op. cit.

'''' Royal Commission on the Press: Interim Report, HMSO, London, 1976, p. 31. For a fuller description of the market development of The Times, see F. Hirsch and D. Gordon: Newspaper Money: Fleer Street and the SearchJor the AJJluent Reader, Hutchinson, London, 1975. 141 There is no evidence that the growth of TV has eroded popular demand for public affairs coverage in the press. For an assessment, see]. Curran, 1970, op. cit. and Curran and]. Tunstall: 'Mass Media and Leisure', in M. Smith, S. Parker and C. Smith (eds.): Leisure and Sociecy in Britain, Allen Lane, London, 1973.

For detailed data on the post-war period, see Seymour-Ure, 1977, op. cit. The proConservative press has, as Lythgoe argues, a small share of the national Sunday press circulation (Paul Lythgoe: 'Tory Bias seen as a Myth', The Media Reporter, 1978). The amount of political coverage in the popular Sunday press is, however, very small and Lythgoe misreports the political affiliations of some papers. 142

143

Walter Thompson, n.d. p. 24.

145

].

146

Critchley, op. cit., p. 9.

Calculated from data presented in Royal Commission on the Press, op. cit. 1949, p. 82, and in Royal Commission on the Press, op. cit., 1976, p. 96. 147

14.

Royal Commission on the Press, op. cit., 1949.

149

Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, op. cit., 1963-4.

159 Calculated from advertising revenue figures provided by the Sunday Times and Observer and an estimate of the Sunday Citizen's advertising revenue derived by multiplying its annual volume of advertising (recorded by IPq by its standard column Inch rate by the appropriate number of publishing days, less agency commission. 151 A. Aspinall: Politics and the Press 1780-1850, Home and Van ThaI, London, 1949, "'printed by Harvester Press 1973, Brighton; Haigh, op. cit.; P. M. Handover: History oJ the London Gazette, 1665-1965, HMSO, London, 1965; I. R. Christie. 'British Newspapers III the late Georgian Age', in Myth and Reality in Late 18th Century British Politics, 1970; ( :ranfield, op. cit.; Asquith 1975 and 1978, op. cit.

'" An exception to this is provided by Seymour-Ure: The Polirical Impact oj the Mass .\f'·Ilia, Constable, London, 1974: 'The Press and the Party System Between the Wars', in I' Ii. Peele and C. Cook (eds.): The Politics oj Reappraisal, 1919-1939, Macmillan, London, 11176; and Seymour-Ure, 1977, op. cit. to whose analysis I am indebted. '" Lee, op. cit.; A. M. Gollin: The Observer and J. L. Garvin, Oxford University Press, I l"C, London, 1973; and Seymour-Ure, 1976 and 1977, op. cit. H. A. Taylor: Robert Donald, Stanley Paul, London, 1934. W. Hindle: The Morning Post, 1772-1937, Routledge and Sons, London, 1937. A.]. P. Taylor: Beaverbrook, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1972. G. Glenton and W. Pattinson: The Last Chronicle oj Bouverie Street, Allen and IIWI", London, 1963. .• Minney, op. cit. Taylor, 1972, op. cit.

"" .J. Curran: 'Press Freedom as a Property Right: The Crisis of Press Legitimacy', 11,,11,1, Culture and Society,

Vol. I, No. I, 1979.

Wyndham Goldie: racing the Nation: Television and Politics 1936-76, T. Burns: I~. 1111(:: Public Institution and Private World, Macmillan, London, 1977; P. Schlesinger: ..... I/"'~ Reality Together, Constable, London, 1978; M. Tracey: The Production oj Political .... "'Oil, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1977. I i.

"~.

Russell, 1925, op. cit., p. 120; Eley, 1932, op. cit., p. 81; Harrison and

q. h"II, "p. cit., p. 109.

I'''"don Press Exchange Ltd., company records, 1922-39; Russell, 1925, op. cit., et 1'"llIlcal and Economic Planning, 1938, op. cit., p. 89.

Seymour-Ure, 1977, op. cit., p. 174.

118

119

James Curran 165

ibid., p. 88.

166

ibid., p. 132.

THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF NEWSPAPER HOUSES

167 N. Kaldor and R. Silverman: A Statistical Analysis of Advertising Expenditure and of the Revenue of the Press, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1948.

It is perhaps not without significance that the London daily and, to an even greater extent, Sunday press failed to achieve the same high penetration in Scotland as it did in Wales. The much greater resilience of the Scottish regional press reflected and probably also helped to maintain a more vigorous nationalist tradition in Scotland.

Charles N. Tremayne

'68

160 Compare for example, reports of General Elections In the early 20th century (pelling: Social Geography of British Elections, 1885-1910, London, R. Price: A'I Imperial War and the British ~f'orking Class, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1972) with those in the 1940s and early 1950s (R. B. McCallum and A. Readman: The British General Election of 1945, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1947; D. Butler: The British General Eleaion of 1951, London, 1952)

"0 These data (London Press Exchange Ltd., records) relate to the inter-war period when there was less competition between public relations agencies than there is now. '"

Hobson, 1968,op. clt, pp. 18-19;cf. Hunter,op. cit; Ely,op. cit.

172 J. Curran: 'The Press as an Agency of Social Control: An Historical Perspective', in G. Boyce, J. Curran and P. Wingate (eds.): N€2vspaper History, Constable, London, and Sage, Beverly Hills, 1978.

'" J.

Tunstall: Journalisrs at Work, Constable, London, 1971.

'" In the space available, it has not been possible to consider the direct role of advertisers in sponsoring the large part of press content constituted by advertising, and its wider implications. For a useful summary of investigations into advertising images, sec L. J. Busby: 'Sex-role Research on the Mass media'. Journal of Communication, 1975 and for a more recent enquiry into British magazine advertising, see T. Millum: Images of Women, Chatto & Windus, London, 1976. British newspaper advertisements have yet to be seriously studied but for tentative approaches, see H. Butcher, R. Coward, R. Harrison and]. Winship (eds.): 'Images of Women in the media', Birmingham University Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, W'orking Paper, 1974, and J. Curran: 'Sex Role Dinhentiation in Popular National Sunday Newspapers', Social Psychology (D305), Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1976. For provocative but interesting assessments of advertising that go beyond a narrow consideration of the impact of the themes and images mediated in advertisements, see S. Ewen: 'Advertising: Selling the System', in M. Mankoff(ed.): The Poverty of Progress, Holt, Rinehart, New York, 1972 and Dallas W. Smythe: 'Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism', Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, Vol. I No.3, 1977. '" While the surplus generated by advertising in the national popular press has been eroded, this has been much less true of the quality press. The decline of advertising profit margins in the national press has thus widened the gap between the level of support afforded by advertising to papers catering for elite and mass publics. 176 Indeed, many ofthe marketing and advertlsing developments that have been noted in this article clearly influenced also the development of the magazine press. The increasing concern of advertisers to reach the mass womens market in the 1930s encouraged the launch of a large number of women's magazines aimed at the mass market between 1930 and 1939. The increasing concern of advertisers to reach more specialised segments. within the women's market during the post-war period encouraged the development ofa more specialised women's magazine press reaching particular age groups and consumer sub-groups from the 1950s onwards.

120

on the Press has paid a large amount of attention to the actions and beliefs of journalists, but not much to the organisational processes which support them. Journalists are at the interface between their medium, whether it is newspapers, television or radio, and its audience. As such they are key figures in understanding how the mass media influence processes in society. But to take the case of newspapers, we must also study the organisational features of the rest of the plant to see how they interact with journalists. Both the commercial and production sectors of publishing have powerful influences over what journalists produce. And though journalists necessarily reflect many characteristics from their interaction with other departments, they still tend to be studied largely in terms of the sociology of their occupation, and too little in terms of the organisations for which they work. Newspaper publishing is a tightly synchronised operation which creates mutually-supporting relationships between different sections. It is the homogeneity of these departments, and their pecking order within the organisational structure which has important bearings on the objectives of the newspaper and the nature of its editorial content. This article takes a look at some of the processes which go on in newspaper publishing houses and is based on the detailed study of two plants in Scotland. Both houses produced provincial morning and evening newspapers and each employed about 1,200 staff. Why are newspapers published? Each newspaper reader probably has a different view depending on why they personally feel it necessary to purchase one. It could be that its news pages are usually seen as being most accurate or its features pages are very entertaining or else it has a wide variety of jobs and small ads. But the readers' views are often very different from those of the publishers . . . they have to make the newspaper viable, and to do that they must take into account all these needs, print it and distribute it, if possible before their competitors. Consequently it takes split-second timing to produce a newspaper which fulfIls all these requirements. The decisions taken to achieve this end are necessarily commercial, in that the very act of publishing supersedes

RESEARCH

121

., The Social Organisation of Newspaper Houses

Charles N. Tremayne

FIGURE 2

what actually goes into the paper, so long as the general 'mix' of the editorial is satisfactory. It also means that the work of a journalist is affected by the needs ofthe technology and by the need to be profitable or within budget. These commercial pressures have made it necessary for a distinctive division oflabour in the newspaper industry. The two newspapers in this study both had a traditional organisational structure based on 'letterpress' printing, which had been the unchanged method of publishing since the houses first started. The main groups involved in the publishing of the newspapers are the editorial, advertising and production departments. Figure 1 shows how a continuous flow system operates between them, while the other departments are not integral units in the process. The Editorial department gathers and processes the news; the Advertising department sells space to clients. Both sectors then send their material to the production department who type-set, print and distribute the newspaper. FIGLRE I The main groups vf newspaper production

Editorial - -

-

- -

-

- Advertising

:~ ~ Production

I

Circulation

I

Retailer

Personnel Accounts Public Relations AnciJlary Stall' (maintenance) cafeteria,

I

Reader

switchboard, security)

Circulation works in conjunction with editorial to boost sales by exploiting particular features of the newspaper's content. The inputs to all three areas are continuous, and everyday production is geared to a succession of deadlines leading up to the publishing of each edition. In both newspapers the internal organisation of each department is very much the same. In Editorial the main focus of activity centres on the Newsdesk (see Fig 2) which is the target for all news stories, tip-offs and press information. The news comes from three main sources. For an annual subscription the news agencies send a constant up-to-date flow of teleprinted information to the 'wireroom'. The second input comes from the newsdesk itself, where the News Editor assigns reporters to cover stories from the press releases, tip-offs and events that have been on the diary for some time. The third input comes from the newspapers' own specialist 122

The main units of the edilOnal department Reporters

Wirerooffi

~

Sport

SportS Editor Sports Sub-EdHor

~

The

~tor

/

Newsctesk

I

Leaders

Special Features Correspondents Fe~turcs / Editor

fcatun:s Sub-Editor

I

~

Chief Sub and

~pYTastcr

~-fd/

Cascroom (Production)

correspondents who may often come up with an idea for a story or may hear information from their contacts. Once the news has been gathered, it is then sent through the system to the chief-sub and copytaster, who decide what news-value it has. In modern newspapers most ofthis matter ends up on the 'spike', leaving only a small amount for sub-editors to process for typesetting. Some of the more significant news stories are followed up by the features department, who look for a new 'angle' on the story or attempt a more leisured analysis. The leader writers tend to operate in conjunction with the editor. After all the work has gone through the sub-editors, the 'copy' is then sent to the Caseroom for typesetting. The other input to the production process comes from the Advertising department. The income from advertising is a vital part ofthe newspaper budget. The average tabloid newspaper requires advertisers to contribute about 40 per cent of their total revenue, while the more serious papers require 75 percent.

FIGURE 3 The mai" ""irs of rhe advertising department

I

Display

Ad'.~

Canvass Area

Canvass Area

]ncoming CallS

I Sales Representatives

Canvas:-,crs

I Field Sales

I

Receplinoists

~

Representatives \ \ Copy Control

I

Classified Ads

OUlgoing Calls

/

Control

Field Sales Clerical

Desk

----I~ Production

123

Charles N. Tremayne

The Social Organisation of Newspaper Houses

As Figure 3 shows, the advertising department sells two sorts of space in the paper. 'Display' ads are known as 'run of paper' announcements because they are interspersed throughout the copy on editorial pages. This type ofadvertising is most sought by newspapers because it is more expensive; sales reps each have their own canvas area which they develop. The classified advertisements are generally placed on the later pages of the newspaper and are not accompanied by editorial copy. The space is sold in three different ways. In addition to the system of sales reps working their areas there are now 'tele-ad' departments who take incoming orders or canvass for new clients by telephone. The urgency that time schedules place on the interlocking departments ofthe Production process accentuates the interdependence ofeach link of the chain. F1GURE 4 The main groups oj the productIon process TelecommunicaTions

\\llrcroom opera[f1!"s

- - - Editorial

c()ml~

Rtadi~;i;:fe;~sd ~

Adveniscmenrs

I Process Dept

Photo printers IAllotype Ops. Compositors

.\.1ounting Room

prourpUllcrs~

Readers

Copy readers Nut makers

I Foundry Stereotypers

I

Nlachine Room ,~1.indcrs

ASSistants

I

Packing Packers

I

Garage Drivers

As Figure 4 shows, the first step is the Composing and Reading department. It is here that the copy is typeset on linotype machines, though in one of the two newspapers there had been a small attempt to introduce a degree of automatic typesetting with paper punch-tape. In a conventional letterpress composing room the tradesmen are divided into three groups. The linotype operator sets the main body of the copy, the 124

'compositor' is responsible for setting headlines and large type; and the 'nutmaker' sets the type in metal page 'formes' and pulls a proof for editorial inspection. Editorial representatives traditionally gather around the 'stone' prepared to make last minute changes or corrections before going to press. The completed forme is then sent through the Stereotyping or Foundry section where a soft fibre 'flong' is made from it. This has the indented landscape ofthe metal type on it. When dry it is used as the mould for casting the metal printing plates. The plates then go to the Machine Room where they are fitted to the presses. The 'minders' are responsible for the quality ofthe printing, checking the ink levels and watching the tension of the paper on the presses. The 'assistants' act as brake hands, oilers, magazine hands and generally assist the print run. As the printed papers stream along the overhead carriers they are taken into the Packing or Publishing room, where they are counted, wrapped and labelled for dispatch. Outdoor assistants load the papers into vans for distribution. Allied to these departments are the Process section where photographs and graphics are prepared for publication and the Wireroom where news agency tape is received. This traditional method of newspaper production threw up a distinctive occupational ideology, made up of those members who form the 'core' ofthe organisation, the 'newspapermen' and those who they see as superfluous to the 'essential' organisational goals. The 'impartial news dissemination' goals of the editorial staff take precedence in their view over the profit goals ofcommercial management. A beliefwhich is borne out by these three views: 'Some of the people in departments upstairs have never seen a press. They're not newspapermen like us. The relationship between production and editorial is good because we see each others' problems. Machine room attendant '1 think it's only journalists and production statTwho have ink in their veins, so to speak. ! enjoy working here though 1 would readily move elsewhere if! were otTered a better job with more pay. 1 don't know whether 1 like working here because its a newspaper or because it is a good company,' Accountant.

'Newspaperman? l'm a salesman.' Sales Representative.

Reactions like these broadly put the different groups into two categories: GROUP A Dual Ideological Commitment Advertising Management Accounts Personnel Public Relations

GROUP B Newspapermen Production Editorial Editorial Executive Caretakers Maintenance Circulation

125

Charles N. Tremayne

The Social Organisation of Newspaper Houses

To say that people in Group A have 'dual ideological commitment' means they have a divided loyalty between the organisation for which they work-the newspaper-and their own profession, which isn't exclusively devoted to just publishing and may have other behavioural norms. Printers and journalists in Group B share many of the same attitudes to work and also respond with some consensus to organisational goals. Unlike the 'professionals' in Group A, the printers and journalists in the publishing houses had lost any allegiance to their occupations of origin. The printers had long been divorced from the commercial print shops where they came from because far fewer skills were required in newspaper publishing. And the journalists seldom tried to subscribe to the ideals of being writers as they believed the newspaper work was seldom creative in a writing sense and was largely produced along a well-trodden framework of categorised stories. Instead, both groups tended to see the concept of a 'newspaper' as an end in itself, and not a primary source of news dissemination. The saga of the Scottish Daily News 1 also illustrates this concept: the newspaper would have been produced in any form to ensure its survival and very few journalists felt moved to withdraw their loyalties from the venture because of changes in its character. Obviously one of the prime motivating forces in this case was that the journalists were desperate to keep their jobs. But that too is all part of treating a newspaper as an end in itself. Breed 2 suggests that there are other reasons why journalists conform to news policy and says that the atmosphere of the newsroom and the interesting character of the work are important. But if these two factors are compensations for agreeing to conform, it also seems as though such characteristics have become institutionalised in the structure, as this executive explained.

So what links between the journalists and printers explain their adoption of a common ideology? Apart from the editorial sub-group, all the other sub-groups of Group B tend to be based in the same physical location, down near the Machine Room, and the Caserooms. The maintenance workers, electricians and engineers operate mostly at this level setting units on the presses, repairing Linotype machines and servicing electrical appliances. They are also responsible for repairs

elsewhere, in other departments, but as their workshops are usually situated in the bowels of the building, it is not surprising they adopt the ideology of the Machine Room and the Caseroom, especially as their work has similar characteristics of craft skill and relatively high autonomy. In addition to these the caretakers also adopt the dominant ideology of the craft workers, but this is more to do with their similar social origin and close proximity at work. But in this broad structure there are also underlying relationships. The Caseroom in particular are very conscious of their craft status. In both newspaper houses, workers in the Machine Room complain that compositors from the Caseroom have 'chips on their shoulders' about their status within the plant. In speaking to management too, the Caseroom is often referred to as the most 'sensitive' part of the workforce-though this can be explained by the insecurity felt by most Caseroom employees because of the impending introduction of computerised type-setting. One other social conflict occurs in the Circulation department between the sales representatives and circulation management. Most of the reps who service the distribution area come from the packing room of the plants, and with their consistent contact with that department as part of their everyday routine, the reps share a common production ideology. Not so the circulation management: many of these have been pulled into the department primarily to add commercial or industrial expertise to the operation, and have no newspaper background. Consequently they are often accused by the reps of not being newspapermen and betraying the traditions of newspaper distribution. If we take the two categories of Group A and Group B, it is possible to spot certain characteristics which are distinctive to each. And one significant area relates to the way in which each group approaches the question of profit. In group B neither the journalists nor production workers treat the collection of revenue as a primary goal. They both have a keen interest in maintaining the profitability of the paper, but their immediate function is to get it written and printed. The production workers see their goals as first getting out the full quantity of papers on time, and secondly, ifeverything is running smoothly, they look towards the printing quality. The average journalist is not in a position directly to affect the newspaper's circulation by changing his editorial style, because such changes can only be made incrementally. The sub-groups of Group A, on the other hand, are directly associated with the business of making the newspaper profitable ... so it is not

126

127

'Everybody in this building, especially those in control, should have an element of newspapermanship in them. Mind you, in talking to other people I feel as though a lot of them don't have an instinctive relationship with the product. Journalists see themselves as the life chord of the newspaper and I suppose to a certain extent, it's

true.'

Senior Executive, Editorial

Charles N. Tremayne

surprising that a gulf of opinion exists between it and Group B. 'Editorial's attitude on commerciality is that it's an attack on the freedom of the Press. The production departments attitude to us is "what has it got to do with you?'" Sales Manager. 'Newspapers are an uneasy alliance between them-the journalists, who think they're God-and us, the "lowest of the low." Our real allies are the circulation department, who think much the same way as we do. Tempers get pretty frayed sometimes because of this stigma which has been built up over the years.' Sales executive. 'I think we tend to identify more with the problems of production than advertising; their work is so directly linked to ours. However, we are made very conscious of the Journalist. fact that advertisements pay our wages.'

Possibly the most salient characteristic ofa newspaperman's job is the time constraint enforced upon him by production schedules. As the newspapers have a short life of maybe only two or three hours the pressures on both editorial and production are particularly great as both groups are vital links in the 'assembly line' process. Journalists in the two houses complained that the pressure of time was often forced upon them to rush their writing, and they felt that sometimes the descriptive and objective elements of their work suffered. And, as mentioned before, the production workers aim more towards quantity or speed goals rather than the traditional craft objective of quality. Conformity with the 'stop-go' nature of edition schedules provides the need for continuity, pressure and controlled unpredictability that so characterises the Press; and something that hardly affects commercial management as they are able to work on a longer time scale. And the joint work of printers and journalists on the 'stone', where the final make-up is performed, greatly enhances relations between them, because they are both striving for the successful on-time completion of an edition. This type of relationship can be explained by the theories of Lawrence and Lorsch J, who suggest that the structure of each department depends upon the nature of tasks to be tackled. In describing the radically different structures, marketing and research and development in plastic fums, they show how each department has different time conceptions and goal orientations according to their work. The task of editorial and production, characterised by a structure geared to copy deadlines, contrast with the different nature of work in sales, accounts and management. Lastly, the final feature of the 'newspaperman' is that production workers and journalists showed a greater loyalty to newspapers in general as places of work; when asked whether they would leave the industry if offered a better job, Group A tended to reply that they

The Social Orgallisatioll of Newspaper Houses

would, whilst Group B either said no, or felt they would have to consider carefully the implications and conditions for such a move. This can partly be explained by the greater job mobility of commercial staff; journalists and printers have fewer options. The two newspaper houses which this study covers have traditional structures ... but both were in the process of change. This change took two forms: technological and commercial. The first was formally planned to come to terms with the innovations which had been sweeping the industry in previous years. But the second, the commercial change, was largely unplanned and more the reaction of an industry having to learn to live in a different economic climate. Some signs that newspapers are relating to commercial considerations rather than to some of the Press traditions are manifest enough: in Fleet Street for instance, the Observer and the Daily Express were both taken over by big companies who made it their publicised intent to run the newspapers at a profit. And Times Newspapers have been owned by the multi-lateral Thomson organisation for some time. But perhaps the greater significance lies in the trend towards an increasing degree of centralised structural control in many of the departments. The reaction of members of the plants bears this out: 'In recent years there have been definitely more managers. It's become top heavy in some departments; there's safety in numbers.' Sales rep. 'There are too many chiefs and not enough Indians, too many non-newspapermen taking decisions afrecting the newspaper outwith the control of the editorial stafr.' Journalist. 'We used to know all the managers in this place. Everybody used to have direct access to the Managing Director, now we very rarely see him and there are all sorts of managers who I didn't even know had jobs here.' Wireroom operator.

But if people do believe there is more emphasis on management in newspapers, they are not all against it: 'If journalists were in charge we'd be bust within a year,' Journalist. 'I welcome more management in newspapers. I've worked on too many papers which have died. Good and efrective management is really important, though the influence of the Editor is inevitably diminished because of the growth in awareness of profitability' Senior Editorial Executive. 'We used to be looked upon as a necessary evil, but now its all changing. No matter how good the paper is, it won't be published unless there's enough advertising.' Advertising Rep.

People in both newspaper houses therefore were aware of the increasing amount of formal management. But at the same time both Sigal4 and Samuel j agree that a necessary concomitant of producing a 129

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daily newspaper under pressure of deadlines is that of decentralisation of control; each department should be able to exercise considerable control over its own budget, staff appointments and assignments. In one of the newspaper houses, the work of the production, promotions and circulation managers had previously been performed by one man in an autocratic position: though undesirable for the health of the manager himself, it did allow decisions to be made quickly and flexibly. When responsibilities were broken up within separate departmental boundaries, the workload of the single manager was dramatically decreased, but the amount of managerial 'red-tape' increased. As the report on the Press by PA Management Consultants notes,6 since 1970 the general quality of management in the national newspaper industry has 'considerably improved', especially with regard to financial management and cost reduction policies; and that the improvement has been partly due to outside recruitment, and to the reorganisation and development of existing staff. Also 'wage drift and a tighter economic situation has encouraged the growth of budgetary control systems which provide those at the centre with a means of assessing and influencing bargaining activities within departments.' We therefore not only have a growth of departmental functions, and managerial proliferation, but also an underlying centralisation of control over budgeted resources. Other indicators such as the proliferation of both personnel and production management, the managerial development schemes of newspaper groups, and the tight budget control necessary in times of economic recession, suggests that the characteristics of bureaucracy-specialisation, a system of rules and regulations and a degree of impersonality-are becoming more prevalent in newspapers. Increasingly reliance on commercial skills is another factor which helps the organisation lean towards a standardised management philosophy. To many 'newspapermen' the ideology of their commercial counterparts runs closely parallel to a highly mistrusted management ethos. They feel threatened therefore by a proportional rise in the numbers of commercial employees which have come about because of the increasing dependence of the Press upon advertising. As one Father of the Chapel (elected leader of a trade union group) explained:

But the economics of the newspaper world are now so precarious that the 'gifts' of business acumen are highly prized by proporietors. It is increasingly common to find commercially orientated personnel in executive roles that formerly bore the prerogative of editorial men. The provincial Press especially value the recruitment of such people to key posts, but even in Fleet Street, structural changes have shifted power away from editorial to the accountants, marketing and production managers. When the late Roy Thompson bought the Kemsley group of newspapers in 1959, it marked the beginning of commercial control in newspapers. Thomson's taciturn business sense brought order to newspaper economic practice which was rapidly becoming outdated in a changing world. But these methods were criticised for compromising what some people called the 'cavalier spirit of British journalism'. Thomson was once reputed to have said- 'There's no point in getting scoops if you spend all the money on international phone calls. You don't make profits that way.» So while an editor still has a high degree of control over the content of his newspaper, his influence within the organisation has fallen. One of the newspapers in this study demoted its editor within the organisational hierarchy by withdrawing his entitlement to become a member of the board on appointment. Such changes are summed up by one newspaper executive interviewed who observed that in modern newspapers, the managing director seldom comes from the editorial side of the businesss. He added that he thought editors were becoming the 'fallen prima donnas of the newspaper world.' A further shift towards more management occurs in the hiring and firing of staff. Personnel departments have blossomed in nearly all areas of the industry. Traditionally recruitment was undertaken at department level; the editor selected his own staff and the unions supplied production workers in accordance with agreed manning rates. But following the growing complexity of government legislation on employment, the increasing salience of industrial relations and significantly, a growing dependence on the commercial side of newspapers, the Personnel departments have expanded dramatically. Both the newspapers featured here showed large increases in the last ten years of people employed on personnel business. The fact that the editorial and production departments have given some of their routine administration to a Personnel department is not all that significant. But much of the new-found power of Personnel departments derives from their emergence at the same time as the commercial sectors of the

'With so many new levels of management, the bureaucracy has increased to such an extent that the face-to-face relationships that used to keep the plant so successful have now gone.'

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industry. When Roy Thomson bought the Scotsman in 1952, he not only brought in a strong accounting tradition but also new ideas on canvassing for advertising. After the war, and the end of newsprint rationing, there was a rush to buy advertising space and newspapers had to do very little to ensure their profitable survival. But gradually the demand decreased, so the introduction of the 'tele-ad' system, now standard among newspapers, was invaluable. It meant accepting smallads without pre-payment, but because the need to go out and win the client was so great, it was an acceptable business risk. Yet it also meant the influx of many new statT to handle the incoming business ... and the recruitment of sales representatives to go out and canvass for new clients. So how have the traditional attitudes of the 'newspapermen' stood up to the increasing number of commercial employees? In these two newspaper houses there were also signs that the newspapermen were becoming more tolerant and susceptible to the views of the commercial department. The working relationships that had developed meant that the divisions between the groups were becoming less marked. An advertising manager confirmed this view.

The Social Organisation of Newspaper Houses The Role of the Supplements EdilOr

'Departments in the Press are becoming less like enclaves-they still tend to work along parallel lines and swear that they are more important to the organisation-but rclarions have definitely got better in the last eighteen months. For instance we used to have trouble with the production Over getting ads in certain positions on the page. Now they're more helpful. I can go down there when I want and get to know the people.'

The main purpose of an advertising supplement, whatever the views editorial holds towards it, is to boost the income of the commercial department. Advertising features in some form have become common characteristics in nearly every type of newspaper. Most common in the local press is the special feature on a new shop or business; all those who helped in its construction or its future suppliers are encouraged to advertise alongside the article. But this also takes a significant step for the newspaper as it automatically becomes identified with the new venture. Such endorsement is even more committing in the case of Advertising Shopping Guides-the sort of thing being pioneered by Readers' Digest and now used as a source of revenue by many periodicals, evening and provincial newspapers. The feature is written by a sales representative, and is usually made up of a number of recommendations to use the businesses that are mentioned. The third and the last sort of feature is less blatant, usually appearing in the 'quality' newspapers. Often presented as pull-out sections of a newspaper, supplements like this appear to otTer serious coverage of social, economic and political issues. But even though the subject might be more important than the other type of advertising features, the motive is no ditTerent; it is no coincidence that newspapers pay great attention to wealthy countries like the oil-rich gulf states of the Middle East. Often the only people who use the articles are schoolteachers who

If the barriers between the groups are coming down it is partly due to the simple fact that newspapermen are getting more used to commercial employees in newspapers. After all advertising has only comparatively recently become a necessity rather than a service. But it is also due to the editorial side's being forced into accepting the commercial realities of producing newspapers. One area that highlights the factors which led to the original conflict, but also shows how it is being resolved, is the role of special supplements in newspapers. Lawrence and Lorsch H confrontirtg the problems of integrating organisational units which have diverse structures and goals, show how the more successful enterprises utilise mediation devices to act as butTer zones between departments. The man responsible for producing advertising supplements-the Supplements Editor-takes on the role as the mediator between editorial and commercial. But this position is also an indicator of the agreement of editorial staff to follow commercial goals.

use them as teaching aids. The supplements editor is the person who has to commission writers and co-ordinate the rest of the production of a supplement or advertising feature. To do this he operates in the middle ground between the goals of advertising on one hand, and the goals of editorial on the other. The goals of the advertising department are primarily geared towards producing revenue. If what a journalist writes stands between a contract or failure to do business, the commercial rep would usually be quite happy to change the words. In both the newspaper houses the advertising reps saw the problem as being an important point of principle-if they have to maximise revenue, they felt they should be able to change journalists' copy. Editorial goals, on the other hand, are bound up with the freedom of the Press and the need for objective reporting of the news. One principle which stems from this approach is often quoted and states that 'news should be what people don't want to see printed; all the rest is just public relations.' Consequently journalists, in complete contradiction to the commercial

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department, are loathe to give 'free-plugs' to businesses. It is a principle that inspires great formal support from the editorial department, although to be fair, it is somewhat relaxed when the journalist actually believes or supports the issue at stake. Yet on a wider scale the role of advertising is still a central argument in the debate over Press freedom. One provision necessary for a free Press, it is said, is that prominent advertisers, usually corporations or the government, should not be in a position to influence editorial decision making by virtue of their revenue input into the organisation. So it is a matter of serious debate for the editor to decide how far he can go before advertisers start encroaching upon editorial content. He must pay particular attention to the role of supplements, because in publishing them, journalists have been brought right into the middle of the revenue making function. And it is the supplements editor who is in the unenviable position of fulfilling a role that grudgingly brings together two key facets of newspaper organisation. Both supplements editors in the two newspapers studied were journalists and consequently their first loyalty was towards the principle of good editorial. In the main they wanted to see the supplement written as an objective analysis of the situation (in their eyes) and without unmerited references to potential advertising clients. But they also had to pay heed to the demands of the advertising department, particularly as most of the ideas for new supplements originated on the commercial side. Each supplement is carefully weighed up for advertising potential before being presented to the supplements editor. The crucial point is reached when the sales rep encounters a particularly stubborn client who might take space if offered an incentive; this usually means some reference in the editorial content of the supplement. This is an awkward situation for the supplements editor because he has to encourage good working relationships with both editorial and advertising. If advertising is seen to encroach upon editorial he not only violates the policy of the newspaper but also the ideological beliefs of his profession, resulting in occupational and social conflict with colleagues. At the same time, the sales rep will become reluctant to work with him if his unco-operative attitude means they lose salary bonuses because they fail to reach their advertising target. Apart from these work relationships the supplements editor encounters wider problems related to role. When a supplement has achieved the target of advertising volumes it has successfully fulfilled its

revenue producing function, but this does not mean it has fulfIlled its editorial function. Was it read? Who read it? Was it interesting? Did it provide a comprehensive analysis of the situation? All these questions must be answered positively before he can say that a supplement was a hundred-per-cent success. Of course sometimes, the revenue function actually prevents a supplement from successfully fulfilling its editorial role. If advertising volume is well over target and the size of the supplement has already been determined, it is customary to edit down material to make room for the extra advertising copy. Another problem relates again to the reputation of the newspaper and the implied endorsement of the subject portrayed in a supplement. Even if a topic is potentially a good revenue producing area, the editors may have reservations about endorsing it by publishing a supplement. In this case there are two alternatives. Either it is turned down completely, or else plans are made to explain within the editorial content why they had reservations in the first place. One newspaper carried an article questioning the wisdom of opening a new teacher training college at a time of high teacher unemployment, while all around appeared advertisements relating to its services, suppliers and construction. In another case a number of questions relating to a company's dubious product quality was presented to its managing director. The questions and his answers formed the basis for the leading

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article. But overall, the general impression of advertising supplements is that journalists realise the implications of allowing marketing considerations into areas of editorial responsibility. Though the notion of revenue is generally alien to journalists, editorial would rather prepare the copy for I he supplement than let advertising copy writers do it. At the same time t here is a fair amount of scepticism from other members in the editorial department, not directly concerned with them, who see special supplements as 'the thin end of the wedge' As a supplements editor reveals, there is some confusion among journalists as to the validity of l'xploiting editorial to raise advertising revenue. 'The advertising department inittate the ideas for the features. If they're not suitable, or not economic, then we would not proceed beyond that. We like to be fairly responsible-they're not exactly the best thing that has happened to newspapers-but you have to have a realistic attitude towards the economic position of the Press today. You do get continual sniping from advertisers to be mentioned in the text, and where there's a genuine viewpoint, we'd accept it. After all, the success of local (or national) business and commerce is in everybody's interest-it doesn't do any harm.'

Given that the underlying pattern in newspapers has always tended to 135

,

Clwrles N. Tremayne be pluralistic, this adds to the evidence that attitudes are changing to come into line with a more commercial approach to running newspapers. A greater consensus is being reached between the departments over the common goals of the organisation. Whether or not it derives from a natural evolution in newspaper journalism, or from a 'Dunkirk spirit' in respect of economic pressure, journalists are becoming more tolerant of managerial measures designed, for instance, to cut back expenditure on editorial and to transfer resources !Ilto the direct revenue producing function of advertising. Even where journalists are alert to these dangers, cut backs in facilities are bound to restrict their capacities as journalists. So if these new primary goals actually do restrict the actions of journalists, how far is the nature of newspapers really compatible with wholesale changes in organisational structure? Gouldner's study of a changing mining community is a case in point. The new management of the gypsum plant in question, experiencing increasingly evident economic dislocations from its position in a multi-plant, violated the 'indulgency pattern' of the semi-urbanised community, resulting eventually in a series of wildcat strikes." The failure of a company reacting to economic change to come to terms with the sentiments of an informal system can be compared to the conflicting ideologies of 'newspapermen' and the other staff in the Press industry. If we compare the decision-making theories of Lindblom and Simon, it is possible to find parallels between the 'laissez-fain:' extravagance of the traditional Fleet Street newspaper, and the more tightly controlled methods of the modern Press industry. Lindblom 10 criticises synoptic models of decision-making and one can employ his argument to aCcount for some of the organisational processes of newsrooms. For instance, it is generally agreed that there are no set criteria by which journalists decide the value of news; they are expected to develop a notion of newsworthiness through experience. Neither do journalists necessarily make the distinction between the impact of news and the objectivity of its content; their only judgement stems from an ingr;lined approach towards writing news inculcated by so many years in the occupation. The interdependent relationship between news values and news availability, the indeterminate notion of newsworthiness and the reliance on consensus rather than 'proof as a means of making decisions, all correspond with Lindblom's 'rational comprehensive' or 'muddling through' approach. Simon I I on the other hand, proposes a paradigm of problem solving

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The Social Organisation of Newspaper Houses where the decision maker follows a rational system and this is similar to some of the intentions of present day bureaucrats in the Press industry. For instance a progression of managerial techniques into the newsroom suggests a standardisation of gathering and processing which might not be synomous with creativity and flexible journalism. Though many newsroom staff would contend their work is already too well structured, permitting only a few to enjoy the benefits of even partial autonomy. Etzioni, in explaining the conflict between administrative authority and professional authority, carries Lindblom's and Simon's argument a stage further: 'Creativity is basically individual and can only to a very limited degree be ordered and co-ordinated by the superior ... only if immune from ordinary social pressures and free to innovate, to experiment, to take risks without the usual social repercussions of failure) can

J

professional carry out his work effectively,'ll

This definition, though one must question the assumption of congruence between 'individual' creativity and professional control, effectively excludes the majority of journalists, however, who as Golding points out, are subject to quite severe controls on their behaviour. He lists the division of labour; the organisational ideology and policy; the lack of decision that creators have over their own product; the limitations of resources (money, equipment, information and time); and lastly the legal controls over libel and obscenity. 13 Some of these controls are built into the formal organisation of the newsdesk-the daily 'diary', working deadlines, expense allowances, divisions between sub-editors and reporters, and daily editorial conferences. So apart from any considerations over unionisation, it appears that because of their rigid workstyle, journalists cannot claim to possess a true professional status. A more apt description may be that of Etzioni's 'semi-professional' whose work is more controlled and less subject to his own discretion. A nurse, not a doctor; a journalist, not a writer. Indeed more akin to a 'craft' ideology than a professional one. As McQuail summarises it: 'Journalism is situated in a "non-routine bureaucracy", implying some potential for conflict between the cr~ative and innovativt' rcquirCITICnts on the one hand and the

organisational needs for practicability and accountability on the other.'

14

Golding argues that one response to this system is the adoption of a pronounced occupational ideology constituting: a professional cynicism about their product; a segmented contribution to it; identifying with the wider goals of writing; specialisation; frustrated activity; and lastly, that news values become ends in themselves rather than the means of 137

Charles N. Tremayne presenting news material. '5 This occupational ideology is not something that will easily change. It is all very well talking about creativity and originality, but it is not really possible to carry the principle of academic freedom into the field of journalism. The rigid controls that daily publication demands mean that standards, deadlines and conventions are necessary to guarantee some sort of continuity in editorial content. As one goes up the editorial ladder however, the responsibilities of selecting stories, angles and establishing policy become more evident; specialist correspondents have more autonomy than newsdesk reporters, section editors usually have more power to introduce originality into the paper than specialist correspondents. The freedom to affect editorial policy significantly increases as journalists approach the top of the editorial hierarchy and because of this, being the most likely proponents of editorial freedom, the top editors are also the most vulnerable to bureaucratic attacks. Whatever role a person holds in the organisation the newspaper is still the end product which has to be sold and however good the marketing department may be, it is still a common belief that you 'can't sell bad editorial.' The problem here is that newspapermen do not have the monopoly on defining what is or is not good editorial-many newspapers have gone 'under' or lost considerable circulation because editors have been unable to find an editorial mix suitable for retaining their readership. The editor, therefore becomes the principal trustee of journalistic canons because he has to establish the broad policy ofthe newspaper. At the same time, he has to bear the brunt of economic decisions which may severely influence his editorial prerogative. Though the editor has the power of holding a strategic co-ordinating role in the organisation, his role tends to be an interdependent relationship with other departments. Regular co-ordination of the three main departments is undertaken by the editor at his daily and weekly conferences with representatives from each sector. At the daily meetings the advertising managers will report their projections of the amount of space sold, which then goes to determine proportionally the size of the paper, not only in terms of more advertising pages but also in terms of space available for editorial. All these details have to be passed on to the production managers who must estimate the number of caseroom workers needed to ensure prompt pagination and the number of units to be set on the presses. He will also meet the circulation manager to keep the sales department in touch with special features or possible promotional changes. At the same time this relationship has Scope for a

The Social Organisation oj Ne'wspaper Houses high degree of goal conflict. The time factor is perhaps the biggest threat to convivial relations between editorial and productions: news editors, sports editors and sometimes features editors all hang on to their pages until the last possible moment before deadline so as to be as up to date as' possible with the content. This can put great pressure on the production staff, so a strong production manager can perhaps limit the options open to an editor by insisting on strict adherence to edition schedules. Much depends on the character of the editor as to how he reacts to these pressures on his structural authority, but even so, his formal position has certainly become less powerful. As one chief-sub editor said: 'The davs of the floppy bow-tied dilettente are over. There have been changes in the style o( authority in newspapers but they're not catastrophic. Good management and advertising will always recognise th" importance of editorial in the newspaper.'

If there are going to be any changes in the content of the Press because of stricter management, it is the editorial executives who are not only the most vulnerable but also the most influential in evolving a different journalistic style. Those who appoint editors have a diflicult responsibility in resisting the pressures of the managerial prophets of doom on one hand and reacting cautiously, on the other, to the 'great man' theorists who advocate conflict as a source of creativity. In the final analysis though, resistance to bureaucracy in newsrooms will lie in the cohesiveness of journalistic ideology and its reaction to an organisational style which contradicts many deeply ingrained attitudes towards the role of the Press in society. British Bruadcasting Corpuration, Formerly oj University oj Strathclyde I R. McKay and B. Barr: The StOl~V 0/ the Scottish Dailv News, Canongate, Edinburgh, IlJ76.

, W. Breed, 'Social Control in the Newsroom: a fimctional analvsis', in Scrueture and Behavior, Vol. I, 1963. .

] P. R. Lawrence and J. Lorsch: Org,misaciort and Environment, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967. , L. Sigal: Reporters al/d Olficluls: tht Urgul/isall')/[ and POllllo o} Newsma!a'ng, D. C. Heath, Lexington, 1973.

, E. Samuel: See How Thev Run: llie Admmisi/'ucion oj Vmcrabl" Inslltutions, Woburn, 1976. " PA Management Consultants Ltd.: Enal/eial Managemelil .~>stel11s alld Uperaring Fxpmditurcs, a report prepared for the Royal Commission on the Press, 1976. D. Leitch: God Stand Up for BastO/'ds, Pan, London, 1973.

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J. A. Litterer'

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Charles N. Tremayne , Lawrence and Lorsch: op. cit. ., A. W. Gouldner: Pallerns of induslrial BU1"C
PRESS PERFORMANCE AS POLITICAL RITUAL I

Philip Elliott

'" C. Lindblom: 'The Science of Aluddling Through', Public Adminislrarion Review, 19'59.

" II. A. Simon: The New SciCllce of A1.anagell/ClIl Decision, Harper and Row, 1960. " A. Erzioni: A10dern Orgallls<.llions, Prentice hall, 1964. 1'. Golding: The Mass Media, Longman, 1974, p. 62.

" D. McQuail: Re,·lew of Sociological If'rillng on Ihe Press, Working Paper No.2, Royal Commission on the Press, HMSO, p.29. " Golding, op. cit., p. 65.

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Why Ritual? Studies of ritual in modern Britain have mostly been concerned with occasions of public spectacle and ceremony. 2 In taking over the concept from social anthropologists, sociologists have mostly dealt with those contemporary rites which appeared to be directly comparable to the rites observed in primitive societies. These rites have been mainly of two types, the regular ceremonial of church and state, the coronation, investiture of the Prince of Wales and other formal establishment occasions; and the surviving rites of the life-cycle, christenings, marriages and funerals. There have also been looser applications of the concept, drawing attention to the patterned, repetitive nature of many aspects of behaviour from eating practices to the leisure activities of youth, which have built as much on common usage as on anthropology. As Nadel remarked, 'Any type of behaviour may be said to turn into a "ritual" when it is stylised or formalised and made repetitive in that form.'J Not that there has been any rush to take over the concept. One reason for the lack of interest has been that a concept so widely applicable has appeared to have little analytic value. Another, the empirical one, that both the traditional types of ritual appear to be little more than historical survivals. In a sceptical if not a secular age, less and less importance is attached to either public or private ceremonial. This is not to deny that some such occasions are immensely popular. Less significance is attached to their political or personal meanings. Her Majesty's recent Jubilee for example was widely regarded as no more than an excuse for a jamboree and, in the other category, a large proportion of marriages now end in divorce rather than death. A third reason for lack of interest in ritual as a concept has been a theoretical one. Use of the concept has implied a unitary view of society. The main paradigm for the analysis of contemporary ritual has been set out by consensus theorists of society working within the terms of normative functionalism. In a valuable paper which marks a break with this tradition, Lukes has shown how most contemporary analyses have been set within the Durkheimian paradigm of ritual as the 141

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instrument and expression of social solidarity. 4 Starting from the premise that 'value integration is the central aspect of the integration of a society' and that 'value consensus maintains the equilibrium of the social system', neo-Durkheimian analysts have come to the conclusion that 'political rituals play a crucial part in the integration of modern industrial societies.' 5 This conclusion is belied by the empirical point already made, that contemporary versions of traditional rites have lost much of their original significance. It is even more doubtful on theoretical grounds, as Lukes makes clear in his paper. 'Value consensus', he argues, 'takes one very little way indeed towards solving the "the problem of order", and, insofar as it exists, itself requires explanation.' 6 The contemporary rites selected for analysis have been precisely those which express the permanence of the political and social order, ones COntrolled by secular and spiritual authority, often embodied in the same person and office. The political importance of such rites is relatively transparent. It requires only a small, albeit significant, shift of focus to see them as expressions of power in society rather than expressions of consensus. Lukes's conclusion is that 'such rituals can be seen as modes of exercising, or seeking to exercise, power along the cognitive dimension'. The analysis of ritual can then be placed in 'a class-structured, conflictual and pluralistic mOdel of society' rather than a unitary, integrated consensual one. My aim in this paper is to show how such an account of ritual can usefully be applied to an analysis of the press and the other news media. The common usage of ritual as regular, habitual behaviour can be applied to various aspects of the press. Readers apparently experience a general sense of loss if their morning routines are broken by the nonappearance of their daily paper. 7 Much feature content appears on a regular daily or weekly cycle and even the news columns are unpredictable only in the sense that there is no telling which of the standard repertoire of stories will break today. But my aim in this paper is less to trade on common usage than to justify the concept by showing that there is a particular class of press performances which have a clear affinity with the ritual which has been the subject of social scientific study.

Press Performance as a Political Ritual

within the press on the way they should be handled and developed. The treatment of such stories is highly predictable from one to another. They share the same formal grammar of treatment and development. In that development considerable emphasis is put on the symbolic significance or interpretation of the events. The symbolic as opposed to the represe1ltational meaning of the content is high, to borrow Gombrich's distinction, and the role of the authorities and their values visible and commended. 8 Part of the development involves reference to Bagehot's 'dignified' and 'efficient' leaders of society for comment. These leaders often provide or confirm the symbolism within which the story is treated, even if they were not directly involved in the initial incidents which produced the story. The use of 'dignified' leaders is one instance of the way in which such rituals involve 'mystical notions' in Evans Pritchard's terms. 9 Another is in the supernatural symbolism applied to the source of the threat. The two examples on which I shall concentrate to illustrate this definition are taken from the press coverage of Northern Ireland, the Guildford pub bombings and the Balcombe Street siege trial. But before proceeding to an account of these cases it is necessary to substantiate the claim that press rites so defmed are an example of the general phenomenon 'ritual'. A discussion of theoretical problems of use and definition is the subject of the next section of the paper. Then, after an account of the particular cases, the paper deals with the value of the concept for the study of social processes connected with the media. The argument there will be that ritual is more than a way of characterising some types of media content. It has implications for the study of the two other divisions of the traditional mass communication triad, production and audience, particularly through its connection with the notion of performance. 10 This is best summarised as another attempt to end the use of the triad in terms ofa model oflinear flow and to reformulate questions about influence and effect in terms of performance and participation. Questions of Definition

Press rites are those stories which the press as a whole unite in treating as important. They are stories which reflect on the stability of the social system by showing it under threat, overcoming threat or working in a united consensual way. There is also general agreement

Lukes, on the basis of a brief review of the literature, extracts the following definition of ritual: 'rule-governed activity of a symbolic character which draws the attention of its participants to objects of thought or feeling which they hold to be of special significance'. II It is part of Lukes's purpose to argue for an extension of the traditional usage in modern society to include oppositional and sectional rituals.

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Philip Ellio{{

Press /'er!iJnll'lIlcc as a Po!tti(]/ RIlIiJ!

The point is well made. Much writing on youth culture has referred, however obliquely, to ritual in this sense. 12 Nevertheless, it has generally been characteristic of the ritual studied in primitive societies that the symbolism and form of the ritual was laid down by estabished tradition and its performance involved authority figures from the society concerned. Chiefs, witch-doctors, tribal elders or mothers' brothers, all represented a mixture of secular and spiritual authority based on the organisation of the particular society. As Leach has put it, 'There is usually a "conductor", a master of ceremonies, a chief priest, a central protagonist, whose actions provide the temporal markers for everyone else'. I J The presence of these authority figures has not been given any special em phasis in the literature because of the general acceptance of a functional form of analysis in which ritual affirmed basic social values and the general social order. Even Gluckman's analysis of the rituals of rebellion was concerned to show how they maintained order by giving the inevitable tensions and conflicts of society ritualised expression. 14 Gluckman went on to suggest that a similar analysis might apply to some 'squabbling actions in our social life' like parliamentary debates, election campaigns and some strikes. The implication of his argument, that, whatever their intention, oppositional tactics promote order, seems less secure than Lukes's view that opposition promotes opposition. The important point is that on both analyses rituals promote something, a sense of membership and allegiance. This sense has generally been experienced in Durkheimian terms of solidarity or group cohesion which simply stress the first sense of membership, 'togetherness'. Terms such as loyalty or allegiance, however, would stress the element of subordination which those who participate in the ritual acknowledge to be owing to those who organise it. Subordination to authority is even present in the transition phase of the rites of passage, that most cohesive, 'together' moment which has provided the basis for Turner's argument that there is another model of society to be set alongside the structural one, the 'anti-structural' based on common humanity.15 In the liminal (transitional) phase, Turner writes, society emerges recognisably 'as an unstructured or rudimentarily structured and relatively undifferentiated comitatus, community or even communion of equal individuals who submit together to the general authority of the ritual elders'. There is a danger that, in extending the concept of ritual to include a wider variety of repetitive, collective behaviour, this element of

subordination to the authority and values expressed will benlIfj,diluted, ifnot completely lost. May Day parades and football crowJ~ ;:.; example seem to vary on that dimension even if they can both be Ljk'~il as cases of collective, repetitive behaviour. It is not that authority {itt" involve subordination and oppositional rites do not. Both reqUiTe participants to become parts of the whole and in both cases the whok I' greater than the sum of its parts. Recognition of this clemenl ,,; subordination is necessary to escape the Durkheimian paradigm, [t ",'" element which is particularly apparent in press rites, as I sha1\ hopt '" show. The first addition which needs to be made to Lukes's deiiniri.}" therefore is this recognition that ritual itself is a structured perforrnarh ( in which all participants are not equal. A second is to bring out more clearly what Lukes summal1sed brief!) in the claim that ritual has 'a ;ymbolic character' and is based Oil 'object') of thought or feeling' of 'special significance '. One of the mail: controversies in discussions of ritual has been whether it bejnnf',s exclusively in the sacred domain. This appears to be a simple matter oi terminology; whether to adopt 'ceremonial', as advocated by Wilson and Gluckman, or 'ritual', as advocated by Nadel and Goody, It,; :he: most general term to refer to elaborate conventional forms ofbehavlou: for the expression of feeling. '0 In Wilson/Gluckman's usage, ritual is that sub-category of ceremonial which involves religious belief 01 'mystical notions'; in Nadel/Goody's, ritual is the general term which may be further subdivided into such categories as magical, religious dnd ceremonial. The latter usage is continued in this paper. It has th.. advantage that it accords better with common speech. It also helps to emphasise the point that there is more to the debate than terminology It is bound up with the attempt to distinguish between two domains, the religious and the secular or, in Durkheim's terms, the sacred and the profane. Goody questions the distinction as applied to tribal cultures on empirical and theoretical grounds. I J But it is a distinction which snit has wide currency as a marker of different stages of developmem, Urban, industrial society is also secular society. Thus Gluckman, takin2 the narrow view of ritual as religious, argues that it is inapplicable III modern society. 'We don't have rituals in the sense that we believe that the acting of social roles will in some supernatural manner atIee! OUI prosperity and unity. But we have many ceremonials expressing unity. 18 In practice such a distinction is hard to draw. It overstates the purposive rationality of religious ritual and understates the irrationality

144

145

Philip Elliott

Press Performance as a Pohtical Ritual

of ceremonial. Lukes argues against restricting ritual to religious usage because of the difficulty of separating the two modes in tribal cultures but also because he is concerned with contemporary, secular rituals, 'modern, political rituals, in which the mystical or supernatural often play little or no role'. 10 In other words the two domains, interwoven in traditional society are not just separable in modern society, but separated to such an extent that the sacred and supernatural can be completely excluded. I hope to show in the account of press ritual which follows that this cannot be justified empirically. Mystical notions and supernatural agencies are apparent in at least some contemporary political rituals. This is one of the advantages of ritual as a concept. It allows one to add an irrational dimension to rationalist accounts of ideology as reflecting interests. The notion that ritual is not rational is implicit in common as well as anthropological usage. To quote Nadel again, 'when we speak of "ritual" we have in mind first of all actions exhibiting striking or incongruous rigidity, that is, some conspicuous regularity not accounted for by the professed aims of the action'. 20 Goody goes on to build this into his definition of ritual as behaviour in which 'the relationship between the means and the end is not "intrinsic", i.e. is either irrational or non-rational'. 21 The point is summarised by Lukes in his reference to the symbolic character of ritual. But symbolism lends itself to rationalist, intentionalist analysis to find out what the symbol stands for. Often the result is to reduce the resonances of symbolism to a representational account of its meaning. In Lukes's case the symbolism of ritual 'represents inter alia particular models or political paradigms' as ways of 'exercising, or seeking to exercise, power on the cognitive dimension'. 22 The result is a rationalist and reductionist account of ritual as 'the cognitive dimension of social control', which has little to add to the analysis of ideology. The second necessary addition to Lukes's definition therefore is the re-introduction of Goody's point that in ritual there is no 'intrinsic' relationship between means and ends. For brevity and clarity this is best done by using Evans-Pritchard's term 'mystical notions' to side-step the problem to which Lukes points, of specifying non-contestable criteria of rationality. 23 Ritual cannot simply be reduced to the rational. It draws on what is customary, familiar and traditional in the culture. It tries to add spiritual and emotional communion to any sense of political unity, though from any single point of view it may not work. We may

now proceed to the analysis of press ritual with a slightly more cumbersome definition of the basic phenomenon as follows:- rulegoverned activity of a symbolic character involving mystical notions which draws the attention of its participants to objects of thought or feeling which the leadership of the society or group hold to be of special sigmjicanee.

146

Two Cases of Press Ritual

Before setting out the rites an autobiographical word is in order to explain how I came to adopt this perspective while conducting a content analysis of Northern Irish news. The preoccupation of content analysis with 'isolated fragments of information' has been noted by many as a limitation of the technique. 24 Peacock has pointed to the curiosity that while mass communication research has developed techniques for 25 One studying content, there are none for studying symbolic form. advantage of such a perspective which Peacock demonstrates effectively in his study of Ludruk, a type of Javanese theatre, is its concern with the interplay between form and symbol, the social life of the participants and the social structure of society. Symbolic form is based on the cultural and social experience of the people who participate, whether they are producers, performers or audience. It breaks down those distinctions. Content analysis on the other hand suggests the creation of content by producers, in the terms set out in the traditional mass communication triad. Once separated it is difficult to relocate the creative moment in society. I attempted to resolve this problem in my study of the production of a television series by arguing that society should be regarded not only as the audience but also as the source for media productions. 26 However that formulation took no account of symbolic form, dealing almost exclusively with meaning as information. The fact that the Guildford bombs story broke at a time when I was conducting a relatively conventional content analysis was serendipitous 27 in alerting me to the importance of symbolic form. The story was made up of the same elements as the general run of news coverage-informative reporting, propaganda from outside sources and 'interesting presentation' as shown in the personalisation of most news stories. But quantitatively and qualitatively it was a unique phenomenon. Once I had been alerted to this by the analysis, the Balcombe Street siege trial was the next story in the same line of country which showed the same qualities. Since then, in something like the same area, the story of the Lufthansa hijack and subsequent rescue at Mogadishu produced coverage of the same type. The mode of 147

Philip El/lorr

Press Performance as a Political RilULII

analysis is more obviously applicable to the coverage of state ceremonials like the Queen's jubilee with its proliferation of special editions and supplements devoted as much to review as to news. But as one purpose of this paper is to advocate the adoption of ritual as a perspective I shall continue to concentrate on the extended usage in the hope that if that can be made convincing, more conventional usages will follow.

took up two-thirds of all the space which the British media devoted to reporting violent events. (Thus n=4 in the above equation.) But there was more to the difference in treatment than proximity. Incidents in Northern Ireland happened in a divided society. There are many senses in which Britain itself is a divided society but it is a society in which signs and symbols of unity are available, particularly in response to an external threat such as the bombs posed. In the Guildford case those which were used by the press in the follow-up can

The Guildford Bombings

be listed as follows:1. reports of messages of sympathy and acts of solidarity by civic, political and religious leaders. These included the Queen, the Pope, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Home Secretary and

Bombs went off in two public houses in Guildford on the evening of Saturday, October 5th, 1974. First news reports were broadcast on radio and television that evening and the story was followed up by these media on Sunday. Only the late editions of the Sunday press were able to carry the story, but on Monday all the nationals led with the story, except The Guardian and the Daily Express in which it nevertheless featured prominently on the front page. 28 By the end of the week all the national press, except the Daily Mirror were still carrying follow-up stories. The Guildford bombs story which was carried during the first of two periods of content analysis of Northern Irish news was a striking exception to all the other coverage of violent incidents in the two threeweek periods of the analysis. 29 It was the only account of a violent incident which became a running story in the national press even though the story of Northern Ireland was largely one of violence or its aftermath so far as the newspapers were concerned. In the six weeks covered by the analysis 500/0 of all Northern Irish stories in the heavy press and 650/0 of stories in the populars dealt with violent incidents, their aftermath or the enforcement of the law. Other incidents, however, simply appeared as the latest in a staccato procession of events. Only Guildford, the only major incident to happen on the British mainland in either period, received prolonged attention. This difference in attention can readily be explained in traditional news terms as evidence of the importance of 'proximity', even allowing for the fact that the analysis was carried out on the early Irish or Ulster editions where such were produced. One incidental result of the study was that it gave a clue to the unit of account in the apocryphal newsroom calculation-One Englishman is worth n Irishmen, (n x a large number) Europeans and (n x an even larger number) Latin Americans. In the first period twice as many people were killed in Northern Ireland as died at Guildford. The Guildford bombs, however, 148

the local mayor. 2. reports of statements of condemnation by such leaders, particularly politicians, policemen and others responsible for enforcing the law. Preeminent among these was the then Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, who commented that the bombings were 'a perversion of human reason which showed the dark forces of violence and terror at work'. In other words the bombings themselves symbolised society under attack from irrational, asocial forces. 3. reference of political and law enforcement issues raised by the incident to be pursued and debated by parliamentary politicians. After Guildford the issues were the reintroduction of capital punishment and the possibility that the Price sisters would be moved to a jail in Northern Ireland to serve the remainder of their sentence there. As an election campaign was in progress at the time these issues were raised by individual politicians rather than through the parliamentary forum as would usually have been the case. 4. reports of subsequent law and order activity, in particular the police hunt for those responsible. This first centred on two girls whose photofit pictures appeared in the papers. The suggestion that women were responsible provided a sinister counterpoint to the fact that several of the victims had been women. The girls were soon found and eliminated however. The search then became a hunt for 'the man in black', a name for the public to conjure with like the 'black panther' whom the police had been looking for earlier in connection with the kidnapping of Lesley Whittle and the murder of several sub-postmasters. The 'man in black' was linked with the attacker in another recent incident in which Colonel Pinder, an offIcer who had served in Northern Ireland, had been wounded. The police apparently inspired the press to make this 149

Philip Elliott

Press Performallce as a Poillical Ritual

On February 9th, 1977, the four accused of organising and taking part in various incidents in London culminating in the Balcombe Street siege of December 1975 were found guilty at the Old Bailey and on the following day sentence was passed. The press covered the early stages of the trial with a mixture of reported information, received propaganda from official sources and human interest to make the information readable. Conviction and sentence, however, were the cue for a surge in coverage in which all the papers carried lead stories and extensive inside page features reviewing the trial and the events which had led up to it. As was the case with the Guildford bombs story, the qualitative difference between this and the general run of reporting lay in the volume of the coverage, the unanimity on the development of the story and the marked use of symbolism, including in this case visual symbolism, to fill the space. The sense of newspapers filling space for the sake of performing a rite which was apparent in some inconsistencies in the Guildford coverage, for example the linking of the 'man in black' with Colonel Pinder's

attacker, was even more marked in the case of the Balcombe Street siege trial. The convicted men who were denigrated as 'so-called soldiers' and despised as 'vicious', 'ruthless', 'callous' and 'inhuman' in accounts of the final court proceedings were also credited with being 'the IRA's crack unit' in accounts of their campaign which originated from police sources. On their arrest in 1975 the four had been dismissed by the press, quoting the then Metropolitan Police Commissioner, as 'ordinary, vulgar criminals', 'low-class terrorists'. Other internal inconsistencies in the Balcombe Street coverage also suggested that on this occasion the press were more concerned with symbolic than representational meaning, getting it right according to what should have happened rather than reporting accurately what did. The Matthews, for example, the couple who had been held hostage in their Balcombe Street flat, were variously reported as being angry, bitter and still suffering from nightmares and being resigned but uncomprehending to a distant memory which now seemed unreal. A comparison of the components of the Balcombe Street coverage with the Guildford story shows a marked formal similarity. I. the various leaders who had expressed solidarity and condemnation in the Guildford case were replaced by one, the trial judge, who condemned the accused and their behaviour in passing sentence. 2. evidence of the industry of the law enforcement agencies was provided in retrospective reviews of the effective police 'dragnet', 'ring of steel', 'well-oiled trap', 'Operation Combo'. This also provided one of the ubiquitous visual symbols in the reports in the form of four policemen with revolvers braced and aimed at a target (the balcony of the flat) above their heads. Originally this was a news photograph from the fmal moments of the siege. Various versions of it were used in the trial coverage. The Guardian, for example, had the original picture heading its inside feature, the Mail and the Express had small cartoon versions as logos to mark their trial coverage and The Sun in the most complex image had the photograph flanked by pictures of destruction after a bomb and a bombing device incorporated as the crosspiece of a Celtic cross, which carried down the upright the headline 'The Bomber who came back from the dead' (Figure I). Evidence that the image has been adopted in the culture comes from its use as the cover illustration of Paul Wilkinson's latest book on terrorism, 'Terrorism and che Liberal Scace'.30 3. condemnation of those not prepared to accept the ritual took the form of ridiculing the prisoners who refused to recognise the court and

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link even though they had earlier ruled out any 'Irish connection' in the Pinder case. The press had reported this only days before, but nonetheless resurrected the possible connection. 5. condemnatory reports of those not following the example of the leaders in I above by showing the appropriate solidarity and sympathy. The only sour note in the follow-up stories to Guildford were various reports that the remaining pubs were thinking twice about serving service personnel. The press clearly did not approve of this policy and carried defensive quotes and denials from publicans and brewers. 6. reports of the bombings themselves and their aftermath in human interest terms which showed them to be horrid and senseless. Most headlines emphasised the youth, feminity and innocence of the victims. Their connections with the British army were reported in terms such as 'rookies', 'trainees', 'boy and girl soldiers', which underlined that they were inappropriate and illegitimate targets. The Daily Mail headline, which did recognise a strategic purpose, emphasised that the strategy was a senseless outrage. 'IRA Wage War on Women'-'sinister new move in campaign of terror'. The double meaning of a word like 'senseless' used on occasions like this to mean irrational and terrible provides a good illustration of the way reportorial language comes to be overlaid with more complex meanings. The Balcombe Screec siege erial

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to listen to their sentences with due humility. In an interesting sidelight on the interaction of the different participants in the performance of the same ritual, the judge, according to The Sun, commented on the prisoners' refusal to hear their conviction by the jury with the words 'They don't have to be here ... They can read it in the papers afterwards' . 4. reminders of the injury suffered by society was again provided in personal terms by reviews of the victims, interviews with their relatives and with those like the Matthews who had survived. The theme of irrationality was echoed by these relatives and survivors continually putting the question 'Why?'. Perhaps the most harrowing example was Mrs. Hamilton Fairley's question in The Sun 'Why Gordon? His whole existence was devoted to saving lives'. '5. a difference of emphasis between the two cases was in the attention given to the origins of the assault on society. These origins which remained latent at Guildford in the form of 'sinister, dark forces' were made manifest at Balcombe Street in the four accused. The force was personalised in the form of pictures of the prisoners. A combination of four police 'mug shots' made another ubiquitous visual image. But the undercurrent of sinister, supernatural forces which could not be fully understood was maintained. Following the conviction of the accused, the Daily Mail led with 'The Faces of the Mass Killers' above the four 'mug shots' as if the clue was to be found in their faces, the Dai~yMirror headlined 'Guilty! The IRA's Brethren of Blood' and the Daily Express, 'Faces of Evil: Bombers guilty of mass murder'. The Sun which led with the relatively secular headline 'Guilty: Balcombe Street Siege gang to be sentenced today' carried the complex Celtic cross image (Figure 1) as the heading for the 'three-page report by The Sun crime team' inside. The Celtic cross was one of many references to Irishness. In the copy there were several examples of the impossibility that the Irish and British would ever understand each other, from the accounts of the prisoners' behaviour in the dock to comments attributed to the prisoners' parents and friends. According to The Sun for example Duggan's mother 'was flabbergasted. "God help us and save us," she said. "I can't believe it. My boy was a model son" '. But another mother, republican Mrs. Butler, said 'You're British. You wouldn't understand'. The same counterpoint between God·fearing, rural Ireland (Mrs. Duggan 'lives alone in a farmhouse') and unaccountably vicious and unfeeling Ireland was reproduced in the Express in a headline 'The victims of the "quiet country boys" , and in the 153

Philip Elliott

juxtaposItIOn at the bottom of the double-page spread of two photographs illustrating 'From tranquil Ireland to the horror at Scotts restaurant-the cottage where Duggan grew up and the death scene in Mayfair'. Perhaps the Telegraph was nearest to resolving the conundrum in its sub-head on Docherty, 'Altar boy from Gorbals slum'. This also resonated a contemporary conventional wisdom for which the Telegraph usually has little time. This contrast has puzzled the British through the ages, ever since they created the two opposing stereotypes of Ireland and the Irish, Hibernia and the marauding beast. 31

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A third and equally inconclusive account of motivation appeared in various references to the gangsters and villains of fictional popular culture. 'When the Godmother said "Kill" , headlined the Daily Express over its double-page feature. In the Daily Mirror the comparable headine was 'Mission Murder: How eight men and two women sailed to Britain with a cargo of carnage and terror ... and 1,000 police set an ambush ... ' The centre-piece of the spread was a comic strip providing a step-by-step account of how it was done, complete with stereotyped illustrations which would have graced an adventure comic. The Guardian featured a less-fictional popular memory which was also apparent to other papers. Bombs in London mean Blitz. All three of these inadequate accounts of motivation, references to the supernatural, Irishness and folk culture fitted an account in which the outcome was inevitable. Those who meddle with the Supernatural do so at their peril. Confusion over Irishness is reflected in Irishmen's own confusion and errors. 'Good as it was, the unit was caught by its members' own stupidity' (The Guardian) attributed to police). In popular culture the police always get their man and in folk memory 'London can take it'. 6. explicit readings of the symbolism. Only the Daily Mail bothered to point the moral of this ritual performance in its editorial column. 'They killed without mercy. Yet they were caught without bloodshed ... The Ba1combe Street Gang slashed at the fabric of our civilisation with a callous cruelty unsurpassed even in the terrible history of urban terrorism. All they achieved is to remind us how precious that civilisation is to us.' Among all the other rhetorical devices and slogans in this short passage, 'slashed at the fabric of our civilisation' is particularly noteworthy for its echoes of holy war and biblical religion. The editorial went on to contrast the personal tragedies of the victims with the anonymity of the IRA murder gang, 'anonymous' even though 154

Press Performance as a Political Rirua/

pictures of the gangs were the centre point of the paper's front page. The editorial continued with praise for the police, a reminder to the IRA that British nerve could not be broken-a reference to the Blitz without the symbol, and a final call for 'enduring vigilance'. The Genre of Press Ritual

In the previous section I attempted in a preliminary way a formal classification of the components of these press rituals. The classification suffers from the limited number of cases but I have kept to a limited, inductive form of presentation on the grounds that even if it does not make the argument more convincing it makes it easier to follow. My purpose in this section is to move on to a discussion of press ritual as a genre. Limited data makes this an even more risky enterprise. Its importance however lies in making the case that ritual is more than a label of convenience. 1. Structure/Anti-Structure Various authority figures played a large part in the two press rites described above. Ifwe read the rite as ideology, then one account would concentrate on the way in which the agents of the state were shown to be effective and the hierarchy of the society made manifest. The sense of social solidarity developed in the rites is one of subordination to the authorities who can be relied on to deal with the threat posed. In spite of occasional references to IRA strategy, the threat mostly appeared as random and incomprehensible. It was less a specific common foe to be identified and beaten than a diffuse force threatening the social order which could only be tackled by the social order given ritual expression. The random, incomprehensible nature of the threat was directly stated as in Roy Jenkins's statement and also symbolised by the personalisation of society as the individual victims who had been killed and wounded. Not only were they inappropriate targets, the circumstances in which they were attacked were inappropriate-while walking to work, opening their front door, enjoying a night out, holding a reunion or celebrating a birthday party. The fatalism implicit in this emphasis on chance suggests acceptance of the situation rather than reaction to it. Rationally there is nothing to be done about it and anyway what can be done is being done. The sense of Durkheimian solidarity, 'we're all in this together', what one might call 'we-ness', was further supported by stories oflucky escapes, the irony of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and stories of bravery and heroism in ISS

Philip Ellioll

minimising the effects of the outrage. But the theme of 'we-ness' is counterpoised with another- 'there but for the grace of God'. The spiritual, political and secular authorities are playing their part. Someone is looking after us after all. Little more is required of us than to participate in the performance of ritual cauterisation in the Guildford case or affirmation at the Ba1combe Street trial. Affirmation has legal and political overtones and cauterisation is intended as a little more complex piece of medical symbolism. It was the contrast between the coverage of Guildford and the coverage of incidents in Northern Ireland which originally suggested a medical analogy.32 The viable British state was able to take steps to heal its wounds in a way which was not available in the divided society of Ulster. In that society the leadership could only exacerbate the conflict. Important leaders were aligned with the division and unable to rise above it symbolically. The two partisan morning papers in the province mainly quoted comments on any incident from leaders on their side. They coincided only in their use of spokesmen from the Alliance party which lacked significance because its aim was to occupy a non-existent middle ground. But cauterisation has the further significance that it is not a particularly specific or efficient remedy and certainly not a modern one which could be recommended with confidence. It is as likely to spread infection as control it. The same, I shall argue, is true of these press rites. The ritual is much less like a rational, modern remedy for the social ills it opposes than a survival of folk medicine which has uncertain effects but is still used as a required response to sickness. The fatalistic concern with the chances that brought the individual victims to their death echoes the central question ofwitchcraft-'why has this happened to me now?' rather than the scientific medical interest in the nature of disease and its processes. It provides a good example of a point of inherent ambiguity in the rites which make any reading of their meaning partial. The interpretation of the personalised, human interest aspects of the performances advanced above, that the emphasis on common humanity amounts to an assertion of solidarity within the prevailing social structure, is not one that the authorities themselves find entirely convincing. They are much more likely to interpret the reporting of suffering and disaster as a propaganda victory for the 'other side'. The same is true of the references to popular fiction and folk memory. The hyperbole involved in comparing a few home-made bombs with the Blitz exaggerates the achievement of the bombers as much as that of the 156

Press Performance as a Political Ritual

authorities. Comparisons with the heroes and villains of popular culture can be read as glamourising their subject as well as denigrating them. The latest official committee to report on the troubles, the Gardiner Committee on measures to deal with terrorism in Northern Ireland, noted 'There is a tendency, which exists elsewhere, towards sensational reporting of shootings and bombing incidents which lends a spurious glamour both to the activities themselves and to the perpetrators'. JJ The history of government-media relations in the course of the latest troubles in Northern Ireland has been a history of the government of the day repeatedly putting pressure on the media to recognise and conform to its propaganda goals. 34 As it has achieved at least partial success in this endeavour so it has become apparent that there is no limit to what may be regarded as propaganda. The case is clearest in broadcasting. 35 Continued pressure has reduced news reports to selected factual details of incidents. The broadcasting authorities have become progressively more concerned and careful about potentially sensitive aspects like attributing the cause of violence or identifying the victims. The tendency has been to select details and incidents which appeared to fit the authorities' paradigm of the conflict. Even so, reporting can still be construed as propaganda for the other side. Roy Mason, the current Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, made this clear when he called for a complete moratorium on the reporting of violent incidents. 36 Like earlier moves by his predecessors, this call was less a serious suggestion than simply the latest manifestation of continued pressure to control the flow of information. It provides striking evidence however of the limited effects of such control. Propaganda (and pari passu ideology) are inherent!y ambiguous in content and unpredictable in effect. Simple broadcast accounts and human interest press reports can be regarded as propaganda victories for the opposition because to borrow Turner's distinction, they refer to 'communitas', to 'anti-structure' as well as 'structure'. The distinction is founded on Turner's account of the liminal phase in rites of passage, 'a moment in and out of time and in and out of secular social structure, which reveals, however fleetingly, some recognition (in symbol if not always in language) of a generalised social bond.' 3J The passage of the acolyte through the rite demonstrates two fundamental forms of order in human relations. The structural model of hierarchy, roles and statuses which has been at the centre of most anthropological and sociological analysis, and anti-structure which depends on 'an essential and generic human bond without which there 157

Press Performance as a Political Ritual

Philip Elliott

could be no society'. The acolytes in the liminal phase of equal and undifferentiated communion submit together to the general authority of the ritual elders. But in developing the distinction and applying the concepts to more general social process Turner is concerned to emphasise the tension between the two modes of relationship. From the point of view of those maintaining social structure 'all sustained manifestations of communitas must appear dangerous and anarchical'. According to Turner, the tension is resolved over time by a continual dialectic between the pursuit of communitas and its associated spiritual modes of relationship and the pursuit of structure, which includes the economic order. There is no space here to do justice to Turner's complex development and application of this distinction but enough has been said to show its relevance to the analysis of press ritual. 38 In the reporting of the authorities, their views and symbolism and in the presentation of human interest accounts of individual members of the society, these rites oscillated between the two poles. 39 The two modes of relationship can also be demonstrated in a difference in the language used to report the same incident. Reports ofan incident on 29th March 1977 from The Guardian and the Daily Mirror show this difference of language particularly clearly as a difference between the two papers accounts (Figures 2 & 3). In The Guardian the terminology was that of structure-liRA attack', 'protestant family', 'Provo gang', 'policeman's mother', 'Provisional IRA gunmen', 'reserve policemen', 'Rev. Ian Paisley, MP for North Antrim', 'Mrs. McMullen', Mr. McMullen', etc. The participants were continually identified with the parties to the conflict and provided with structural roles and statuses, even at the simple level of'Mr' and 'Mrs'. The Daily Mirror, however, made more use of kinship terms-'wife', 'mother', 'son', 'parents', simple collectives without explicit links to the politics of the conflict-'gang', 'terrorists', 'four gunmen', and basic human categories- 'woman', coming to a structural account only in the penultimate paragraph. Kinship terms, simple collectives and sexual categories can all be said to be anti-structural in the sense that their reference is to the simple experience of life rather than the business of living. It would be idle to claim that this demonstration amounts to more than illustrated conjecture. It certainly will Dot bear the interpretation that the heavy press is aligned with structure, the popular with antistructure. Nevertheless it does suggest a mode of investigation to follow 158

"'-

GANG SHOOT DOWN WIFE \

By JOE GORROD TERRORISTS killed a woman of sixty-three yeaterday when they raked the cottage where she lived with machine-gun bullets.

Mrs. Hester McMullan was In bed in her house near Toomebrldge, Co. Antrim, when the four gunmen arrIved In a l

car. First they ambushed her son Jim, who was driving off to work in a lorry, Thev chased 11 i Ill, firing 'from the car windows until he swerved Into a farmyard. He escaped with a s 1 i g h t .,ullet wOlUld. Then they turned and d r a v e b a c k to his parents' home, where they PGured machinegun bullets throu~h the I;I doors and ~nndol\'s, I calmly s top P 1 n g to change magazines. I Mrs. McMullan was killed instantly. Her 70year-old and 21, year-old husband daughter ElizaI beth escaped unh urt. Police be Eeve the gunmen's target was a \ second son. who is a part i time. policeman. I Said a spokesman: I "This was one of .the I most vicious attacks I\f' I have ever encountered.'

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up the claim that press rites share a general characteristic of ritual in symbolising both types of relationship, structure and anti-structure. The caveat also needs to be entered that human interest in the press is only pseudo-communitas in the sense that one English person is worth four Ulster persons, according to the newsroom calculus noted above . To take another example, it was a greater tragedy, in terms of press attention, when Mrs. Ewart-Biggs, wife of Britain's ambassador to Ireland, was widowed than when Mr. McMullen was made a widower. 40

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2. Secular and Supernatural Press rites display the authorities and the citizenry performing an idealised version of their secular roles. The Dai(v Mirror's cartoon version of the events leading up to Balcombe Street provided a particularly clear set of idealised stereotypes. The heroic policeman with his trusted dog calmly and effectively protecting an innocent harrassed lady from unshaven, excitable villains. But the tendency to produce an idealised version is much more ubiquitous. In the human interest accounts of incidents and their aftermath people are portrayed acting out their roles with their appropriate emotions as prescribed by the norms and traditions of the culture. Two double headines from The Sun illustrate the point. 'A so-cool triumph for the Yard's friendly persuaders-chat led to truce.' 'I keep asking: "Why Gordon? His whole existence was devoted to saving lives"-Agony ofa widow.' One appropriate role for the ordinary citizen participating in the press rites was to pose the question 'Why?' Abnormal behaviour, in the sense of behaviour which would offend the norms, is screened out or occasionally reported critically like the Guildford publicans' attempt to introduce a ban on servicemen. The result is a process close to that which Gluckman termed 'ritualisation':-'stylized ceremonial in which persons ... perform prescribed actions according to their secular roles'.4 1 Gluckman goes on to argue that the aim of these prescribed actions is to 'express and amend social relationships so as to secure general blessing, purification, protection and prosperity ... in some mystical manner which is out of sensory control'. The much disputed question of the frame of reference in which ritual is seen as achieving such effects-the observer's or the participants', and in the latter case some or all of the participants-may conveniently be left aside. Instead I intend to concentrate on the evidence for contemporary press ritual 161

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working in a mystical manner, out of sensory control. The prescribed actions performed by authorities and citizenry are ranged against the opposition not as a tactical counter but as the appropriate response to dark, sinister, supernatural forces. In the rites discussed in this paper the element of the supernatural was attached most clearly to the opposing forces. Religious leaders and those whose authority straddles the two spheres did provide some of the quotes and comments. More ubiquitous however was the treatment of the origins of violence as dark, sinister, irrational and unknown. Discussion of terror as a rational strategy adopted by a political movement to achieve political ends is rare. It is not considered in those terms but taken to be irrational because it is immoral. Questions of morality have been one of the traditional concerns of religious and spiritual authority. The fact that such authorities are rarely explicitly consulted is a tribute to the extension of the political power of the modern state. It is the state which defines the morality. This decline in the separate authority and significance of religion and religious functionaries is what justified Gluckman's claim that they are no longer regarded in quasi rational terms, as effective means to achieve secular ends. But this does not mean that such questions have lost supernatural significance and no longer involve mystical notions. One of the consequences of the equation between irrational and immoral is to exclude from social communion the perpetrators of such acts. It is this which justified the Daily Mail's editorial claim that the Balcombe Street gang were 'anonymous' even though their names, faces and backgrounds featured prominently on the front page. The preoccupation with the faces of the prisoners in the coverage can be seen as a throwback to the traditional notion of the face as the mirror of the soul. There is no rational, strategic explanation for their behaviour but it may be that we can come to 'know them' by looking into their souls. The quality of the pictures showed tarnished souls and, by implication, black hearts.

Press Performance as a Political Ritl/al

also sins ... Any offence which is felt to be a really major crime is a sin by another name, and, in capitalist society, the major criminal-sins are offences against the individual and against individual property.' Terrorism is another criminal-sin partly because it involves homicide and theft, crimes which are sacriligious under capitalism because they threaten the basic assumptions of social order. 43 The terrorist goes further than the 'ordinary criminal' and selects such crimes precisely because they threaten the established order. They symbolise its intended overthrow. As an anonymous German terrorist put it in an interview in the BBC programme, Terror International (BBC I, 30.1.78) the aims of acts such as the kidnapping of Dr . Schleyer and the hijacking of the Lufthansa airliner to Mogadishu is 'to show the Western powers they are not God Almighty'. In his lectures Leach went on to argue that the element of sacrilege in terror tends to make vengeance and counter terror a 'religious duty' against outsiders who are no longer regarded as proper human beings. In this paper I have been concerned with another aspect of social response which shows the continuing importance of sacred, mystical notions, the presentation of the events and the response in the form of media rites. Public shock at contemporary sacrilege is not simply spontaneous but ritualised. 3. Press Ritual and Political Ritual.

Edmund Leach has recently taken up this theme, pointing out that secular and religious sanctions still overlap in the contemporary responses to criminality. 42 'In Great Britain and the United States we do not now ordinarily think of murderers and thieves as polluted sinners who have provoked the retribution of supernatural powers, but every now and again when the public is shocked by some element of horror in the crime under discussion ... we are reminded that although, with us, some sins are not crimes, and some crimes are not sins, some crimes are

The two press rites discussed above each show the press in a different relationship to other institutions in the society. In the Guildford story the press and other media provided the forum for the other participants to take part in. The various actors and commentators on the drama had no other institution in which they could all participate. Balcombe Street on the other hand was based on the report of a trial. The performance of the rite brought together a good deal of material which was only hinted at in the judge's summing up and sentencing-accounts of the police operation and reviews of the incidents-and some which was not part of the trial at all-the interviews with the relatives of the victims. But it was founded on the legal process. As Lukes has pointed out, the legal process itself is a worthy candidate for inclusion within an extended concept of ritual. 44 In short, while some press rites are run by the press itself, others are run by other social institutions, but developed and given their peculiar form by press presentation. Not that this distinction equates with the distinction between the two rites described above. A third case, the Mogadishu rescue story was a rite of affirmation but one which was only put on through the news

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media. The hijack itself, involving a German aeroplane in a far country, did not prompt a rite of cauterisation in the early stages. But the dramatic rescue prompted the full treatment, extending to nine pages in the Daily Mail. In some cases it is more than the values and effectiveness of the national political system which is symbolised through ritual.

culture and folk memory for some of the symbolism used in the two rites is not exclusive to such ritual moments. It is a common feature of much press coverage. Helen Hughes in her account of human interest news noted that much 'news' deals with themes which are 'old in folk tales, fine literature and popular literature, so much so that many a headline tells them by using symbols like "Don Juan", "Bluebeard", "Cinderella" '.47 Alongside accounts of the development of the press as information media, serving special interest publics with financial, economic or political reports or as partisan media recruiting support for different parties and factions needs to be set an account of their development as a form of popular literature. 48 Perennial stories and familiar plots appear in different guises from day to day. Helen Hughes quotes the case of the story of the women who kills her rich guest without realising he was her own son, a story which can be found in broadside ballad. 'When the ballads were superseded by the penny press, the story survived. But it conformed to the demands of the new medium; it purported to be a contemporary occurrence with a new name, place and data. In 1930 Alexander Woollcott and Valentine Williams, an English journalist, established the fact that substantially the same story has recurred in English, French and German newspapers about every 6 months for the last 25 years-which led them to describe it as "the perfect specimen of folklore" '. ,q Only in a very limited sense are such stories the creation of the journalists and newspapers involved. They are reproduced from folklore and popular culture and converted into the appropriate format. The process of conversion works both ways. A familiar story is given a contemporary marker or a topical incident becomes a familiar story-'a lost child' becomes 'the lost child' to quote another of Hughes's examples. This type of conversion is particularly apparent in press rites as in those cases it takes on overtones of obligation. To repeat the point made above, idealised accounts of secular role performance are obligatory as observances of the appropriate behaviour. Inappropriate behaviour is screened out or criticised. But conversion in the other direction is also apparent. Stories may be conjured out of thin air to fill up gaps in the performance. To take the case of the Mogadishu hijack and rescue, ubiquitous attention was given by the press to the possibility that the hijackers were members of an international conspiracy. This produced the story in the Daily Mail, reproduced as Figure 4, which in substance is vacuous and speculative. It is not a report so much as an appropriate part of the ritual. So far as

Not only does the press relay social ritual, it may also act as an instigator. Such an analysis can be applied to the incidents of 'bloody Sunday' in Londonderry, their reporting, the government's subsequent handling of the affair and the press reporting of that. 'Bloody Sunday' was not, as appeared, a propaganda victory for the British authorities in spite of the way it was handled in some papers. 45 Faced with a growing scandal in the press and in the political arena, the government of the day 'resorted to widgery'. The device of appointing a judge or tribunal of inquiry to deal with major threats to confidence in the political, administrative or economic machinery of the country has all the hallmarks of a political ritual. It delays resolution of the immediate crisis, subjects it to a lengthy review within the framework of strict procedure. Even ifthe report itself does not resolve any dispute, there is a good chance that press reporting, assisted by judicious public relations, will further obfuscate the issues. On the publication of the Widgery report 'those who read their front pages ... would have had to have been very short-sighted to miss the PR work', commented Simon Winchester. ' "Widgery Clears Army".' they shrieked in near unison; and a relieved British public read no more-Bloody Sunday, thanks to the propaganda merchants and a half dozen lazy hacks, was now a closed book ... '46 In sum the press and the media do not act alone in the performance of political ritual but in concert with other political and social institutions. Concert suggests harmony and this appears to be the more usual case but discordant press reporting may also be one of the instigators of ritual performances by other institutions. If 'our society is composed of highly fragmented and divided relationships' at an individual level, as a polity it is highly centralised with interwoven and interrelated institutions. Gluckman's account of ritual as characteristic of societies with multiplex roles and relations can be extended with the suggestion that political ritual is characteristic of multiplex polities. 4. Press Ritual as Folk Literature The phenomenon noted above of the press drawing on popular 164

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FIGURE 4 Daily Mail 19.10. 77

It's Terror I International' T ERR 0 R ISM is the world's fastest - growing multi-national businessAnarchy Amalgamated. It has a corporate identity, it has its 'company men' (and women). Whether they are operating in Ireland, Tokio or Chile, whether they wear kaftans or blue denim, they feel that they are working for the same 'firm', There may be no rigidlY formal bonds to a centrill body of terrorists, but a farLeft brotherhood does exist. It links, saY, the PLO man to the I RA ma~ in a Symbiosis that produces excesses of violence. The terrorists ha ve their Own conventions. In Belfast, in 1974, the Official Sinn Fein asked terrorists from all over the world to a grisly gathering. Other meetings in other places have diSCussed ideAs, tactics, strategies, They point irrefutably to a recognisable business structure with defined hierarch ies and wit h consultants (otten academics) and killers. A successful grafting between the Chamber Of Horrors and the Chamber of CO'r.merCll. ParadOXically, the anarchists have become c~!lital­ Ists. Now to cOll1lllete t ... e

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BY PETER STENNING business Image, the accounting prinCiple comes into play. In the two most recent hiJacklngs in Germany and in Japan - vast sums •of money have figured in the ransom demands. Who /s the chairman, the brains, of the co-onl/nating body 1 Carlos comes to mind. Ten years ago, Carlos would have be e n too out. rageoUS a figure to contemplate. Today he Is as rea, as his entry in the files of I nterpol, an assassin with the world as his beat, a man admired by every terrorist organisation. Who is Carlos? Where does he operate from? No one on the right side of the law knows. But certainly the terrorists of this world today have an alll'giance not simply to their own ghastly causes but to a supranational someone or some. thing.

Press Performance as a Political Ritual

the Mail itselfwasconcerned.this story might be explained simply as part of the process of keeping up with the competition. The Times had an 'international connections' story the day before. But so far as the press ritual as a whole was concerned the international angle was part of the way the origins of this incident were made complicated and mysterious. The symbolism of this piece in the Mail was particularly striking with its sustained negative analogy between multi-national corporations and international terror, culminating with a pun on supernational which reinforces the point made above. The origins are not just mysterious but mystical. Compared with the symbols cited by Hughes, the symbols used in the rites described in this paper were strikingly contemporaneous. It is as though this form of popular literature has lost its sense of history, drawing instead on the current concerns and creations of other contemporary popular culture, films, television series and adventure novels. Again it must be emphasised that this is a two-way process. Accounts of an earlier hijack and rescue at Entebbe have already been turned into at least two feature films. Plans are in hand for similar 'spinoffs' from Mogadishu. At the time of the Balcombe Street trial a 'documentary reconstruction' of the siege and the events leading up to it was screened on lTV. Just as the media cannot be isolated from other social institutions, so the press cannot be treated in isolation from the rest of contemporary culture. However, there are factors peculiar to the British press, its commercialism, its metropolitan concentration and the secretiveness of the state in which it operates, which suggest why it is particularly involved with other aspects of popular culture and particularly prone to the performance of national rites. In other countries, including the United States, it is easier to limit discussion of press performance to an analysis of their performance as information media. The style of journalism based on informing special publics has retained a few prestigious outlets and these have been better insulated from popular journalism than has been possible in the British national press. 50 The political and administrative authorities in the States have also been readier to accept the informative style as a constitutional duty. In Britain the safest course, if not the constitutional duty under the terms of laws such as the Official Secrets Act, is to keep silent. The presumption is against disclosure and controversy on grounds of responsibility. Although the national newspaper market in Britain may be divided into various sectors, the overall effect of having a relatively 167

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large number of newspapers based in one city and distributed through the country, has been to make all papers participate in the national culture in much the same way. Moreover, as Murdock and Golding have shown, the political economy of the British press is such that they have become part of the wider leisure industry, a complex which includes most of the other media but whose economic dynamic is the pursuit of profit wherever returns are greatest. 51 As a declining medium, the press has little economic initiative. This is paralleled by an output which has little creative initiative within contemporary popular culture. To describe press performances as ritual also draws attention to their 'striking and incongruous rigidity' in Nadel's terms, the sense of going through the motions to observe a rite, which comes from their derivative and obligatory contents. The Sigmficance of Ritual

The aim of this final section is to show that ritual as a perspective has a value beyond describing a particular type of press output. Nevertheless it is important to emphasise that that is the point from which this analysis started. Ritual as a perspective remains limited and focussed. It may be summarised briefly: ritual is less a communication about social reality than a customary performance giving symbolic expression to social relationships. Lukes's attempt to avoid the Durkheimian paradigm for the analysis of ritual effectively turned it into a form of ideology, a mode of political and social control. That is the approach continued in this paper but with important modifications. Lukes does not consider the relationship between ritual and ideology but his account of ritual working through 'cognitive power' seems to miss one of the important contributions that ritual can make to the study of ideology. Ritual belongs to the idealist as well as the consensual tradition in social analysis and so there has been considerable investigation of the way it works through experience and symbolism. 52 To treat ritual performance simply as standing for political paradigms is to oversimplify. It also expresses and symbolises social relationships and so, quite literally, mystifies them. In this section I shall develop ritual as a concept within the framework set out by Geertz in his analysis of 'ideology as a cultural system' Y The conceptual problems associated with ideology have led writers following Gramsci and Althusser to treat it in terms of great generality. Descriptions of ideology as 'a network of established "given" meanings' (Morley), 'the forms in which reality "presents 168

Press Performance as a Political Ritual

itseJr' to men' (Mepham) or 'simply the "sum of what we already know" , (Hall) have made it something of a catch-all in contemporary analysis.;4 The difficulty this creates is that the generality of ideology has to be reconciled with an account of its origins. One way in which this is done is by qualifying ideology with labels like 'bourgeois' and 'dominant' to mark out those items from the general ideological mix which can best be related to the interests of the ruling class. Another is to use the distinction between phenomenal and real in much the same way to mark out ideology as that version of reality relating to ruling interests. Both are open to Geertz's criticism that the connection is not explained but 'merely educed' by 'the crude device of placing particular symbols and particular strains (or interests) side by side in such a way that the fact that the first are derivatives of the second seems mere commonsense or at least post-Freudian, post-Marxian commonsense'. 55 Geertz also works with a very general concept of ideology but apparently he is interested in the problem of explication for its own sake. His objective is a science of culture, symbolic behaviour. This he characterises as 'thick description', 'not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning'.;6 To develop such a science it is necessary to introduce a set of concepts which will categorise different types of symbolic behaviour and performances. This is even more essential for those who are not content to treat culture, even heuristically, as an autonomous phenomenon. Conceptual elaboration and investigation are necessary to provide the discriminatory links between ideology and power which ideology itself cannot provide because of its generality and because it is itself one of the terms of the equation. Geertz has made a particularly impressive contribution of his own in his account of the Balinese cockfight as 'deep play'. But there are relevant concepts which have received considerable attention in related fields and in other theoretical traditions which can be realigned to help show how the tricks of ideological production and effect are turned. One is propaganda, which there is no space to develop here. Another, I submit, is ritual. This paper has mainly been concerned with presenting press ritual from the point of view of the content which appeared in the papers. Nevertheless it will be apparent from the discussion, particularly in the previous section that the press was not alone in acting out these rites. The press provided a forum in which other political and social Illstitutions could take part and in which the public as readers were also Illvolved. Starting from two cases there is little prospect of providing a 169

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Press Performance as a Political Ritual

complete taxonomy of rites in this paper. Nevertheless the two types, cauterisation and affirmation are closely related to the first and last of Van Gennep's three types or stages; separation, transition and incorporation. 58 They mark points of change in the system of social relations; in the first case, a point of crisis and in the second one of resolution. Public ceremonials, which it has been more usual to regard as rituals but which have been little discussed in this paper, bear some affinity to Van Gennep's second type, transition. They generally mark the adoption of office, the passage of time in an office or the performance of some function related to an office. To develop this taxonomy it would be necessary to show what events, changes in the system of social relations, were ritualised. The definition of press ritual used in this paper is sufficiently restrictive to suggest that a catalogue of occurrences would show similar events of crisis, official celebration and resolution which were not ritualised, ritualised only partially or unsuccessfully, or ritualised by other institutions as in 'widgery'. One hypothesis for example would be that a crisis like Suez which is a matter ofdispute between the political parties is less likely to be ritualised by the press than one like Northern Ireland which is not. In the latter case it is easier to take the conflict out of the rational, secular domain in which political, military or economic decisions have to be taken on both means and ends and to move it into a mystical, nonrational domain in which it can be left to look after itself. Successful mystification depends upon the agreement of the whole ruling class. Such contrasts would enable the analyst to say much about the nature of British society and culture. The perspective is rather different from traditional media content analysis which has been concerned with the way press and the other news media report people and events. Such examination of media performance has produced results in terms of the general image or ideology expressed in media reports. Those who have used the term ideology have gone further in recognising that there is more to media accounts than reporting. 'Every language has its opportunity cost; evaluations are already implicit in the concepts, the language in terms of which one observes and records'. 59 Press ritual as discussed in this paper is a type of media account particularly rich in implicit and explicit values and complex layers of meaning-it is a characteristic symbolic form. It invites the development of another taxonomy, a classification of media accounts, to show the range of symbolic forms available to the press and the different occasions of their use. Content analysis has usually started from the available distinctions

of journalistic practice, news versus features, verbal versus visual, popular versus quality, press versus broadcasting. The suggestion above that there are at least two modes of discourse in press reporting, the structural and the anti-structural, is an example of a type of analysis which cuts across such distinctions and concentrates instead on the implicit symbolism. So too does the claim that in ritual performances the symbolic as opposed to the representational meaning is high. Studies of media production as well as content analysis have been concerned with the way in which journalism reports the world. This focus follows from a theory of the press as information media and has led to the investigation of bias and distortion in the production of media knowledge. But in ritual performances the inadequacy of this approach is particularly clear. They are less reports, selecting and distorting a set of events in the real world, than accounts put together after the manner of literature according to a sense of what is necessary and appropriate. To recognise news as a form of literature is to be forced to come to terms with what Geertz has called 'the autonomous process of symbolic formation'. Concepts such as 'inferential structure' and 'media stereotypes' have made some attempt to do this by emphasising the importance of preconceptions in determining the way events are reported. 60 But they work within a framework which is still focussed on the way knowledge, not meaning, is socially determined. 'The sociology of knowledge ought to be called the sociology of meaning, for what is socially determined is not the nature of conception but the vehicles of conception.'61 Following this approach the study of news production would involve not studies in the production of knowledge but studies in the use and development of meanings. This suggests the study of the public and private meanings available in newspaper circles and the way they feed on and feed into the meaning system of the general media culture. It also suggests the value of working above the level of the treatment of particular stories or classes of story to consider the newspaper as a vehicle for symbolic forms in which large parts are occasionally pre-empted for ritual performances or as itself a symbolic form which occasionally takes itself seriously as 'The Voice of the People' or 'The Voice of Britain '. Geertz also has some pertinent remarks to make about studying the effectiveness of symbolism. He rejects as inadequate the two standard sociological interpretations that it 'deceives the uninformed' or 'excites the unreflective' as resting on a 'flattened view of people's mentalities'.

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Prcss Pcrformance as a Polifical Ri/lml

Accounts of media influence whether of the older stimulus-response or the more recent cognitive effect variety have tended to be of this 'all or nothing' type. 62 Either the media are influential or they are not. Either people are duped by what they read in the press or they see through it. This is less true of some recent attempts to see media and audiences working within common, overlapping, structured sets of codes. But this work has been founded on the exposition of particular cases or classes of content. To show an effect in each case, it has usually been necessary to assume it. 'Audiences whose decodings will inevitably reflect their own material and social conditions, will not necessarily decode events within the same ideological structures as those in which they have been encoded. But the overall intention of "effective communication" must, certainly, be to "win the consent" of the audience to the preferred reading and hence to get him to decode within the hegemonic framework.' 6J There are compelling reasons for making this assumption but desperate problems involved in showing how what must happen, does happen to him, the audience as individual. The mechanism assumed is psychological and cognitive. Geertz however insists that because of the public nature of symbolism, 'human thought is a public and not, or at least not fundamentally, a private activity' (to oversimplify a complex argument).64 The point I wish to draw out is the further possibility this suggests for trying to show how the trick of ideological effect is turned. Instead of concentrating on private processes at a particular point in time, one is directed towards the social process over time, the development, application and change of different symbols and their currency in different realms of discourse from the mediated to the interpersonal. So far as media and audiences are concerned, this calls for an interactional approach,6s one which would recognise such common experiences of everyday life as that people do 'talk back to their television set'. In doing so they are forced to enter into discussion with it on the terms it lays down. But on the other side the media cannot move far from the terms it is assumed their audiences will understand. Methodologically it points to an emphasis on observation and recording rather than on asking people to verbalise processes which do not happen in their heads over sufficiently short periods of time for them to be able to capture them. Concepts like role distance developed by Goffman for the study of interpersonal interaction have descriptive relevance to the relationship many people, journalists and readers, apparently have with their newspapers. 66 They direct attention towards a study of the press

performances which elicit that type of response and the social circumstances under which they are made. There are various ways of distancing oneself from a newspaper and its news which have much to do with the symbolic meaning of the newspaper and its content, meaning which may change when it is read in different places and company. There is another thread running through these various observations, and that is for audience analysis at a much more general level than has been common in media studies. By treating communicative behaviour as a social fact on the Durkheimian model it would be possible to study the interaction between social change, media performances and audience participation. Audience statistics collected on the basis of who attends to which medium remain a curiously neglected source of data. They have rarely been analysed on the basis of who attended to the various media when. The aim would be to relate communicative behaviour to the course of social history, not to time of day or season of the year which are among the stock in trade of audience research. The paradigm case which has received some attention is communication behaviour in crisis. 67 The focus of attention has usually been on the dissemination of news of the particular case based once more on information flow theories of the media and the analysis of their influence in terms of consensual functionalism. Nevertheless, these studies have shown the remarkable extent and intensity of communication behaviour on such occasions. Journalists have many occupational beliefs about when newspapers will sell, as for example 'wars sell papers', but they have been little investigated, particularly in the terms suggested in this paper. The point would be not just to relate events to audiences but to consider the nature of the intervening performances. If people watched television almost insatiably after the Kennedy assassination, what sort of television was it they were watching? Available evidence suggests it was heavily ritualised, but that is where we came in. Some media performances are political rites carried out on behalf of the powerful, in which the powerless are invited to take part. The nature of the British media system is such that the invitation is difficult to refuse.

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Centre for Mass Communication Research, Universify of Leicester. I I am greatly indebted to Graham Murdock for his con1mrnts on an earlier verSIOll ot Ihis paper.

r'

!

Philip Elliott 2 For a general review see Robert Bocock: Ritual in Industrial Society, Allen and Unwin, London, 1974.

) S. F. Nadel: Nupe Religion, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1954, p.99. 4 S. Lukes: 'Political Ritual and Social Integration', Sociology, Vol. 9, No.2, May 1975.

5

Ibid. p. 297.

6

Ibid.

, 'A painting may represent an object of the visible world ... ,it may also symbolise an idea.' E. H. Gombrich: Symbolic Images, Phaidon, London, 1972, p. 124 (Emphasis original). 9 'Patterns of thought that attribute to phenomena suprasensible qualities which, or part of which, are not derived from observation or cannot be logically inferred from it, and which they do not possess.' E. E. Evans-Pritchard: Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1937, p. 12.

David Chaney has argued that 'performance' is to be preferred to media 'content'. It draws attention to 'symbolic expression' as well as 'the manifest symbols that constitute a particular communication' and to the 'dramatic element in mass communication which is important in understanding the sort of relationship being studied'. Processes of Mass Communication, Macmillan, London, 1972, p. 8. 10

Lukes op. cit., p. 291.

I' For example, Resistance through Rituals; Working Papers in Cultural Studies, Vol. 7 and 8 (Joint Issue), Summer, 1975; Paul E. Willis: Profane Culture, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1978; Peter Marsh, Elizabeth Rosser, Rom Harre: The Rules of Disorder, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1978. Only Peter Marsh's work explicitly develops and applies the concept of ritual. IJ Edmund Leach: Culture and Communication, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976. p. 45. I' Max Gluckman: 'The Licence in Ritual' in Custom and Conflict in Africa, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1966.

Victor W. Turner: The Ritual Process, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1974. Quotation from page 82. 15

16 Monica Wilson: Rituals of Kinship Among the Nyakyusa, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1957; Max Gluckman: 'Les Rites de Passage', in The Ritual of Social Relations, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1962; Nadel op. cit.; Jack Goody: 'Religion and Ritual: The Definitional Problem', British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 12, 1961, pp. 142-164.

" Op. cit.

I' Gluckman (1966), op. cit., p. 135. 19

Lukes op. cit., p. 290.

29

Nadel, loco cit.

21

Goody, op. CIt., p. 159.

lJ

For the definition of 'mystical notions' see note 9 above.

14 The phrase is Merton's in 'The Sociology of Knowledge and Mass Communications', Social Theory and Social Culture, Collier-Macmillan, London, 1968 (revised edition).

lJ

James L. Peacock: Rites of Modernisation, University of Chicago, London, 1968.

16

Philip Elliott: The Making of a Telez'ision Series, Constable, London, 1972.

For the original analysis see Philip Elliott: Reporting Northern Ireland in London, Dublin and Belfast, The Media alld Ethnicity, UNESCO, Paris, 1977. 27

7 First demonstrated in Bernard Berelson's classic study: 'What "missing the newspaper" means' in P. F. Lazarsfeld and F. N. Stanton (eds): Communications Research, 1948-9, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1949.

II

Press Performance as a Political Ritual

18 All references to the national press in this paper exclude the Morning Star. It was included in the original content analysis but it differs from the other papers on the crucial point that it does not agree with the leadership of the society on the objects of thought or feeling which it holds to be of special significance and so goes out of its way not to participate in the ritual performances of the rest of the press. The Financial Times was not included originally, but is an interesting case as its participation in the rites discussed in this paper was nothing like so extensive as that of the rest ofthe press. It has remained most insulated from the general effects of competition and metropolitan centralisation in the British press providing information for a specific audience. This point is returned to below.

" The periods were from 23rd September to 11th October, 1974, and from 21st April to 9th May, 1975. )0

Paul Wilkinson: Terrorism and the Liberal State, Macmillan, London, 1977.

For discussions of this tradition see L. P. Curtis: Anglo-Saxons and Celts, University of Bridgeport Press, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1968; Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature, David Charles, Newton Abbott, 1972; P. O'Farrell: England and Ireland Since 1800, Oxford University Press, London, 1975. J I

J1

The point is elaborated in the report of the original study cited above.

Report of a Committee to consider . .. measures to deal with terrorism in Northern Ireland (Gardiner Committee), H.M.S.O., London, Cmnd. 5847, 1975, para 76. J3

l4

This point is developed in Philip Elliott, 1977, op. cit.

On the BBC and Northern Ireland see Philip Schlesinger: Putting Reality Together: BBC News, Constable, London, 1978. Jl

J6

As reported in the Daily Mail, 6th January, 1977.

J1

Turner (1974) op. cit., p. 82. The following quotations are from p. 83 and p. 95.

J8 See Victor W. Turner: Dramas, Fields and Metaphors, Cornell University Press, 1974(b). J9 Turner (1974(b» also points to two other poles between which the symbolism of ritual typically oscillates, the 'orectic pole' of physiological phenomena such as blood, sex and death which carries an emotional significance and the 'normative' or 'ideological' pole of normative values and moral 'facts'. 'The drama of ritual action ... causes an exchange between these poles in which the biological referents are ennobled and the normative referents are charged with emotional significance' p. 55. In embryo this suggests an explanation of why we have 'bad news'. 40 41

Turner (1974(b» gives patriotism as an example of pseudo-communitas. Gluckman (1962) op. cit., p. 24.

Edmund Leach: Custom, Law and Terrorist Violence, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1977, quotation from p. 32, emphasis original. 42

22

Lukes op. cit., p. 30 I. Original emphasis.

174

'1',1

175

Press Performance as a Political Ritual

Philip Ellioll 4) Leach makes the point that in tribal societies founded on kin relations it was the breaking of kinship taboos like incest which were the prototypical acts of sacrilege.

" Lukes op. cit., especially pp. 302-3. " See Simon Winchester's account of his experiences: In Holy Terror, Faber, London, 1974. " Ibid, p. 210. 47 Helen MacGill Hughes: 'News and the Human Interest Story' in E. W. Burgess and D. ]. Bogue (eds): Corztribution to Urban Sociology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1964, p. 282.

" Robert Park: 'The Natural History of the Newspaper', in R. H. Turner (ed): On Social Corztrol and Collective Behaviour, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1967. See also H. M. Hughes op. cit., and News and the Human Irzterest Story, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1940. 49

6l

Hall (1977) op. cit., p. 344 (Emphasis changed).

•• See Geertz: 'Ideology ... ' and 'Thick Description ... ' op. cit. Quotation from the former p. 214. .' Cf. the author's critique of another style of audience research which comes to a similar conclusion. Philip Elliott: 'Uses and Gratification Research; a Critique and a Sociological Alternative', in Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz (eds): The Uses of Mass Communications, Sage, London, 1974. " Erving Goffman: Encounters, Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1961. The paradigm example of the paradigm case is the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. Bradley S. Greenberg and Edwin B. Parker (eds): The Kennedy Assassination and the American Public, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1965. b7

Hughes (1940) op. cit., pp. 195-6.

This theme of why cannot British journalism be more like American runs through many of the contributions, including one by the author to a critique of the British press edited by James Curran The British Press: A Mall/jesto, Macmillan, 1978. jU

51 G. Murdock and P. Golding: 'Beyond Monopoly: Mass Communication in an age of conglomerates' in Peter Beharrel and Greg Philo (ed): Trades Unions and the Media, Macmillan, 1977. 52 Turner for example is an uncompromising idealist, arguing strongly that symbols are not epiphenomena but have ontological status. 'Symbolic behaviour actually "creates" society for pragmatic purposes-including in society both structure and communitas', Turner (1974(b)) op. cit., p. 56. jl Clifford Geertz; 'Ideology as a Cultural System', in The Irzterpretation of Cultures, London, Hutchinson, 1975.

54 David Morley: 'Industrial Conflict and the Mass Media', Sociological Review, Vol. 24, No.2, May 1976; J. Mepham: 'The Theory of Ideology in Capital', Working Papers in Cultural Studies, No.6, 1974; Stuart Hall: 'Culture, the Media and the "Ideological Effect" " in James Curran e.a. (eds): Mass Communication and Society, Edward Arnold, London, 1977.

" Geertz, op. cit., p. 207. Geertz's point is that though the device is 'crude', the analyses are usually anything but, being both impressive and compelling. 56 'Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture' in Geertz, op. cit. Quotation fi-om page 'i.

" 'Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight' in Geertz, op. cit. For another discussion of Geertz's relevance to media sociology see James Carey: 'Communication and Culture', Communication Research, April, 1975. "

For an account of Van Gennep's approach see Gluckman (1962), op. cit.

"J D. Morley: op. cit., p. 247. See James D. Halloran, e.a.: Demonstrations and Commwllc,uion, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970; The Glasgow Media Group: Bad News, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1976. 60

" Geertz, 'Ideology ... ' op. cit., p. 212. " For a review of recent approaches see D. McQuail: 'The Influence and Effects of Mass Media', in J. Curran et al (eds.), op, cit.

176

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CHRONICLES OF THE GALLOWS:

The Social History of Crime Reporting

Steve Cliibnilll 'The gallows is the romance of a certain class of society; and, as long as it is an instilUtion of our country, it will have its literature.' I 'Yonder, Sir, is Mr. Goosequill, a "Seven Dials Bard" who came to town with haIfa-crown in his pocket ... He often makes a good meal upon a monster. A rape has frequently afforded him great satisfaction, but a murder-an out-and-out murder-if well timed, is board, lodging and washing, with a feast of nectared sweets for many a day."

Introduction

In a recent article, James Curran 3 has identified the middle of the nineteenth century as the period in which the press was established as an instrument of social control with lasting consequences for the development of modern British Society. This effect was finally achieved by the repeal of a measure, the newspaper stamp tax, which had originally been intended to restrict the spread of radical ideas. The repeal of the 'taxes on knowledge' marked the triumph of those control strategists who like Bulwer Lytton had argued for half a century that 'the printer and his types may ... provide better for the peace and honour of a free state than the goaler and the hangman'. 4 The intention of this present article is threefold: (i) to illustrate the varying degrees to which printed crime news was conceived and functioned as a means of social control; as well as a source of public information and entertainment, before the repeal of the newspaper stamp; (ii) to examine the social organisation of reporting underlying the presentation of crime during that period; and (iii) to identify the importance attached to ideological control through the printed word in general, and crime reporting in particular, in the establishment of a control culture suited to an emerging industrial capitalist economy. !'he Origins of Crime Journalism

Leslie Shepard 5 has described the broadside ballad as 'a kind of IllUsical journalism, the forerunner of the popular prose newspapers 179

Sreve Gllibnall

and a continuation of the folk tradition of minstrelsy'. Certainly the origins of crime journalism are located firmly within that oral tradition. The precursor of the crime reporter was the ballad maker, A. L. Lloyd's 'humble journalist in verse who, for a shilling, would turn out a ballad on a subject as readily as his cobbler cousin would sole a pair of shoes'. 6 But unlike the modern newsman, the ballad maker was chronicling or mythologising the past, if only to demonstrate its relevance to the present. This is the case with some of the earliest British crime stories, those picaresque tales of the greenwood appearing towards the end of the 14th century. These outlaw ballads, as A. L. Lloyd has pointed out, reflect the tensions and aspirations engendered by the break-up of Feudalism. They portray the deviant as an epic hero, a champion of the oppressed, and contribute towards 'a spirit of resistance' to the erosion of ancient rights in the countryside. They arise specifically from 'the common experience of labouring people and express the identity of interest of these people, very often in opposition to the interests of the masters'. 7 The songs represent a radical tradition of crime reporting which has never been particularly marked in its written form. From their earliest appearance printed crime reports were subject to the moderation of a dominant ideology both directly, through the intervention of the state, and indirectly by the exercise of self censorship, fear of repression or simply by virtue of the status and occupational position of their writers. Ted Peterson 8 has argued that crime pamphlets did not appear in any quantity until the second half of the 17th century i.e. after the introduction of newspapers in 1622. However, there undoubtably were crime pamphlets in existence in the middle ofthe 16th century, catering for a consumer demand which the early newspapers failed to recognise. In spite of the example offered to them by the crime pamphlets throughout the previous century, newspapers contained little or no crime news for the first fifty years of their development. 9The early crime pamphlets were produced in a climate of vigorous censorship and control, in 1543 an Act for the advancement of true religion and the abolition of the contrary claimed that 'forward and malicious minds-have taken upon them by printed ballads, rhymes etc, subtly and craftily to instruct his highnesses people-untruly'. Thirty printers and booksellers were summond by the Privy Council and obliged to submit lists of books and ballads printed in the previous three years. This marked the beginning of a string of measures designed to control the publishing trade by licencing or suppression. In 1557 the Guild of Stationers won a virtual monopoly over printing and the power to search shops and houses for 180

Chronicles of rhe Gallows: The Social Hisrory of Crime Reporring

illegal presses and destroy their products. During Queen Mary's reign an act was introduced to supress 'dyvers heyerous, sedicious and schlanderous Writings, Rimes, Ballads, Letters, Papers and Books'. 10 The impact of these repressive measures is, not surprisingly, most obvious in the reporting of political offences. Writing on rebellions and treasons was always loyal to the state, indeed much of it was either published by the Royal printers at the instance of the Privy Councilor surreptitiously leaked to reliable printers by state officials. Matthias Shaaber, in his invaluable study of early news pamphlets indicates that as far as political crime was concerned, the pamphlets which have survived were probably responses to the circulation of 'underground' accounts. He cites 11 'A particular declaration-of the- traiterous affection borne against her majesty by Edmund Campion, Iesuite, and other condemned Priests witnessed by their own Confessions' (Christopher Barker 1582) which plainly states: 'Some disloyal and unnatural subjects-have published diverse slanderous pamphlets, and seditious libels-in excuse and justification of the Said Traytors-H.M. Privy Council-have (therefore) found it very expedient that as well certain confessions taken of the said campion, and others-as also certain Answers, lately made to certain Articles propounded-should be published truly and sincerely'. Most pamphlets of this type, however, were less frank in disclosing their origin. More usually they simply deplore the existence of false information and state that 'therefore it hath been thought fit to publish to the world' a 'true and perfect' account of the matter 'for the satisfaction of those, who desire to be informed' and the making plain of the justice, liberality and paternal concern of the sovereign towards his misguided subjects. But in spite of their guise of impartiality, their source can be recognised, Shaaber notes, from their tenor, their frequent use of documentary evidence from official archives, and the fact of their publication by the Royal printer. 12 It is interesting to note, however, the lengths to which the state was prepared to go to disguise authorship, sometimes omitting the printer's name and presenting its propaganda in the form of a letter from a gentleman to a doubting friend. 13 Although the official and semi-official publications usually contain the fullest accounts of crimes against the state, (by virtue of their privileged access to information), a plethora ofunofficial pamphlets and ballads often followed such events. Shaaber 14 lists no less than 27 publications concerning the Northumberland rebellion of 1569-70, for 181

Steve Chibnall

Chronicles of the Gallows: The Social History of Crime Reporting

instance; and their general support for the government is clear from some of their titles. 15 The flavour of the news ballads can be gained from the following extract from a ballad by Thomas Deloney, a prolific composer, celebrating the execution of Catholic plotters against the Crown:

could assert over printed accounts in his analysis of the 15 broadsides and pamphlets concerned with the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1614. Four persons were executed for the crime and the Earl and Countess of Somerset were convicted of complicity; but in no surviving contemporary account of the murder are Somerset and his wife mentioned. 22 Turning to the third focal concern of Tudor and Stuart crime journalism we find that tracts on the discovery and execution of witches abounded in the late 16th century and early 17th century before gradually petering out with the relaxation of the law and the erosion of belief in the occult among the propertied classes. 23 Once again, in these accounts, the reader is called upon to witness and beware. The title of a pamphlet of 1582 published by Thomas Dawson gives some indication of the sentiments expressed in publications ofthis genre-'A true and just Recorde, of the Information, Examination and Confession of all the Witches, taken at S.Oses in the countie of Essex-wherein all men may see what a pestilent people witches are, and how unworthy to lyve in a Christian Commonwealth-'. Clearly, there is no attempt here at the adoption of an impartial or 'objective' stance, and this becomes perfectly understandable when we realise that news of this type generally emanated directly from within the 'control culture'. Modern crime reporting may draw heavily on control personnel as sources but the Tudor and Stuart version relied on them actually to write the accounts. Most accounts of criminal trials appear to have been written by clerks and recorders of the courts who submitted them to publishers as a profitable side-line. The account of the St.Osyth witch trial, for instance, was 'written orderly as the cases were tryed by evidence' almost certainly by some official of the court. 24 There is also evidence that reports of this type were submitted to Judges or Magistrates for approval and validation 25 and were even initiated by the Justices themselves. A pamphlet of 1613 published by John Barnes and describing 'The wonderful disoverie of witches in-Lancaster-' was written by the clerk of the sessions at the command of the judges of the circuit and was finally endorsed by one of them:

'Rejoyce in hart, good people all, Sing praise to God on hye, Which hath preserved us by his power From traitors tiranny; Which now have had their due deserts, In London lately seen.'''

The above provides a good example of the function of ballads of the time which was not so much simply to convey news as to discuss it and to philosophise and moralise from it: 'These ballads use the bit of news with which they are connected as a mere startingpoint or pretext for a homily, a lecture, or an exercise in pious instruction; they themselves aim at teaching, preaching or warning'. J7

If we turn to the other focal concerns of Tudor and Stuart crime reporting-murder and witchcraft-we fmd the same didactic approach. The earliest piece based on a murder which Shaaber could discover was dated 1557,18 although the contemporary records indicate that murder pamphlets and broadsides did not appear in great numbers until after 1575. 19 Most, at least until 1600, seem to have been heavily laden with lamentation and exhortation to the reader to avoid the lures of sin. Some attention to moral exposition was almost certainly a convention of news reporting. A ballad of 1598, purportedly written by the highwayman and housebreaker Luke Hutton, before his execution continually laments his 'great folly' and calls on his peers to 'be warned young wantons: hemp passeth green holly', explaining his deviance as the result of ignoring parents advice and falling into bad company. 20 Clearly, here were sentiments perfectly acceptable to those responsible for social control, marking out the printer as a reputable exponent of his craft. As Shaaber 2 ! comments: 'it is possible that, to a limited extent, this cloaking of the news in pious comment is a form of protective coloration instinctively or cunningly adopted to disarm official suspicions against news-it is just possible that an unvarnished account of a foul murder would have been objectionable to mRny influential persons, but tricked out as a sermon against impiety or lawbreaking, it could hardly have been reproved even by the godliest'

Certainly Shaaber produces evidence of the power which the nobility 182

'After he (the clerk) had taken great pains to finish it, I took upon mee to revise and correct it, that nothing might passe but matter of fact, apparent against them by record-The whole proceedings and evidence against them, I find upon examination carefully set forth and truly reported, and judge the work fit and worthie to be published.' 26

Confessions of condemned men were received and written-up by clergymen and these, like trial reports, were conceived more as 183

f

I,

Steve Chibnall

Chronicles of the Gallows: The Social History of Crime Reponing

propaganda than as the imparting of news to expand public knowledge and no more. Crime news, as we have seen, was above all instructive, and the ideological motives of its purveyors were aptly summarised by the author of 'The historie of Wyates rebellion' (Robert Caly 1554), John Proctor: 'it hath been allowed-for a necessary policie in all ages-that the flagicious enterprises of the wicked-should by writing be commited to eternal memorye: partly that they of that age in whose tyme such things happened, might-(behold) from what calamatie and extreme ruine, by what policie and wisdome their native countries were delivered-; partly for a doctrine and a monition serving bothe for the present and future tyme.' Writers for the most part, then, saw news primarily as propaganda; but the meaning of crime news as a cultural form has always been ambiguous. To printers and publishers and to the handful of semiprofessional hack journalists and literary agents active in the period crime news, first and foremost must have meant profit. While the amateurs usually had an axe to grind the professionals were attracted by the commercial possibilities of crime reporting. Evidence from the records of the Stationers Company indicates that certain publishers specialised in crime pamphlets and broadsides. Pieces by Henry Gosson and Thomas Pavier chronicling murders outnumber those by all their contemporaries combined. The evidence also suggests that there were attempts to secure exclusive rights to the reporting of certain events. Of the six pieces on the murder of Robert Beech entered in the Stationers' register in 1594, Thomas Gosson or Thomas Millington were responsible for five. Similarly a high percentage of the broadsides and ballads on the Sir Thomas Overbury case were entered by John Trundle 27 • Dealers in copy certainly existed in the 16th century. They were, as far as we can tell, generally resourceful and unscrupulous scavengers of news and literature who may well have been instrumental in conveying news from the provinces to London Publishers. 28 One of these agents may have been the 'person of greater learning' who revised the notes on the Derbyshire witch, Alse Gooderidge, which were compiled by 'a private Christian and man of trade', who witnessed the effects of her activities. 29 Although direct evidence is hard to find, it would certainly be surprising if these dealers in copy were never commissioned by publishers to acquire potentially profitable stories; and if this is the case they very much represent the forerunner of the modern news reporter.

Chronicles of Newgate and Tyburn I have argued that Tudor and Stuart crime reporting was, as I shall go on to argue it has been ever since, both a frank commercial speculation and a form of social control. But it should also be observed that speculation and control could operate successfully only in a favourable social context. That is, news publications necessarily conformed largely to the tastes and beliefs oftheir consumers. This is particularly true of the early murder and witchcraft pamphlets which appear to express genuine consensus sentiments about certain forms of deviance in 16th and 17th century England. They may well have performed the boundary-maintaining task noted by Erikson 30 and the concentration of the collective conscience described by Durkheim. Such consensual news offers an opportunity for the celebration of conformity and respectability by redefining the moral boundaries of communities and drawing their members together against the threat of chaos. It is able to do this precisely because there exists such a high degree of agreement in the community about the meaning of the newS. However, while the meaning of murder and witchcraft in 17th century may have been relatively unambiguous, the meaning of, and appropriate response to, property crime as the century progressed was by no means so clear. It is arguable, in fact, that it became more complex and obscure with the gradual erosion of ancient communal use rights and the increasing concentration of negotiable capital and saleable property protected by the apparently infinite extension of capital statutes. 3 I We can see one journalistic response to the conundrum of property crime in the survival of the outlaw ballad tradition; in particular, the casting of the highwayman as epic hero, evidenced in the effusion of printed ephemera surrounding Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, the escapologist Jack Sheppard and the master criminal Jonathan Wild. The key to immortality via the journalist's pen was undoubtedly 'style', the ability to conduct one's criminal exploits with enough panash to raise them above the sordid and brutal ising petty deviance of the regular Tyburn procession. Take, for example, this extract from a broadsheet of 1685 celebrating the life and execution of the highwayman, William Nevison. 32

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I

'He maintained himself like a gentleman, Besides he was good to the pOOf; He rode about like a bold hero, And he gained himself favour therefore.'

Clearly, the Ghost of Robin Hood continued to haunt Grub Street, but 185

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Chronicles of the Gallows: The Social History of Crime Reporting

one is tempted to speculate that this emphasis on style and the concentration on a few notorious figures, which became a feature of crime journalism in the early 18th Century, provided an acceptable solution to the problem of reponing property offences. The alternatives to selecting and individualising deviance according to the criterion of style were either to support openly, or condone, attacks on capital (a, response calculated to provoke repressive measures from the rising bourgeois class) or else give unqualified allegiance to a legal and social system based on class dominance. In creating and celebrating the notoriety of individual deviants the printers of the 17th and 18th centuries were steering a middle course. They were accepting the rules of the crime game-the framework of law, the justice of (inevitable) punishment-but they were awarding the prize of celebrity status to those who played attractively and gave the authorities a good run for their money. Thus the populace were allowed a hero and a scapegoat but denied a champion. 33 As often as not execution reports carried speeches of repentance from the gallows, calling on the audience to shun the follies of bad company, drunkenness, lewd women, wild spending and consequent criminality and to follow the sound advice of their parents. Examples abound in the collections of criminal biographies popular throughout the 18th Century. 34 'Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals' records the last speech of a teenage thief and housebreaker, William Hollis,

The compilers of these criminal biographies who were again often, themselves, members of the legal profession 37 took every opportunity to draw out the didactic messages of their reports. The cases are presented as a catalogue of human follies and vices and their inevitable

consequences if not corrected. The author of 'Lives of the most Remarkable Criminals' writes that he has been 'particularly careful to describe the several roads by which our lusts lead us to destruction' and has 'fixed up Tyburn as a Beacon to warn many men from indulging themselves in sensual pleasures'. 38 He warns his contemporaries against the 'mean and foolish ambition of being better dressed than becomes their station' (p 154), 'the corrupting influence of bad companions' (p 69) and 'Debauchery without Restraint' (p 58). 'The Annals of Newgate' (published by J. Wenman of Fleet Street, 1776) claims to 'expose the deformity of vice, the infamy, and punishments naturally attending those who deviate from the paths of virtue; and is intended as a beacon to warn the rising generation against the temptations, the allurements and the dangers of bad company'. In much the same vein the author of 'The Newgate Calendar' warns of 'the evil consequences of passion' (p 164) 'the effect of intoxication' (p 22) 'the misery occasioned by that licentiousness which is of all vices the most destructive of the happiness of females' (p 176), and 'the fatal consequences of living beyond our income' (p 230). It is little wonder, therefore, that the nurse of penal reformer Samual Romilly used 'The Newgate Calendar' for his moral instruction,39 as Ted Peterson 40 has observed, its 'sermonising had one refrain-crime does not pay, and justice will triumph'. But despite their moralising tone the books, pamphlets and broadsheets of criminal memoirs and execution accounts were primarily commercial speculation in an area with a proven and reliable market. The author of 'Lives' frankly admits that while he is motivated by a desire to provide moral instruction he also accepts the newsman's responsibility to supply 'the facts' (instructive or not) and the value of criminal biographies as pure entertainment, thus utilising a formula not so far removed from some popular Sunday newspapers of today. Certainly crime reporting in the 18th century was no less competitive than it is in the twentieth. From as early as the 1680s freelance reporters paid a fee to the lord mayor to take shorthand notes of Old Bailey trials. Their work was published as monthly or weekly 'Sessions Papers' and later reprinted in book form. 41 By the l720s and the crime explosion surrounding the South Sea Bubble 42 weekly crime reports from the Old Bailey were also appearing in newspapers such as 'The Universal Journal', and the publisher John Applebee had introduced a series of 'True Confessions' of condemned criminals. These were published in his 'Original Weekly Journal' and in his threepenny weekly pamphlets, 'The Ordinary of Newgate, His

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'Good People, I am very young, but have been very wicked. It is true I had no education, but I might have laboured hard and lived well for all that; but gaming and ill company were my ruin. The law hath justly brought me where I am, and I hope such young men as see my untimely fate will avoid the paths which lead unto it .. . '35

The model, however, for this genre of dying speeches is provided by a highwayman, John Young, executed in 1730: 'The love of idleness, being too much addicted to Company, and a too greedy love of strong liquors has brought me to this unhappy end. The law intends my death for an example unto others; let it be so, let my follies prevent others from falling into the like, and let the same which you see me suffer, deter all of you from the Commission of such sins as may bring you to the fatal end. My sentence is just, my death is just; but pray, good people, for my soul, that though I die ignominiously here, I may not perish everlastingly'. 36

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Account of the Behaviour, Confessions, and Dying Words, of Malefactors, who were executed at Tyburn'.43 The demand for this information ensured that the post of Ordinary of Newgate was a particularly lucrative one. Certainly the eternal destination of souls was not the Ordinary's only concern in exhorting condemned men to confess their sins, as the following exchange indicates: After the prisoner had refused to confess that he was a Sabbath breaker, a drunkard or a profligate, the enraged Ordinary exclaimed, 'the only three Topics I can always enlarge upon, and yet has he the impudence to say, he hopes to be saved! Sirrah, you must be one of these three, that you must; therefore recollect yourself; set all your faculties of remembrance at work, or I shall be at a loss to say anything of you in my paper'. 'Then it's nothing with you to be a thief, cry'd the criminal, 'I am sure I find it otherwise for I am justly condemn'd for so being'. 'Get you out of my sight', said his Reverence, 'such case hardened rogues as you would ruin the sale of my paper, I'll e'er write you down Obstinate'; and so he did. But others afterwards came in, and made him amends by more ample confessions. 44 Condemned prisoners found themselves under severe pressure to provide the customary confession and words of repentence which would not only legitimate the whole gruesome proceedings, but would also provide profit for printers and their agents. Applebee is known to have offered various inducements to the condemned. It was widely believed that he secured the enviable rights to Jack Sheppard's dying speech against the opposition of his competitors by undertaking to provide Sheppard with a coffin and funeral so that his body would not be claimed by the Surgeons for dissection. Ironically, in the event, the hearse he sent was destroyed by the execution crowd, believing it to belong to the Surgeons. Jonathan Wild, like Sheppard, was interviewed in Newgate by 'Applebee's man and seems to have come to an arrangement by which, in lieu of payment, Applebe's Journal would publish a list of criminals recently arrested by Wild in his role of 'thieftaker'. The list was published but accompanied by a disclaimer pointing out that it was done only to comply with the wish of a man whose 'Life was in Jeopardy'.45 Applebee's Man, on many of these occasions was Daniel Defoe who in fact based his novel 'Moll Flanders' on information gained from his prison interviews with the thief Moll King. Defoe, however, could not really be considered a specialist crime reporter, his contributions to Applebee's and to Mist's Weekly Journals 46 ranged from politics and religion to astrology. But he was 188

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heavily enmeshed in the 18th century equivalent of cheque-book journalism, the continual battle to snatch criminal memoirs from the despairing grasps of competitors. Some idea of the urgency of competition and the lengths to which newsgatherers were prepared to go to secure stories can be gained from the experience of the highwayman and housebreaker, Martin Bellamy at the hands of press in 1728: 'After his commitment to Newgate, he entered it seems into a Treaty with a certain Justice of the Peace, for making a full discovery of all his accomplices, which might at that time have contributed very much to the public advantage; but in the interim, some person having talked thereof too openly, it came to the ears of one who collected news for a Daily Paper. This man went thereupon directly to Bellamy, and making the poor fellow believe that he came to him by the direction of some persons in power ... and having by this means drawn the poor fellow into a confessi'ln of several robberies and burglaries, he digested it, or got somebody to do it for him, into proper paragraphs, which were inserted the next day in a newspaper, and gave thereby an opportunity to the persons impeached of making their escape, defeated Bellamy of hopes of pardon, and hindered the public from receiving any benefit from his confession. All which enormous villanies were perhaps perpetrated for the sake of a poor crown, the utmost that could be expected by the collector for procuring this extraordinary passage big with so many mischiefs, and which in its consequencies produced little better than a murder; since it is possible Bellamy's life might have been saved, if a right use had been made of his confession'; 47

This account is invaluable for the insights it provides into the operation of newsgatherers in the 18th century and the comparison it provides with the activities crime journalists in the middle of the 20th century.48 First, it reveals an audacious and unscrupulous approach to the collection of news which rivals anything produced by Fleet Street in the last half century. Second, there is the imputation of illiteracy suggesting that newsgatherers of the period were men of little education, in contrast to the more celebrated journalists of the day.49 The bulk of these foragers after news were 'penny-a-liners', pro-rata freelance workers who constituted the casual labour force of journalism until the middle of the 19th century. Alan Lee describes them as having few contacts, as being frequently driven to dishonesty and corruption and being even more frequently the worse for drink. They were in the words of one article in the Westminster Review 50 'the most ignorant scavengers' and were largely responsible for the poor reputation of the profession. Third, the passage illustrates the gross 'irresponsibility' of early crime reporting-the apparently blind publication of a story, irrespective of its consequences. This stands in contrast to the care taken by journalists today in the negotiation of legal obstacles to publication and the willingness of modern crime reporters to co-operate 189

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with the police and hold back information which, if released, might prejudice police inquiries 51 • In the 18th century 'publish and be damned' was a far more appropriate maxim for the press than it is now, especially in the field of crime journalism where readers' appetites for news were almost insatiable. For many publishers the road from Newgate to Tyburn was paved with gold. Something of the public interest was conveyed by Horace Walpole in a letter to Mann (Oct 18, 1750): 'You can't conceive the ridiculous rage there is of going to Newgate; and the prints that are published of the malfactors, and the memoirs of their lives and deaths set forth with as much parade as-as Marshall Turenne's-we have no generals worth making a parallel'''.

Christopher Hibbert, who has made a detailed examination of the life and times of Jack Sheppard, reports that, within a few months of his death, he was the subject of at least ten pamphlets and only two weeks after his execution the first dramatisation of his story was staged at Drury Lane. During his confinement in Newgate in the autumn of 1724 hundreds of visitors had paid 3s. 6d. to stare at him as he sat chained to the floor, and in the week before his execution almost half of the front page of 'The Daily Journal' was devoted to his 'last epistle' and the whole of one of the six pages of 'Parker's London News' was given over to the latest report about him. Another paper reported that 'nothing more at present is talked on about town than Jack Sheppard,' while it was even reported that the King had sent a special request for two prints of the great escapist chained in the condemned hold. 53 Given this level of interest, everyone connected with the execution business stood to make a (financial) killing. 54 Their confessions and memoirs were the only things of value left to condemned prisoners and, not surprisingly, many were reluctant to line the pockets of publishers, priests and hangmen. Convicted thief Thomas Neeves, for instance, refused to co-operate with the Ordinary saying, 'he would give no occasion to books or ballads to be made about him' and continued 'careless, obstinate, and impenitent to the last moment of his life' . .ls Such obstinancy was unlikely to win the affection of any journalist or publisher who appear to have had little patience with those who failed to play the game of crime and punishment by the tacitly understood and accepted rules. The author of 'Lives' passes the following comments of Jepthah Bigg, a man cundemned for writing threatening letters: 'Under sentence of death the poor man behaved himself like one stupid. At first he pretended that he did not know the offence he had committed was Capital, and

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Chronicles of the Gallolus: ]'lIe Social History of Crime Reporting afterwards exclaimed against the hardness of that law which made it so; but some little pains being taken with him on those points he was soon brought to acknowledge the justice of his sentence, and the reasonableness of that statute which enacted it into a capital offence.' On the way to the gallows Bigg was 'stupid and speechless', 'yet when he was turned off ... he went off the stage crying out aloud,O Lord'. etc. This seems to me a very indecent way of concluding a Dying Speech ... ".

However, if the criminal's dying speech proved inadequate, some publishers were not above elaborating on his words or even fabricating a full confession, especially if it meant that it could be published for the morning of the execution and sold to those attending. The York printer, Thomas Gent, frankly admits in his autobiography that he considerably expanded "the few dying words" said by Layer before his execution in 1723. 55 Criminals themselves, of course, were aware of these practices and this knowledge provided another incentive for the condemned to make their own full and frank account of their careers. The notorious Irish thief, Ebenezer Ellison, executed in 1730 was at pains to ensure that an accurate summary of his life was published, writing in his dying speech: 'I know it is the constant custom that those who come to the place should have speeches made for them, and cried about in their own hearing, as they are carried to Execution; and truly they are such speeches, that although our fraternity be an ignorant illiterate people, they would make a man ashamed to have such nonsense and false English charged upon him, even when he is going to the gallows. They contain a pretended account of our birth and family, of the facts for which we are to die, of our sincere repentance, and a declaration of our Religion. I cannot expect to avoid the same treatment with my predecessors; however, having had an Education one or two degrees better than those of my rank and profession, I have been considering ever since my commitment, what might be proper for me to deliver upon this occasion'. 51

He went on to attack much of the mythology created by crime journalism, notably the miraculous repentance of thieves in the face of the gallows. But while experienced thieves like Ellison may have deplored the trade in dying speeches there were younger men who aspired to the notoriety offered by the press and the specialist publishers. 'theft and Raping may to some appear odd subjects for acquiring Glory, yet it is certain that many, especially of the younger criminals, have been chiefly instigated in their most daring attempts from a vain inclination to be much talked of.' 58

This inclination certainly seems to have played an important part in the motivation of a young footpad, calling himself Barnham, who spent his time in Newgate composing a song to celebrate the activities of himself and his companions in crime with a view to publication; 'sending for the person who usually prints the Dying Speeches, he desired it might be inserted; but as it contained incitements to (his) Companions to go on in the same Trade in the strongest terms he was 191

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capable of framing them in, his Design therefore was frustrated, and they were not published'. 59 This again provides an interesting insight into contemporary approaches to crime reporting, indicating that publishers were conscious of a responsibility not to encourage crime and were willing to exercise a degree of self-censorship in its fulfilment. Even, then, under the most laissez fare of publishing conditions there existed an element of social control in the reporting of crime news. For some control strategists within the ruling class, however, there was a need for more systematic anti-crime propaganda than that offered by the moralising of the pamphleteers and the somewhat unreliable exercise of responsibility by the purveyors of dying speeches. Michel Foucault in his stimulating study of transformations in penal practice has pinpointed the dilemma posed by a crime journalism which he characterises as a 'two-sided discourse': 'the criminal of the broadsheets. pamphlets, almanacs and adventure stories brought with him, beneath the apparent morality of the example not to be foliowed, a whole memory of struggles and confrontations. A convicted criminal could become after his death a sort of saint ... There were those for whom glory and abomination were not dissociated, but coexisted in a reversible figure. Perhaps we should see this literature of crime, which proliferated around a few exemplary figures, neither as a spontaneous form of 'popular expression' nor as a concerted programme of propaganda and moralization from above; it was a locus in which two investments of penal practice met-a sort of battleground around the crime, its punishment and its memory. If these accounts were aliowed to be printed and circulated, it was because they were expected to have the effect of an ideological control, , ,But if these true stories of everyday history were received so avidly ... it was because people found in them not only memories, but also precedents; the interest of 'curiosity' is also a political interest. Thus these texts may be read as two-sided discourses, in the facts they relate, in the effects they give to these facts and in the glory they confer on those 'illustrious' criminals .. :,.

Thus the literature of the scaffold shared the ambiguity which Foucault and other writers have attributed to the ritual of execution itself; 'it justified justice but also glorified the criminal.' 61 62 The growing concern with the ideological effectiveness of crime news at the end of the eighteenth century, then, was indicative of more widespread and fundamental doubts about the effIcacy of the prevailing principles of the penal system and its central institution the public execution. Crime Reporting and Changes in the Organisation of Control

Around 1750 the magistrate (and novelist) Henry Fielding began publishing summaries of the cases heard in his court in his Covent Garden Journal in order to 'inform and educate the public'. His brother 192

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and fellow magistrate, John, similarly adopted the practice of allowing press reporters into his Courtroom free of charge and even paying fees to papers to publish their accounts. 63 The Fieldings were disturbed by the steady increase in books, pamphlets and plays about criminals which they believed gave a false glamour to their activities. To combat this trend Henry Fielding wrote his own pamphlet describing how 33 murderers had been detected and punished, intending to popularise the message that 'crime does not pay' by giving copies away. 64 But Henry Fielding was a man with ideas fifty years before their time. It was not until the close of the century that the full possibilities of using the press as a means of social control began to be realised by any significant faction of the British ruling class. It was at this time, in the wake of the French Revolution and the consequent intensification of anxiety among the propertied, that Hannah More reprinted Henry Fielding's pamphlet among her 'Cheap Repository Tracts,' 'a new type of literature for the inferior classes' which stressed puritan morality, social conformity and religious observance. It was also at this time that new recommendations for the Police Gazette introduced by John Fielding were formulated by Patrick Colquhoun as part of his plan for the re-organisation of Police work. Colquhoun saw the Gazette not merely as a means to catching fugitives but as a vehicle for the dissemination of moral principles and anti-crime propaganda. 65 These moves were part of an overall shift in the philosophy and strategy of social control at the end of the eighteenth century which was marked by a move away from deterrence by terror, towards an ideal of prevention by effective policing and the engineering of social consensus. School history text books have traditionally attributed this massive transformation of the apparatuses of control in England to the pioneering work of a handful of humanitarian reformers and a progressive Home Secretary, but the researches of a number of recent writers such as E. P. Thompson, Hay et ai, Silver, Palmer and Foucault 57 have all drawn attention to the underlying importance of socio-economic developments occurring during the period. The transformations which took place in the philosophy and organisation of social control at the beginning of the nineteenth century, they argue, reflected the growing ascendancy of the class of capitalist employers and urban administrators over the aristocracy, gentry and capitalist landowners of an earlier stage of economic development. Both Radzinowicz and Hay from their rather different standplllll1\ have depicted the system of control in eighteenth century EIlg!;llld ,I'" 193

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subtie blend of paternalism and repression. They describe a steady extension of capital statutes based on a doctrine of maximum severity which held that the greater the possible punishment the fewer the number who are prepared to risk transgression of the law. But they also note that the alienating effects of such a system were mediated by a paternalistic and flexible administration of the statutes, a preparedness to exercise mercy to the deserving while using the spectacle of execution to make an example of the recalcitrant. 68 It was a system of control which had developed within an essentially agrarian society characterised by a mechanical solidarity and a basically laissez faire attitude to the physical and ideological policing of the poor and the labouring classes. That attitude was expressed in a private enterprise system of legislation, detection and prosecution which allowed the development of (i) a piecemeal and unsystematic body of statutes in response to the personal and particular interests of MPs; and (ii) an ad hoc organisation of policing consisting of amateur and professional thief takers responding to the offer of financial rewards, and a police force which was amateur, community based, uncoordinated, inefficient and corrupt. 68 The break-up of this organisation of control in the nineteenth century is attributable both to its inherent weaknesses and to social, economic and demographic changes which rapidly ensured its obsolescence. Beccaria was only one among a number of eighteenth century penal theorists to appreciate the dysfunctional aspects of both public executions and the use of the pardon: the former being as likely to inspire anger at the savagery of the authorities as awe and terror, and the latter encouraging an expectation of leniency which could only facilitate the commission of crime. 69 Such arguments, as Rusche and Kirchheimer 70 have pointed out, became increasingly persuasive towards the end of the nineteenth century as economic conditions began to change. A massive expansion of population and the introduction of new technologies of production created conditions of widespread unemployment, declining wage levels and dislocation in the system of poor relief in which property crime came to be seen by an increasing proportion of the poorer classes as an acceptable means of alleviating poverty. 71 But if economic imperatives provided the driving force for the escalation of property offences, social conditions facilitated the development of criminal techniques. Mary McIntosh 72 has shown effectively how urbanisation transformed the characteristic organisation 194

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of criminal work in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from brigandage to small 'craft' groups of robbers operating from the segregated milieu of a protective 'underworld'. The intensification of this process during the eighteenth century and the development of industrialisation not only consolidated this change but generated a new form of criminal organisation involving the recruitment of teams of specialists to carry out carefully planned criminal projects. The density and anonymity of urban life provided the thief with a cover for his operations and a plentiful supply of victims while the increase in the transportation of valuables and the accumulation of wealth which acccompanied the growth of industrial capitalism provided opportunities for stealing large amounts from a smaller number of corporate victims. 7 J Moreover, industrial capitalism brought with it a state of chronic political disaffection which posed a continual threat to the stability of the state,74 a threat which, as the Gordon Riots of 1780 and the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in their different ways demonstrated, the established agencies of social control were unlikely to be able to contain successfully. It was under these conditions that the penological ideas of Beccaria, Bentham and the other utilitarians gradually gained acceptance. In the nineteenth century we can observe an increasing extension and formalisation of the police role, a move towards preventative policing through the supervision, regulation or dismantling of the informal institutions of both the 'dangerous' and the 'labouring' classes. Radzinowicz 75 has traced the development of a professional police force and growing level of surveillance over the urban poor which made possible the steady repeal of capital statutes. Similarly, Tobias 76 has charted the rise of the sanction of imprisonment. But both authors tend to understate (i) the importance of the urban bourgoisie in the determination of these transitions, 7J and (ii) the extent to which the control and surveillance exercised by police and prisons was complemented by that exercised by other agencies and institutions. Radzinowicz, to be fair, certainly indicates that the reform of the penal code must be seen in the light of wider measures aimed at controlling the poor, and the inhibiting influence of Methodist and Evangelical teaching; 78 but this only gives us a suggestion of the degree to which Victorian England became a disciplinary society. Morl' recently, Rothman 79 and Foucault 80 have depicted the ninetlTll1 il century as an age marked by an increasing containment "I 1il, 195

Steve Cll1bllal! 1't1lt'lItially rebellious in a variety of total or semi-total institutions of which the prison was only the most extreme example. Within reformatories, workhouses, mental hospitals, military barracks, factories, schools and so on systematic attempts were made to discipline both activity and ideas. Individuals were carefully segregated and assigned detailed and specific roles, communications between them were disrupted, strict rules of conduct and procedure were imposed and all activities became subject to precise temporal regulation. The production of docile bodies and docile minds became primary aims of these institutions and the control of ideas through moral instruction came to be seen as a vital means to these goals. g 1 The demands for moral instruction through the printed word which characterised the fifty years following the French Revolution can be seen as an integral part of the transition from one control culture to another. Those demands for 'wholesome' reading for the lower orders must have been stimulated by the beginnings of the literacy 'explosion' among the working class. M. ]. Quinlan ilestimates that between 1780 and 1830, while the English population doubled to about 14 million, the number of readers quintupled from about llf2 million to between seven and eight million. By 1830, R. K. Webb 8] estimates working class literacy was running at between 65% and 750/0. The precise figures may be questionable, but the general trend is clear. So too is the trend in the volume of printed ephemera aimed at and, in turn, developing and expanding the new market. Between 1785 and 1850 the number of letter press printers in London quadrupled from 124 to 500,84 But the massive growth of literacy and the dramatic advances in printing technology of the fifty years after 1789 were not initially completely reflected in newspaper circulation. 85 The dominant reaction among the ruling class of the period was a conservative one-the stamp duty on newspapers was increased to keep them out of the hands of the newly literate poor, The fears of the conservative strategists within the ruling class were clearly stated in 1801 by the Tory Anti-.Jacobin Review: 'We have long consJdered the establishment of neWSpapers in this country as a misfortune to be regretted; but since their influence has become predominant by the universality of their circulation, we regard it as a calamity most deeply to be deplored',

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Clearly the spread of a cheap radical press posed a considerable threat to the stability of the social order, and, as its preamble frankly stated, the aim of the 1819 Newspaper Stamp Duties Act was not to increase

Chronicles 01 the Gallows: The Social History 01 Crime Reporting revenue but 'to restrain the small publications which issue from the Press in great numbers and at a low price'. 86 But the more 'progressive' and Benthamite opinion among the powerful appreciated the potential of the press, and of crime reporting in particular, as a weapon of control. In fact, with the gradual replacement of the public spectacle of execution with more unobtrusive punishments the news media assumed a greater importance as an instrument of moral instruction. Foucault argues 87 that it became an integral part of a tireless attempt to reduce the contagious effects of crime, to isolate the criminal and segregate him from the labouring class: 'Erecting the barrier to separate delinquents from all the lower strata of the population from which they sprang and with which they remained linked has been a difflcult task", It has involved the use of the general principles of the 'moralization' of the poorer classes, . , (the acquisition of what might be called a 'basic legalism', which was indispensable from the time when custom was replaced by the system of the code; learning the elementary rules of property and thrift, training in docility at work, in stability of residence and of the family etc), More specific methods were used to maintain the hostility of the poorer classes to delinquents (the use of ex-convicts as informers, police spies, strike-breakers or thugs) , , ' To this was added a patient attempt to impose a highly specific grid on the common perception of delinquents: to present them as close by, everywhere present and everywhere to he feared. This was the function of the fait divers, which invaded a part of the press and which began to have its own newspapers. The criminal fait divers, by its everyday redundancy, makes acceptahle the system of judicial and police supervisions that partition society; it recounts from day to day a sort of internal battle against the faceless enemy; in this war it constitutes the daily bulletin of alarm or victory.' 88

We have already referred to Hannah More's initiative in publishing her Cheap Repository Tracts, and we should also note Bentham's suggestion that the government should distribute books written by notorious professional criminals giving an account of their careers which would serve as 'excellent lessons in morality'. 8 9 These were early overtures in the movement for ideological control and moral regeneration,90 but by 1820, as Richard Altick has effectively argued, the 'progressive' element within the control culture had a two part programme for using the press to extend its hegemony. The first aim was 'to open the way for the establishment of cheap respectable newspapers'. 91 This would counter the danger of working men gathering in public places to read radical papers and could be achieved by the reduction or abolition of the newspaper stamp duty which would make cheap newspapers financially viable and 'would encourage men with venture capital (and therefore, presumably, men of dependable political views)

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to enter the field, thus driving out the (radical) demagogues'.92 The second part of the programme was the establishment of cheap family periodicals, providing general information and entertainment which would 'quietly direct the reader's thinking along lines approved by the responsible part of the nation'. 93 In support ofhis argument Altick cites a letter of 1825 to Archibald Constable which suggests the publication of a paper that should address the lower orders 'in a tone of perfect confidence and equality-should encourage them in every liberal and enlightened study-should show them how differences in rank have risen in the world, and in what way alone men can rise advantageously from a lower rank to a higher,' and should call upon them 'with a voice of authority, to abandon low and brutal vices, and to go on in the grand course of industry, virtuous contentment, and the ambition of knowledge and improvement'. Early attempts to institute such a paper, however, continued to meet with something less than success. In 1813 an East Lothian printer, alarmed at the increase in crime, had started 'The Cheap Magazine', a 4d monthly adopting the motto 'it is better to prevent crimes than to punish them'. It published stories of 'the primitive passions' and their bitter consequences but folded after two years, possibly because its rather secular brand of moralising was not appreciated by its reders or possibly because it was still not cheap enough. 94 Those magazines of a similar type which followed it generally failed to reach working-class readers (although they were often popular among the middle classes) largely because, suggests Altick, they avoided both 'the hard-hitting commentary ofthe political press and the melodrama of both the Sunday newspapers' surveys of crime and the penny numbers of Gothic fiction'.95 This reluctance to exploit the didactic possibilities of crime news may be attributed to the difIiculty of handling volatile and sensational material effectively. The problem was highlighted by the arrival of a radical Sunday Press in the l820s. Sunday papers had begun in the late 18th century as respectable and conservative journals but changes in the audience and the economics of the newspaper industry in the early 19th century transformed them into radical scandal sheets. The growth of literacy and the decline of political sponsorship and, eventually, the reduction of stamp duty obliged sections of the press to establish a fresh economic base which emphasised circulation revenue. Papers such as Bell's 'Weekly Dispatch'quickly became aware of the reader interest in crime news and therefore its commercial potential. In its very first issue in 1815 it filled two and half columns with police-court reports with 13 death sentences 198

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and 34 transportations. 96 Robert Bell's success was immediate and his formula was copied by established papers such as the 'Observer' and new ones like the 'Sunday Times'. The 'Observer' in the l820s estabished a reputation for printing woodcuts illustrating murder cases and attracted the censure of conservative opinion as a consequence 9 7 while a typical issue of the 'Sunday Times' of the l830s devoted almost half its news space to crime. 98 Some indication of the importance attached to crime news by these papers at a particularly competitive stage of their development can be gained from the fact that the 'Observer' was prepared to incur a fine of £500 and commit a contempt of court to report the trial of the Cato Street conspirators before its conclusion. 99 All this, however, was not lost on the respectable daily press and by 1824 most London papers had a relay of 'horse expresses' to carry the news of the sensational Thurtell murder trial from Hertfordshire,loo and even after Thurtell's execution daily accounts of the deteriorating condition of the corpse in the dissection room at St. Bartholomew's Hospital appeared in 'The Times' and 'The Morning Chronicle'. 101 The period was the last bonanza time for the penny-a-liners, 'that curious tribe of illiterate bohemians who haunted the police courts and other public places'. 5 102 One is said to have earned £70 from the Thurtell case alone. 103 The commercial aspect of crime reporting was certainly in the ascendant with considerations of control being outweighed by those of circulation to an extent which alarmed members of the movement for moral regeneration and the suppression of vice. A typical piece in 'Livesey's Moral Reformer' in 1833 quoted a crime report from the 'Morning Chronicle in the course of its invective against the licentiousness of the press': , ... the most licentious papers usually command the largest sale ... they are sought after in proportion as they publish anything that is vile and destructive to virtue and religion. The press is degraded by adventurers, who constantly prostitute their talents for gain. Knowing the depraved taste of our immoral population, they suit their article to their readers, and are thus openly, and with an unsparing hand, sowing and watering the seeds of moral deformity. Rapes and every obscenity are published to pander to the corrupt tastes of their readers'. 104

This passage reveals graphically the expectations regarding the press of an influential faction of the ruling class. The press was required to mould the tastes, beliefs and morality of the lower orders rather than simply to reflect them. But the impression should not be given that journalistic practice flew directly in the face of recommendations for moral reform. There was much in the crime- output of Regency printers 199

Steve Chibnall to support the claim made by John Stuart Mill 111.\ that 'police reports are better digests of the laws which relate to the affairs of the poor, than are the term reports of the lawyers' or those made by the supporters of the cheap press that the 'Captain Swing' rising in the East of England in the 1830s could have been prevented by the 'educational' influence of inexpensive newspapers. 106 Execution broadsides and crime pamphlets were often as moralising as they had been in the 18th century. David Cooper in his study of the public execution controversy in Victorian England reviews the content of this type ofliterature over the first half of the century and concludes: 'that there is a thread of didactic quality to the dying speeches and confessions is undeniable. No doubt the broadsides were given a sensational quality to appeal 10 and be purchased by a popular market, but they also, like the public executiom they chronicled, confirmed the lesson of the gallows and warned of the consequences ofa life of crime and sin'. ""

Examples abound in the 'gallows literature' of the period. In 1823 John Pitts published 'A mournful and affecting copy of verses on the death of Ann Williams', a girl who was apparently seduced under the pretence of marriage and then murdered by her 'sweetheart' when she became pregnant. The verses conclude: 'Now all you thoughtless young men A timely warning take; Likewise ye fair young maidens, For this poor damsel's sake And Oh beware of nattering tongues, For they'll your ruin prove; So may you crown your future day In comfort, joy and love.'

This passage is an interesting example of the way in which the comment which accompanied crime news espoused the cause of not just legal behaviour but also of virtuous behaviour. Time and again in the broadsheets the root cause of tragedy is portrayed not as poverty, social conditions or even simple evil but as immorality, the lure of vice. The celebrated 'Red Barn' murder of Maria Marten by her lover, William Corder in 1828 provided a field day for those writers anxious to instil this type of moral education. The case was thoroughly milked of every uplifting lesson it had for the populace. lOR Printers competed to publish the innumerable sermons on the case by local clergy. Young men were recommended the path of sobriety and abstinence but perhaps the most urgent of the printed exhortations were directed at young women who were warned of the fate awaiting them if they strayed from the path of modesty and chastity. Thus the function of much of the crime journalism of the period may be viewed not only as the political control 200

Chronicles oj the Gallows: The Social HislOry ol Crime Reporting of the 'lower orders' but also the moral instruction of females and the maintenance of behaviour patterns appropriate to differing sex roles. E. P. Thompson had noted that the first two decades of the nineteenth century saw 'a surfeit of sermonizing and admonitory tracts limiting or refuting claims to women's rights which were associated with "Jacobinism".' 109 For men of property the growing economic importance of female labour in the northern manufacturing districts (often viewed with ambivalence or regret by the women themselves), added a fresh dimension of horror to the spectre of trades union militancy. As one contemporary commentator on a strike of female card-setters in the West Riding in 1835 put it: 'Alarmists may view these indications of female independence as more menacing to established institutions than the "education of the lower orders" '.110 Radical, militant and deviant women were seen by the propertied and their newspapers as a threat to not only economic productivity and social order, but also the stability of the basic agency for the reproduction of labour power-the family. In 1819 the 'Courier' berated the women of the Manchester Political Union, describing them as 'degraded females', guilty of 'the worst prostitution of the sex, the prostitution of the heart'. It condemned them for 'deserting their station' and abandoning the 'sacred characters' of wife and mother 'for turbulent vices of sedition and impiety' (15.7.1819). Three years later the 'New Times' (16.11.1822) attacked a Nottingham woman prosecuted for selling radical literature as a 'wretched and shameless woman', 'an abandoned creature who has cast off all the distinctive shame and fear and decency of her sex'. Her 'horrid example' had transformed other mothers into 'monsters in female form' who would 'stand forward with hardened visages, in the face of day, to give their public countenance and support-for the first time in the history of the Christian world-to gross, vulgar, horrid blasphemy'. In these examples we can observe the facility with which newspaper rhetoric could associate together the ideas of political radicalism, criminality and sexual impropriety. III But the use of this type of rhetoric applied not just to female deviants but also to many of their male counterparts. If we look at the celebrated case of James Bloomfield Rush in 1849 we find the same process operating in some of the instant biographies of a murderer and 'base seducer' who lacked any recognisably political motive. Altick 112 quotes one of these: 'He formed an intimacy with Cobbett-read his books with avidity and adopted not only his political, but his anti·reltgious views. Paine's "Age of Reason", which

201

Steve Chibnall Cobbett recommended, next became his study, and as he drank in the draughts of poison it contained their pernicious influence became visible in his whole demeanor. He no longer sought and delighted in the society of his friends and equals, but almost wholly addicted himself to the companionship of persons oflow laste and depraved habits ... He was known among his companions as a libertine ... He made a boast of seduction.'

We have a clear example here of what has been termed 'convergence', 11.1 the collapsing together of different forms of deviance by means of a linking concept. In this case the concept is that of 'villiany'-political radicals in general are villains. Rush is a villain, and therefore Rush must have been corrupted by radical propaganda. Altick indicates that this type of reasoning was common enough in the first half of the 19th century to be called a 'conditioned reflex of the time'.114 It had formed an important basis of the opposition to the 'Newgate Novels' of the 1830s and 1840s. 115 The association of social deviance with political marginality meant that these criminal romances were seen as a threat to social order. Street hacks and death hunters

In the first half of the 19th century crime reporting was still predominantly in the hands of the broadsheet printers, it was primarily men like Catnach and Pitts who rode the crest of the literacy wave and brought the news of murder and execution to the masses: But these publishers, unlike their colleagues in the radical unstamped press were operating primarily for profit rather than propaganda, although the potential for political socialisation offered by their mass circulations was considerable. As Leslie Shepard 116 has commented: 'Had Jimmy Catnach or his rivals been social agitators they might have created a revolution. As it is they were in the business for the cash.' Catnach, himself according to his biographer, Charles Hindley, was a rigid churchman and a staunch old Tory, 'as full of the Glorious Constitution as the first volume of Blackstone'. 117 His reverence for the law however did not prevent him from being jailed for criminal libel and from encouraging the production of the most outrageous 'cocks' (accounts of invented crimes and fictitious criminal confessions). Profits were substantial enough to overcome professional scruples. Catnach was said to have amassed upwards of £10,000 and contemporary estimates put the sales of execution broadsides in the 1840s in millions I) 8 and while these are unlikely to be accurate, they do indicate that this form of instant news greatly outsold the more expensive newspapers. 202

Chronicles of the GA!!or}.)s: The Socia! Hist01Y of Crime Reporting

Fortunately, we probably know more about the conditions of production of broadsheets than we do of the activities of journalists working for popular newspapers. For this knowledge we must thank the diligent investigations of Henry Mayhew. Mayhew indicates that a tripartate division of labour was usual in the street literature trade--authors, printers and distributors-but he also suggests that many personnel occupied more than one of these categories. In particular, some of those involved in distribution, 'the patterers' also initiated copy by culling information from evening newspapers or some more personal and informal source and delivering it to a printer either in a form 'proper for the streets' 119 0r in its raw state, necessitating the commissioning of an appropriate specialist writer or poet, usually at a cost of one shilling. The general impression given of these writers in the literature is one of abject poverty, drunkenness and alienation from work. Mayhew interviewed one of the doyens of the craft whose circumstances had been aggravated by illness. The man was living on a diet of bread and butter and tea, unable to afford meat and fish and desperately trying to maintain some self respect and professional dignity in the face of requests to write 'indecent songs'. His replies to Mayhew's questions evoke the alienation of the hack journalist of all generations: 'Writing poetry is no comfort to me in my sickness. It might if I could write just what I please. The printers like hanging subjects best, and I don't. But when any of them sends to order a copy of verses for a "sorrowful lamentation" of course I must supply them. I don't think much of what I've done that way'.12U

A colleague of Mayhew's, wntmg in J. & R. M. Wood's 'Typographic Advertiser' in 1863, recalls accompanying him to the Catnach press some years before: 'We had not been long waiting when a very seedy, half-starved looking middle-aged man came in with a bundle of manuscript in his hand. He had on a shocking bad hat, and a red nose, and smelt of liquor abominably. As soon as the clerk was disengaged he buttoned him. "Don't want anything Fitz-now. Those last of yours didn't do. Put more spirit in your verses, and less down your throat, old fellow" said the clerk.'

Catnach's copy taster was persuaded to look at the manuscripts and concluded that although the majority were 'too spooney' he would give a shilling for one if a chorus was added. 'Poor Fitz's watery eye kindled at the mention of 'shilling', and sitting down, he added the chorus, received his money, and went off-doubtless to the nearest gin shop ... There is a low public house near Catnach's which is a sort of house of call for street ballad writers. When the publishers want a 203

Steve Chibnall

song ... or what not be immediately got up, he knows where to send for the particular man who can do it. Very often he has to lock the writer up in a certain room of his warehouse, in order to prevent his going out and getting drunk before the article is finished.' 122 Given the problems of working with these hack authors it is not surprising that the printers wrote much of the straight narratives themselves or simply copied or paraphrased newspaper accounts. 123 All these verse and prose accounts were restricted to the most stereotyped of forms. The demands of distributors and consumers left little room for the detailed analysis of deviant motivation and the administration of justice or for stylistic innovation. As Mayhew 124 put it, the news had to be 'such as the patterers approve, as the chaunters can chaunt, the ballad singers sing, and-above all-such as street buyers will buy'. The distribution of these rigidly conventional ephemera was a complex accomplishment, the retailing of murder and execution sheets was largely the responsibility of the 'running patterers', vendors who moved quickly from place to place broadcasting the contents of their papers in such a way that only the more sensational words in their advertisement were aUdible-'Murder', 'Horrible', 'Mysterious' etc. In London in the 1840s there were between 80 and 100 of these men, earning an average of about 9/- per week (less than a clerk) and living mainly in cheap lodging houses. 125 They could live for over one month on a 'popular' murder, selling accounts of the act, the trial, the confession, letters from the condemned cell, copies of verses and the execution, up to one hundred miles from the capital. The 'death hunters' who specialised in crime news used events in the real world and even the sheets they sold merely as a basis for the elaboration of profitable fantasies. One of Mayhew's informants frankly confessed that patterers invented 'every lie likely to go down', adding, 'we don't care what's in the papers in our hands. All we want to do is sell 'em; and the more horrible we makes the affairs, the more sale we have'. 126 The Arrival of the Popular Press

Mayhew's investigations were concerned with what was already a dying trade enjoying its last great fling. While newspapers were expensive and written for the respectable middle class the broadsheet could prosper, but it could not survive the introduction of a cheap popular press. There was evidence of a concerted newspaper challenge as early as the 1840s. The increasing importance of circulation revenue in newspaper economics encouraged populist innovations like 204

Chronicles olth" Gallows: Thc Social llistory 01 Crlmc Reporting

illustrative woodcuts, particularly of criminal subjects. During the Greenacre case in the late 1830s illustrations had helped to more than double the usual sale of the 'Weekly Dispatch' and entrepreneurs were soon eager to launch specialist illustrated crime newspapers such as the 'Penny Sunday Times' and 'People's Police Gazette' (1840). The first edition ofthe 'News of the World' appeared in 1843 bearing the headline 'Extraordinary Charge of Drugging and Violation' and its successful exploitation of crime news enabled it to achieve the largest circulation of any newspaper before the fmal repeal of the Stamp Duty in 1855. Certainly, Mayhew's street sellers recognised the signs; as one said of the changing newspapers, 'there's plenty of 'em gets more and more into our line. They treads in our footsteps, sir; they follow our bright example. O! isn't there a nice rubbing and polishing up. This here copy won't do. This must be left out, and that put in; 'cause it suits the walk of the paper.' 127 By the 1860s the broadsheet trade was in such decline that another patterer was moved to declare that 'the days of cocks, sir, is gone by-cheap newspapers 'as done 'em Up'.12! 129 That pioneers of popular journalism such as Edward Lloyd and G. W. M. Reynolds should exploit the sensational aspects of deviance was unsurprising, they had cut their publishers teeth on penny dreadfuls and gothic horror fiction, but the enthusiasm with which crime news was approached by the 'respectable' daily press seems initially less predictable. While they continued to concentrate on weighty political topics, papers such as 'The Times' and the 'Telegraph' were also alive to the commercial importance of sensational crime reporting. Delane of 'The Times' was well aware of the place of crime in the hierarchy of reader interests-'That was a good murder you had last week', he wrote to his assistant editor during a brief spell away from the office in the 1850s.1 30 The first of the penny dailies, 'The Daily Telegraph', established an even more substantial reputation than 'The Times' for the detailed reporting of murder and divorce cases and was able to build up a circulation of 200,000 among its mainly middle class readers in the 1870s. Papers such as these could draw on far greater resources in the reporting of crime than could the broadsheet printers. As their circulations increased they were able to employ larger staffs and to assign journalists to provincial stories. The growth of the railway network not only made the broadsheet distribution system outmoded but it also meant that a London press corps could travel to the scenes of 'out-of-town' crimes and trials. More than thirty reporters from London and the leading provincial papers attended the examination of 205

Steve Chibnall

Constance Kent at Trowbridge in 1865, JJI but by 1893 the 'Ardlemont Mystery' trial at Edinburgh attracted over one hundred journalists including twenty feature writers and fifteen artists. 132 By that date, of course, Fleet Street was experiencing the arrival of the 'New Journalism' and the 'Northcliffe Revolution' which were to lay the foundations of modern news reporting. In the 1880s the unsolved 'Ripper' murders, which had so boosted the circulation of papers like 'The Star' and 'Lloyd's Weekly News', had also carried the lesson to receptive newsmen that they could not always rely on the courts to provide all the information of interest to their readers. W. T. Stead, in fact, had demonstrated in his exposure of child prostitution what could be achieved by an enterprising journalist who was prepared to explore further afield than his regular news beats (although the exposure also showed some of the dangers inherent in investigative journalism). 133 But much of the so-called 'new' journalism was not so much innovation as an extension of established styles and techniques. This was particularly the case with the reporting of crime which drew on the colourful layout, profuse illustrations and the sensational 'human interest' type of story of publications like the 'Illustrated Police News'.134 In placing crime second only to war in his hierarchy of selling values, Northcliffe was only following the lead of the popular Sunday papers of an earlier generation. Northcliffe was certainly not the first to discover that, in the words of Kingsley Martin, 135 'in times of peace a first class sex murder is the best tonic for a tired sub-editor on a dull evening'; but the editor of the 'Evening News' was still excited to discover that he was able to calculate with reasonable accuracy the increase in circulation that a really messy murder would secure. In his first month as a proprietor of the 'News', Alfred Harmsworth spent a morning at Chelmsford Prison interviewing the murderer of a pregnant girl for his paper. During the man's trial, the proprietor, who was in Paris, received daily telegrams showing him how the reports were helping to double the circulation of the 'Evening News' to almost 400,000. 136 The Press and The Peelers

By the turn of the century almost all the ingredients of modern crime reporting were present in the mix. The one important additive lacking was a stable and reciprocal relationship with the police as a news SOurce. Relations between the police and the press during the nineteenth century were uneven but predominantly fractious. Opposition to the 206

Chronicles oj the Gallows: The Social Historv of Crime Heporting

establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829 among the London press was almost unanimous and in its early days a number of papers (most notably the 'Weekly Dispatch') mounted a 'developing campaign of vilification' against the new force. 137 Charles Reith 138 notes, however, that by 1834 the approval of police action expressed by juries was being reported in the press with increasing frequency. 'The Times'and some of the other responsible dailies were deploring cases in which merely nominal fines were imposed for assaults on the police. Reith argues that these expressions of sympathy persuaded the Metropolitan Commissioners to institute a press relations policy whereby 'false or exaggerated' reports of police behaviour in the newspapers were met with 'dignified but modest' corrections. 'Reputable editors .. , made a habit of publishing these, sometimes as "a correct report" but sometimes merely as "another version" in accordance with the degree to which their attitude was sympathetic towards the police', 110

But although 'The Times' and some of its more dignified competitors expressed increasing support for the new police, the general attitude of the larger circulation papers remained critical for most of the century. There seems to have been little reluctance, for instance, in criticising the efficiency of ongoing investigations. For instance, the 'Morning Chronicle' commenting on the police search for the murderer, Daniel Good, in April 1842 declared that, 'There is a feeling generally expressed against the police authorities for not using such diligence as must have had, under the circumstances, the effect of placing the monster in their custody.'

These were sentiments echoed by the 'Weekly Dispatch' which claimed that the police's conduct of the case had been 'marked with a looseness and want of decision which proves that unless a decided change is made in the present system, it is idle to expect that it can be an efficient detective force'. 149 Douglas Browne in his study of the Metropolitan police suggests that in the first forty years of their existence, if they were not actually accused of brutality and corruption, the police were continually portrayed in the press as inefficient and stupid. Press comment, he claims, was almost always 'carping and one-sided'; \4\ but his conclusions do not seem fully justified by the evidence he presents. The critical passage from the 'Daily News' of November 1868 which he quotes, for instance, begins, 'Of late years the old confidence in the police has diminished ... ' indicating at least some press support in 207

Steve Cllihllall

Chronicles of the Gallows: Tile Social History of Crime Reportillg

earlier years. My feeling is that a systematic examination of press comment on the police in the nineteenth century is more likely to reveal frequent fluctuations of response in accordance with the success or failure of police investigations and perceived changes in the crime rate. Any organisation which shuns publicity and adopts a negative approach to press relations as the Metropolitan Police did for much of the century is likely to be judged strictly by its results unless there exists some partiality towards a particular interpretation of the organisation's role and activities. In the early years of the new police there was a high degree of ambivalence towards them among those classes from which newspaper proprietors and editors were drawn. The desire for the protection of property rights and the containment of the dangerous classes was strong but there was also a suspicion of the establishment of what 'The Times' in 1823 called 'one supreme and resistless tribunal such as is denominated in other countries the "High Police"-an engine ... invented by despotism.' 142 Much of that suspicion was overcome however by the succes of the new police in combatting Chartism, an achievement which may not have endeared them to the radical press but certainly won them supporters in the more 'respectable' quarters of Fleet Street in the 1840s and l850s. Press hostility appears to have been renewed in the late 1860s at the end of Commissioner Mayne's term of office when he was 'condemned by every periodical in London'. 143 For a few years after his death press criticism continued. In December 1869 the 'Graphic' declared that Metropolitan policemen were still 'inefficient and insolent', while in 1870 the 'Daily News' ran a series of articles on police incompetence and the 'Daily Telegraph' found that the organisation of police work had 'collapsed' because of the failure of its senior administrators (17.5.1870). Criticism seems to have waned in the mid 1870s to be renewed by scandalous revelations of corruption among the new detective branch in 1877. 144 Alan Lee 145 indicates that complaints in the press continued in the 1880s with the unemployment demonstrations of 1887, during which journalists claimed to have been among the first victims of police batons, and the failure of the detective force to solve the Ripper murders. During 1888 there were a number of complaints in 'The Journalist' concerning the poor level of co-operation and mutual trust between the press and the police. By 1900, however, the situation was beginning to change. There continued to be no formal arrangements for the release of information to the press until the 1920s but informal contacts between reporters and policemen were already

becoming more frequent. The growing stress on newsgathering and the reporting of the pre-trial events introduced by the new journalism and its circulation battles made the police an increasingly important news source; while the police themselves were soon to realise that the news media could be of positive value to them both personally and professionally. 146 As crime reporting became the province of the professional specialist so the police, by virtue of their control over desired information, became its primary source of influence. By this means, news of social deviance acquired a reliable base for the social control role it has always fulfilled.

208

Entertainment or Control?

In tracing the social history of crime reporting this paper has explored the interplay of differential expectations in its development. Two sets of expectations have been continually apparent. The first stresses the value of responsible crime news as a vehicle of social control, while the second looks to crime news to provide commercial entertainment. Neither set of expectations, then, has encouraged the provision of accurate information or the impartial and dispassionate analysis of social deviance; and this is an important consideration in understanding the nature of modern newspaper crime stories. Historically, the emphasis on entertainment or control rather than on accurate news reporting meant that considerable invention in story-telling was acceptable. The authors of the Newgate Calendars squandered little time on checking their information and the hack-writers of the 'penny bloods' who followed them had few scruples about twisting and elaborating upon the 'factual' accounts of the calendars to supply their 147 readers with gripping serials in endless weekly parts. Even the earliest 'police memoirs' dating from the mid-nineteenth century turn out to be the work of hack-novelists. 148 Given this enthusiastic mixing of crime fact and crime fiction, it is hardly surprising that the author of one of the first British stories of crime detection, 'Clement Lorimer; or the Book with Iron Clasps' (1848), turns out to be a newspaper crime reporter. The story was the work of Angus Reach who based his work on his observations as an Old Bailey correspondent for the 'Morning Chronicle' and on background information supplied by leading members of the newly-formed Metropolitan detective force with whom he became acquainted. Throughout their history the genres of crime fiction writing and crime news reporting have gone hand in hand and 209

Steve C/llbnal/

even today are occasionally hard to distinguish from each other. Leicester Polytechnic I

W. Pinkerton: NOles alld Quaies, Vol. II, 1861, p. 316. Pierce Egan: Real LIfe ill LOlldoll, 1821.

) J. Curran: 'Capitalism and Control of the Press 1800-1975', in Curran et al: Mass Commlmicali,ms and Sociay, Edward Arnold, London, 1977. 4 J. Wiener: The War of Ihe Unslamped: The AIM'emelll 10 Repeallh" Bnlish Newspapa Tax 1830-36, Cornell UY., Ithaca, 1969, p. 68. j L. Shepard: The HislOry of SIreN Lileralure, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1973, p. 21.

, A. L. Lloyd: r<,lk Song

In

Englalld, Paladin, St. Albans, 1975, p. 27.

ibid., p. 169.

, The early newspapers consisted mostly of foreign news and technical finanCial inlormation for their commercial middle class readership. Shepard, 1973, op. cit., p. 54.

II M. Shaaber: Some Forerunners of Ihe Newspaper in England 1476-1622, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1929, p. 46.

12

I)

14

'" 'The copy of the self same wordes, that mi lorde Sturton spake presently at his Death, beying the VI day of March. 1557 ... amonge the people at his Confession'. (Broadside by Wyllyam Pickeringe). Examples include: i The araignment, examination and judgement of A. Cosbye who murdered the Lord Burke (For E. White 1591). Il The examination, confession and condemnation of Henry Robson, Fisherman of Rye who poysoned his wife in the strangest maner that ever hitherto hath bin heard of. (Felix Kingston for R. W., London, 1598). Further examples can be found in D. C. Collins: A Halldlisl of News Pamphlels, 1590-1610, Guardian Press, London, 1943; H. Herd: The Alarch of Journalism: The Sfo,,' of Ihe Brilish Press from 166210 Ihe PreSf1/1 Day, Allen and Unwin, London, 1952; and M. Jackson: The Piaorial Press: lIS Origill alld Progress, Hurst and Blackwell, London, 1885. 19

20

Hindley, op. cit., p. 165.

21

Shaaber, op. cit., p. 213.

" ibid., p. 142.

, Ted Peterson: 'British Crime Pamphleteers', Journalism Quarlcrly, Vol. 22, 1945, pp. 305-16.

10

Chronicles olThe Gal/ows: The Social HisTm:v ol Crime ReporTing

See, for example: i A true and plain declaration of the horrible Treasons, practiced by William Parry (Christopher Barker 1585). ii A true and summarie reporte of the declaration of ... the Earle of Northumberland's Treasons ... (ibid). iii A true and perfect relation of the whole proceedings against ... Garnet .. and his Confederates ... (Robert Barker 1606). See, for example: i A discoverie of the treasons practiced ... by Francis Throckmorton (Christopher Barker 1584). ii A Copye of a letter contayning certavne newes and the Articles or requestes of the Devonshyre and Cornyshe rebefles (Grafton? 1549) III The copie of a Letter written by one in London to his friend, concerning the credit of the late published detection of the doynges of the Lady Marie of Scotland (John Day 1572). Shaaber, op. cit., p. 198.

" See, for example: i A godly ditty or prayer to be sung unto God for the preservation of his Church, Our Queene and Realme, against all Traytors, Rebels, and papisticall enemies. (Broadside by John Awdely 1569?). ii A Discourse of Rebellion, drawne forth to warne the wanton wittes how to keepe their heads on their shoulders. Verses by Thomas Churchyard. (Wylliam Griffith 1570).

2) M. Summers: The HislOry of WilCherafl and Demology, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965, contains an extensive bibliography of witchcraft pamphlets of this period. R. Robbins: The Encyclopaedia of WilCherafl and Demonology, Spring Books, 1959, pp. 168-9 lists 28 Major English Witch trials recorded in contemporary pamphlets, while A. Macfarlane: Wilchcrafl in Tudor and SlUan ElIgland, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1970, provides a detailed analysis of the pamphelts on Essex witchcraft. Examples of these include: i The Examination and Confession of certain wytches at Chensford in the Countie of Essex before the Queens majesties Judges, the xxvi day of July Anno 1566 (London). ii A Rehersall both stranng and true, of hainous and horrible actes comited by ... Fouer notorious witches ... (E. White 1579).

24

25 See, for example, a pamphlet of 1593 by Thomas Newman and John Wynnyngton describing a Huntingdonshire witch trial which was validated by Justice Fenner (Shaaber, op. cit., p. 240.).

20

Shaaber, op. cit., p. 251.

11

ibid., pp. 283-4.

"

17

Shaaber, op. cit., p. 198.

210

ibid., pp. 265-79.

'The most wonderful and true storie of a certain Witch, name Alse Gooderige ... ' (John Oxen bridge 1597). 19

)0 K. Erikson: Wayward Purilans: A SlUdy in Ihe Sociologv of Deviance, Wiley, New York, 1966.

JI E. P. Thompson: WhIgs alld Hunlers: The Origin of Ihe Black .'la, Allen Lane, London, 1975; D. Hay, P. Linebaugh, J. Rule, E. P. Thompson, C. Winslow: Albioll 's Falal Tree: Crime and Sociely in Ezghleerllh CClllury ElIglalld, Allen and Unwin, London, 1975; L. Radzinowicz: A HiSlOry of English Criminal Law: Volume One: The Movemelll for Reform, Stevens, London, 1948. Jl

16 C. Hindley: Curiosili« of SIreN Lileralure, 2 Vols, Broadsheet King, London (reprint), 1966, p. 164.

Macfarlane, op. cit.; Shaaber, op. cit., p. 250.

Hindley, op. cit., p. 169.

The lives of notorious villains may have provided vicarious excitement for the socially disadvantaged classes, but there is no doubt that they were also expected to learn from their example. The price offame was most decidedly execution. The account of the exploits of the highwayman Timothy Benson has the preamble: 'Amongst the Number J.I

211

Sreve Chlbnall

Chronicles of rhe Gallows: The Social Hisrory of Crime Reporring

of lhose unfonunale Persons whose Memory we have preserved 10 lhe World, in order lhal lheir Punishmems may become lasling Warnings umo all who are in any Danger of following lheir Foolsleps, none is more capable of alTording useful Refleclions lhan lhe Incidems lhat are 10 be found in lhe life oflhis Robber ... ' (J. Osborn: Lives of che Mosc Remarkable Criminals, London, 1735, Vol. II, p. 89).

Thrift, was ready to testify that Simms had informed him that he had given the account of his life exclusively to J. Nicholson, the Printer in the Old Bailey. See also J. Potter: The Facal Gallows Tree, Elek Books, London, 1965.

H Radzinowicz (op. cil., p. 181) records one comemporary eSlimale oflhe sale oflhe mosl popular of lhese colleclions, The Newgace Calendar, as being len limes lhal of journals such as lhe Speccacor or lhe Rambler.

!5

J6

" Osborn, op. cil., pp. 216-7. 56

T. Gem: The Life, (no publisher's name), 1832, p. 140.

56

Osborn, op. cil., pp. 350-5

'" ibid., p. 205.

Osborn, op. dl., p. 54.

ibid., p. 213.

59

ibid., p. 367.

M. Foucault: Discipline and Punish: The Birch of che Prison, Allen Lane, London, 1977, pp. 67-8. 60

Messrs. Knapp, Baldwin, Wilkinson and Jackson, who were at various times responsible for compiling The Newgace Calendar, were all members of the legal profession (A. Griffiths: The Chronicles of Newgace, Chapman and Hall, London, 1896, p.82). J'

61

ibid., p. 68.

Moreover, the insatiable curiosity which gave execution broadsheets a mass circulalion was of course the same insatiable curiosity which drew crowds to the execulions themselves. But, as Foucault perceptively suggests, this curiosity was not simply morbid for there was much to be learnt from the sulTerings of lhe condemned: 'the tonure of the execution anticipates the punishments of the beyond; it shows what they are; it is the thealre of hell ... But the pains here below may also be counted as penitence and so alleviate the punishments of the beyond The cruelty of the earthly punishment will be deducted from the punishment to come But, it might be said, are not such terrible sulTerings a sign that God has abandoned the guilty man to the mercy of his fellow creatures? And far from securing absolution, do they not prefigure imminem damnation; so that if the condemned man dies quickly, without a prolonged agony, is il not proof that God wishes to protect him ... ? There is, therefore, an ambiguity in this sulTering that may signify equally well the truth of the crime or the error of the judges ... Hence lhe insatiable curiosity that drove the spectators to the scalTold to witness the speclacle of sul1erings truly endured; there one could decipher crime and innocence, the past and the future, the here below and the eternal.' Foucaull, op. cil., 61

J8

Osborn, op. cil., p. 255.

39

C. Hibbert: The RoMs of Evil, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1963, p. 58.

4U

Peterson, op. cil., p. 316.

41 An example of these session Papers were those published by J. Robens of Warwick Lane, London and emit led 'Proceedings at the Sessions of the Peace, and Oyer and Terminer, for the City of London, and County of Middlesex.' A typical issue sold for sixpence and consisted of 24 double-column pages of almost verbatim transcript.

" Thompson, op. cil. G. Howson: Thief-Taker General: The Rise and Fall of Jonachan Wild, Hutchinson, London, 1970; Peterson, op. cil. 4J

44 TraCl quoted by Radzinowicz op. cil., p. 179-180 which he attributes to Ch. Gordon, 'The Old Bailey and Newgate' (no dale).

4.'

Howson, op. cil., p. 254.

46

Both Journals had a largely lower class circulation of around 10,000.

41

Osborn, op. cil., p. 172.

48 See S. Chibnall: Law-and-Order News: An Analysis of Crime Reporcing in che Bricish Press, Tavistock, London, 1977, pp. 57-60. 49 Both A. Aspinall: 'The Social Status of Journalists at the Beginning of lhe Nineteemh Century', Review of English Scudies, July, 1945, pp. 216-32; and A. Lee: The Origins of che Popular Press 1855-1914, Croom Helm, London, 1976 have demonstrated that, despite the presence within the profession of distinguished literary figures, lhe social status of journalists remained low umil the end of the nineteenth century.

SI'

'The Newspaper Press', 1829, p. 234.

" S. Chibnall: 'The Crime Reponer: A Study in the Production of Commercial Knowledge', Sociology, Vol. 9, 1975, pp. 49-66; and Chibnall, 1977, op. cit., Ch. 5. " Radzinowicg, op. cil., p. 180. 5]

C. Hibben: Highwayman, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1967, pp. 98-9.

54 Hangmen were cenainly involved in deals Wilh publishers. H. Bleachley: The Hangmen of England, 1929, p. 78, repons that a few days after the execution of Henry Simms a notice was placed in the Daily Adverciser announcing thaI the hangman, John

212

I

I

p.46. " L. Radzinowicz: op. cil., Volume Ill: The Reform of che Polic<, Stevens, London, 1956, p. 27. " H. Fielding: Examples of che Incerposicion of Providence in che De!eceion and Punishmenc of Murder, 1752. 65

Radzinowicz, op. cil., p. 296.

E. P. Thompson: The Making of che English Working Class, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1968, Hay et ai, op. cit.; A. Silver: 'The Demand for Order in Civil Society: A Review of Some Themes in the History of Urban Crime, Police and Riot', in D. Bordua (ed): The Police: Six Sociological Essays, Wiley, New York, 1967; J. Palmer: 'Evils Merely Prohibited', Bricish Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 3, pp. 1-16; and Foucault, op. cit. 66

67 Radzinowicz and Hay disagree on the extent to which this exercise of mercy was motivated by humanitarianism or cynical expediency.

" Radzinowicz, 1948, op. cit. " For instance, Beccaria in 'Traite' des delits et despeines (1764) wrote of the execution of murderers: 'The murder that is depicted as a horrible crime is repeated in cold blood remorselessly' and oflhe pardon: 'if one allows men to see thaI the crime may be pardoned and that punishment is not a necessary consequence of it, one nourishes in them the hope of going unpunished ... The laws must be inexorable, those who execute them inflexible'.

213

Chronicles of the Ga!!ow,L' The Social Hislorv of Crime Reporting

StC've Chibllu!! 'u G. Rusche and O. Kirchheimer: Punishment ,md Social Structure, Columbia U.P" New York, 1939.

Tobias: Crime and Industrial Societv in the Nineteenth Centun', Batsford, London,

11

1967. M. Mcintosh: The Organisation

of Crime,

Macmillan, London, 1971.

As the QUlinerl\' Review noted in 1812 'Commerce pours in wealth in a shape the most convenient for plunder. The rural opulence of our forefathers was not completely safe, still their oaken tables and their wheat ricks could not be carried off without some trouble, and men were honest because properry was immovable. '(quoted in Radzinowicz, 1948, op, cit., p. 30). '4

qJ

ibid.

94

ibid., p. 320.

" ibid., pp, 334-5. " F, Williams: Dlingerous Estate, Longmans, London, 1957, p. 103. " Jackson, op. cit., pp. 231-55. " H. Hobson, P. Knightly, L Russell: The P<-arl of Davs: An Intimate Memoir of The Sundliy Times 1822-1.972, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1972, pp. 21-2. 00

"'0 Altick, op. cit., p. 58,

Thompson, 1967, op. cit.

Radzinowicz, 1956, op. cit., and Radzinowicz: op. cll. Volume IV: Grappling for Control, Stevens, London, 1968. 7'

101

" Indicative of this is both writers' neglect of the seminal contribution of Rusche and Kirchheimer. For an account of changes in the control culture which gives greater emphasis to the role of class interests, cf. Silver, op, cit., Palmer, op. cit., and Foucault, op. cit. See also Thompson, 1967, op. cit. " D. Rothman: The Discovery of the Asylum, Little Brown, Boston, 1971. Foucault, op. cit.

'I As the French ideologue, Servan, put it 'A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chains of their own ideas'. (1. Servan: Discours sur I'lidmil/ll'lrurion de I" ju.l'tice criminelle, 1767.

"1 ,I\\. Quinlan: Viero",,,, Prelude, New York, 1955, p. 160. "' R. K. Webb: The Brirlsh lY{'rking Clo.\S Readcr 1770-1848, 1955, p. 22. L. James: P,,"r and rhe People 181.9-1851, Allen Lane, london, 1976.

" Figure, presented by Raymond Williams indicate that newspaper circulation doubled between 1776-1811, but it tripled between 1711 and 1753. (Williams: The Long Remlurlon, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1961. Part I, Ch. 3). "' Aspinall, op. cit., p. 9. Foucault, op. cit., pp. 285-fl. " Geoff Pearson has also drawn attention to this attempt to prevent the corruption of the labooring class by members of the indigent 'dangerous' class with particular reference to the importance of the metaphor of the sewer and contamination in Edwin Chadwick's public health legislation of the J 840s. (Pearson: The Devlanr Imaginarion, Macmillan, London, 1975, Ch. 6).

ibid., p. 23,

102

Hobson, et aI, op. cit., p. 22.

IUJ

Altick, op. cit., p. 58.

IU<

James, op. cit., p. 259.

", Tobias, op. cit.

~()

Jackson, op. cit., pp. 230-1.

John Stuart Mill: 'Taxes on Knowledge,' Monthly Repository, No, 109, 1834, p. 109. IU6 Lee, op. cit., p. 27. 101

101 D, Cooper: The Lesson of the Scaffold: The Public Execution Contro1'ersy in Victorian England, Allen Lane, Harmondsworth, 1974, p. 26.

lOS The most successful pamphlet on the murder was the one written by J. Curtis who covered the case for 'The Times'. It was a typical combination of moralising, mawkish sentiment and titillation. In the introduction Curtis claimed that his account would demonstrate 'the blessings of a court of judicature, under the jurisprudence of a humane judge', that 'the "glorious laws, those brightest pearls which gem our monarch's crown" are not to be violated' and that in his wtiting he was 'embracing every particular of the late Mysterious Murder, at the same time offering to the rising generation a moral lesson showing the workings of a conscience on a mind, loaded with guilt, and that wickedness always meets its just reward'. His expressed aim was 'to render this history subservient to the promotion of religion and morality'. This aim was achieved in part by the superimposition of a stereotypical relationship between Corder and his victim. Maria Marten was carefully cast in the role of innocent village maiden seduced by a wealthy and unscruplous farmer. In fact she was the mother of at least three illegitimate children. Reality was indeed subservient to the interests of 'religion and morality' and often to sensationalism as well. (1. Curtis: An Authentic lind Faithful History of the Mysterious Murder of Maria Marte>!, Thos. Kelly, London, 1828).

109

Thompson, 1967, op. cit., p. 453.

IIU

J. Wade: Hisrory of rhe Middle and Working Classes, 1835, p. 570.

III

These examples are drawn from Thompson, 1967, op. cit., pp. 456 and 803.

112

R. Altick: Victorian Srudies in Scarlet, Norton, New York, 1970, p. 137.

,., Radzinowicz, op. cit., p. 440.

Chibnall, 1977, op. cit., Ch. 4; T. Jefferson, S. Critcher, S. Hall, B. Roberts,.r. Clark: Mugging and Law 'n 'Order, Occasional Paper No. 35, Centre for Contempora,,' Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, 1975. 11.\

"" This, of course, was a movement closely connected with the growth of Methodism and its moderating influence on working class radicalism. (Thompson, 1967, op. cit.). '"

R. Altick: The Ellgish Common Reader: a Soellil HlslOrv of rhe Mass Reading Public

114

Altick, 1970, op. cit., p. 137.

1800-1.900, University of Chicago Press, 1957, j'. 331.

See, for example Ainsworth's Rockwood and Jack Sheppard and J),ch'n", Twisr and Barnaby Rudge. I is

'>1

ibid.

214

215

(I:,

"

Stcve Chibnill! L. Shepard, 1973, op. cit., p. 126.

116

117 C. Hindley: The LIfe and Times of James Catnach, Reeves and Turner, London, 1878, p. 409.

Chronicles of the Gilllows: The Social History

C. Reith: A New Study of Police History, Oliver and Boyd, London, 1956, p. 183.

130

ibid.

140

Browne, op. cit., p. 117.

141

ibid., p. 145.

II"

ibid., p. 220.

14'

Thompson, 1968, op. cit; Radzinowicz, 1956, 1968, op. cit.

l'lJ

ibid., p. 222.

143

Browne, op. cit., p. 151.

144

G. Dilnot: The Trial of the Detectives, Bles, London, 1928.

14.\

Lee, op. cit., p. 10 I.

146

Chibnall, 1977, op. cit.

'" The 'Sorrowful Lamentation' sheet, so much a feature of early Victorian execution reporting was unknown before 1820 when a law extending the period between capital sentence and execution was passed. Before that time, Mayhew was told 'there wasn't no time ti)r a lamentation; sentence o'Friday and sCfugging o'Monday.' (Mayhew, op. cit., p.282).

Reporting

138

H. fl,l.ayhew: London Labour and London Poor: Vol. J, Dover, New York (reprint),

II"

1968.

0/ Crime

Examples of these include the 97 part serial, Newgate by Thomas Prest pulished in 1846 and 1847, and the 254 part Black Bess or the Kmght of the Road produced in the 1860s by Edward Viles and based (loosely) on Turpin. 14'

In

L. Shepard: John Pilts: Ballad Printer, Private Libraries Association, London,

1969, p. 49. [)3

Mayhew, op. cit., pp. 281-3.

1)4

ibid., p. 220.

lIS

ibid., p. 222.

126

ibid., p. 234.

127

ibid., p. 225.

J2H

C. Hindley: The History of the Catnach Press, 1886.

148 Examples are Scenes in the hfe of a Bow Street runner by Richmond 1827; RecollectIOns of a Detective Police Officer by 'Waters' (William Russell) 1856; A Detective's Note Book and Diary of an Ex-Detective both by Charles Mortel 1860; and Secret Service; or Recollections of a City Detective by Andrew Forrester 1864.

Undoubtedly, the Capital Punishment Amendment Act of 1868 which abolished public executions accelerated the decline of the broadsheet trade, particularly as selected newspaper reporters were generally allowed to witness executions for the first twenty years of the Act's operation. (Cooper op. cit.) 120

I.1IJ

Williams, 1957, op. cit., p. 84.

I

Constance Kent had confessed to the murder of her brother.

j

I

III

Altick, op. cit., p. 62.

E. Larsen: Firs! With The Trlllh, John Baker, London, 1968; H. Schalk: 'Fleet Street in the 1880s: the Old Journalism and the New', ]ournalism Quarlerlv, 1961, pp. 421-6. III

1.'4 The Illustrated Police News was launched in 1864 and was published weekly until after the First World War, achieving a circulation of 100,000 in 1868. It laid an almost exclusive emphasis on death and physical injury which was vividly illustrated by lurid woodcuts. Copy was drawn mainly from agencies, foreign newspapers and the coroners' courts. (L. de Vries: 'Orrible Murder: An Anthology of Victorian Crime and Passion, Macdonald, London, 1971). By and large it seems to have been regarded by members of the propertied classes as a danger to public morality to such an extent that, [or instance in 1870 the Oswestry magistrates instructed the police to warn, or even to summons without hope of conviction, persons selling the publication.

1.1\

K. Martin: The Press the Public Wants, Hogarth Press, London, 1947, p. 58.

1.16 P. Ferris: The JIollse of Northchffe: The Harmsworths of Heet Street, Weidenfe1d and Nicolson, London, 1971, p. 70. I J' D. Browne: The Rise of Scotland rani: A History of Ihe Metropolil<1n Pohce, George Harrap, London, 1956, p. 100.

216

217

THE WOMAN'S MAGAZINE COVER PHOTOGRAPH* Marjorie Ferguson

THIS article explores the cover photographs of women's magazines. It looks at the female world they suggest-a world which extends beyond the changing fashions in faces, figures and clothes they show. These cover photographs also present definitions of the desirable-of femininity-as these are understood by, and commercially produced for, a female audience. As such, they offer visual cues about physical 'types', social roles and relationships for that audience to identify with or emulate. The purposes of these photographs are examined firstly at the level of editors' selection and audience perception processes. They then are explored specifically through a content analysis of three British women's weeklies, compared over time for the presence or absence of change. This leads to inquiry into ways in which such images relate to editor understandings of the wider society in selecting and mediating signals of social change. Women's magazine cover photographs, like all photographs, convey several layers of meaning. In this they are no different from other forms of media content, verbal, visual or printed. For in Adorno's words: 'Mass media are not simply the sum total of the actions they portray ... (they) also consist of various layers of meanings superimposed on one another, all of which contribute to the effect.' I

With the cover photograph these layers may be distinguished in terms of explicit or implicit, manifest or latent, or 'denotative' or 'connotative' meanings. 2 Explicitly, these images say this is a magazine for women, and in certain cases, this is a particular magazine for woman. Implicitly, they communicate, or connote, other subordinate meanings about a female's social membership, such as status or appearance. 'Buy me and be like me' is one such message. With this message goes the corollary, 'You may not be as young and beautiful or rich and successful as me, but you are a woman like me'. * Based in part on an article originally entitled 'Imagery and Ideology: the Cover Photographs of Traditional Women's Magazines', in Hearth ,md Home: Images (!/ Women in the MuSS Media, edited by Gaye Tuchman, et at. Copywright 1978 by Oxford University Press, Inc. used by permission.

219

Mar/eme Ferguson It follows that a principal reason why cover photographs almost overwhelmingly present images of women is to enable their female audience to differentiate a 'Her' from a 'His' or any other specialist magazine. Women's magazines feature women on the cover because they are about women, and about the womanly topics their editors align with female audience expectations. Moreover they also mediate some of the ideological aspects of women's magazine content-the roles, goals and values which editorial selection processes present to, and reinforce within, that female audience.

In creating a form for this Content those who produce cover photographs draw upon the same common stock of stereotypes and cultural myths as those used in advertisements aimed at a female market. J These visual forms generally are carefully constructed. Their creation synthesises beliefs, object and process: definitions of femininity, symbolised by a cover girl, and filtered through an editorial production line. Whichever female 'types' are chosen for photographic focus-the sweetly submissive, the aggressively vibrant, the smoulderingly sensual-the resulting image can only communicate its intended message if there is agreement about its meaning. Audience knowledge of these meanings is assumed by editors or they would not use them: recognition depends on certainty, not ambiguity. The message must be clear-and immediacy of meaning is a primary characteristic of the cover photograph. One reason for this is that photographic messages rely on, as Barthes suggests, 'the existence of a store of stereotyped attitudes which form ready-made elements of signification. '4 More than shared attitudes form the basis of such understandings however. The cover photograph avoids the problematic and presents the audience with positive messages about a state of being-the state of being female. Whatever other social influences are at work-such as the modifications provided by social location or consumption context-the very repetition of certain female stereotypes makes them significant in and of themselves. In presenting 'essences' of femininity, these cover photographs deal in the currency of the commonly understood. Through repetition, they also reinforce those self-same understandings of what being female is. Typically, an anonymous female model's face communicates such messages. Using mainly professional 'cover girls', certain captured qualities of femaleness are extracted and interpreted by editors and photographers who apply their own professional and ideological 220

The Woman's Magazine Cover Photograph

categories as to what those qualities are, and how they should be treated. Like the family portrait-taker the cover photographer is engaged in taking a picture, in removing something from a closely directed but essentially passive subject/object, the female photographic model. 5 Unlike the family portraitist, this photographer is directed by the editorial 'stylist' as to what should be presented to signify a particular magazine's editorial identity and audience understandings. The cover photograph is also the 'face' of the magazine. As such it is both presenting an image (of femininity) and creating an image (of the magazine). This accords with Boorstin's characterisation of the public image-making process: 'What the pseudo event is in the world of fact, the image is In the world of value. The image is a pseudo·ideal ... It is synthetic, believable, passive, viVId, simplified and ambiguous ... '. (.

The model is thus a double symbol, of idealised womanhood and of a particular publication. Her symbolic representation of both contains a further layer of meaning whereby this face of femininity looks both pleased with itself and determinedly striving to please. In consequence, the message communicated about the female state is pleasurable and unproblematic. An expression of satisfaction combined with supplication ('like me and be liked like me') is maintained in different poses. Although three-quarter and full-length figures are increasingly used, historically the dominant visual image presented by women's magazines is that of the 'big head'. This resembles the close-up shot of film and television presentation as well as the head and shoulder studies of portrait photography, especially the latter, in presenting a largely decontextualised image, which emphasises form rather than content. In general, the only cues given as to social categories are explicitly, those of sex, race and female physical 'type' ('pretty', 'vivacious', 'sexy'), and implicitly, those of age and social class. Although the written aspect of these covers is not analysed here-title, cover lines, relative type-faces and sizes-this domain requires a word of clarification. The magazine title explicitly states its identity. Whatever other elements are presented to enhance and reinforce that identity, including the cover photograph, arguably the title alone achieves this objective. The anonymity typical of many photographs is such that their subordinate messages are rarely magnified with cover line 'captions'. The exceptions concern photographs showing 'personalities', knitting patterns, or 'special offer' fashions which are written about on the cover to signal that there is more information about them inside.'? 221

Alarjorie Ferguson What does lhe cover photograph 'Do '?

Exploration of any exchange of meanings between magazine producers and their audience involves inquiry into two distinct, but related, social processes, those of creation and consumption-or 'intention' and 'eflects'. To ask how editor understandings of audience taste and demographics influence the choice of a particular cover photograph is to ask an empirical question. To ask what the audience brings to a cover by way of selective perception and individual preference is to pose more complex problems of method and interpretation. For ultimately any insights into female audience response to the non-verbal message of cover imagery are largely speculative or based on imperfect knowledge of the event and its consequences. Turning to the creative process and its intents, in selecting cover photographs as with other forms of content, editors are guided by a combination of established practices and experientially based intuitions. They 'just know' which photographs will or will not 'make' a cover. 8 This special knowledge distinguishes-or blurs-between personal and professional preferences; it also filters creative and craft judgements through wider cultural meanings-recurrent themes of 'femaleness'. Working with an art editor, the editor selects from a number of photographs according to a range of criteria which are seen as determining commercial and aesthetic 'success'. Is it visually pleasing, technically reproduceable, amenable to layout considerations afTecting cropping (for greater intimacy or immediacy), tilting (for increased movement), 'loggo' colour, number and size of cover-lines? Unlike the newspaper photograph which has to be integrated into the page, here the contents of the page have to be worked into the form of the photograph. 0 Above all, editors select cover photographs on the basis of two criteria. Will it identify-differentiate-a particular magazine, and will it 'sell' a particular issue? At the publishing for profit level, covers are crucial in establishing a separate brand identity and maintaining the buying habit within the women's media market place: 'It's like the margarine wrapper, the better it is, the more we sell'. 10

The lfTolllan's Magazine Cover Photograph

Acknowledging this significance, one editor explained: 'The constant problem is One of trying to tlnd an image lor a cover which truly represents an idcalistic IlHm of what thc readers themselves would like to be, someone thev can identify with, on thc one hand, and at the same time producing it in a graphic tllrI1\ which wil1 sland oul li'om 20() other titles on newsagent bookstalls. The cover is the personality of the magazmc; it is a poster; it IS a hook in advertising terms to ~etllally hringing the rC
Women's magazme editors also see cover photographs as potential sources of reader identification, thereby reinforcing the presentation. importance attached to their selection and

What is a pragmatic problem for editors is also sociologically problematic in relation to audience 'effects'. Although the above quotation represents editor consensus on the purposes of the cover, none of those interviewed spoke of the psycho-social mechanisms involved in such hoped-for identifications. Rather, they expressed the general view that cover photographic models should be 'someone they (the audience) want to be like.' I ' If an identification impulse on the part of the audience is treated as a 'given' what remains doubtful is the nature of the object to be presented. Which definitions of the desirable will be suflicient to induce a response leading to purchase? Rarely is recognition given to the subjective or value-judgement dimension contained within these concepts and decisions. Namely, that a chosen cover model represents one editor's beliefs about what members of a particular audience group 'want to be like'. Therefore, in elevating producers' beliefs on what the cover is intended to 'do', three aspects are relevant: (I) the notion of 'reader identiflCation'; (2) the social significance of the face; and (3) the nonverbal meanings signalled by these photographs. Whatever the editorial intention in presenting role models to the audience, certain wider questions are raised concerning such imputed effects. Is the magazine's search for a cover identity matched by a corresponding quest for identity on the part of its audience? Do females who seek out a sex segregated medium do so in a conscious or unconscious search for confirmation of their own femaleness? Any answers to these questions must remain speculative, but they may be considered using the psychological and social psychological concept of imitative acts and identification. IJ At its simplest, this concept suggests that individuals can be seen to respond to other individuals or objects by imitating their behaviour symbolically or literally, as in a child's mastery of gender role and learning. Further, the motive for imitative behaviour can be ascribed to feelings of threatened self-esteem or anxiety involving a threat to sci t~ esteem. In discussing these and other motives for individual respolls,"

222

223

Marjorie Ferguson

of this nature, Kagan 14 has pointed to the importance of the psychosocial model's possession of positive goal states and the identifier's desire for mastery of the environment. These ideas have received the support of experimental psychology. Bandura, et al,15 for example, have noted that identification occurs with those who hold, or are the source of, power and rewards, not with the competitors for power resources. Such conclusions invite comparison between the confident image of the cover-girl, the smiling pleaser cast in the mould of perfection and, for example, the cultural composite conjured up by assumptions about housewives as a social group. 16 The professional cover model projects her possession, and pleasure in possessing, culturally desirable attributes such as physical beauty and social importance. Exactly the same values are projected by the celebrity 'models', the famous personalities increasingly used on these covers, who lend their specific power and glamour to a magazine's reader idealisations. Here we may speculate on the extent of segmented and fragmentary audience imitation of the model's repertoire, in order to feel like her or express her style. Is a stronger or weaker version of identification involved when a reader identifies with an anonymous model representing a desired goal such as physical perfection, or with a less perfect, but more famous female face? Do women identify with Her Majesty the Queen or Sophia Loren more readily or more completely than with an unknown cover girl? Any answer might be in part a function of how much fantasy is involved in such imitative behaviour; or how far a woman might envisage herself replicating aspects of the cultural blueprints of perfection, or social power, presented to her. However famous or anonymous, what of the emphasis the majority of women's magazine cover photographs place upon the female face? Notwithstanding the recent trends towards face and figure presentation, this emphasis reflects the psycho-social importance society attaches to the human face. Nor is this importance confined to consumer economies of the industrial West, where a powerful cosmetic industry directs its advertising assaults at female fantasies of an increasingly more perfectly presented (and made-up) visage. In terms of status, the face is important in many societies and the bearer of an important face doubly so. In Polynesian society, for example, the parts of the body, like the strata of society, were arranged in order of precedence: the head dominated the body because it was literally on top of it. J7 Simmel 18 saw the face as possessing an inner unity and an outer 224

The Woman's Magazine Cover Photograph

mobility, the latter so conducive to communication that even a limited change in facial expression could project a wide range of emotional moods and social meanings. The insights of social psychologists into non-verbal communication are also useful here. Such studies stress the importance of the face and the multiple meanings it can convey-alone, or in conjunction with the body. 19 The kinds of non-verbal signals that have interested them and which are relevant to the analysis of women's magazine cover photographs are those pertaining both to facial expression, e.g. degree and type of smile, intensity and direction of gaze-and to figure pose, e.g. bodily posture, degree of proximity and positioning towards another. These two types of signals-face and body-can convey many kinds of messages, and the meanings they communicate are culturally learned and shared. It follows that although all the elements of nonverbal communication are not necessarily consistent cross-culturally, within a particular society there is a high degree of consensus as to the meaning of, for example, a smile, or a particular type of smile. It is these learned meanings which the producers draw upon in posing cover models or choosing 'shots' of celebrity icons. Argyle's static-dynamic distinction classifies these judgements of enduring characteristics, such as those which proclaim an individual's physical appearance and give an impression of age and social class, along the static dimension. 2u Cook 21 states about this dimension that 'these superficial characteristics often determine the initial impression a person makes, and elicit "stereotypes" in the perceiver.' 22 It is precisely such positive female stereotypes which these cover images seek to elicit within their audience through their changing (or unchanging) definitions of the desirable. Finally, the symbolism of the face is important for another reason. As noted above, cover photographs are the face of the women's magazines, as shown by editors' emphasis upon wrapping their product with an identifiable image that encourages recognition and reader identification. However the significance and interpretation of any smile requires the observer to note its social context. To understand the 'what' of its message, we must also consider the 'where', 'how' and 'why' of its occurrence. The wide smile on the cover of a women's magazine is not signalling the same meaning as a similar smile flashed across the breakfast table or an office desk. It is a smile smiled to 'sell', it is the magazine's advertisement for itself. 225

I'

MarJorie Ferguson Comparative Content Analysis

I I

I

7'lle lroman's Magazine em'",. PlzolOgraplz

Cover photographs of the three largest circulating British women's weeklies, Woman, Woman's Own and Woman's Weekly were from a sample covering the period 1949-1974, part of a more extensive content analysis which concentrated on verbal meanings. 23 with a follow-up sub-sample taken for the period 1975-78. In view of the sample size it must be emphasised here that I am not seeking to build any grand theory on this analysis but simply to make some useful points. For this reason before discussing the analysis, some measure of audience size is in order. Although numbers are not necessarily related to influence, the audience saturation levels reached by these three titles are exceptional. Despite declining sales over the previous decade, in 1978, Woman (circulation: 1,542,070), Woman's Own (1,598,923) and Woman's Weekly (1,463,189) had a total combined weekly female readership of 15,924,000. 24 Historically, examination of the cover photographs of these three journals confirms flfStly, they overwhelmingly present photographs of women to women; and secondly in their idealisations of the female face and form, recent and rapid change has followed a lengthy stasis. For example, in 1949 Woman's Own frequently featured painted rather than photographed covers. Some of these were the work of (or imitations of) American fiction illustrators, often showing contrived situational portraits. Such covers typically showed a boy-girl situation with the girl smiling in a slightly coy, but smugly secure, way. The pre-eminence of the female figure in these tableaux and the background, supplementary or supplicatory role of the male is clearly established. This was an idealised world of flirtation and courtship, one eternally young and carefree. The subsequent era of 'big head' photographs of anonymous female models, characteristic of the covers of Woman and Woman's Own from the late forties until the recent present, was heavily influenced by American technology and expertise. 25 Through printing machinery, syndicated transparencies, specially commissioned cover sessions with American photographers and models (and English photographers copying their techniques), the cover-girl images of Woman and Woman's Own throughout the 'fifties reflected American stylisations of womanhood as much or more than British ones. Comparative analysis shows that from the early 'sixties, less groomed and glossy, more naturalistic, and more Northern European female faces appeared on the covers of the two largest weeklies. It also shows a cyclical trend in their

cover images, the mid-seventies brought a return to American models and 'lip-sticky', curly-haired images, reminiscent of the 'fifties. The most recent developments indicate a movement away from posed model photographs. Increasingly the cover images of Woman, for example, are those of a more candid 'newsy' kind, showing the celebrities featured in articles inside-a development whose social significance is explored below. It should be noted that Woman's Week(y is a partial exception to these generalisations. Across the thirty years of both samples it has used the three-quarters or full-length pose on its cover. Typically, three or four such photographs were used each week to display knitting patterns. After the switch to full colour printing in 1967 the trend has been to one photograph of one model only. Nevertheless, in terms of establishing and maintaining an editorial identity, Woman's Weekly, has been the most consistent of these three weeklies in presenting a unified image of itself to its audience. It has had its own face. Despite their historical variation, each of the weeklies attempts to specialise in a characteristic look for the reasons suggested above. To analyse their cover photographs, four descriptive categories were developed, guided by participant observation, interviews and a pilot study. The labels attached to these categories reflect those used by the participants and refer to facial expression. 26 They were: 1 'Chocolate Box', half or full smile, lips together or sightly parted, teeth barely visible, full or three-quarter face to camera. Projected mood: blandly pleasing, warm bath warmth, where uniformity of features in their smooth perfection is devoid of uniqueness or of individuality. 2 'Invitational': emphasis on the eyes, mouth shut or with only a hint of a smile, head to one side or looking back to camera. Projected mood: suggestive of mischief or mystery, the hint of contact potential rather than sexual promise, the cover equivalent of advertising's soft sell. 3 'Super-smiler': full face, wide open toothy smile, head thrust forward or chin thrown back, hair often wind-blown. Projected mood; aggressive, 'look-at-me' demanding, the hard sell, 'big comeon' approach. 4 'Romantic or Sexual': a fourth and more general classification devised to include male and female 'two-somes'; or the dreamy, heavy-lidded, unsmiling big-heads, or the overtly sensual or sexual. Projected moods: possibly 'available' and definitely 'available'.

226

227

Marjorie Ferguson Between 1949 and 1974 'Chocolate Box' was the dominant cover image, as Table 1 shows, preferred by Woman, 50 per cent and Woman's Weekly, 86 per cent of the time. Here, the 'Chocolate Box' stylisation represents the familiar visual translation of an editorial ideology which defines the female state as primarily pleasant and unproblematic. The 'Invitational' photographs represent the second most significant group for both Woman (22 per cent) and Woman's Own (54 per cent), whereas the 'Super-smiler' category was less significant for all three titles. As for the 'Romantic or Sexual' images, analysis revealed only one instance of the overtly sensual, a cinema actress. Otherwise, the romantic mood predominated within this relatively insignificant category. Covers classified as 'Other', because they did not fall within these four female facial stylisations, included paintings of flowers and a nativity scene, photographs of children and royalty. Turning to the 1975-78 period, three trends emerged: the decline of 'Chocolate Box' stylisations, the increase in different forms of cover imagery, especially celebrity couples, classified as 'Other', and a significant shift in visual emphasis to include the body as well as the face. These tendencies are demonstrated most clearly by Woman. As Table la shows, only 19 per cent of its recent cover photographs classify as 'Chocolate Box', whereas the 'Other' group expanded from 7 per cent to 35 per cent suggesting the emergence of a fifth category, explored below. By comparison, the 'Invitational' and 'Super-Smiler' categories if taken together have hardly varied over time: 36 per cent in 1949-78 as compared with 37 per cent in 1975-78. As such, they suggest a continuing, consensual definition of the desirable, and that the persistmt message of these cover photographs is still that of the smiling female pleaser. Within the boundaries of these collapsed categories, Woman's Own can be said to have maintained a consistency of image. Although the distribution between them has shifted, taken together 'Invitational' and 'Super-Smiler' totalled 62 per cent in 1949-74 and 65 per cent in 1975-78, whereas 'Chocolate Box' declined, halved from 21 per cent to 11 per cent. Woman's Weekly, despite its previous consistency, separate from those of the other two weeklies, also shows some degree of change. 228

The Woman's Magazine Cover Photograph TABLE I

Distribution

Chocolate Box Invitational Super-Smiler Romantic or Sexual Other

0/

Cover Categories bv Title, 1949-1974

Woman N=28 50% 22 14 7 7

Woman's OW" N=24 21%

54 8 4 13

Woman's IFeeklv N=28 86% 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5

TABLE la

Distribution of Cover Categories by Fllle, 1975-78* l.f'oman's Dum N= 103 11 % 38 27 II

Woman N= 103

Chocolate Box Invitational Super-Smiler Romantic or Sexual Other

19%

17 19

9 35

1)

tf'oman'5 U"eekly N= 103 . 66%

7 18 I 8

*January-June issues only

Whilst 'Chocolate Box' remained as the predominate cover expression it declined by twenty per cent. Increases in all the other photographic categories, although less apparent than on the other two weeklies, are in line with ([ends there. Both samples also analysed the implied age of cover models. Editorially and commercially, the topic of age is important within the demographic structure of a magazine's readership. It has powerful implications both for content and presentation, and for individual magazine positioning within an overall market through an appeal to specific advertisers. Ownership and control patterns within the British women's magazine industry are consistant with theories of mass communication stressing the impact of corporate media structures-mass production for mass consumption-on the dissemination of common or hegemonic values. 27 Integral to this process is the shaping of media content, through mechanisms such as the projected age of the cover model, in directing content at specific advertising and readership targets. Despite fluctuations in the percentage distribution of the various age categories over time and between titles, the majority of readers of all three of these weeklies are aged 35 and over, although I-l?oman and Woman's Own have a higher proportion of readers in the 15 (16) to 34 year old age group than has Woman's Weekly. In 1978, some 54 per cent of the readers of Woman, 56 per cent of Woman's Own and 70 per 229

Mllriorie Ferguson

The lroman '.I AJagazinc Cover Photogrllph

cent of Woman '.I Weekly readers were in the over 35 group. 2~ 'Teens', 'Twenties' and 'Any Age' were the three groupings which emerged from these cover photographs. They were classifIed according to the age the model suggested by a combination of physiological features, emotional expression, clothes, and accessories. For example, a 'Teens' cover typically showed the model's hair tied in one or two bunches, or snuggling up to a kitten or puppy with an expressive range confIned to two dimensions, youth and fun. Between 1949 and 1974, almost a fIfth of Woman and lfToman '.I OWII covers were 'Teens' (clustered towards the earlier date); by 1978, however, this age group had all but disappeared from their covers. 2" Table 2 shows that the predominant age grouping overall is that of the 'Twenties' -between half and three quarters were in this category. ,W While between 1975 and 1978, four-fIfths of Woman '.I Own cover photographs were classifIed as such. Here the model's facial features and expression, as well as hair styling and clothes, differentiated a 'Twenties' from a 'Teens' cover. Here the image is less kittenish, less arch, and less playful. It personifIes an altogether more evolved and perfected expression of the female state across all four st ylisat ions.

(through evidence of wrinkles, clothes, etc.) is a token symbol in the direction of those women-the majority of these magazine's readers-who cannot be termed as 'young'. Although between half and seven-tenths of the female audience of these three weeklies are classifIed as over thirty fIve years old, traditionally these magazines have presented more youthful cover images, Over time, Woman and Woman's Own give token recognition, and increasingly so, to 'Any Age', while Woman's Weekly, the magazine with the oldest readership profIle, has consistently devoted between half and three quarters of its covers to this group. In sum, considerable reflection appears between market orientation and editorial translation; however, a conflict between two types of models for identifIcation also exists. Some covers project a fantasy-like invitation to eternal youth. Others, particularly those of Woman '.I Weekly, takes a marginally more realistic approach to demography and admit the existence of a non-youthful (but never old) female population. Additionally, some attention must be paid quite literally to 'form' as well as 'content'. There is evidence of change, not only in cover categories between and within these three weeklies, but also in their shifting focus on the female form. No longer is the predominance of the 'big-head' maintained as the magazine identity-audience identifIcation symbol. Table 3 shows how almost half Woman and over a third Woman '.I Own covers now consist of body poses (half and three quarter length).

TAB I.E 2 Suggested Age

0/ Cover Model Images

L{"(/JtlLUl

bv Title, 1949-74

'[rellS

TU.}{'1lflCS

18%

68

,'111.1' ,'1g" lei

17I/,O

7'i

8

TABLE J

O('l(J

'i0

50

Cover Image Poses by Title, 1975-78*

N=28 It''OJJ1aN 's (h~'n

~=2ei

Lf'OJ}luJ/'s

LLy/d\'

N=2H TABl.E 2a Suggested Age of Cover Model Images by Tirl,,, 1975-78* Lro!1lu!l

Teetis lO%

j',(z'oll /cs

.·lJ1Y L'lgc 29

Other

~(7o

H1

lei

o

2ei

,S

] **

fI\

)\,' = 103 Ifi:J}1/,Itl's

tromWl \- Oum N = 103

U"C1 m,111

C).z,:"l1

o

Head and Shoulder One-half/or three-quarter figures Full length *January-June issues only

N= 103 ei 3"70

57 36

ei90/0 8%

7

Wo/tJan's Wccldv N= 10J J

9ei J

What is meant by the apparently ambiguous 'Any Age'? In editorial ideology terms, 'Any Age' refers to an idealised but still youthful state. The model who communicates an age of late twenties or early thirties

These photographs of the largest British women's weeklies may be contrasted briefly with the cover images of women's periodicals crossculturally. Here a ready-made vehicle of cultural diffusion is provided by the American monthly, Cosmopolitan. Seven foreign editions are produced (one, Latin American, has seven regional editions): although no sociological evidence is available as to the consistency or variety of their cover images, the producers' intend they should repeat, with some slight national variations, the brand image of the American 'Cosmo

230

231

N = IOJ It'"owLlJ! 's lL'Cfd\'

0%

IOJ *januarv-fune issues on]v ,,'Bahv ph~)tograph -

:--; =

Marjorie Ferguson

The Woman '.I Magazine Cover Photograph

girl ' . ] I Thus the female type which is presented-whether in New York, Rio de Janeiro, London or Rome, is one largely consistent with the mother edition's cover style of long-haired, bosomy femininity, heavy with old-fashioned glamour, lit by the sweet smile of success. Of sociological interest is how little this trademark has altered. Neither the face/figure stylisation, nor the suggested social approach have changed significantly since the 'Cosmo girl' was introduced in the mid-sixties, symbol of an editorial policy based on the philosophy of 'getting and keeping your man'.32 This cover image consistency is reinforced by the fact that the same photographer has taken the cover photographs of American Cosmopolitan for eleven years. To what extent then does the repetition of a successful cover image offer a female audience comfortably familiar idealisations with which they may fantasise or identify? Or to what extent does that self-same familiarity function simply as a publication's trade mark within the periodical market? Such speculations invite further empirical investigation, given the contradictory nature of the evidence. Thus, familiarity of cover image would appear to be more significant for some women's magazine buyers than others, if the consistency of Woman's Weekly and Cosmopolitan covers is causally connected to their purchase. Alternatively, we may speculate as to how any such connection might function in the other direction. Negative as well as positive 'sell' in terms of magazine identity and audience identification may attach to a cover which symbolises content contrary to culturally agreed values and their visual idealisations. 3J

Turning from the content analysis of women's magazine cover photographs, what sociological interpretations are suggested by their patterns of consistency and change? While the customary methodological reservations must be invoked in ascribing any meaning to their shifts and constancies, Goffman 's 34 insights are useful in establishing the 'what' of what they communicate by way of 'gender advertisements' or self impression management. Making a particular female gender impression is precisely what the producers intend with the professional model or celebrity 'cover girl'. To encourage a purchase she conveys information about desirable female states. The means or symbols by which she communicates these-youth, beauty, sexuality, social power, success, possession of a male-are simultaneously selected and reinforced by the editors in their

dual capacity as myth-makers and cultural reflectors. They intend the cover girl should mediate such messages, suggesting through face and body signals, clothes (or lack of them), make-up and hair fashions, her self-image, including age and social class membership. Through her body posture and how much of it she shows, further cues are provided about social and sexual availability-cues made more explicit where those figures suggest degrees of intimacy and relatedness. If these are the messages communicated about the female state) what do such photographs imply about the female role in society? This question may be considered in relation to the wider purposes served by women's magazines, and their presentation ofthose aspects ofthe female social world editors select to reflect, and filter, through their professional and personal ideologies. When such considerations are applied to these weeklies, the image of femininity increasingly presented is quite literally that of the whole woman, rather than simply her face. Further, this woman (on Woman and Woman's Own) visibly expresses herself in a more active, less passive role than did the smiling pleaser of an earlier age. Although that female image still persists (especially on Woman '.I Weekly) the cover girl social repertoire has been expanded to include more 'doing' and less 'being'. She rides a bicycle, picks up a milk bottle, squats on the sand with a boyfriend. Quite suddenly, she is 'more than just a pretty face'. She is, as she always has been, both medium and message of woman's social place. If, as psychologists suggest, such body signalling can imply interpersonal relationship, to what extent may this shift in cover emphasis, displaying more of the female figure, mirror shifts within society? Evidence for social change in relation to female role performance and the nature of any such change, is only partial. To the extent that more married women work, and there is increased privatisation within personal relationships and family structures, then arguably these photographs demonstrate differing degrees of editor responsiveness to perceptions of social change affecting females. This accords with American evidence which suggests women's magazines respond at a faster rate to any such changes than does television. 35 Such complex multi-mirroring processes lead back to the role of women's magazines in society, to the suggestion that these later cover photographs introduce a dimension which reflects, however partially, a wider female participation in society. The visual symbols of this wider participation are confined to interpersonal, rather than work roles, however. They do not suggest that an estimated 50 per cent of married

232

233

Some Sociological Implications

i\LlIjorie Fergusoll

women work, despite the classifIcation of the majority of their combined female readers as housewives. 36 This compares with newspaper coverage of women's roles which also fail to reflect female economic change, both here and in America. JJ Apart from implying a more 'active' female role in society, these cover poses confirm the continuing emphasis of our culture-and these magazines-place on the primacy of love as a female goal. Pictorially there is some evidence of a less romantic, more explicitly sexual approach than was formerly permitted in 'boy-girl' shots. Moreover, an emergent fifth category of cover idealisation, that of 'couples', is suggested by their increasing appearance. The majority of such archetypal partners are celebrities whose stories are told 'inside'. Pop stars, royals, aristocrats, actors, an occasional sportsman-typically they are shown in close body contact to hip or full length. Casually cuddly, casually rich and casually successful, these less posed, more immediate, 'newsy' images give equal prominance to both figures, the male and the female. What social and cultural transformations are suggested then by the increased incidence and prominence of male images on these covers? Whereas before men occasionally served as broad-shouldered backgrounds, now they are pictured in the foreground of the female world. Does this more obtrusive male presence-predominantly In couple situations, but sometimes alone-reflect more than a shift in editorial focus as to how the male is presented as desirable object? Hitherto the treatment of men as objects of female aspirations within these journals has been confined to inside the covers, evident in written and visual content, especially in fiction illustrations. By putting glamorous men on the cover such goal-setting is made more explicit. It also confers additional status on such males, giving them the 'star treatment' reminiscent of film and pop star magazines, past and present. Thus, 'getting and keeping your man' is a philosophy which all these magazines have promoted and still promote (Cosmopoiitan simply made it explicit) but now this is out into the open-on the cover. Perhaps these cover men may also renect an aspect of social change relating to a different level of female aspiration-one with which both audience and editors identify. This combines the goal of desirable male ownership, with that of shared role partnership. Ifso, the couples shown side by side in cover photographs may symbolise the cultural myth of greater sexual equality-a distant echo of the values once enshrined in the equal pay and sex discrimination legislation. Whatever they may 234

The Woman's Magazine Cover Photograph

reflect or infer, there are fantasy elements in any process of identification with photographic idealisations of roles and relationships -as much as with the 'cover girls' more typically displayed as icons on these journals. In Summary

This article has explored aspects of traditional women's magazine cover photographs. It has proposed that their significance involves an exchange of meanings shared between producers and audience. Further, that such meanings are selected and presented according to professional and ideological criteria, mediated through the non-verbal signals and role models of the cover photograph. In sum, then, these images (in conjunction with the title and cover lines as part of a total cover Gestalt): I 2 3 4

5 6 7

proclaim that the magazine is for women; defIne a particular journal's identity; create product continuity to help reinforce the buying/reading habit; contain certain promises of content: promise gratifications- 'what you want to hear'; promise value for money-'Iook at what a lot you get'; communicate the social categories of group membership: sex, race, age and class; present a message from the editor to the audience: 'from us to you with love'; present a message from the editor to her peers, expressive of her own identity: 'it's my idea of what is visually pleasing, new and exciting (or safe and reassuring), and will outsell the lot of you'.

All these functions of the cover relate to one another. They join the economic rationales of publishing for profit with the technical and creative competences of the editor-her self and audience perceptions. These in turn link with the wider female world, through their presentation of changing or traditional definitions of womanly performance. The cover photograph is but one mechanism by which women's magazine messages serve to transmit and reinforce the readily recognised symbols and signals of our culture. Nonetheless, whichever aspects of 'femaleness' such images present-with whatever producer intentions, and audience perceptions brought to them-the cover photograph still serves to differentiate a woman's magazine from all 235

The

Marjorie Ferguson

other periodicals. For reasons of editorial ideology, for reasons of advertisement revenue, the world of women is still a world apart. London School of Economics and Political Science I T. W. Adorno: 'Television and Patterns of Mass Culture' in D. Rosenberg, and D. M. White (eds): Mass Cullllre alid lhe Popul,,, Arls in America, The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1957.

) For a discussion of denotative and connotative meanings see R. Barthes: 'The Photographic Message' in Stephen Hatch: Image-Mllsic-Texl, Fontana, 1977, pp. 15-31; or S. Hall: 'The Determinations of News Photographs', CullUral Paper No.3, Birmingham Centre for Cultural Studies, Autumn, 1972, pp. 53-80. J See T. Milium: Images of Women-AdverlisinK in Women's lVfagazines, Chatto & Windus, London, 1975; and V. Langholz l.eymore: Hiddell Mylh, Heinemann Books, London, 1975.

4

Barthes, op. cit., p. 22.

See S. Milgram: 'The Image Freezing Machine', New Sociely, June 3, 1976, pp. 519-522. 5

6

D. J. Boorstin: The Image, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1961, p. 185.

, 'Special OfTers' refers to mail-order merchandise-ranging from clothes and household goods to foreign holidays-which these magazines sell directly to readers. , The women's magazine editors referred to here were a sample of 34, interviewed as part of a wider study of their editorial processes. See M. Ferguson (forthcoming) Heinemann, 1981, where this aspect of editorial selection is discussed in greater detail. " c.r. Hall, op. cit. IU

Personal interview. women's weekly editor.

II

Ditto.

12

Ditto.

I. See S. Freud: Group Psycholog)· alld lhe Analysis of lhe Ego, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, London, 1959, Ch. I, pp. 37-42. J. Kagan: The Concept of Identification', Psychological Review, Vol. 65, No.5, 1958, pp. 296- 305 14

" A. Bandura, D. Ross, and S. Ross: 'A Comparative Test of the Status Envy, Social Power and Secondary Reinforcement Theories of Identificatory Learning', .Journal of Abllormal and Social Psychology, 1963, Vol. 67, No.6, pp. 527-534. 16

See e.g. A. Oakley: The Soeiology of [{ollsework, Martin Robertson, London, 1974.

17 F. Steiner: Taboo, Cohen and West, London, 1976, pp. 45-6, and reprinted in M. Douglas (ed): Rules and Afeanillgs, Penguin Modern Sociology Readings, Pengum, London, 1973,p. 125. I< See K. WolD' (ed): Georg Simmd, 1858-1918, Ohio State University Press, 1959, 'The Aesthetic Significance of the Face', pp. 276-281.

'" See M. Argyle: Bodil\' Communicali(ll', Methuen, London, 1975; R. L. Birdwhistell: Kinesics and COlli ext, Alan Lane, 1971; M. Cook: Ill1erpersonal Perceplion, Penguin, 1971; A. Mehrabian: Nom·erbal Commllnicalioll, Aldine and Atherton, Chicago, 1972.

236

~f'oman 's

lHagazine Cover Photograph

iO

Cited in Cook, op. cit., p. 65.

21

Cook, op. cit.

" Cook, op. cit., explains that these cues are used 'as a means of telling others how he sees himself and how he wants others to see him. This in turn gives information about the subject's age, class, occupation, group membership and more especially about his attitude and beliefs', p. 70. " A Note is in order concerning the nature of the study and the structure of the two samples. The cover photographs discussed here were the only visual aspects analysed as part of a wider content analysis which concentrated on verbal meanings. The sample consisted of 28 issues of each of the three weeklies, randomly sampled within seven purposively selected years: 1949, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1974. 84 issues in all were analysed for a total of 196 variables. Working from bound volumes, all four covers of t¥'oman's Own for 1952 were found to be missing, so its cover sample was reduced from 28 to 24. A second, purposive, sub-sample of cover photographs was analysed for the period, 1975-78 of all issues of Woman, WOII/an's Ow II, and Womall's U"eekly dated between January I and June 30 in these years. Because of dating difTerences, there were 26 issues for each title in 1975-77,25 in 1978. 24 Source: Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Surveys (JICNARS), January-December 1978. The aggregated weekly readership figure compares with the five top selling women's monthly magazines-Ellni/y Circle (773,380). Woman and Home (644.997), Livillg (552,286), Cosmopoliwn (440,047) and 1Iome 'Illd freezer Dlgesl (324,697)-as follows: these five have a combined female readership of 11,393,000 per II/onlh. (It should be noted that some readers read more than one title, and therefore may be counted twice in any such aggregate).

25 As, for example, the Dulchen process and Goss presses used during this period by Odhams, Watford Ltd, printers of Woman magazine. For an examination of the American media in relation to 'Cultural imperialism' see H. Schiller: Mass Commllnicillion und American Empire, Augustus M. Kelly, New York, 1969. 26 Both 'Chocolate Box' and 'Invitational' were specifically labelled by the late George Watts, Art Editor of Woman, 1937-1966. The former referred to the sugar-sweet images of femininity once used to decorate chocolate boxes; the latter to a captured quality of 'je ne sa is quoi' attributed to certain exemplars of female charm. 21 G. Tuchman (cd.): The TV Eswblishmenl: Programming flJr Power and Profil, Prentice Hall, New York, 1974, pp. 5-39.

" Source: J ICNARS, January-December, 1978. " The 'Teen' face was short-lived on the covers of Woman and Woman's Own. Largely confined to the 'fifties it ref1ected editorial and advertising awareness of increased teenage spending power. This culminated in the creation and exploitation of a separate 'young women's' magazine market marked by the launching of HOlley in 1960. JU This emphasis reOects an editorial bid to attract the mid-twenties to mid-thirties audience who are wooed as potential buyers of the consumer and household goods promoted by major advertisers in these media.

Jl Foreign editions, with their launch dates: England (1972), Italy (1973), Latin America (1973), Australia (1973), Brazil (1973), France (1973), Japan (1977). The extent to which these use the identical cover photograph of the American edition, as opposed to the same lype of model and pose, varies. With the exception of Latin America, most do their own versions of the 'Cosmo Girl'. Personal communication, International Director, Cosmopolilan, 1978.

J: The commercial success of this policy initiated in 1965 by editor Helen Gurley Brown, may be shown in circulation terms: 782,70 I (1965), 2,800,000 (August 1978). Personal communication, International Director, Cosmopoliwll, 1978.

237

Marjorie Ferguson JJ For example, was it cover or content policy which contributed to the demise of Nova? Launched by Newnes (IPC) in 1965 for 'The New Woman', Nova never attracted the audience group it claimed to aim at, or the numbers to make it commercially viable. After several editorial re-thinks and a re-Iaunch it folded in 1975.

E. Goflman: The Presemal/lm of Self i/l Everyday Life, Doubleday, New York, 1959; and Gellder Adverlisemems, The Macmillan Press Ltd., London, 1979. H

Jj

See Tuchman's introduction to Tuchman, Kaplan and Benet, op. cit., 1978.

Jb

Sources: Social Trends, 1977 and JICNARS, January-December, 1978.

'7 J. King and M. Stott (ed.): Is This YOllr Llje), Virago, London, 1977, and S. Miller: 'The Content of News Photos: Women's and Men's Roles', JOllrnalism Quarlerly, Vol. 52, No. I, Spring, 1975.

IMAGES AND EQUALITY: WOMEN AND THE NATIONAL PRESS

Roger Smith Introduction

The fundamental inequality of females in British society has been irrefutably demonstrated during the last decade by research on many different areas of discrimination. I General acceptance of such facts can be seen to have become institutionalised by the passage of recent legislation on equal pay and opportunities. Attention has now been concentrated on the examination of the fundamental causes of such inequality, and of the mechanisms by which it is perpetuated and sustained. An important strand of this research concerned with the maintenance of inferior status has dealt with the role played by various institutions which act as vehicles for the transmission of ideology. Thus, marriage,2 the family, J and the education system,4 have in their turn received systematic attention from researchers. Given the importance which is ascribed to the media in terms of their ideological function, and the accessibility of the 'images' which are portrayed, it is unsurprising that media institutions have also come under close scrutiny. j There emerges general consensus among investigators that a very narrow range of ideologically distorted stereotypical images of females is employed by the various media, serving to reinforce an ideology of dependence and second-hand status, and stressing the priority of women's domestic and familial roles. Such treatment is widely held to act as a brake on the development of sex equality, and much effort has been expended by feminist groups and other concerned parties to bring about changes in the images which are presented. Leaving aside the complex debate about the potency of the media in affecting attitudes (a full discussion of which is beyond the scope of the present paper), what I wish to argue is that for a number of reasons, attempts to change the treatment of women in the national press are likely to have little fundamental effect in present circumstances. The major reasons for this, I propose, are two-fold. Firstly, insofar as internal influences are concerned, I shall suggest that the national press 238

239

Roger Smith

Images and Equality: l,Vomen and tlie National Press

is very much a male establishment, in terms ofboth personnel and ethos. The relative absence of female practitioners from certain fields of specialism, and especially from policy-making positions within newspaper organisations, means that there is little basis for challenging the stereotypes of females much beloved by those responsible for producing the papers. Secondly, the massive reliance of the national press on advertising revenue leads to an important external influence. It will be argued that this financial dependence on industry and commerce, within a society which has assigned definite economic roles to women, means that the papers will be constrained to employ those images of women appropriate to the continuation of the present economic system.

\X'omen's editor Fashi"n editor Beauty editot Home interests editor Cookery editor Travel editor Ans katures editor Assistant editor Associate editor News editor

Women Journalists in Fleet Street Ann Leslie, then a prominent Fleet Street columnist, said some years ago that in the eyes of the public 'Fleet Street might seem to be a citadel that has succumbed to marauding hordes of womanhood on the militant march to an emancipated dawn'.6 As she then goes on to demonstrate, this certainly was not the case then, and evidence which I have collected would appear to indicate that little has changed since with regard to the employment patterns of women journalists in the national press. Examination of the available evidence shows that for the occupation of journalism as a whole, a considerable degree of 'feminisation' has taken place. Female reporter recruits to local newspapers have risen from 23% in 197011, to 36% in 1975/6. 7 Similarly, analysis of statistics published in the National Union ofJournalists Annual General Reports reveals that since 1972, when sex-split figures first became available, the proportion of qualified women journalists has risen from 15% to 21 % at the end of 1977. Over the same period, the proportion employed on Fleet Street increased from 9.6% to 12.6%, but this increase took place only in the final two years of this time span, and is largely accounted for by the withdrawal of a large number of men from Fleet Street, and not by any substantial increase in the number of women employed. Of far greater importance than the simple proportion of females working for the national press is their occupational distribution within newspaper organisations. Comparison of the 1971 and 1974 8 issues of the Directory of British Journalism shows that the number of women employed in editorial positions actually declined over that period from 32 to 23. And, as the breakdown below indicates, the overwhelming majority of them were employed in what may be termed 'women's fields'.

Most of the female editors, as is clearly shown, are employed in what Tunstall ro refers to as 'advertising goal' fields-that is, where the predominant goal of the section is to attract <.ldvertising revenue, upon which the national press now relies so heavily. Such fields are quite obviously in a subordinate position within the newspaper organisation, operating largely in order to finance what are seen as the 'real' functions of the papers (i.e. providing news, information and comment). The editors of such sections are thus working within a policy framework determined by far wider considerations, and are not themselves involved directly in the power hierarchy, Women with real decisionmaking power are extremely few in number, and confined to a small minority of the quality press. This concentration of female journalists in women's fields is not a phenomenon which is restricted to the higher echelons of newspaper organisations. In 1974, in the early stages of my research, I sent questionnaires to each of the Fleet Street papers, requesting information on the occupational distribution of women, Analysis of the returned questionnaires II reveals that women constituted only 3.6% of those in executive position, and again they were heavily concentrated in a small number of quality papers; many of the largest papers (in terms of both staff and circulation) in Fleet Street have no women in senior positions at all. What is also clear is that many of the women who are given the title 'editor' within some specialism do not rank as 'executive' members of staff-which would seem to indicate a recognition of the fact that their decision-making power is extremely limited. Most of the women employed on Fleet Street, as one might n:l'l'll from studies made of other occupations, are located at the 1(1\1'(',1 1<\. I Almost four out of every five women are concen tr~lll'li :11 I h, ,. ,I • , "

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the organisational hierarchy, as news reporters, features writers, and women's page writers. As regards the first of these categories, they constitute 10% of general news reporters, but this vital occupational training ground does not tend to prove as beneficial to women as it does to their male colleagues. Gerbner's comment that on many American papers women are assigned to what the newsdesk refers to as the 'junk', ,2 is paralleled by the suggestion of an English researcher that 'being female ... may seem (to the newsdesk) relevant to some categories of story'. I J The encouraged specialisation in certain types of newS story where 'female' characteristics are seen to be especially useful (e.g. 'mothers and babies' stories; getting the 'human angle' on major new stories by interviewing the wives of potentates, criminals, etc.) detracts from the development of skills in the reporting of more central political and economic issues. This is reflected in the fact that relatively few women rise to be news specialists, especially in the fields of industrial and political reporting, and foreign news, as a recent N. V.J. publication has pointed out. 14 This lack of wide journalistic experience can also be held to account for the incredibly small proportion of women in news sub-editing, experience of which is an almost mandatory qualification for promotion to senior editorial position. Only 2% of news sub-editors on Fleet Street are women (translated into numbers, this figure is all the more stunning, since there are only 5 out of 239 on the papers for which I have returns), very heavily concentrated on certain papers. Clearly there are factors operating at lower levels in British journalism which affect the number of women in the pool of potential Fleet Street sub-editors. Recent research by the N.V.}. has revealed that few women are given training in subbing on local papers (the traditional recruiting ground for the national press), but this figure is still far higher than that in the national press. 15 Moreover a far higher proportion of women are employed on Fleet Street as features subs (a role with much less prestige), which would seem to indicate that shortage of talent is not the only factor operating to maintain almost total male monopoly of news subbing. What seems clear is that there is an unwillingness to employ female subs even when they are available, and I have documented several instances of this in some detail in a previous article. 16 In all occupational ranks of journalism at Fleet Street level, then, processes of ghettoisation and exclusion can be seen to operate, in much the same way as has been identified in other occupations. 17 What makes the lack of female penetration into areas of prestige and reward within

journalism the more surprising, however, is that women journalists have since the Sixties been prominent in popularising the ideas of women's liberation, and in organising the lobbying of, and submission of evidence to, Parliament with regard to equal opportunities legislation. Moreover, this generalised consciousness of female inequality has also been translated into direct intervention within their own occupation, with the founding of the 'Women in Media' group in 1971, and the setting up of the N.V.}. Committee on Equality in 1972. Both these groups recognised the considerable inequalities of opportunity existing in journalism, and had the avowed intention of radically improving this situation. Their success has been rather limited. A number of factors need to be discussed in order to provide a comprehensive explanation of why these organisations of women journalists have not achieved any fundamental improvement in the position of the vast majority of the women they represent. In another paper, I have argued that the typical patterns of recruitment into, and in, Fleet Street, and the largely informal occupational socialisation typical of journalism, tend to act against women in a number of ways by excluding them from informal information grapevines and a number of 'key learning situations' which are vital to the development of a wide range of journalistic skills and the acquisition of 'relevant occupational knowledge'. 18 A number of quite fundamental changes in the nature of training for journalists need to be made before significant changes in the position of women in the national press can be expected. An extremely important factor which goes a long way towards explaining female exclusion from certain areas is the strong masculine culture evident on Fleet Street. This is reflected partly by sports teams on certain papers, but most strongly in the pub and club socialising which, although I am assured it is not quite so strong as it was in the past, still exists and does much to reinforce formal working relationships. It is here that much of the knowledge of internal politics, of vacancies, and all the other matters which go to make up the gossip of Fleet Street are passed on. Far more of the male journalists I interviewed during my research field-work were involved in this informal culture than women, who tended to see it as very much a male activity. An episode which was reported to me by a woman respondent 111,1\' throw some light on the nature of the pub culture. She had l1<"lll working on a particular assignment with a male photogral'lll'l. ;111,1 'I

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came to her notice that he had been spreading the story around that she had got the assignment by sleeping with the editor of the paper concerned. She was understandably extremely angry about this, because she and the editor were not even on speaking terms, and the photographer was fully aware of this. She challenged him about his account, and his response was 'Well ... you know how it is ... you tend to get carried away when you're in the pub with the blokes'. The open male chauvinism of the drinkIng culture is revealed by the fact that it is only in the past few years that the Press Club has allowed women in, and EI Vino's the Fleet Street wine bar which suil refuses to serve women at the bar (which means, in effect, that they have to be taken in by a man), can be taken as an instructive microcosm of Fleet Street life. Equally as interesting as the intransigence of the management of EI Vino's in the face of many attempts by women to break down this archaic 'tradition', is the treatment that the women concerned get in the press. The first attempt, in 1970, was reported by a Guardian writer in typically sarcastic terms-'Rosa Luxembourg didn't die in vain. Two or three lady revolutionaries climbed over the counter of the otT-licence. Drinks were refused, fingers were twisted, hair pulled from male arms ... Gerda Paull, a Daily Telegraph amazon, was thrown out on her back. A handbag strap was broken'. 19 There is in the entire piece no serious discussion of the issue involved, no interview with any of the women concerned so that their case might be explained. One might reasonably have expected that by 1976, with the passage of legislation allegedly intended to remove discrimination against women, and the attainment of a supposedly more tolerant atmosphere, that things would have changed. But the EI Vino's saga continues, and so does the press treatment of it. Another Guardian journalist writes rather revealingly- 'They've missed the point about EI Vino's. It's not a place where men discriminate against women; it's a place where men hide from women-a bolt-hole from which they glare out at the passing throngs of skirts and, in safety, howl their collective defiance. That's why women are allowed to infiltrate only in small numbers and then on condition that they promise to sit and not stand, a seated enemy being the next best thing to a prostrate enemy'. 20 The prohibitions on women still exist. A court action brought against the establishment under the Sex Discrimination Act by two women supported by the National Council for Civil Liberties was lost. Since the vast majority of journalists in Fleet Street are members of

the N. U.J., the activIties of the union regarding female equality deserves to be treated in some depth. Bundock, in his official history of the union states that 'A matter to be noted with some pride is that from the very beginning women who were qualified ... were admitted as members equally with men ... never did the union recognise any sex distinction, and when it won recognition from proprietors, its agreements were made not on behalf of men or women, but on behalf of journalists'.' 1 The same author notes that the principle of equal pay was extracted from the employers as early as 1918-'the N .U.J. was one of the tirst unions to secure acceptance of this principle'. n And there, at the union level, matters rested until quite recently, the achievement of equal pay for equal work being regarded as the battle for female equality won. Women in Media and a substantial number of members of the N.D.J. manifestly did not think that this was the case when in 1972 they persuaded the union annual conference to set up a Committee on Equality to enquire into the position of women in journalism, on the grounds that it was believed that the principle of equal pay did not exist in practice, and that equality of opportunity was being denied. 23 It did not take the Committee long to discover that this view was shared by a large number of women journalists. 2 4 But subsequent statements from the Committee have been extremely depressing, and taken together imply a general lack of concern by both union leadership and the mass of membership about the principle of equality. 'One marked failure we have to report is in respect of our own union. We have been unable to persuade the (National Executive Council) that the pension scheme for our own statT should offer equal conditions to men and women'; 25 'The shortage of women in the top ranks of journalism continues to disturb us. So does the widespread indifference at every level of the union to the urgent need tor maternity provision'; 26 'We have to say that the (Equality Working Party) and the women's rights movement get little positive support from the N.E.C.>27 In 1977, five years after the setting up of the Equality Working Party, it was still found necessary to entitle a press release concerning research into newspaper journalism undertaken by its members 'N.D.]. Survey Reveals Widespread Discrimination', 2S and the code of practice regarding the treatment of women in newspaper stories 29 which was originally drawn up in 1974 has still not been adopted as official union policy. Perhaps none of this is surprising when one notes that a delegatl' at an annual conference during a serious debate on the posit ion 01

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women in the union should come out with such a deliberately ambiguous utterance as 'we should welcome with open arms the fair sex and give them a leg up', a remark which, as it was intended to, had most 3u of the male delegates rolling in the aisles. It should of course be pointed out that such union indifference (and sometimes downright hostility) on the question of women's rights on equal pay and opportunity is by no means confined to the N.V.]., and that there is a general problem in need of a general explanation. In large part the answer to such a question is essentially historical. Many unions have for a long time supported policies which operated either to exclude women from certain occupations altogether, or else to keep them confined to separate occupational areas, so that separate pay rates could be negotiated. These union techniques have been based on the fear that entry of women into jobs dominated by men might lead to a depression of wage rates and a general deterioration of conditions of work, 31 a tendency which has been noted in occupations where there has been a feminisation of the labour force. 32 Thus it is perhaps not surprising that it was eighty-five years after the principle of equal pay was adopted by the T. V. C. before anything substantial was done about it. However, though we are working against the background of a culture in which a wide variety of sexist elements are easily discernible, and in which many social institutions operate to deny women equality, some attempt must be made to pin down certain specIfic circumstances which affect the occupation of journalism, and the policies of the dominant union representing journalists' interests. The first point to be noted is that the newspaper industry has for the past twenty years been going through a considerable recession. A variety of factors have been blamed for this. Some have pointed to the advent of commercial television, and more recently, radio, and claimed that a good deal of the advertising revenue which would hitherto have gone to the press has been diverted elsewhere. Critics of this view have laid the blame fairly and squarely on Fleet Street managements and their failure to respond to a new set of commercial circumstances (Cleverly, J3 points out that advertising rates have hardly been raised at all in that period, and that as a result national newspapers often actually lose money from including adverts). Others have concentrated on overmanning in the printing and allied trades, and the unwillingness of the printing trade unions to accept new printing technology which would do much to reduce costs. H Whatever the root cause, the point remains that in a period marked by closure and takeover, a general

insecurity has pervaded the newspaper industry, and Fleet Street has borne the brunt of financial collapse. Given such circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that the issue of equality should not be given priority by the union responsible for representing journalists' interests,35 especially when managements can argue that the measures necessary to improve women's occupational chances (provision of creches; equalisation of pension rights; maternity leave, etc.) are a financial burden they can ill afford. Though it is clear that the official leadership of the N. V.]. has not done all it could to pursue policies which would bring about an improvement in women's position in journalism, it would be unfair to hold this body alone responsible for the continuing problems which such women face. There are important factors with which the union has to contend which derive from the nature of journalism as an occupation, and connected with the history of Fleet Street in general which would limit the success of any union initiative. Two specific sets of circumstances would seem to deserve special mention. Reference has already been made to the generalised insecurity which pervades the national press because of financial crises. In addition to this problem, however, there is an insecurity produced by the lack of clear career structure in journalism. Vnlike other occupations at a similar level of remuneration and prestige, journalism has a very fragmented and discontinuous career ladder. As Tunstall notes, 'The weakness of the occupation of journalism in relation to the news organisations follows from the non-routine work and the indeterminate, segmented character of journalism'. 36 The lack of bureaucratic structures and established promotion criteria can serve to increase individuals' concerns about career progress, and indeed the same researcher found that 'This relative lack of career pattern accompanies a good deal of insecurity and anxiety'. 37 Given such circumstances, one can see that any official union policy which is directed towards the equalisation of opportunity for women would be highly likely to meet with resistance at a local level. Confining women to certain 'dirty work' 38 or low prestige areas within the newspaper organisation being an important way for men in a highly competitive situation to decrease the pool of potential rivals. Additionally, journalists within newspaper organisations on Fleet Street work in relatively close proximity with other groups of workers who have by solid and persistent union action managed to SLTlIll' I", themselves extremely high rates of pay. The 20,000 print :lIldill" ,I

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workers who work for the national press are amongst the mostly highly paid of all manual industrial employees, many earning much more than quite senior journalists. What is for present purposes significant about this state of affairs is that not a single woman has been permitted to work in these fields, which may well be taken by some male journalists to demonstrate the danger of female dilution in their own occupation. What I have been attempting to demonstrate in the preceeding sections is that despite the undeniable changes which have taken place in the past few years, Fleet Street remains very much a male establishment. Women arc still largely confined to certain occupational areas, and are notable only by their absence in important decisionmaking positions. Managements have been recalcitrant in instigating policies which would enable women to compete on a more equal footing with male journalists. The dominant union representing journalists' interests has the issue of equality well down its list of priorities, and there are many manifestations of the fact that it does not regard the problem of inequality as a very real one. The historical maleness of the occupational culture of Fleet Street acts as the backdrop to these issues, and serves as an efTective underpinning mechanism to the system of inequality which prevails.

It has become clear over recent years that, as a result of the declining sales revenue, the newspaper industry has become increasingly dependent on the attraction of advertising. The stage has now been reached where, as Cleverly points out, half the industry's income comes from the advertisers whose messages it carries.)9 The increasing importance of this business connection has produced considerable reverberations within the newspaper organisations- 'The seriousness with which advertising is taken is perhaps best shown by the respect with which those responsible for getting it are treated. Virtually universally, the job of advertising director carries with it a seat on the main board ... moreover, the advertising department is the commonest road to further promotion .. the majority of chief executives are ex-advertising men'. 41! Commercial values originating in the outside business world have also intruded deeply into attitudes towards readership. Whereas in the past newspaper managements have been more concerned with circulation struggles, what is now seen as of overriding importance is the quality of readership which a newspaper can attract and retain, the social class of readership being more

important than circulation per se in determining what advertising rates can be charged. It is a sad reflection on the state of the national press that popular newspapers can die merely because they have a predominantly working class readership. As the Acton Press Group point out in their recent report to the Royal Commission on the Press. 'The Daily Herald and News Chronicle had circulations which were each more than double the circulation of The Times, Guardian, and Financial Times combined. They died not because they lacked a following but because they appealed to a readership which did not constitute a valuable advertising market'. 4 I The reliance of the national newspaper industry on other business and industrial concerns is made even more direct by recent changes in the pattern of ownership. Within the past few years The Observer, the International Publishing Corporation, publishers of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and People, and the Beaverbrook Press, publishers of the Daily Express, Sunday Express, and Evening Standard, have all been taken over by large industrial conglomerates. Moreover, the vast majority of companies responsible for publishing the rest of the Fleet Street papers have other extensive business interests. Such close economic links between the Fourth Estate and business/industrial interest groups, either indirect as a result of advertising reliance, or direct as a result of ownership, are seen by many to act against the interests of the reader/consumer. With regard to interference in editorial matter by business owners, there is no easy way in which a connection can be established (however, the rather unguarded comment made by Victor Matthews of Trafalgar Holdings upon taking over the Beaverbrook empire that he would not interfere with the contents of the papers so long as they fell within a general policy laid down by him, may be indicative. 42 So far as advertising is concerned, however, it is instructive to hear what Charles Wintour, an incumbent Fleet Street editor, has to say- 'No national newspaper would have the slightest hope of economic survival if all advertising revenue were withdrawn from it. To a considerable degree, newspaper managements and advertisers arc therefore in partnership ... indeed, it would be ridiculous to pretend that if a newspaper draws up to BOOjo of its revenue from advertising, thl' source of all this money has no infl uence on editorial policies'. 4' \X'il i I,I this unexpected candidness does not extend to the inclusion oj' 'J We III, examples, I hope to demonstrate that it may be especiallv ,hi' e ,1\1 \\ III, regard to the treatment of women in the newspaper~,

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Images and Equality: Women alld the National Press

It has been said that 'The intrusion of advertising has increasingly involved the mass media in conniving to draw a specious picture of society'. 44 A clear example of such 'speciousness' is the use of stereotypes of women-as sex-symbols, happy mothers, good housewives, etc., which has been well-researched and documented. 45 All these authors conclude that the advertising industry, along with other cultural institutions, has operated with a narrow range of distorted 'ideal' images of women, 46 for consumption by both male and female. The use of female sexuality in advertising campaigns is clearly directed mostly at men, but whilst this use remains unchanged, it can be anticipated that the other uses of women, directed usually at women, are unlikely to change.

Women's pages and fashion It is instructive to note that those sections of the newspapers which are directed explicitly at women-the woman's page and fashion-are those which bear a large part of the burden in attracting the advertising upon which all national papers are so dependent. Tunstall, in his examination of the specialist fields of journalism, has said that these sections, along with travel and motoring, constitute 'advertising goal' fields-that is, they attract little sales revenue, and thus are included in the papers with the primary intention of attracting advertising. 48 From a financial point of view, then, such areas are crucial to the continued economic viability of the national press, and they tend to be constructed in such a way as to attract advertising-'On the practical level, advertising departments stress that pages directed at women pull in important consumer advertising. A general interest page under a 'women's' label can be sold to advertisers; a page under a general label like 'Look' which has a strong women-orientated content, can also be sold. But a feature page which neither looks nor reads like a specifically women's page is no more likely to attract consumer advertising than a leader page'. 49 For those who would insist that policies regarding women's pages have fundamentally changed since the beginning of the seventies, so that with the raised consciousness of women important issues now get much more coverage, it is instructive to hear the comments of two practising editors. Mary Stott, one of Britain's most senior women journalists who has worked at editorial level on a number of Fleet Street papers, has said that both 'Look' in the Sunday Times and 'Hers' in The Obser'ver have progressively changed into advertising bait, and reveals that the marketing department of The Times recently circulated an internal memorandum that 'The policy of the women's features should be to develop a market place for advertisers'; it regretted that 'at present women's features attempt to cover all women's interests', and suggested that 'editorial content should be concentrated on more commercial subjects and that women should be catered for in the pages as housewives and consumers', 50 More recently, Suzanne Lowry, present women's editor of the Guardian, has explained that thl' new style 'serious' women's page in that paper, in which a large lllllll"ll of issues important to women have been discussed, pn)\'(>!«'d considerable reaction amongst senior male staff- 'male nlill II· 11.1, I wearied of anything that smacked of guts and oVaril'\ "lid I" women's talk, and longed for something cosier, SL'xil'l, .11 1,1 .J!." womansy'.5\ As another practising journalist has 1'"1 II I ' "

A crucially important economic fact is that women spend 80% of the money which is laid out on consumer goods in our society.47 Thus for many advertisers women are the prime target, and women's fears, anxieties, ambitions, life-style, skills and interests have been carefully researched and dissected in the drive to discover how to make them buy. Because, to a large extent, women are faced merely with brand competition, and any serious consideration of alternatives would probably prompt them merely to buy the cheapest, it is important for advertisers to create and sustain the image of the 'professional' consumer. This is a role to which is assigned a variety of characteristics implying taste discretion, competence, knowledge and experience, The point to be stressed, however, given the nature of the division oflabour in advanced societies and the belief that specialisation leads to these characteristics, is that the role is portrayed as separate and selfcontained, and as constituting a defined and satisfactory occupation. This image of the professional housewife is one which advertisers must strive to maintain in order to appear that they are appealing to something fundamentally rational when they enjoin her to differentiate between packages containing essentially the same material, or to buy a product the utility of which is ultimately dubitable. Advertising for domestic and consumer goods aimed at women, implying 'domestic expertise' and 'consumer rationality' in the role of the housewife/purchaser greatly reinforces the division of labour between the sexes. Advertising for the wide range of 'feminine' goods (clothes, cosmetics, etc.) emphasising the need for women to concentrate on their sexual attractiveness if they are to be taken seriously by men (and other women), reinforces their dependence on men. 250

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profession for us, but it's a business for them'. 52 The economic reliance of the newspapers on advertising revenue leads to a far closer relationship between the women's sections and the advertising department than would be tolerated on the newsroom floor. Wintour admits that many of the duties performed by staff who work in advertising goal fields are little more than public relations with actual and potential advertisers. 51 It should also be noted that a high degree of control can be exercised by advertisers over the copy and information which is made available to journalists who work in these fields. Often they provide copy in the form of handouts and photographs. More significantly, invitations to receptions, demonstrations, and shows, and facility trips paid for and hosted by commercial concerns whose desire it is to achieve favourable 'editorial' reviews of their products and services, are the only way that journalists working in these fields can continue to function efficiently. This social control exercised by producers and advertisers over personnel working in advertising goal fields is reflected by the fact that Tunstall found this group to have suffered more sanctions than any other group of specialist journalists. 54 The sections of the papers most explicitly directed at women, and which incidentally have the highest concentration of women 'controllers', are thus in a very close financial partnership with advertisers and producers. It is difficult to have much faith in the idea of an 'independent' press in such areas when one closely examines the economic interdependence which exists. It would, of course, be extremely unwise to imply that advertisers have toral control over the contents of the women's sections. The fact that most women's pages have dealt with serious issues of direct relevance to women, and that certain female journalists have become popularisers of many of the ideas of women's liberation would seem to indicate that this is not the case. But all the evidence points to the conclusion that the needs of advertisers have done much to narrow the range of issues discussed, and the types of images of women which are predominantly employed in the women's sections. If!omen in news and features

The coverage of women in the press which most blatantly employs a very narrow range of stereotyped images is that which comprises advertising and the women's pages. What I now wish to go on to argue is that the treatment of women in other sections of the papers is also subject to distortion, and whilst a number offactors are important 2 J~ ~1

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in constructing a full explanation of this phenomenon, advertising and commercial interests play an important part. It is clear from any examination of the national press that women, either as individuals or in organised groups, feature very little in the news pages. Recent research has suggested that most newspapers devote more than 800/0 of their entire coverage to men. 55 Apart from a handful of women politicians, the only category of women regularly considered newsworthy is that comprising celebrities like pop and film stars, and women with high satellite status like Jackie Onassis and Margaret Trudeau. The newsworthyness of such individuals seems determined by the fact that they exist, rather than on the basis of particular activities. 56 Such women feature regularly in 'news' stories, generally accompanied by large photographs. They serve both as sex-symbols and as glamorous role-models exemplifying a consumer society-a part of the press has collaborated with the fashion and entertainment industries 10 create jet-set celebrities, the Beautiful People, who as superconsumers are used to promote all kinds of conspicuous consumption. Their news value is, then, very much underlined by their potential economic usefulness to the press. They are above all /(lShionable women; newspapers give them excessive coverage, thereby performing a service for fashion and other industries; therefore they can expect to keep up the flow of advertising revenue. 51 The treatment of women in 'hard' news has also been seen to involve the use of a series of distorted stereotypes. 5H What consistently emerges from content analysis is concern with totally irrelevant factors like physical appearance, and actual or potential domestic role. The latter is generally seen as highly salient-women being seen against the background of a family (of origin or procreation), or discussed in terms of their relationship with a male. 59 The effect of this is to portray women as perpetual dependents, and rarely as individuals worthy of exclusive attention in their own right. It would be difficult to maintain the thesis that advertising and other commercial pressures are responsible for the use of stereotyping in this latter category. The employment of such stereotypes is clearly discernible in a wide variety of institutions in which there are no obvious direct COlnmercial pressures, and to a large extent can be SCl']] to mirror the ways in which females are seen and treated in SOCll'" ,II large. However, given the raised consciousness of women ]11 ,1"'11<1,11 and women journalists in particular, over the past few \l';]I" ,III. I 1'1' attacks on the use of stereotypes, it is disturbing to d I " , " " II, II ,I 1 2~3

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use is still widespread. The problem here would seem largely to relate to the number of women journalists who are in a position to bring about change in the treatment of women in the news pages. It has already been noted that an increasing proportion of women are being appointed as news reporters on the national papers. However, concern has been expressed that such women do not get experience in the full range of newsgathering activities, and in part are being kept on the news-desk to cover 'women's interest' stories. 60 Moreover, these women can exercise very little control over the final form in which their contributions go into the paper-such responsibility is generally in the hands of news sub-editors, and as has been noted, subbing is one of the fields in journalism which is an almost completely male enclave. Female penetration into news specialisms where more control of copy is usual, is minimal, especially in the more central specialisms like political and industrial reporting. And the decision-making hierarchies of newspaper organisations again remain almost totally male. Thus conscious and concerned women journalists are faced with what amounts to a male establishment in the national press, and whilst they have been able to initiate some change in terms of issues dealt with in the women's sections of some of the better papers, they are not in a position to challenge some of the most basic presuppositions about women beloved by newspapermen.

that they are dealing with 'fact'. Hence there is little reflection about how 'realistic' characters and situations which feature in newsprint are-by definition they are presented as factual. Thus I would argue that the role of newspapers in disseminating ideological modes of subjectivity appropriate to women in advanced capitalism is an extremely important one. Analysis has demonstrated that the range of images of women commonly employed by the press has changed little in the past decade, despite widespread protest from feminists both outside and inside journalism. In part this lack of change is explicable in terms of the failure of women to penetrate the upper ranks of decision-making in the national press, and the unwillingness of the union representing their interests to take the issue of female equality seriously. However, it would be extremely optimistic to assume that if more women did attain positions of responsibility within journalism we could expect a major transformation in newspaper policy towards women. Once in such positions, the women concerned would find themselves constrained by financial policies dominated by considerations relating to advertising. Clearly, it is important that there should be a significant increase in the number of women employed in the various ranks of newspaper journalism, but if major change in the policies of the national press towards women is to be brought about, this would seem far more likely to come from the diverSIfication of decision-making power (a policy suggested by the Acton Press Group, Journalists Charter, and supported by a significant minority of the N. U .J.). For, given the importance of the advertising connection, the impetus towards such change is unlikely to come from newspaper managements.

Conclusion

Social analysts as ideologically diverse as Miliband,61 Lazarsfeld and Merton, and Sampson, have identified the various mass media as vehicles for transmitting ideologies which operate in the interests of dominant groups within advanced industrial societies. A substantial element of that ideological matrix can be seen to consist of a great stress on the importance of the family, and linked with this strong beliefs about the appropriate roles, characteristics, and activities of females. Whether one takes a 'hard' or 'soft' line with regard to the power of the media to shape or affect attitudes, one can see that the models of femininity which are commonly employed at the very least play an important part in reinforcing attitudes which may have their deepest roots elsewhere. Though stereotypes of women are common to cinema, literature, and drama, I would maintain that their use in newspapers is of more crucial importance. The unselfconscious admission by other media that they are dealing predominantly with 'fictional' representations contrasts vividly with the assertion of the newspapers

l

254

Unh1ersity of Essex I A. Hunt: A Survey of Women '5 Employme>1l, HMSO, London, 1968; Central Statistical Oflice; 'Social commentary: men and women, Social Trends, Vol. 5, pp. 8-25; R. Davies: Women and Work, Arrow, London, 1975; C. Benn and B. Simon: 'Curricular Differences for Boys and Girls; Edu,wion Survey, No. 21, HMSO, London, 1975; T. Blackstone: 'The education of girls today', In]. Mitchell and A. Oakley: The Righrs and Wrongs of Women, Penguin, London, 1976;]. Coussins: The Equalitv Reporl, National Council for Civil Liberties, London, 1976; H. Land: 'Women: supporters or supported?' in D. Barker and S. Allen (eds): Sexual Divisions and Sociery: Process and Change, Tavistock, London, 1976. 2 D. Gillespie: 'Who 'has the plJwer? The marital struggle', ]o"mal of Marriage and Ihe FamJly, August 1977, pp. 445-458; D. Barker: 'A Proper Wedding', in Marie Corbyn (ed): The Couple, Penguin, 1978; C. Bell and H. Newby: 'Husbands and Wives: the dynamics of the deferential dialectic', in D. Barker and S. Allen (eds): Depend,'nd ,ill.! Exploilallon in Work and iWarriage, Longman, London, 1976.

255

Images and Equality: Women and the National Press

Roger Smith , J. Mitchell: Wom,,,,'s ES[ule, Penguir" London, 1971; S. Rowbotham: Womun',Consciousn",s, .Hun's World, Penguin, London, 1973; A. Oakley: IIouseldJe, Penguin, London, 1974. P. Marks: 'Femininity in the CIa's Room: An Account of Changing Attitudes', In J. Mitchell and A. Oakley (cds) op. cit: J. Shaw: 'Some Implications of Sex Segregated Education', in Barker and Allen: Dcpendence and Exploi[a[ion, c[c., op. cit; J. Bornat and J. Lown: Teaching Girls ro h, U"omcn, edited papers given at conference at Essex University, 1977; A-M. Wolpe: 'Some Processes in Sexist Education', Women's Research and Rcsources CoUre I'amphler No.1, W.R.R.C., Lnnd"n, 1977. 4

5 L. Ray: 'The AmCflcan \X'oman in Mass Media: How Much Emancipation and What Docs it ,\lean?', in C. Safilios-Rothschild (cd): T()"lI:ards a Soewl,'gv 0/ Women, Xerox College Puhlishing, Lexington, 1972; H. Burcher et a1: 'Images ,)f Womcll in the media', Stencilled Occasional Paper No. 31, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, BIrmingham University, 1974; T. ,\Aillum: Images ,J/ Women, Chatto and Windus, Londoll, 1975; C. Adams anll R. Laurikietis: Aiessages and Imuges, Virago, LonlloJ1, 1976; B. Dixon: Sex, Raceulld Cluss in Ch,ldrell's Fiellon, Pluto Press, London, 1977:J. King and M. Stott: Is [his Y<Jur LIfe?, Virago, London, 1977. 6 A. LeslIe: 'Woman in Fleet Street', in V. Brodsky (ed.): Flee[ S[ret'!, Macdonald, London, 1966.

These figures, collected by the Natlonal Council for the Training of Journalists, were made available to me by the National Union of Journalists. 1

Sathyamurthy: 'Women's Occupations and Social Change: The Case of Social Work'. Paper given at the British Sociological Association Conference, Aberdeen, 1974. " Roger Smith: 'Sex and Occupational Roles in Fleet Street', in Barker and Allen, Dependence und Exploi[a[ion, e[c., op. cil., 1976. 19

Guardian, June 19th, 1970.

11)

ibid., Jan. 7th, 1976.

" c. J. Bundock: The Nalional Vnion oj Journalis[s: A Jubllcc His[ory, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1957, p. 14. " ibid., p. 56. 23 The full wording of the rather lengthy motion which led to the setting up of the Committee can be found in the N.U.]. Committee on Equality, pamphlet 'Equality', available from union headquarters, not dated.

24

N.U.J, Annual General Repor[, 1973, p. 32.

25

ibid., 1975, p. 20.

26

ibid., 1976, pp. 22-3.

11

ibid., 1977, pp. 25-6.

28

N.U.]. 1977, press release, op. cit.

29

ibid., Images oj Women, eu., op, cit.

, 1974 was, unfortunately, the last year in which this publication was produced. , It will be noted that the number of ednorial posts exceeds the number of women holding editorial positions; this is because individual women often hold multiple editorships, women's page editor and fashion editor being the most common combination. II)

J. Tunstall: Journalis[s

aI

Work, Constable, London, 1971.

" For 1974 I managed to get 12 our of a possible 17 breakdowns; for 1977, II out of 17. While it would obviously have been preferable to get complete coverage, it is fair to generalise on the basis of these returns, since the full range of tvpes of paper is covered (daily, Sunday, popular 3nd quality). " G. Gerbner: 'Institutional pressures upon mass communicators', in J. Halmos (ed): The Sociology oj Aluss Aiediu CommunicalOrs, Sociological Review MOllograph, No. 1.1, VllIversirv of Keele, 1969. 14 National Union of Journalists Equality Working Party: Images of Women: Guidelines for Promoting Equality Through Journalism, N.U.J., Acorn House, Grays Inn Road, London, 1977, p. I!. I'

N.U.].: 'Survey reveals widespread discrimination', press release, 1977.

" Roger Smith: 'Women and Occupational Elites: The Case of Newspaper Journalism in England', in C. Epstein (ed): Access 10 Powa: Women ill Decision Alakillg PosiriollS in Cross-No[/onal PerspeClive, George Allen and Cnwin, 1980.

'" reported in the U. K. Press Gaze11e, April 29th, 1974. JI

Davies, op. cit.

J1

D. Lockwood: The Blaekeoa1ed Worker, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1958.

Jl

G. Cleverly: The Flee[ S[ree[ Disas1er, Constable, London, 1976.

'4 Economist Intelligence Unit: The Nalional Newspaper Indusrry, E.LU., London, 1966: O. McGregor et al: Reporl oj The Royal Commission on [he Press, HMSO, London, 1977, Cmnd. 6810. ]j A news item in Socialis[ Challenge on October 6th, 1977, revealed that N.U.]. representatives of one of the largest union chapels in the ,Hirror group, negotiating pension rights, placed equality well down their list of priorities, despite the fact that the dependents of a woman contributor receive nothing on her death.

16

J7

ibid., p. 106.

J8

E. C. Hughes: Men and Their lFork, Free Press, Glencoe, 1958.

" Cleverly, op. cit., p. 34. .11

" J. Mattfield and C. Van Aken: Womell alld Ihe ScicnllJic ProJeHions, M.l.T. Press, London, 1965; J. White: 'Women in the law', AfldllgUII Luw ReI'letc, Vol. 65, 1967, pp. 1,051-1,123: C. Phelps: 'Women in American Medicine', }ourtlul oj Medicul Educa[ioll, Vol. 43, 1968, pp. 916-924: G. Brager and]. Michael: 'The sex distribution in social work', Soc;ul Casework, Vol. 50, 1969, pp. 595-601: A. S. Harris: 'The second sex in academe', Alllericull ASSOClu[;<J1l of Vn;I'ersitv Professors Bul/ain, Fall 1970, pp. 283-294; C. F. Epstein: !f<mwll's Place, Umversity of California Press, Berkeley, 1971; M. Fogarty, l. Allen, J. Allen and P. Walters: Women in Top Jobs, Allen and Unwin, London, 1971; A. (,riffin: Women il1 Top hnuncial]obs, H. E. Griffin, Oxford, 1973; C.

2'56

Tunstall, op. cit., p. 56.

ibid., p. 37.

41 Acton Press Group: A Submission [0 [he Royal Commissioll on [he Press, Mimeo, Acton Press Group, 9 Poland Street, London, 1975, p. 34.

41

See J, Whale: The PoMics oj [he Media, Fontana, London, 1977, p. 157.

41

C. Wintour: Pressures on [he Press, Andre Deutsch, London, 1972, p. 35. A. Sampson: The New AnalOmy oj Brilain, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1471,

p. 381.

257

\

1

Roger Smith 45 J\1illum, op. cit; Butcher et ai, op. cit; G. Lang: The mosr admired woman: news media i",paC! on sex srereorypes, paper presented at conference on Women and the News Media, San Francisco, 1975; King and StOlt, op. cit. 46 I am quite prepared to concede that a similarly distorted series of male stereotypes is also widely employed. While this is an important issue, its treatment is beyond the scope of the present article. 47

JOURNALISTS' OCCUPATIONAL IDEOLOGIES AND PRESS COMMERCIALISATION

Harry Christian

C. Faulder: 'Advertising' in King and StOlt, op. cit.

.. Tunstall, op. cit., p. 7. " P. Barr: 'Newspapers', in King and StOlt, op. cit. so Stott: 1975, p. 70. 51

Guardian, Jan. 31st, 1977.

N. Van Hoffman: 'Woman's pages: an irreverent view', Columbia Journalism Review, July-August, 1971, pp. 51-4. !2

51

Wintour. op. cll., p. 19.

54

TunSlal1, op. cit., p. 169.

lS

See N.V.}. /Jnnual Reparr, 1978, p. 27.

56 This is not to say that they do not attract attention from the media as a result of particular activities in their lives-Margaret Trudeau being a notorious example. The point is that their newsworthyness has already been decided by their mere sexuality or satellite status. 17 What is also significant is that these women are frequently used in advertisements to endorse a particular product or service.

'" Butcher et al op. cit; N.V.}. 1977 op. cit; Barr, op. cit. " The treatment of women in crime stones, particularly political crime is a good example of this. '" R. Miliband: The Srare in Capirallsr Soczdy, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969; P. Lazarsfeld and R. K. Merton: 'Mass Communication, Popular Taste and Organized Social Action,' in B. Rosenberg and D. M. White (eds): Mass Cullure, The Popular Arrs irl America, 1957; Sampson, op. cit.

258

Introduction:

IN recent years conflicting occupational ideologies and strategies among British journalists have been brought into public attention on many occasions, most notably during the controversy surrounding the passage through Parliament of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bills of 1974 and 1976. A sustained campaign by newspaper proprietors, the Guild of British Newspaper Editors and the Institute of Journalists tried to prevent the National Union of Journalists regaining the right to pursue closed shops which these Bills were intended to restore to trade unions in generaL This campaign typically portrayed the N.U.}. as dominated by subversive elements who were trying to impose left-wing censorship on a free press, helped by legislation which it was implied would compel the introduction of a closed shup in journalism. The controversy was also often described as an inter-union squabble between the 'moderate' Institute and the 'extremist' Union. As in most other uses of this conventional dichotomy it misrepresented a more complex state of affairs and ignored the long term changes in social conditions which I suggest were interdependent with the variations in occupational ideology and strategy among British journalists. Among the range of opinions held by British journalists four significant clusters of views can be identified which I suggest constitute distinctive occupational ideologies and which are related to differing strategies for the defence or advancement of the occupation. Individuals may hold combinations of these views, not always consistently, and the organisatiuns that British journalists have created contain within them ranges of views with differing strengths. Journalists' support for these ideologies and their manifestation in policies and actions have also varied over time. The current situation is very much the outcome of a long history of conflicting ideas and actions. I wish to argue that the changes in occupational ideology and strategy are inter-related with the changing structure and character ofthl' Bill I,ll press over the past hundred years and constitute journali,,,' ,,'

259

HLlrrv Clzrisli
]ournalists' OCCllpational Ideologies and Press COlllmercialiSt1lion

responses to the situations in which they have found themselves as a result of these structural changes. It is not suggested though that there is a strict one-to-one relationship since economic and political events outside the industry have obviously also played their part in the development of journalists' ideas and actions. I shall outline the main trend of press changes over this period I and the broad effects on journalists' employment conditions and social situations, before presenting detailed evidence of the principal occupational ideologies and strategies, describing the historical circumstances of their emergence, the conflicts that have ensued within and between the N.V.]. and the Institute, and then discussing their outcome.

without some regard to customers' existing needs. Nevertheless I suggest that the distinction has validity and is particularly relevant in the case of the British press in which around the turn of the century the change from one style to the other was fairly clear-cut and was seen as such by informed contemporaries. There was not a total transition when the first half-penny popular daily-the Daily Mail-appeared in 1896; in fact it took many years for the full effects of its impact to work through the whole press-and the process still continues. But the reason this change was relatively more obvious in the press than in other industries was that newspapers were previously sold not solely or even mainly for profit but as means of political and social influence-though of course financial losses could not be sustained indefinitely.

The British Press: major changes in structure and character since 1880

The overall structure of the British newspaper press over the past century has become highly concentrated. A situation in which there was a large number of small independent publications and diffused ownership has changed to one in which far fewer publications are now concentrated under the ownership of a small number of large scale corporations owning chains of newspapers and other periodicals, often with interests in commercial television, and with deep involvements in a wide range of other industrial sectors (see the chapters by Tunstall and Murdock in this volume). Together with this change in the pattern of organisation a change of character of the press has occurred resulting from a process which for want of a better word I shall refer to as 'commercialisation'. This is obviously a debatable term but I wish to use it here to refer to a change from: I. a situation in which a pre-existing need is satisfied by firms which provide relevant commodities or services via a market; to 2. a situation in which firms make active efforts to persuade potential customers that they have needs of which they were not previously aware and that these needs can be satisfied only by particular named commodities or services which only these firms can supply. In ]. K. Galbraith's terms the trend is one of increasing manufacture of demand as well as of the commodities supplied. This distinction should not be taken to imply a sharp dichotomy between types of business activity. It is a change of emphasis rather than an abrupt total change. Obviously any firm which supplies goods or services on a market must be commercially viable to survive, and even the less 'commercialised' firms make attempts at demand creation, while highly 'commercialised' ones cannot create demand at will 260

The outstanding characteristic of press commercialism-heavy dependence on advertising revenue-resulted from the realisation by Alfred Harmsworth and his imitators that this was where big profits could be made. To attract this lucrative business larger circulations were essential, and because the new readers were lower paid than existing newspaper readers they had to be even more numerous to justify advertisers' interest. Potential readers were also typically less well educated, so to attract them vigorous promotion methods and a style of content involving brightness, triviality and sensationalism were believed to be necessary. Larger scale operation due to higher circulations, new promotion and distributions methods and technologies and the handling of a much greater volume of advertising all required larger quantities of capital-hence resort to joint stock company structure and Stock Exchange capitalisation from the 1890s on, which in turn required even greater advertising revenue to pay dividends to attract investors, thus further reinforcing the other aspects. The process was complex and its various elements were interdependent. This strategy, initially applied to new popular nationals, soon affected the 'qualities' and the provincial press as well. Press concentration into larger groups under few ownerships resulted from the impact of the new more commercialised press on the others, reducing their advertising revenue and increasing their costs as they attempted to compete, until closures, mergers or take-overs were inevitable. The new technologies of production and distribution reinforced this process since the older less commercialised newspapers were obliged to raise higher capital for the introduction of these in order to compete effectively. 261

Hany Chrisrial/ Changes in ehe Employmene Condieions of Brie ish Journalists

In this section I shall draw a broad contrast 2 between the conditions experienced by journalists in the years 1880-1900-the period before what I have called 'commercialisation' began to have a marked effect on the British press, and the period since 1950-the approximate date at which the maximum aggregate circulation of national newspapers was reached in Britain. The contrast is drawn in terms of: (I) their 'general class situation', i.e. in terms of the basic Capital/Labour relationship; (II) their 'specific class situations'-making use of Lockwood's distinction between market and work situations;! (III) their 'general status situation', i.e. their public estimation; and (IV) their 'specific status situations'-evaluations within employing organisations and in the eyes of 'professional' colleagues. 4 (I) General Class Situation: In the earlier period people doing 'journalistic' work included both buyers and sellers of labour power. Newspapers were numerous and small, needing relatively little capital to start and therefore it was still possible for a journalist to change from employee to employer. An employed journalist could have a realistic hope of doing so by raising capital to start his own local newspaper or by becoming a partner or manager. Conversely such lightly capitalised firms could easily fail and their proprietors return to employed journalistic work on another paper. Where journalists owned or managed papers they were usually still actively practising as journalists-editor-proprietors and editormanagers were common, especially in the provinces and they were often involved in the whole range of journalistic work. In the recent period, however, the social differences between employed journalists and their employers have become enormously greater. The typical state of affairs is that newspapers and periodicals of all kinds are owned by huge companies or combines managed by specialist managers who have no commitment to journalistic work and whose influence on the editorial side is entirely commercial. Journalists, instead of being employed by 'colleagues' whose motives were professional as well as economic, are now just one category of hired labour among others in organisations whose main purpose is making profits. Division of labour in such firms is complex and highly developed. Journalists' employment conditions are now much closer to those of factory workers or routine non-manual workers in any industry. The tiny number of journalists who rise into top managerial positions

262

JOllmahsrs' Occuparional Ide%gles and Press Commercz'<1lisation

in newspaper companies typically cease to be practising journalists in the process. The costs of starting a new newspaper, even a local one, are now so large as to make it a rare event carried out only by companies with large capital resources, and far beyond the reach of any journalist purely dependent on his earnings from journalism. Some journalists may own shares in newspaper companies but such small shareholders in any case have only nominal ownership and no effective control over the running of 'their' companies. (II) SpeCific Class Sieuaeions:

(a) Market situations:

In the earlier period the market situations of employing and employed journalists were such as to produce only relatively small differences in their incomes. Obviously a proprietor would take the profits, if any, as well as paying himself a higher salary but when compared to the enormous differences between a modern journalist and a millionaire newspaper proprietor or controlling shareholder the difference was slight. In relation to other non-manual workers: the pay of an ordinary provincial weekly journalist was comparable to that of a lower grade clerk in the same period. For both, thirty shillings or less a week was commonplace. Both depended on competent literacy which the mass of the population then lacked but neither job required much education beyond a grasp of the Three Rs. Since there was no recognised· union rate for either type of job the specific pay of any individual depended on circumstances and relations with employers. In relation to manual workers: those of immediate significance to journalists whom they would most encounter in the course of their work, were printers. These were among the first workers to become etfectively organised in trade unions and where union rates operated it was quite common for a compositor, for instance, to be earning more than an ordinary employed journalist in the provinces. Apart from income, job security was not good, but there were numerous small independent papers offering alternative employment and it was still possible to hope to start one's own paper. If one job was lost it was therefore easy to find another of a similar kind not far away, especially since such papers were not part of chains or groups under the same ownership, which meant that blacklisting was less of a danger. Hours were long and undefined but did not carry rights to days off in lieu or extra pay, holidays were few and short and such posts carried no pension rights. In the recent period, however, the difference in incomes between

263

t

f

Huny Christian

]ollrrlulists' Occupational Ideologies and Press Commercialisation

employed journalists and their employers, i.e. major shareholders, directors and senior managers, has enormously widened. Profits have been large in absolute terms enabling take-over bids and amalgamations to resume the pre-war process of concentration from about 1955 on. Journalists' incomes have more or less kept pace with those of other non-manual workers owing to collective bargaining but on a number of occasions could probably have been higher if they had been prepared to be militant. In relation to manual workers, also the relationship has been roughly maintained from about 1950 onwards but with 5 fluctuations. Apart from the higher reaches of journalism in Fleet Street and the major provincial centres, the bulk of journalists continue to receive incomes more comparable to those in routine non-manual occupations than to those in 'professional' ones. In relation to printing workers many journalists are still often at a disadvantage. Possessing strong unions, printers have been able to maintain a position in the higher levels of skilled manual earnings during this period while rank and file journalists with a less strong union have often fallen behind them in pay.

I shall consider three sets of work relationships: i with employers, ii with other journalists, and iii with other workers. i. It can be readily seen that in the employment conditions I described earlier the work of employed journalists in the earlier period involved regular and personal contact with their employers, and this was still to some extent true in Fleet Street and the larger provincial centres before 1900. Employers were recognisable and visible people, not extremely different from themselves, and in the provincial press often working

more or less alongside them. As the social difference between the two was not great employer-employee relations were personal and direct, though not necessarily friendly. ii. Relations with other journalists were limited, as most newspapers had small staffs and often only one reporter was employed on weekly papers. There was some contact with reporters on rival papers but their number was usually small also and the contact was in the course of competition for news. Opportunity for forming relationships leading to a common identity were greater among the staffs of leading dailies and it is not surprising that it was these who formed the first representative body-the National Association of Journalists in 1884, but contacts between more ordinary provincial journalists on local weekly papers were less frequent and not conducive to the recognition of common interests. iii. Relations with other workers were also few and limited to perhaps a clerk or front office hand and a delivery man, and a small number of printing workers. Manual workers were sufficiently different in work situations to make unity in a common cause unlikely, while non-manual employees such as clerks were sufficiently similar in work situations to blur any distinctive features of journalism and restrict the development of an occupational identity as professionals. Printing workers had already made themselves distinct by their tightly knit union organisation and their defined craft skills. They were an early and continuing example to journalists of what could be achieved by collective bargaining, but identification of journalists with printers as fellow workers was restricted-as much by the printers' narrow craft unionism as by white collar snobbishness on the part of journalists. In contrast, during the recent period: i. the changed structure of the press means that most journalists see little or nothing of their employers during their working lives. Most journalists now work for large organisations, often not knowing clearly who the directors are and having no contact with top management or large shareholders. The relationship has become remote, indirect and impersonal. Their employers have become anonymous corporate entities. ii. Contacts with other journalists in the course of work are now much more frequent and widespread. In large organisations there is regular daily contact through interdependent work roles in substantial sized groups. In local weekly newspapers journalists are still relatively more dispersed but even here staffs are larger and since the majority or Ihl"" papers are now grouped together under a much smaller 1111111!W! "I

264

265

Job security has probably improved through union protection but journalists continue to be vulnerable to mass redundancies when closures or mergers take place. The formation of newspaper groups means that on the one hand when closures occur there is a better chance that some journalists will be offered posts elsewhere in the group, but on the other hand where this is not done, the choice of alternative employment of a comparable kind is considerably narrower than in the earlier period. Hours and holidays have become more defined by union bargaining but in journalism hours still have to be flexible. Many employing firms now operate pension schemes for their employees but it is still an unfulfilled aim of the occupation to achieve a national pensions scheme.

(b) work situations:

~

HLlrrv Christian

]uurnahsts' OccupLltiunal Ideulugles and Press CU/llll1erciahsLltlulI

ownerships and are often printed at centralised printing plants, journalists from the various small papers in a group have to converge on the printing works each week on the day before publication and therefore have opportunities for regular contact with their colleagues on papers based at head office or with visiting journalists from other districts covered by the group. In the national press where competition with rival papers still operates, contact with colleagues from other papers is nevertheless regular and, as Tunstall has pointed out, can often involve a considerable amount of mutual help as well as rivalry.6 This regular contact has led to the setting up of formally organised groups of specialist journalists fi-om competing papers but with common specialisms. iii. Relations with other workers involve a much wider range of people than in the earlier period. Regular contact with most of these is not great but in times of crisis there is a common vulnerability to commercialism and concentration, especially in the case of journalists and printing workers, whose occupations are both fairly specific to this type of employing organisation.

had emerged among journalists within their newspapers (see later). In the recent period employed journalists are still expected by their employers to maintain a 'middle class' image and for most this follows naturally from their own backgrounds and/or expectations. They do not have the prestige enjoyed by members of established professions such as medicine and law, but tend to be seen as roughly on a par with 'semiprofessions' such as school teachers, bank clerks, social workers and the police. Journalism no longer has the distinction of being one of the jobs open only to a narrow section of the population which has achieved competent literacy, since this is now more widespread and many other white collar jobs are now available, so that these occupations no longer have the relatively privileged connotations they had in the late nineteenth century. There is still a contrast in popular esteem between editors, 'correspondents', etc., and ordinary reporters.

In the pre-1900 period employed journalists, because of the nature of their employment, were usually expected to maintain a genteel social image outside work as far as possible and would have been accorded some of the prestige associated in the local community with non-manual employees. This was reinforced by the fact that the job required a degree of literacy and, in common with clerks, was assumed to have greater security than manual occupations, and to be more pleasant because not dirty, dangerous or involving physical exertion. At the same time the poor pay and the demands of the job meant that many journalists were more often than not 'shabby genteel' and did not rank highly in middle-class circles. In the course of their work, journalists came into contact with various high status people, but their relations with these were of two distinct kinds. Editors, leader writers and reporters who could style themselves 'correspondents' were sometimes honoured by established professionals and local or national notables, but ordinary reporters were often treated condescendingly as menial workers. Some journalists, that is, could present themselves and often be accepted, as professionals while others could not. This dichotomy corresponded to a similar dichotomy that

(IV) SpecIfic status situations: In the absence of a professional body before 1884 the main kind of specific status among journalists was the prestige they had within their employing organisations. Proprietor-journalists commanded deference within their firms through their proprietor role, but they also tended at that time to regard their employed journalists at least to some extent as 'colleagues' and to expect corresponding treatment of them by other employees. Within the occupation at large there was a tendency in the period following the rapid increase of provincial newspapers in the 1860s and l870s, for well-established men to denigrate newer recruits by using a distinction between 'journalists'-worthy of high prestige; and reporters-worthy of little. This contrast was strongly implied in the decision of the founding conference of the first professional body that 'it should consist of gentlemen engaged in journalistic work'. One speaker even wished to press the point further by substituting 'gentlemen engaged in the literary work of newspapers', i.e. as opposed to ordinary reporting. 7 It was common practice at that time to refer to the higher ranking journalists as 'the literary staff of newspapers. In addition, of course, journalists had a different ranking in the occupation according to the kind of publication they worked for. The lowest prestige attached to those on small local weekly papers, and the highest to those on national newspapers centred on Fleet Street. Individuals' professional status was enhanced, as now, when the! r names became known among their kind for their achievements :111<1

266

267

(III) General status situation

/lany Gnristian

Journalists' OCClIparionalldeologics and Press Commercialisation

influence and this was most likely for those in Fleet Street and large provincial centres. It was precisely these well-established men who used the professional body to boost their reputations from 1884 on. In the recent period employers have come to regard journalists essentially as employees, a labour cost, and one of the factors of production to be managed in pursuit of profit. But there is still a distinction within employing firms between desk-bound journalists and reporters, with the latter having lower prestige unless they are specialist 'correspondents'. Printing workers still see journalists in terms of the white collar image, which is often taken as indicating that they are closer to management, and that journalists' trade unionism may prove to be a weak link in times of crisis. There is still also the old prestige ranking within the occupation according to type of publication worked for, varying from local weekly to Fleet Street nationals, though the situation is today complicated by the employment of journalists in fields other than newspapers, such as RB.C., I.T.N., local radio, public relations, etc. But highest prestige still attaches to those working for the national press with national broadcasters ranking on a par with them. To summarise: for the bulk of journalists their class situations changed considerably between these two periods but their status situations remained broadly comparable. 8 In terms of general class situation most journalists in the earlier period were 'proletarian' in the sense of having to sell their labour power to subsist and of subordination to authority, and this remains the case today, but in the earlier period the situation was much more fluid and a change of class position was a sufficiently feasible prospect for many of them not to feel that wage-labour was their life fate. In the later period there is no question that wage-labour is a life fate for the vast majority. In terms of specific class situation, journalists have become to a considerable extent 'proletarianised' in terms of both the enormous widening of income levels and working conditions as compared with employers, and in terms of the sharply increased distantiation of relationships with them, together with a greatly increased experience of relationships with, and a common shared working experience with fellow employed journalists and to some extent other workers. In addition, a considerable change in the nature of the work involved has taken place for many. Instead of fairly full reporting of serious subject matter aimed at an educated readership the majority are now engaged in at best the supply of mass

produced gossip but often of a trivialised and sensationalised parody of actual events. At the same time journalists still tend to be seen and to regard themselves as vaguely 'in the middle' of the occupational status scale. In terms of their specific status situations within employing organisations and within the occupation there is still a marked bifurcation between, on the one hand, performers of high status roles such as editors, assistant editors and special correspondents often claiming professional prestige ranking, and on the other hand, rank-and-file roles such as ordinary reporters and sub-editors whose view of 'professionalism' is simply the competent performance of their jobs. There is also still the same broad ranking by place of employment with Central London having elite status. This combination of change and continuity is the background to the changes in occupational ideology and strategy among journalists over this period which can be briefly summarised as: 1. the development of widespread trade union allegiance and subsequently a degree of increased class awareness, alongside 2. persistent but stunted forms of professionalism. This kind of change in working conditions and growth of trade unionism is similar to that found in the case of clerks analysed by Lockwood and Klingender. It also parallels the analysis of Braverman of the 'proletarianisation' of the 'middle layers' of employment in general with the growth of monopoly capital. The tendency for most journalists has been towards working conditions in which they become 'serried ranks of detail workers whose pay scales, if they are better than those of factory operatives or clerical workers, are perhaps not so good as those of gentlemen, and who dispose of little more working independence and authority than the production worker'. Y British journalists' 20th century experience has been one in which 'the proletarian form begins to assert itself and to impress itself upon the consciousness of these employees. Feeling the insecurities of their role as sellers of labor power and the frustrations of a controlled and mechanically organised workplace, they begin, despite their remaining privileges, to know those symptoms of dissociation which are popularly called "alienation" ... ' 10

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Though many of these changes in the employment condirioll' III journalists were due to commercialisation and conccnrr:ll lUll III III'

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British press, there are important aspects of their current situation which cannot be explained simply as automatic effects of these processes. Journalists did not passively submit to trends but themselves acted in ways which materially affected the development of their occupation. Their opinions and actions have not been a mechanical reflection of the material conditions they have experienced but rather these have developed in an interdependent relationship with these conditions. Nevertheless the conditions did set limits to journalists' consciousness of events and made possible the relative success of certain views while undermining the chances of others. I now wish to look at this active part played by journalists. I wish to argue that in the course of a series of historical situations British journalists created four main occupational ideologies and strategies which became embodied within two long established journalists' organisations either as official policies or as persisting opposition viewpoints within these bodies. The two organisations I shall examine are the Institute of Journalists and the National Union of Journalists. II The four occupational ideologies and strategies I shall consider are:

them off from other occupations. Nor do I accept that there is any uniform process of 'professionalisation' through which occupations pass. Like Becker, I regard professions as 'those occupations which have been fortunate enough in the politics of today's work world to gain and maintain possession of that horrific title'. I J I see professionalism therefore partly as a status-seeking ideology and strategy. But in addition, like Johnson, I see professionalism as a type of occupational control or attempted control which may succeed under favourable conditions. It is also a type of market control or attempted control aimed at the protection and advancement of both material and symbolic privileges. As Johnson states, professionalism has been a successful ideology which is also 'espoused ... by occupations which have not achieved and are unlikely to achieve control over their own occupational activities. This is ... because there exist external conditions which are antithetical to the development of a form of institutionalised control under which the occupation is paramount and autonomous'. 14 The antithetical conditions in the case of British journalism were those arising from a situation of 'corporate patronage' which, as Johnson argued in a later article 15 prevented the development of professional self-control and autonomy in occupations operating under colonial rule in Third World countries. As he states 'Corporate patronage is the reverse of professionalism in the sense that it is the client-a powerful, corporate client-which regulates the profession rather than the members of the occupation itself. Where corporate patronage prevailed, professionalism, with all the cultural and organisational attributes we have come to associate with this form of colleague control, never developed'. 16 But as he also says, 'this is not to say that the ideology of professionalism ... has been unimportant'. It is important in that it is used to help protect or advance the reputation of an occupation relative to other occupatations, or a privileged section of an occupation relative to the rest. For present purposes it is useful to distinguish two professional ideologies and strategies: a. one concerned with the pursuit of statusenhancement for an occupation by efforts to gain its acceptance as a profession in popular estimation; and b. one concerned with the pursuit of greater self-control and autonomy and greater market control for the occupation, by methods that have been successful for the established professions. These two are, of course, often closely intertwined in practice but need not be. The distinction may be useful in that for

a. professional status-seeking; b. a commitment to achieving professional self-control and autonomy; c. a narrowly focused occupational trade unionism; and d. wider class awareness and action tending towards full (worker) class consciousness. Conflicts between and dissensions within, these two journalists' bodies can be better understood if it is realised that the first three viewpoints have been persistently present within the Institute and that all four have been repeatedly expressed within the N. U.J, The four types of occupational ideology and strategy emerged historically in the order given but the later appearing ones did not replace the earlier ones, instead they became superimposed and co-existed in fluctuating situations of tension and open conflict. Individuals often held combinations of more than one viewpoint, and even when one view became widely held the others continued to exist and individuals holding the dominant view in either organisation were always likely to have to modify their policies and pronouncements to accommodate those who favoured other viewpoints and allegiances. But first the concepts used need clarifying. The concept of profession has led to much disagreement among sociologists, as Johnson pointed out. 12 Like him I find unsatisfactory the view that professions are a homogeneous group of occupations possessing a special quality or performing special functions marking

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instance commitment to professional self-control and autonomy has greater potential than professional status-seeking for bringing employees into conflict with the interests of their employers. This potentiality for conflicts of allegiance between professionals and their employing organisations over issues of control has been discussed by Kornhauser 17 and Wardwell 18 among others. Occupational unionism, as used here, involves a commitment to trade union organisation and action but is concerned only with the welfare of the specific occupation and is uninterested or even opposed to involvement in the struggle of other unions. The term is not synonymous with a purely instrumental attitude to trade unionism. There can be a strong emotional commitment to a narrowly focused trade union as there certainly was in the early days of the N.U.]. There can also be a purely instrumental attitude towards unions having the widest alliances with the rest of the trade union movement. At the opposite extreme is 'class consciousness' orientated either to capital or to wage labour, in this case the latter, in which a commitment to an occupation's trade union is seen merely as a subsidiary part of an allegiance to the whole employed class in opposition to the class of capitalists in the wider society as well as in industry. This distinction is, of course, basically that made in the long-standing debate over economism and trade union consciousness as opposed to full class consciousness. The assumption made in my analysis is that there is not simply one narrow form of trade union consciousness but a whole range of viewpoints from the most narrowly focused form, defined above, through wider and wider forms of identification with other employees. Whether or not trade unions are ever capable of expressing full class consciousness is not a point at issue here. A historical trend within an occupation from a narrow occupationally focused viewpoint towards a broader class-focused one, I shall refer to as 'increasing class awareness'. Between the two extremes there can be, and normally is, a range of intermediate viewpoints. In particular, allegiance may go beyond a single occupation to the group of occupations employed in ones own industry but not further; it may be oriented beyond ones own union to similar unions in other countries; it may be oriented to a group of occupations, including ones own, which are employed in a range of different industries, e.g. skilled workers in general or 'professionals' in general; or wider still, allegiance may be towards the whole of what could be called a 'sub-class' or 'class segment', i.e. to manual workers, while being prejudiced against non-

manual workers, or vice versa. The legal definition of a trade union is unsatisfactory for sociological purposes since it includes employers' associations and mixed employeremployee bodies. 19 The definition I use here is adapted from that of the Webbs: A continuous association of employees, organised independently of employers and potentially in opposition to them, for the purpose of maintaining and improving the conditions of members' working lives. 20 By this definition the N.U.]. has always been a genuine trade union while the Institute has never been one since it is not organised independently of employers, but has always had proprietor-journalists as (frequently dominant) members. II

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In the remainder of this article I shall outline the circumstances under which the differing viewpoints emerged and give further examples of their expression within both organisations at different periods. In the course of this I hope to show that professional status-seeking has been the dominant ideology of the Institute throughout its history but that at different times it has experienced internal dissensions involving members wishing to promote a professional self-control strategy or an occupation union one and that some superficial changes in the Institute's functioning have resulted which are nevertheless significant for its present day stance within the occupation. I also wish to show that the initial ideology of the N.U.]. was narrowly 'occupational unionist' but that during its subsequent history it has undergone a widening of its allegiances in the direction of full(worker) class consciousness as well as making some limited moves towards professional self-control aims. The data are arranged as follows: 1. the dominant professional status ideology of the Institute; 2. its subsidiary professional self-control ideology; and 3. its occupational union ideology; 4. occupational unionism within the N.U.].; 5. the Union's professional ideologies; and 6. expressions in the Union of increased class awareness tending towards full class consciousness. Finally, I discuss the failure of the Institute and the relative success of the N.U.]. among British journalists and reasons for this outcome. I. Institute dominant ideology-professional status-seeking

Before 1880 most journalists, employed in numerous small 273

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concerns, often saw themselves in terms of the prestige they felt they possessed in the eyes of fellow residents of their local 'lay' community because of the aura of the 'Fourth Estate' their occupation gave them. With the founding of the Institute's precursor in 1884 the development of a distinct professional identity within the occupation made possible an alternative allegiance, namely to their colleagues, and a viewpoint developed which saw career success in terms of enhanced prestige in their eyes rather than those of 'laymen'. This professional status outlook emerged in a social context in which the medical profession had recently succeeded in achieving a high level of public esteem and legislative backing for their professional privileges and responsibilities. Other occupations such as engineers, accountants and architects were also adopting professionalism as an attractive ideology and strategy for their own advancement and journalists were aware of this general tendency. The kinds of journalist most attracted to this outlook were the proprietor-editors oflocal newspapers who formed much of the rank and file of the new Association (re-named the Institute of Journalists in 1889), and well established figures on national and provincial newspapers, some of them also proprietors, who soon came to dominate the leadership. As early as 1886 its President was Sir Algernon Borthwick, Conservative M.P. and future Peer, who was sole proprietor of 'The Morning Post' -the oldest and most conservative national daily. From then on the organisation's character as a body catering primarily for the more privileged and more right-wing members of the occupation was firmly established. Its constitution made no distinction between employed journalists and proprietorjournalists or managers, and there was no provision for any member who gave up all journalistic work to become a full time newspaper proprietor or manager-or anything else-to be excluded. From a status viewpoint the inclusion of proprietors was thought to provide a reflected prestige for the whole occupation. No mention was made in the constitution of action to raise payor improve working conditions. Status consciousness and the use of an ideology of professionalism for status-boosting purposes were clearly marked from the start. Borthwick, as President, sent out a recruiting letter 'to many influential journalists' explaining that the Association aimed 'in time to obtain for journalists, as journalists, that definite professional status and formal recognition which other professions have secured. 12 J An Association meeting in 1887 was told that the object was 'to lift the status of the profession', and its Secretary thought 'it could be made to serve the interests of 274

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journalists and proprietors alike in matters of professional employment'. 24 New recruits at the meeting were anxious that the Association should not 'make itself offensive in matters affecting relations of journalists with employers'. 2; A conflict view of society was clearly not in evidence. While the Institute was portrayed by its leaders as a body aiming to raise the status of the whole occupation by achieving professional standing it was also seen as an elite body within the occupation whose members were 'a cut above' ordinary newspapermen. A meeting in 1898 for instance was told by a founder member that he 'feared there is a tendency to increase our membership to the sacrifice of the general status of the profession'. 26 The desire to have proprietor-members for their status-enhancing effect was in direct conflict with the desire of some members to make the Institute a collective bargaining body by excluding proprietors. Manchester members, beginning in 1906 the moves which led to the founding of the N.U.]., called on other districts to support exclusion of proprietors. But Bristol district decided that 'conversion of the Institute into a trade union is altogether contrary to the spirit of the charter and after the splendid support that the proprjetors have given ... financially and otherwise, it would be ungracious to thrust them from the Institute'.27 After the Union was formed, opposition to it was expressed by Institute leaders in terms of its adverse implications for occupational status. One spokesman for instance argued in 1908, 'It is a degradation to attempt to draw members of the profession into a trade union'.28 And when discussion arose within the Institute in 1916 about a possible merger with the Union, the Institute Journal commented, 'If the Institute ... is to be a trade union, theoretically and in practice the proprietor must be barred from membership. If, as members of the Institute believe, co-operation and joint action for professional purposes is better than class war and the fixing of a gulf between employers and employed the principle embodied in the constitution of the Institute is right'.2" The assumption was that no gulf existed and that the formation of a trade union created one, rather than that a trade union articulated an existing gulf. No awareness was shown of antagonistic class relations but instead it was the vision of a status hierarchy in society that was expressed. For instance an Institute leader later that year commented, 'If the Institute were to be purged of all taint of proprietorship it would 275

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have to shed a large proportion of the most widely known and highly esteemed of our calling, and thereby lose standing and influence ... ' 30 Similarly in 1920 an Institute stalwart argued, 'We ... decline to consider ourselves as merely an industrial trade union and to adopt crude trade union methods. We are not going to turn out a brother journalist because he happens to have a few shares in a newspaper or has attained to a position of influence thereon. We exist to look after the interests of the profession-profession, not a trade-and if we do not care about trade union methods it is not because we have lost sight of the journalist and care only for the proprietor, but rather because we have a nobler conception of our calling and believe it can be raised by other and better methods'. 3I Two years later, after the failure of the first attempt to merge Institute and Union, the Institute journal commented 'journalism has been looked upon as a gentleman's calling. It is no use blinking the fact of social gradations. If all journalists were to adhere to the trade union principle they would lose all trace of their professional status'. 32 Similar views have continued as the dominant line within the Institute down to the present day, expressing concern with the general status of the whole occupation and often at the same time with the specific status of Institute members. In 1932 for instance an Institute spokesman asserted, 'The average member of the Institute has an outlook ... different from ... the man who joins the Union. The Institute member cherishes professional ideals and seeks election' (i.e. to membership) 'primarily ... to uphold the dignity and integrity of the craft ... '33 In 1949 after the failure of the third attempt to merge the two bodies, the Institute's President, who was Editor-in-chief of the 'Sunday Express', wrote 'an increasing number of journalists ... believe it is degrading to the status and dignity of journalism that our wages, our conditions and even at times whether we work at all, should have to be decided in consultation with the liftmen, cleaners, messengers, labourers and machine oilers'. 34 This referred to the fact that the Institute had refused to go through with a merger because many of its members objected to the N.U.j.'s affiliation with the T.U.C. and the federation of printing unions. Such views were expressed in an extreme and naive form in 1958 when a proprietor member wrote, 'Journalism is a profession not a trade ... we are not plumbers or copper-bottomers. We are, both employers and employed, in a sense dedicated. As a proprietor I have more in common with my employees than I have with the proprietor of 276

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a garage or the owner of a chain store. Our common identity is born of the work we do. I would like to see all journalists enrolled in one professional organisation. I would not call it a "union" for that is a word with a bitter history. No journalist should need to hold his employer to ransom in these enlightened days. Can we not have one journalistic organisation to which all members of the craft-even proprietors-can belong? We would be affiliated to no other body. In addition to a lunatic fringe of trade union minded youngsters we would also have a large, strong, influential majority of sound, reliable, respected newspapermen who would wisely govern and look after the mutual interests of both employees and employers'. 35 In 1969 during the last attempt to merge Institute and Union, involving a 'trial marriage', with members of each considered as members of the other, a future Institute President wrote in the Union Journal ' ... the Institute's importance does not lie in its numerical strength but in its professionalism. For every member of the Union who became a member of the Institute received the priceless gift of professional status which they never possessed before and which came to them through acceptance as members of a body honoured by a Royal Charter'.36 The elitist view of the Institute's professional role within the occupation is here expressed in a very clear way. Its status-bestowing role for the whole occupation was again voiced at the joint conference which ended the trial marriage late in 1971, when an Institute representative declared 'It is in the interests of all journalists that the Institute should continue as a Chartered professional non-trade union body, open to all qualified journalists, with the object of maintaining and protecting the standards of, and improving the public attitudes towards the profession'. J7 2. Subsidiary professional ideology-aspirations for professional self-control

Within the Institute a view emerged in the late 1880s which favoured immediate steps towards achieving professional self-control and not merely as a means towards acquiring professional status. This was expressed in efforts to use the Institute for promoting entry qualification schemes for journalism and for enforcement of ethical rules, but persistent argument did not lead to effective action in this direction by the Institute. Such schemes faced opposition from proprietor-members who feared a reduction of their prerogatives and advantages as employers. The strategy seems to have been favoured by the Institute's less eminent members in the early days. Those less well 277

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This self-control aim was, however, used by the Institute's leaders to justify membership by employer-journalists as a means of retaining control of the profession within the hands of 'Colleagues'. In 1902, for example a leader argued, 'The proprietor who joins the Institute shows ... that he is in sympathy with its aims and must naturally take an interest in the welfare of his fellow membe r s';4o in 1916 a writer asserted that 'by membership of the same professional body as their employees, proprietors may be brought within the influence of the public opinion of that profession ... '; 41 and in 1920 an Institute stalwart wrote, 'Everyone of us who has not Supreme COntrol has to submit to the authority of someone else, and personally I would prefer to work under a confrere in my own organisation than under someone who by reason of his exclusion ... is of necessity in another camp'. 42 But those wanting more eflort in this direction were not satisfied. In 1923, for example, it was argued that the Institute must copy the established professions, 'we must do as they did before they got the right to control the entrance to their callings ... build up the right insist spirit and set the right standards ... Later no doubt we shall on entrance qualifications, just as other professions have done we must bend our eflorts towards the constitution and recognition of

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journalism as one of the learned professions ... '.43 And after another failed merger attempt with the Union in 1928 these aims were again emphasised in efforts to retain the loyalty of such members. 'The men who drew up the charter envisaged journalism as one of the great professions of the country which like other professions, would eventually govern itself, and set its own standards of professional life and conduct. If we ever give up the charter we give up that ideal ... '.44 But some members continued to contrast status and control aims critically. In 1934 a member declared, 'The charter has never been effective as an instrument to secure the qualification of people entering the ranks of the profession. It confers no powers to deal with members ... who debase the calling ....by the dissemination of false or exaggerated news. Nor does it exercise any disciplinary influence on proprietors who suffer their papers to be used for such purposes. It puts no check on attempts to create a monopolistic press whose policy is not that of national well-being but ... self-interest, or worse ... personal vindictiveness'. 45 Such dissatisfaction led in the 1930s to the Institute's only effort to pursue what was seen as measure of self-control. This involved promoting a private bill in Parliament for the setting up of a statutory Journalists' Registration Council similar to that obtained by the architects in 1931. A leading advocate of this scheme explained 'The Council would consist of members appointed by the governing bodies of the Institute and the N. U.J., by the proprietors organisations, such members to be registered journalists, by unattached but duly registered journalists and by the Senates of Universities which award diplomas for journalism students'; and 'The Bill seeks to preserve the title "Journalist" to persons duly registered ... and make it an offence for an unregistered person to use the title. It contains a disciplinary clause, providing for striking off the register those held, after inquiry, to have been guilty of conduct disgraceful to them in their capacities as journalists'. 46 As a countermove the N. U.J. drew up its Code of Conduct but this was attacked by an Institute spokesman, 'Observe the great difference between these proposals and the union's code. The Code is applicable only to members of the N. U.J. .. Registration has that universality which the Code of Conduct lacks and which is absolutely essential in any scheme of self-control for the profession'. 47 But the Institute scheme came to nothing.

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When the third attempted Institute-Union merger failed in the late 1940s a disappointed Institute member criticised those in the Institute who had prevented it, adding' ... journalists themselves, who know best what is good for journalism ... could have dealt with offenders ... and set a standard to meet all reasonable requirements ... '.48 By the 1950s Institute leaders were openly admitting that it had failed to achieve professional self-control. In 1956 for instance one called upon the new Press Council to 'accept responsibility for defining standards of professional conduct' and 'for establishing a Statutory Register on the lines of the Bill promoted by the Institute from 1935 to 1939. '49 A further admission came in 1958 from a senior member who wrote asking 'How can journalism become in the fullest sense a profession? It can only become so by following the path trodden in other days by members of other professions. They did not do it by just styling themselves a profession. They became professional ... by setting up standards of behaviour and by seeing that other members adhered to these standards. The Institute was founded precisely to achieve that result for journalism. It has not achieved the object'.5u In the last attempted merger, some Institute members in 1971 were fearful about the effects on professional self-control and autonomy of their being part of a new organisation with primarily trade union functions. They wanted a 'Professional Council' within it which would have 'complete autonomy'-'a journalist should be able to say "go to blazes" to a union ... '.51

As employees within increasingly commercial organisations, journalists gradually became aware of experiencing in common the differences of economic power between them and their employers. This led to the emergence of an occupational unionist viewpoint favouring trade union organisation and action to defend the interests of employed journalists. An opposition faction with these views appeared within the Institute in the late 1890s. Signs of dissatisfaction with the Institute showed in its membership figures which had reached their all-time peak of 3,114 as early as 1892 and even before the N.U.J. was formed had dwindled to 2,750 in 1906. It was no coincidence that the emergence of dissatisfaction over the Institute's lack of trade union activity grew alongside the commercialisation of the press from the mid-1890s onwards.

One district meeting in 1898 was told 'most working journalists could live very well with fewer compliments and more cash. What they all wish is that they should get for their labour its fair and full market value'; another complained about 'the preponderance of the proprietorial element which keeps working journalists in the background'; and a third said he could not help feeling that 'while we publicly deprecated the idea of a trade union when the Institute was started we had another feeling in our hearts and therin lies the disappointment which has led to the resignation of so many members and the indifference of others'. 52 At another meeting that year on 'the remuneration of journalists' the speaker argued 'The first thing to be done is to convince the present members of the Institute that trade unionism is one of its legitimate functions ... is it not absurd to try to keep up the dignity of a profession on the wages of a bricklayer? It would be easier for journalists to be regarded as members of a profession if they showed some outward and visible signs which would appeal to a foolish and mercenary world'. 5 ] Much of this dissension within the Institute involved journalists who were shortly to secede and found the N. U.J., but even after the formation of the Union there were still journalists who wished to com bine occupational unionism with professional status-seeking or professional self-control aims and so remained in the Institute or became dual members in the hope of reforming the older body and/or working for a merger of the two. Though dwindling, this remained a persistent section of the Institute despite the fact that more and more such journalists gradually went over to the N.U.J. In 1912-13 changes were made in the Institute's working under their pressure, but these did not satisfy them. Typical of this internal opposition was this letter to the Institute Journal: 'I have never hidden from anyone my desire to destroy the Institute as a Mutual Admiration Society for the strictly limited class of "eminent" members of the profession and recreate it as an effective instrument for the great body of working journalists. The men of the N. U.J. were of my way of thinking, but in my opinion they took the wrong course. So many members of our Councils-past and present-have won for themselves ... comfortable positions in the world of journalism that they have been and are, inclined to forget the existence of their less fortunate brethren. Why else did it take 21 years to discover that there are wages and conditions of employment in existence in the profession

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that would disgrace a body of road-sweepers?' 54 In 1916 the Institute set up local 'grievance committees' of nonemploying members to examine complaints, but the Institute as a whole could take no action without the approval of its Executive Council on which proprietorial influence was dominant. When a disillusioned Institute member resigned and joined the N.U.]. in 1920 he wrote, 'the Institute stands condemned from the point of view of working journalists like myself. The misfortune of the Institute was that at the very outset it got under the control of head men in offices and suchlike ... Any proposal that savoured of trade unionism was at once crushed'. At this time the Institute was attempting to compete with the N. U.]. in collective bargaining but this ex-member was not impressed-'To me and to many others who have my experience, its belated talk on the wages question is mere window-dressing. Its present "activity" in the latter belies all its pre-war history when any interference in the matter of wages and conditions of labour was anathema to it. Its hectic efforts to prove that it is the friend of the working journalist is pitiful to those of us who know the inner workings of the Institute. After all, wages and conditions ... were as clamantly in need of reform then as now ... "By their fruits ye shall know them" and 20 fruitless years are enough for me!'5.\ That year the Institute had itself certified as a trade union by the Registrar of Friendly Societies in a vain effort to gain admission to the new Whitley Council for the printing industry. This did not signify a conversion of the Institute to trade unionism but merely a forced and reluctant response to the prospect of a less favourable position in the occupation. It at least helped it retain an occupational union element in the Institute, as later did the employers' recognition of the Institute for collective bargaining in 1943. The Institute even applied for affiliation to the Printing and Kindred Trades Federation in 1920 in a desperate last effort to enter the Council but was rejected after the Federation's officers had examined the Institute's constitution. As a result the Institute was permanently excluded from the Council. After the failure of the first merger attempt with the Union-through the Institute's desire to retain proprietor-members-their Council in 1922 set up an Economic Section consisting of non-employing members to deal with trade union functions such as pay and conditions. Institute membership had been falling and when the merger failed its leaders feared a further decline through the loss of employed journalists who had been banking on a successful merger. The Economic Section

consisted of some 900/0 of total Institute membership but the Executive Council, on which employers were heavily represented, remained the real seat of power, since its responsibility for Institute actions was laid down in the Royal Charter and not even the annual conference could

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overrule it. The practical insignificance of the Economic Section was revealed by its chairman in 1929 when he pointed out that the Institute's two Executive Chairmen during the previous ten years had both been proprietor members. 'In addition' he wrote, 'at the present time the President, President-elect, Vice-President, Treasurer, Chairman of the Establishments Committee and Chairman and Secretary of the London district are all in this category'. He also drew attention to proprietor members on the Executive Committee of the Council. 'At the last meeting there were five or six proprietor members to three nonproprietors. In view of the immense numerical preponderance of members of the Institute who are not proprietors, these proportions are clearly wrong. There is still a tendency in some quarters to look upon the Economic Section in the light of an interloper, which should be satisfied with a back seat ... ' 56 Dissatisfaction among employed members continued to be voiced at intervals. In 1932 for instance one wrote, 'The Institute pays too much attention to that senseless proverb "there is plenty of room at the top". The Institute's strongest point seems to be that employer and employed are brought under the same umbrella. We know that for the very reason just stated the Institute cannot take sides over certain vexed questions between employer and employed. While we think how nice it is to be professional gentlemen, let us also remember that there are employers and employed. There is plenty of room at the bottom ... Some of us start there and stay there. Some of us get merged and merged until there is nowhere else to go'. 57 This last sentence referred to newspaper amalgamations. During the third attempt to integrate with the N. U.J. those favouring trade unionism within the Institute strongly supported the proposals. A long term advocate of this viewpoint wrote in 1945, 'I have never been able, despite oft-repeated inquiries, to ascertain what benefits the Royal Charter has ever brought us, except that we were expected to lind comfort and sustenance in the magic of its name'. H After the attempt failed less was heard from such memhns Illi :1 11111' but by 1954 the viewpoint was again being expressed. 1\ IlllllJi" I ' I'" wondering whether young people recruitl'd thllllll,11 II" I" :'H "

Harry Christian

Joumalists' Occupational Ideologies and Press Commercialisatio/l

It should be remembered that this ideology has two aspects: a. commitment to independent and potentially antagonistic organistion for employees and therefore rejection of employer members; and b. interest in a particular occupation only and therefore opposition to wider trade union alliances. As has been shown this view emerged in the Institute and led to the founding of the N. U.I. in 1907. It was dominant within the new Union until 1919.

By 1906 commercialisation, concentration and technological change had been under way for 10 years or so with obvious effects. Attempts to exclude proprietors from the Institute had failed and this was a year of advance for British trade unionism with the passing of the Trades Disputes Act. The atmosphere was favourable to a new initiative and a nucleus of journalists, disenchanted with the Institute, emerged in Manchester and decided to make a move. A ready response from other provincial districts enabled the Vnion to get started, and as long as the focus was kept narrowly occupational steady recruitment proved possible. From the first the N.V.J. promoted the concept of the 'working journalist' to describe its field for recruitment-this was meant to apply to ordinary employed reporters and sub-editors-and it was undoubtedly these who responded to its appeal. By contrast with the Institute, the N.V.J. has always been dedicated to collective bargaining over pay and conditions. In 1907 its founders deliberately entitled it a 'union' and immediately registered it as such to ensure its benefitting under the previous year's trade union legislation. The Union's rules did not exclude newspaper shareholders but drew the line in terms of the power division within employing organisations. Senior 'working journalists' such as chief reporters, chief sub-editors and editors lacking hiring and firing powers were welcomed as members but proprietors, directors and editors with hiring and firing powers were barred. A commentator in the Clarion wrote, 'In complete opposition to the principle of the existing Institute of Journalists, the rigid exclusion of the proprietors of newspapers has been insisted upon ... The grotesque anomaly of a worker ventilating his grievance in a mixed meeting presided over by his employer has become apparent and has engendered a determination to have done with it'. 61 The principle was clearly laid down by a ruling in 1908 when the Union's Executive decided that a person who held newspaper shares could join, 'provided that he is a working journalist subject to the caprice of a newspaper manager or managers'. 62 Wider alliances were not regarded as immediately practicable when the N.U.]. was formed, instead the main task was seen as that of persuading journalists that organisation separate from proprietor journalists was essential to economic advancement as employees. Its propaganda ridiculed the Institute's status-seeking. The N. U.J.'s first General Secretary, for instance, wrote in 1909 of the Institute conference, 'It is conceivable that a picnic of that sort, in which the

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latest recrUltmg drive would be disappointed. 'Will they find the Institute all that it is cracked up to be ... or will it prove to them as I fear it has proved to some in the past, a flabby, lazy organisation full of fancy phrases and lofty ideals but remote from the rough and tumble? ... When the Institute realises that bread and butter are essential as well as plebeian ... it may tackle recruiting with greater hope'. 59 In the 1959 provincial printing strike the Institute's lack of trade union principles was starkly revealed when its leaders declared firmly that 'a journalist's first loyalty is to his paper' and openly advocated cooperation with blackleg labour. The result was a slight rise in Institute membership partly due to N. U.J. dissidents, and a substantial rise in N. U.J. membership through gaining trade union-minded members from the Institute as well as recruiting journalists who took an interest in trade unionism only in a crisis. Nevertheless the Institute continued to include occupational unionists who objected to the N. U .J.'s wider affiliations. Their presence was shown by an unsuccessful attempt at the 1963 Institute conference to set up a strike fund. Ten years later there was still a dissatisfied section of Institute members. A 'new junior member' wrote in 1973 criticising the elitist tone of their journal. 'I want more of my colleagues joining the Institute, but I can assure you they are repelled by the Institute's present image of cosy dilettanti. We are treated to a sickly diet of social events'.69 But there must be few members of the Institute today who have purely 'occupational union' aims. Where such aims exist they are usually seen as a supplement to professional aims of some kind and as a defence against the appeal of the N.U.]. The Institute's claim to be a trade union and its legal certification as such enable it to oppose N. U.J. closed shop moves in terms of their being 'another union' which some journalists prefer. Its effective role, however, is that of a 'yellow' or 'company union'. 4. Occupational union ideology within the N. u.].

Iii

llarrv Christian

.Journalists' Occupational ideologies and Preys COl/llllercialis<1tio/l

journalist is permitted to rub shoulders with his betters and to study the habits and customs of civilised society, may uplift the profession in the social scale, and help the attainment of the "status" for which the heart of the Institute yearns ... What the Union has set itself up to do, primarily, is to improve the economic position of the journalist ... the Institute cannot give effective assistance we believe it is disabled both by its constitution and its traditions ' 63 In 1916 an Institute request for co-operation brought the reply from the Union Executive, 'The Institute in our view is saddled with an unwieldy form of government and a traditional spirit' which hindered 'grappling with facts and securing quick decisions from which action and results flow ... Journalism is unique among employments in some ways ... but the essential point ... is that it is predominantly a calling in which men and women work for employers for wages ... and in which security of tenure is far from assured ... The fact that journalists have a special relation to public affairs has nothing to do with the question of organisation on trade union lines and that is what the Institute has failed to understand ... ' 64 The importance of excluding proprietor-journalists continued to be stressed. For example a founder member wrote, 'The Institute represents both employer and employee ... a constitution which from the economic ... point of view is hopeless ... If by some happy metamorphosis the Institute can become an organisation of wageearning journalists the path to unity would be clear',65 and on the Institute's grievance committees, the Union commented 'much is made in Institute articles of the alleged inoccuousness of the proprietorial element in its membership ... Why then is it thought necessary to establish grievance committees which are to be free of that element? At Union meetings any and every question concerning the conditions of employment is discussed with a frankness and freedom which would be impossible if proprietors or their representatives were present',66 and their President declared, 'The possibility of an effective society embracing both employers and employed is now discounted by the establishment not only of this Union, but of federations of newspaper proprietors and managers ... The employers would not dream of surrendering their separate organisation at the call of the Institute of Journalists. Why then should we?'6) The Union also refused in 1918 to take part in a joint deputation with the Institute, stating ' ... in a joint deputation there must be an identity of interest, but some of the Union's complaints are in fact

directed against proprietors who are members of the Institute'. 68 The significance of this ideology and strategy was sharply outlined in the failure of the first merger negotiations with the Institute in 1922. The N. U.J. President, then editor of Punch, told a meeting 'negotiations have broken down just where we suspected they would break down-on the employer question ... Their first thought is for that employer minority which is well able to take care of itself, ignoring altogether the immense claims of the working journalist members ... I say quite frankly there is no room for employers in any organisation where one of the main objects is the improvement of the economic interests of the members. The Institute has decided to stand by its employer minority and the N.U.J. will stand by the employees ... every working journalist ... must realise that ... only in the N. U.J. will he find that faith, loyalty and interest which is, and must ever be, on the side of the bottom dog in our profession'. 69 On the other hand, however, the most widely held attitude ofN.U.J. members and the official policy until 1919 was to have no alliances outside their own occupation. Writing of the pre-1919 period a founder member observed in 1943 'Just as the inculcation of trade unionism was one of the hardest tasks of the pioneers ... the liveliest polemics and toughest debates centred on relations with other unions ... "Affiliation", a word that at one time would set all tongues wagging and rouse combat at any branch meeting, has always been taken to mean alliance with the printers, and with the whole movement embodied in the TU.C.'. 7U For instance, in the 1918 P .K.TF. affiliation debate, conference was asked 'Why throw this apple of discord into our midst year after year without showing us the benefit we are going to get out of it', 71 and another delegate added 'there is not the least doubt whatever in my own mind from my knowledge of London journalists, that there is going to be a very serious secession not only in London but throughout the South of England if this affiliation is carried out'. 72 An illustration of this aspect of occupational unionism was the reaction of the Union's Portsmouth branch secretary when the 1919 conference decided to ballot members on this affiliation, 'Depend on it there is a large body of journalists who are dead against joining with to have the literary staff the printers ... We have striven remunerated upon a higher basis than the comps ... I for one would wash my hands of the Union if amalgamation came off ... Not one of the trades mentioned in the constitution of the P.K.TF. has anything

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in common with our profession ... '; 7J and when the vote favoured affiliation he wrote 'Our Union was founded to look after the interests of journalists, not of printers or anybody else ... '.74 Opposition of such members to T.U.C. affiliation was even stronger. In 1920 for instance a conference delegate declared 'members do not want a respectable trade union dragged along at the tail of a rag-tag and bobtail organisation'; 7; calling for disaffiliation in 1921 another member asserted, 'I am in sympathy with trade unionism but not with a heterogeneous conglomeration of Bolshevik extremists ... '; 76 and again in 1923 another wrote 'It is foolish to call us professional men, but is it not equally foolish to run to the other extreme and attempt to hob-nob with the hoi-poloi of the industrial world? We are not of their stamp and never shall be'. 77 Hostility to P.K.T.F. affiliation also continued to be voiced, and the 'General Strike' of 1926 provided a unique opportunity for such members. A former President, for example asked an emergency N.U.]. conference 'are journalists prepared to enter into a bargain with the printing trade unions on the full basis of equality of obligation? ... those who know the personnel of the Union will hesitate to say that they are ... another trial of the same sort would shatter the Union beyond repair. Then our exponents of "class consciousness" would have no Union left to manipulate ... '; 78 and another member argued, 'Let us first be loyal to ourselves, and do what is likely to be in the interests of our own union'. 79 Even when this affiliation had been reaffirmed by ballot such opinions still found expression. In 1930 for example a member wrote of the affiliation, 'The N. U.J. must take the bold step of coming out into the open as an independent organisation, ridding itself of the stigma ... attached to it ... as a result of affiliation'; 80 and in 1934 another expressed 'resentment at the strong political atmosphere which is threatening to endanger the real objective for which the Union was founded'. 81 Wider alliances were typically described as 'political' by their opponents. By 1939, with reaffiliation to the T.U.C. becoming more likely, opposition again became heated. One member for instance wrote, 'There must be many like myself who ... have watched with growing exasperation the manner in which the left-wing element ... have been foisting their views on the Union as a whole'; 81 and another, 'My slogans for the N. U.J. are "mind your own business" and "journalism for journalists". We don't care two penn'orth of gin for the T.U.C. and

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they don't care a penn'orth for us'. 83 The last T. U.c. affiliation ballot in 1950 was proposed at conference by members hoping for disaffiliation. One argued' 11,000 journalists are strong enough to control their own destinies'; 84 and even after the ballot confirmed this affiliation a member called for 'a clean sweep of these noisome affiliations. I would like ... to concentrate on journalistic matters instead of political questions'. 85 Conflict between occupational unionist and class conscious viewpoints again burst into the open during the controversy over the 1971 Industrial Relations Bill. One member wrote that the N. U.].'s 'responsible and democratic record is the exception rather than the rule. In common with most people, and a good many journalists, I regard the majority of British trade unions as selfish, petty and irresponsible, and as careless of national pride and interests as if they were professional Communist agitators, which many of their members are'; 86 and another wrote 'When some of us joined the newly-formed N.U.]. about 60 years ago we sought to better the conditions of journalists by negotiations ... We did not think we would ever be linked with trade unionists who would jeopardise the lives of hospital patients and the old and sick to further a pay claim'. 87 This narrower trade union viewpoint was given an organisational focus within the N.U.]. in the late 1970s with the formation of . A.].A.X.-Allied Journalists Against Extremism in June 1977. Typical of the views of this group's members was a letter which argued 'The current mood of militancy which seeks to reduce the activity of journalism to the level of the industrial worker (whose problems are very different) makes it less likely that society will grant the privileged access to information necessary if the press is to play its part in our democracy'. 88 5. Professional ideologies within the N. u.}.

Though professional status-seeking and the pursuit of professional self-control and autonomy can be distinct and contrasting aims they are of course frequently found in close combination. From early in its history there have been within the N.U.J. critics of its official policies favouring greater emphasis on both aspects of professionalism. In 1915 during one of the early debates on proposed affiliation to the printing trades federation, one Union conference delegate put forward the status-conscious alternative of a federation of professional organisations to include doctors, lawyers, chemists, teachers, surveyors, architects

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and civil engineers as well as journalists. A branch official opposed affiliations by using professional arguments. He spoke of the need to limit entry to the occupation by agreed qualifICations and when members voted for affiliation in 1919 he asked 'Why affiliate with a body of men whose professional status we have never recognised as being equal to our own?'M9 In 1922 another member wrote' ... journalists of the future should be better equipped to take their rightful place as leaders of public thought; and 'become as unequivocably recognised as members of a skilled and learned profession as those who follow medicine and law, and shall incidentally command higher remuneration and social standing than any merely trade union organisation can obtain for them, "V The Union responded by appointing an Education Committee which worked with little support from members during the inter-war years. In 1936 the N.U.]. also adopted a Code of Conduct and though it probably had no noticeable effect on members' daily activities, it was a further Union response to professional self-control aspirations among members, as well as a COuntermove to the Institute's concurrent campaign for a State Register. Periodic appeals for professionalism were made in the Union journal. A 'member for almost 40 years' wrote in 1949, 'The Institute will fade away and the Union will be left as the sole journalistic body, I then visualise an entirely professional and non-political body, the constitution of which may ultimately be altered to put the organisation on the plane of the learned societies or institutions insofar as professional standards and craftsmanship are concerned'. 9I another member asked 'How high is the status of journalism as a profession? As a professional organisation the N. U.]. should have a standing equal to ... the Law Society and the B.M.A... it is time now to stop clothcapped agitation. A drive should be made to get rid of those things which lower journalists' prestige'; 92 and a Cornish member wrote in 1953 calling for 'a new deal of professionalisation and de-trade unionisation ... we need to adopt methods not of the trade union, but of the professional organisation. No one ever reached professional status by threatening to strike for it'. 4) Another argument sometimes voiced was that professionalism and trade unionism were compatible and mutually reinforcing. For example a South Wales activist wrote in 1957. 'The real picture today is that trade unions are taking up what might have been called "professional" aims 50 years ago. History shows in our Union that they can not only 29()

]UlInI<.1/iSfS' OL'CIIP<.1fioIiOI

Ideo logics and

Prcss COmIllCl'O<.1/iS<.1fioll

co-exist but in co-existence complement and transform each other'. 94 Professionalism was still being demanded in 1966 as a long term member indicated: 'For 30 years now members have been asking for a merger with the Institute so that the N. U.]. could become a professional body, They still are ... we can raise pay and conditions to levels obtained by doctors, lawyers, accountants or dentists by controlling entry into journalism by open examinations', 9\ And during the 1972 controversy over whether the N.U.]. should dc-register under the Industrial Relations Act in line with T.U.C. policy, the more statusconscIOus and professionally-oriented members opposed deregistration. One wrote 'If the N.U.]. wants to maintain journalists' professional image, which must seem pretty battered by now, it is about time it stopped looking like a tin can tied to the tails of union demagogues'. He thought the Union 'should not be kept merely to knock on the cashier's door'. 46 Writing about the N.U,J.'s participation on the Press Council a longstanding member wrote in 1978 'Contrary to some assumptions, trade unions have always had two roles: a joint regulatory as well as a collective bargaining role. Reconciling them is not always easy, .. But I hope that the Union will not lose sight of important objectives in such fields as ethics, training, research and professional questions'. 4 J 6. Increasing class awareness in the N. u.].

Though N. U.]. commitment to trade unionism was clear from the start, its official ideology and policy have changed in the form of increasing, though fluctuating, class awareness. Members have placed greater emphasis on their position as employees having interests in common with all other employed people and opposed to those of employers. Continued conflicts over material interests between them and their employers, together with immensely increased differentiation between the two sides, were conducive to their gradually increased alignment with the wider labour movement, This process was a long one and can be sub-divided to show the main steps taken on the way. The N.U.J.'s affiliation to the Printing and Kindred Trades Federation in 1919 marked the start of a move out of narrow occupational unionism. A short-lived affiliation to the T. U.c. from 1920-23 showed the limits to which journalists were then prepared to go in that direction. Apart from this brief and controversial afTdiation the N. U.]. 's broader identification extended only to members in the same industry during the 1920s and even that was thrown into 291

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doubt following the 1926 'General Strike'. When in 1930 the N.V.]. joined the National Federation of Professional Workers-a grouping of bona fide trade unions of non-manual workers including some T. V.c. members-the question of affiliation produced a mixed response from N.V.]. members. The leadership favoured affiliation as a further broadening of alliances without prejudicing possible future T. V.c. membership, while some members in privileged positions who were still unhappy about the printing trades afliliation, accepted N.F.P. W. affiliation hoping it might become a 'middle class' anti-T.V.C. body. But while accepting these broader alliances N. V.J, members continued to reject T. V.c. atTIliation in a series of ballots. The whole inter-war period can be seen as a relatively static one for British journalists, with the N. V.]. remaining outside the T. V. C. and the Institute more or less hanging on to the approximately 30% share of organised journalists it held in 1920. A new phase began around 1940 with the N.V.].'s permanent return to the T.V.C. after 20 years of insecurity over increased commercialism and concentration in the press. The N. V.]. had maintained journalists' pay at the relatively favourable levels achieved in the early 1920s but commercial pressures on the style and pace of work and the constant threat of closures and unemployment had their effects on working journalists who increasingly came to feel the vulnerability of a union whose main allies were dependent on the same industry. The return to the T.V. C. was strongly reinforced in 1943-5 when the Vnion was again in conflict with the Institute over the latter's recognition by employers, and the danger of its intrusion into the N.V.].'s field. The Vnion was given whole-hearted backing by the T.V.C. which unanimously voted to exclude non-union journalists from covering two successive Congresses despite a 'free press' uproar in the editorial columns of Fleet Street. 98 The T. V.c. affiliation was heavily reaffirmed by an N.V.]. membership ballot in 1950 in the midst of yet another war of words with the Institute. Around 1940 also the N. V.J. began a steady advance in its coverage of the occupation which still continues. Acceptance of the widest available trade union alliance and attempts to exert Vnion influence in the fields of ethics and training were all part of an effort to redress the balance against the overwhelming dominance of proprietors in the press in the inter-war years. The recurrent outbreaks of anti-closed shop propaganda promoted by the proprietors and their allies in journalism can be best understood as part of the employers' counterattack. The growth of views within the N. V.]. expressing wider class 292

]O/l I'll <.1/ists ' Oed/p<.1t /01/<.1/ Ide%gles

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solidarity and the VnlOn's gradual adoption of policies implementing these, were not steady smooth trends but uneven and intermittent. At times there were reversals to narrower views but the overall trend over the past 60 years has been in the direction of wider class allegiances. However the incompletness of N. V.J. members' identification with the wider labour movement was shown in the Vnion's 1971-2 controversy over the Industrial Relations Act. Initial Vnion policy opposed the Act and favoured the T.V.C. line of de-registration, but journalists have to work within the context ofproprietorial policy which pervades newspaper work even when not explicitly stated, and the policy of most newspapers was anti-trade union and pro-restrictive legislation, it is therefore not surprising many journalists were influenced. In a ballot on the issue a majority voted for continued registration. At the time though it was uncertain whether continued registration would lead to the N.V.].'s expulsion from the T.V.C. Later, after the Act had operated for some months and the T.V.C.'s determined opposition was clearer, two successive N. V.J. delegate conferences voted to de-register and the N.V.]. remained within the T.V.C. No mass resignations resulted but vocal opposition to the decision within the Vnion revealed the strength of the N.V.].'s right wing, which had welcomed the possibility of separation from the wider trade union movement. Increased class awareness as has been suggested is not evenly spread throughout the occupation and the Vnion. Internal differentiation in the occupation is considerable and differences in viewpoint between sections of the N. V.J. have at times been striking. The gap between Fleet Street/London broadcasting and the rest is the biggest distinction, and it is notable that London is the only place where the Institute has maintained much of a significant membership. The N. V.J. found organisation of Fleet Street so difficult at first that Central London branch initially operated under the auspices of Woolwich branch. 99 Within London, groups of specialist journalists have differed considerably over the Vnion's wider commitments. For instance when both P.K.T.F. and T.V.C. affiliations were first approved the Parliamentary Branch (Lobby correspondents) were almost unanimously opposed, and it was this branch that led the opposition which produced the Vnion's disunity during the 'General Strike'. By contrast in recent years the Magazine Branch has at times hcell renowned for its left-wing views. In the provinces different vicwp(li 111" have tended to coincide with the social and economic conditi(lll" ,11,,1 293

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regional culture of the areas covered by branches-Glasgow and South Wales branches at times were noted for militancy while branches in Southern England and rural areas have been the least favourable to links with the wider labour movement. The following examples illustrate the main trend of increasing class awareness. The tlrst proposal for affiliation with the printing unions appeared in 1913, and several times during the next few years similar proposals were defeated at annual conferences. In 1915 a Union pioneer told conference· 'a decision to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance with the printers would in the present state of opinion in the Union involve a calamitous cleavage'. II) V Even supporters had to argue their case in terms of practical benefits to the occupation rather than in terms of class solidarity with other workers. In 1918 for instance, a delegate proposing affiliation with printing workers argued 'I do not urge strikes against all kinds of employers, but we ought to have the power to strike effectively. I do not see any way of doing it on our own. If journalists were to come out tomorrow it would not stop publication of a single edition'. J () I Similarly a senior Union leader opposing affiliation that year denied a charge of snobbery and added. 'It is not a question of social status; it is a question of whether there is a community of interest in the economic sense between the bodies'. He thought it was 'scarcely proved that a real community of interest exists except in the general Marxian sense'; "" while another speaker supporting affiliation was at pains to suggest this was different from affiliation to the T. V.c. ... He opposed that because 'there is a possibility of being tarred with the political brush ... This is a proposal to join our fellow-workers, working under the same roof and on the same production'. IV, But the proposal was again rejected. When it came, the first change of official policy grew from informal tactical Co-operation with the printing unions over a specific issue in a situation of sharp hostility between Union and Institute. In 1917 the Whitley Report raised hopes of reforms in industrial relations after the First World War and the N.U.]. began to consult the printing unions over forming a Joint Industrial Council with their employers as recommended in the Report, and also to block the Institute's inclusion on the employees' side because of its employer-members. Negotiations over this with employers led to the N.U.].'s recognition by them, and the possibility of the N. V.].'s having the support of printing unions in disputes helped the N. V.]. to its first important successes over wages, 2lJ!

7o/ll'JlalislS' ()ccilpallolial Ideologies 'lIId Press COllllllerciafis,w'oll

which in turn led N.V.]. members to favour affiliation with the Printing Federation. After this move a Whitley Council was formed in 1920 without the Institute. ellis affiliation in turn produced further conflier with the Institute which from the start condemned such alliances as 'political entanglements' . The proposer of the successful affiliation motion at the N. V.]. 's 1919 conference argued 'We used to be told that this policy. ' . was the policy of extremists ... This is absurd. It is a policy submitted in the interests of moderation by moderates. It used to be said that if we affiliated it would place us at the mercy of any body of extremists which might arise in another section ... The opposite is the case. If that extreme section arise the N.V.]. are at their mercy today ... Affiliated, however, our voice would be at once heard among the councils of the industry. It would be a moderating voice and it would make for a safeguard ... against rash sectional action'. 104 The form in which the argument was couched suggests how necessary it was for the more class aware activists to present a purely pragmatic case rather than refer to the ideal of workers' solidarity. Where specific policy decisions were less at issue, however, some members and leaders of the V nion did express more sharply an awareness of class antagonisms and with the P.K.T.F. and first T.V.C. affiliations approved, more forthright views were voiced. For example in 1922 a member wrote 'We are exactly on a par with the printer who sets our copy ... under the present economic system it must always be that employers are ... opposed to the best interests of their workpeople ... the less fmancial consideration is given to the workpeople the greater the dividends for the shareholders ... The workers are a corporate body ... when one section strikes for its rights no other section should do anything that would play the employers' game. Journalists should get rid of these fatuous theories about "professional classes" and "loyalty" ... and get a correct appreciation of our actual position as workers exploited for others' private gain ... '1"5 Only a matter of days before the 'General Strike' in 1926 the N. V.]. President told his conference employers are not partners with their employees but are in an opposing camp, which ifneed be, must be fought'; IU6 in 1930 a member declared 'I am not a contented cow to be milked at any time of the day or night. I ... believe in meeting the boss as man to man' (but) 'I know his interests are not the same as mine. Too many of us are living in a fool's paradise'; 107 and in 1935 another wrote, 'We cannot keep the peace with our employers without expense to <.

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ourselves for the very reason that employers will be employers. There is no getting away from the fact the real trade union must inevitably be an institution of the Left. It is ... inconsistent with the politics of the Right-winger'. 108 Similarly just after the Second World War a member wrote 'A newspaperman is forced to mislead the public or be sacked ... staff journalists are marionettes. They cannot be servants of both the public and their employers ... If journalists stopped refusing to learn the facts ... they would realise where they stand in the commercial set-up, and it would not flatter them as professional men'. 109 During the 1959 provincial printing strike the N.V.]. followed a line of trade union solidarity by refusing to exceed normal duties or to work with blackleg labour, and most of its members seem to have obeyed. Commenting afterwards the Vnion's General Secretary observed, 'Proof of the existence of a large corps of dedicated trade unionists' (i.e. in the N.V.].) 'will be of the utmost importance ... It shows to other unions that white collar workers are not simply fair-weather theorists. It has demonstrated the same truth to employers ... they believed the N. V.]. was not really different from the Institute which, as usual, lined up with the strike-breakers under a cloak of pious platitutes about "loyalty" and professionalism. The N.V.]. was founded ... because this bogus doctrine had failed to deliver the goods'. II(J During the period of the closed shop/free press furore of 1974-6, one member wrote 'Journalists must come to realise that they are also part of the great mass of workers, alongside factory workers and dustmen. We all sell our labour. One day even our colleagues who boast ofliving in "highly desirable residential areas" may get this into their heads ... ' III and at a Vnion conference in 1975 a delegate declared .. newspaper proprietors are interested only in two types offreedom. One is the freedom to spread lies about the trade union movement; the other is the freedom to face a weak N. V.]. across the negotiating table'. 112 In the late 1970s the more class aware viewpoint in the N.U.]. was promoted by a pressure group within the Union, known as Journalists Charter. Writing in 1977 this group's national secretary, wrote, 'The harsh truth of the printing industry is that naked force triumphs. Managements pay more to printers because they are militant. They use the closed shop organisation So this must be our task in the provinces. We need the maximum solidarity with other unions'. II] Voting figures and percentages in the series of ballots on the T.U.c.

]Olll"l/u/iSIS' ()CClIpulioliul Ideologies ulld Press COllllllcrcia!isutioll affiliation issue give an interesting reflection of fluctuations in the level of acceptance for this wider commitment: 1920: 1923: 1924: 1931: 1934: 1936: 1939: 1940: 1950:

For For For For For For For For For

1,380 (62.84%); 802 (45.96%); 1,092 (48.06"10); 1,224(42.39"10); 987(45.25"10); 1,424 (47.11 "10);

2,020 (59.48%); 1,949 (69.27"10); 3,037 (59.89%);

Against Against Against Against Against Against Against Against Against

816 (37.16"/0) 943 (54.04%) 1,180(51.94"10) 1,663(57.61%) 1,194(54.75%) 1,600 (52.89"10) 1,376 (40.52"10) 865 (30.73"10) 2,034 (40.11 "10)

The table should not, of course, be interpreted mechanistically. In each case the specific circumstances and the general atmosphere in the country must be considered. The period 1919-21, for instance saw a high tide of trade union recruitment and class consciousness among British working people who were expecting a better life following the war, and this was reflected in N. V.]. members' attitudes too. By 1923, however, the trend was reversed. After the post-war boom, economic activity fell away and trade unionism also lost ground. Membership fell sharply and this was equally true in the N.V.]. which lost almost 15% of its members between December 1920 and December 1922. Opponents of affiliation persuaded many that the fall was due to disapproval of the T. V.c. link. The issue was also affected by a situation peculiar to journalists-a T.V.C. levy to support the 'Daily Herald'. The levy was resented by journalists who felt they should not help subsidise one newspaper in preference to its competitors. A majority for disaffiliation was therefore not surprising. In 1924 the levy issue was unchanged but reaffiliation was almost carried. The issue was dodged by a cautious leadership following the 'General Strike' but the anti-trade union atmosphere in the country was still strong enough in 1931 to find expression among journalists in the biggest ever defeat for T. V.c. affiliation. After that there was a steady slight trend, in percentage terms, towards reaffiliation throughout the 1930s with sharp swings in favour in 1939 and 1940 again probably paralleling changes in political opinion in the country. This trend in N.V.]. members' attitudes during the 1930s probably reflected a growing concern over job security and the effects of newspaper commercialism generally. The 1939 majority was not quite the two-thirds one then required but the 1940 ballot was decisive. The 1950 ballot took place during an anti-No V.]. campaign by the Institute and when public opinion in the country was moving to the Right politically. But the majority for

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Harrv Clirisrial/

]ourl/a!isrs' Occup,l{Jol/al Ideologics and Press COl.'llllercia!isarioll

retaining affiliation was still substantial. The pro-affiliation vote in the circumstances seems to indicate a considerable measure of class awareness, but the incompleteness of the trend was revealed in the 'deregistration' debates and ballot of 1971-2. Again, however, the outcome was profoundly influenced by the general atmosphere in the country. The Vnion's T.V.C. affiliation now seems firmly established and unlikely to be directly questioned in normal circumstances.

N.V.J.lInstitute membership was then 20,926, and on this basis Bain 11.1 concluded that journalists were then 'over 90%' organised after allowing for dual members. If 90% organisation is assumed throughout the period 1960-75 then N.V.]. coverage alone was: 77.4% in 1960; 81% in 1965; 83.2% in 1970 and 83.8% in 1975.

Relarive success of rhe rival organisarions

What was the outcome for these organisations of this long period of ideological conflict within the occupation? The membership figures and percentages of total organised journalists show that the N. V.J. has prevailed over the majority for most of this century but increasingly so as time has gone on. The Vnion's percentage share rose steadily until about 1920, then followed a period of virtual stalemate in percentage terms until about 1940, and finally the N. V.]. again gained steadily. Alongside this trend has been the gradual change in the union's character towards identification with the labour movement as a whole. Year 1886 1892 1900 1907 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 193'5 1940 194'5 19'50 195'5 1960 1965 1970 197'5

Comparative membership of N.U.]. and Institute of Journalists Membership Percent of total organised Institute N. U.]. Institute N. U.]. 2'5() 100.00 3,114 100.nO 2,930 100.00 2,'575 738 77.73 22.37 2,400 1,907 54.26 45.74 1,989 3,127 38.88 61.12 2,119 4,888 30.24 69.76 2,036 4,827 29.67 70.33 2,164 5,574 27.97 72.03 2,46'5 '5,919 29.38 70.62 2,7'58 7,092 28.00 72.00 2,878 8,400 2'5.'52 74.48 2,653 11,684 18.50 81.50 2,619 13,364 16.39 83.61 2,660 15,244 14.4'5 8'5. '57 2,400 19.621 10.99 89.01 2,300 24,801 8.4'5 91. '5'5 2,396 28,274 7.81 92.19

This table refers only to 'organised journalists', i.e. members of either the N. V.]. or Institute, but one can say that 'most journalists' have come to accept the N. V.]. with its present character because there are few unorganised journalists. Precise figures are difficult to obtain but Viner 1 14 in 1965 estimated a total of 22,000 journalists. Combined 298

Each commercial crisis in the press over the past 70 years has brought a further flow of converts to the N. V.]. from the Institute or recruits from the previously unorganised, and within the Vnion each crisis rouses normally apathetic members into bouts of union activity. N. V.J. membership increases were of course largely due to the fact that there was an increasing number of journalists employed over these years, but the point is that under the conditions experienced it was the N.V.]. rather than the Institute which recruited them. That there was an increasing number of journalists employed seems to contradict the argument that the success of Vnion recruitment was due to the effects of commercialisation on journalists' employment conditions. However, as Tunstall has argued, journalists' references to the decline of journalism 'tell more about journalists' pessimism than about the changing numbers in the labour force'.116 In my view it was this pessimism, derived from feelings of insecurity produced by the experience of commercialisation, which was the influential factor. Major amalgamations and other crises have been followed by the most rapid increases in N.V.]. membership. The rapid further increase after 1960 for instance can be seen in this light. The massive IPC combine resulted from the abrupt take-over of Odhams by the Mirror Group in the early 1960s and also several wellknown newspapers were closed around that time. An increased sense of vulnerability developed among journalists which has since been sustained by fear of the effects of new technologies on job prospects. But in addition the N.V.]. has pursued an active expansionist policy into related fields in order to strengthen itself for anticipated struggles ahead. The Vnion now has a substantial membership in broadcasting, public relations, book publishing and in trade and technical periodicals. The Institute has also recruited in these fields but much less successfully. By the end of 1978 N.V.]. membership had passed the 30,000 mark for the first time with more than 3,500 new members joining during the year. Its net gain of 2,018 for the year was roughly comparable to the Institute's total membership. 299

flLIIT\' Clirlstlall ]oIlJ'llillists ' OCCIIPiltlOllill Ideologies illld Press COIIIIIILTc'I,dISiltIOIl

Conclusions

It is a mistake to assume, as is often done in press comments on the closed shoplfree press controversy, that the N. V.]. and the Institute are two rival unions and that the hostility between them constitutes an inter-union squabble. The Institute is not and never has been a genuine trade union, except in the limited legal sense, since it is not independent of employers and lacks effective trade union powers, but is primarily constituted as a professional body. It is also a mistake to assume that the hostility between them is due to malice or to misunderstandings caused by inadequate communication. They understand each other perfectly well but they conflict because they represent contradictory aspects of the employment situation of journalists as it has arisen within increasingly commerciaIised and concentrated employing organisations. The N.V.]. basically represents journalists' general class situation as sellers oflabour power while the Institute represents their much vaguer status position as members of a non-manual occupation with professional pretensions, and also the elitist attitudes of the more privileged members of the occupation. Further, it is the changing character and structure of employing organisations which have produced the underlying conditions for the differential Success of the two bodies. The hostility between them is not merely between a trade union and a professional association: it is rivalry between a moderately successful trade union and an unsuccessful professional association which has attempted to venture into collective bargaining to compensate for the failure of its professional strategies. It may be that some professional bodies among employed professionals can develop collective bargaining functions and become able to promote effective trade union actions including strikes but I would suggest that bodies set up under Royal Charters or similar statebestowed constitutions are unlikely to be able to develop fully in this way without risking the loss of their charters and the forfeit of their funds to the Crown, as is the case with the Institute in Britain. Where a professional body is powerful and influential enough to control 'standards' and recruitment in an occupation this can well be a way of controlling the supply of labour and therefore have collective bargaining implications. The Institute ofJournalists has never been in a position to do this and is now further away from it than ever. Another professional strategy, employed for instance by the engineering institutes, is to act purely as qualifying or certifying bodies, not venturing at all into collective bargaining. The Institute has never

seriously attempted to pursue this approach probably because the basic skills of journalism are within the competence of any literate person. Even if there were esoteric skills the Institute could not now monopolise their training since its intrusion into collective bargaining has earned it such obloquy among N.V.]. members that any qualifications it promoted would carry no respect among most journalists. The commercialisation of the press, the experience of mergers and incorporation into anonymous large scale employing organisations has brought most British journalists over the years to the view that their effective protection can be carried out only (a) by a genuine trade union, and (b) by one which is allied to the wider trade union movement. The same trends within employing organisations have produced conditions incompatible with the successful promotion of independent professional strategies. The continued expression of a desire for more effective collective bargaining among Institute members shows the persisting influence of these conditions. Finally, within the N.V.J., the persisting aspiration to professionalism by many members and the N. V.J. 's response to this over the years in efforts promote partial professional self-control suggest that some degree of professionalism may be possible on the basis of genuine trade unionism, whereas the converse has not succeeded and is not likely to succeed in prevailing conditions. The concepts I have used in this article are not specific to this occupation but I believe could be usefully applied in analysing the development of other occupations, particularly those in what Braverman called the 'middle layers' of employment. Other types of occupational ideology and strategy are possible but I suggest that those discussed here are likely to be widespread. Whether, in what order, and to what extent these viewpoints emerge in other occupations and the balance of opinions and actions that result must of course be discovered in concrete studies of those occupations and be placed within the context of their own employment conditions and wider social changes. But I suggest that the idea-that several ideologies and strategies may emerge within an occupation in a series of historical situations, become superimposed and co-exist dialectically during an occupation's later development and form a basis for persistent though fluctuating tension and open conflict-may be applicable to many other occupations. University of Keele

)00 ',III

.1

II I'IIcdisf S '

Ol(lIpJlioll,d Ideologies Jlld

}'I·(.".I

COIIIIII<'l'(iJ!iS<1/im/

0

liarr" C/iristiall

;0

This is done only in hroad outline here since m",e detailed accounts of the prOel'ss have been given by other writers, see e.g. the reports of the three RO)"ll Commissions on the Press, HMSO, London, 1949, 1962 and 1977;J. Curran: 'The Impact of Advertising on the Structure of the Modern British Press', Royal Commission Research Paper, HMSO, London, 1976; and his 'Capitalism and Conrrol of the Press, 1800-1975', in J. Curran, M Gurevitch and J. Woollacott: Mass COlI/mU"i"al/an and Socicly, Arnold, London, 1977, PI'. 195-210; A. J. Lee: The Origills of Ihe Popular Press, 1855-i914, 1976; G. Murdock and P. Goldmg: CullUral Capilalism: Ihe Politicul Ecollomy of ,Hass COm/l/lillicatlOlls, Routledge and Kegan Paul, Lundon, 1978; and their 'Capitalism, Communication and Class Relations', in J. Curran et al; 01'. cit., 1'1' 12-43; F. Williams: Dangerous ESl
Sand B. Webb: The HlSt"n' at '{raJe UllrM"'''', Longmans Green, London, ]920.

I

: A fuller treatment of this contrast can be found in my Ph.D. theSiS. See H. Christi'Jn: The Development ()f Trude Unionism and PT(~reJ.~ionalism among British }oumalisls, University of London, 1976, Ch. 4, PI'. 149-180.

, D. Lockwood: The Hlack-Coaled Worker, Unwin, Londun, 1958, Pl'. 15 and 205.

, I have discussed these concepts more fully in Christian: op. cit., Ch. I, pp. 9-16_

p. :II My approach difTers sharply from that of Blackburn "bose concept of 'unionatenes5, iCapplled to the N.LI.j. and Instltute ofjournallsts, would suggest that they arc at different levels on the same scale in havlng acquired dltrerent amounts of 'union character'. In my opiOlOn this would be a complete misunderstanding of the nature of British Journailsts' organisations which are not on the same 'scale' ot all. See R. M. Blackburn: Ullion C!IIlractCr anJ SOC;Il/ C!alS, Batsford, London, 1967. The ,ources 01' the quutations used in the following seclion arc: The ]",,,,,"I;SI \a), a commccci'Jl pellodieal, London, published 1879-1881; TI,,' ]ourno/ill (h), another commercial periodical, London, published 1886-1909; 'fi,,' ]"I/r>1'I/i11 (c), monthly organ uf the Natiunal Uncon of journalists, l.ondon, 1917 to date; Ne'/I',p"pcr Om"r, later Newspaper World, commercial periodical, London, 1898-1953; Tire IIISI;1lI1e ]Ollrnal, monthly organ of the Institute of journalists, London, 1912-63 and 1973 to date; !IIS/liU News/ , ditto, London, 1964·73; and ]ol/rnalism, organ of Satlonal ecICI tc Association of Journallsts, London, 1887-9 .1ollrllalisc (b), October, 1886, p. 15.

" ihid., Decemh er , 1887, PI'· 6-7.

See Christian: 01'. cit., p. 178. ibid.

, J. Tunstall: JOl/malisl.r al Work, Constable, London, 1971., Pl'. 268-70.

Ne'il'Sp
H. FlInt: in 1nsrilute Journal, December, 1913, p. 277. There is some similarity in my approach to that of Prandy in his study of sClentists in industry, but I regard his analysis as over-simplified and unsatisfactory. See K. Prandy: ProfeSSlollal Emplnyees, Faber, ] .ondon, 1965. !

, H. Braverman: Labor and Monopoly Capilal, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974, 1', 406 IU

ibid., p. 408.

ibid., March, 1906, p. 18 " Quoted in F. J. MansfIeld: Gelll/emell, Ihe Press', IX'. H. A.llen, London, 1913, the flrst olllelal history of the N.U.J., p. 118. Inslilute ]ournal, June, 1916, p. 102.

ib\d., November, 1916, PI'· 186-7. F. Peakcr, in ibid.. January, \920, p. 112-

" A third budy-the Guild of British Newspaper Editors-has existed lor a much shorter period and it is doubtful whether it has ever been genumely separate from the provincwl proprietors' organisation, the Newspaper Society. ] shall therefore not cunsider it here. See Tunstall's discussion of this body in 0. Bovd-Barrett, C. SeymourUre and J. Tunstall: Swdies on Ihe Press, Royal Commission Working Paper 3, HMSO, 1976. II

T. J. Johnson: Professions and Power, Macmillan, London, t 972, pp. 23-38

H. Becker: 'The Nature of a Profession', in Sociological Work, Penguin, London, 1971, PI'. 92. IJ

" T. J. Johnson: 'Imperialism and the Prokssions'. in P. Halmos: Pro!cssionali.wtlOl1 a"d Social Change, Sociological Review Monograph 20, University of Keele, 1971, PI' 281-309

W. A. Kornhauser: Seienlisls in1"dllrlry, University of California Press, 1962, PI'. " W. 1. Wardwell: 'Sociallntegration, bureaucratisation and the professionals" Social Fi",'cs, Vol. 33, 19')4-55, PI'. 356-9. Worker

\

302

\

, \

I \

, ,

ibid. March-April, 195~, p. 26. ',. The ]ournal15C (c), December- 1969, p. 11. J7

IllS! itlllt' NC'iJ.JSiertCf,

November, 1971, p. 1.

;" Newspaper Owner, January, 1899, p. 11. .7alll/1 o /iS t (b), May, 1902, p. 9R.

ibid., July, \920, Pl'· 53-4 ,. ibid., November-Deccmber, 1923, l" )37.

1-7.

\

J. Gordon in ibid., hbruary, 1949, p 25.

IIlSlilll le .70urllaf, April, 1916, p. 66.

Ihid., p. 285.

K. IX' Wedderhurn: nrc Harmondsworth, 1965, PI'. 295-7.

ihcd., OcTOher, IlJ32, p. \66.

'" ]olmwlism. February, 1888, p. ]2.

" Johnson, 01'. cit., Pl'. 32.

I"

ibid., February. 1922, 1'.22-'.

and

Ihe

Law,

1st

edition,

Pelican,

Ihid .. April, 1'128, l" 71 ibid., October, 1934. Pl" 119-41. ibid, March, 1935, p. J'i.

~\)

"

JIarr\' Chrisl iall 47

ibid., june, 1936, p. 93.

]o/ll'llafisIS' UCClipaliolla/ Ide%gies ,JIlL! Press CommerCialisalion "' ibid., December, 1934, p. 204

'" ibid., November, 1949, p. 162.

" ibid., july, 1939, p. 150.

" ibid., August·September, 1956, p. 101. 511

ibid., September·October, 1958, p. 84.

51

Institute Newsleller, November, 1971, pp. 1-2.

52

Newspaper Owner, November, 1898, p. 7.

51

ibid., December, 1898, p. 7.

ibid. " ibid., April, 1950, p. 50. '5

ibid., May, 19'51, p. 75. ibid., january, 1971, p. 6.

" ibid.

54

Instilllte Journal, November, 1914, p. I.

55

Journalist (c), August, 1920, p. 65.

"

Institute Journal, january, 1929, p. 10.

5'

ibid., October, 1932, p. 171.

"' ibid., August, 1977, p. 2. ibid., August, 1919, p. 7. ,," ibid., june, 1922, p. 98. ibid., january, 1949, p. 2.

" ibid., December, 1945, p. 162.

" ibid., May, 1952, p. 68.

" ibid., june, 1954, p. 66.

ibid .. December, 1953, p. 162.

'" ibid., August-September, 1973, p.7..

ibid., january, 1957, p. 2.

" Mansfield, op. cit., p. 104.

ibid., january, 1966, p. 2.

" ibid., p. 115. 0.\

" ibid., November, 1972, p. 5.

ibid., pp. 64-6.

01

ibid., November, 1978, p. 2.

ibid., pp. 343·4. " Mansfield, op. CiL, p. 299. " ibid., p. 73. " ibid. " ibid., p. 65. 100

ibid.

1111

Journalist (c), April, 1918, p. 12.

" ibid., p. 345-6. .. Journalist (c), january, 1918, p. I.

'112 ibid., p. 14.

" ibid., March, 1922, p. 30. 7ij

'"J

ibid., p. 13.

1114

ibid., May, 1919,p. 12.

Mansfield, op. ciL, p. 295.

71

ibid., p. 303.

71

ibid.

)J

Journalist (c), june, 1919, p. 8.

14

ibid., August, 1919, p. 7.

1115

ibid., November, 1922, p. 167.

'"j

May, 1926, p. 120.

'"' November, 1930, p. 217. "" February, 1935, p. 39. 7.'

ibid., May, 1920, p. 5.

16

ibid., April, 1921, p. 151.

111'1

May, 1946, p. 54.

I "'

ibid., September, 1959, p. 97.

III

ibid., September, 1974, p. 2.

112

ibid., August, 1975, p. 4.

113

ibid., December, 1977, p. 2.

" ibid., july, 1923, p. 132. " ibid., November, 1926, p. 229. 1'1

ibid., December, 1926, p. 240.

811

ibid., March, 1930, p. 68.

'" G. Viner: Basic Statistics on .Journalism in the British Isles, (mimeo), N.lI.]., London, 1965, p. 2.

304

305

J-Iany Christiall II' G. S. Bain: The Growth of White Co/far Unionism, Oxford University Press, London, 1972, p. 36n.

THE POLITICS OF SOCIALISATION: RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING FOR JOURNALISM

'" Tunstall, op. cit., p. 12. I would like to thank the following for their helpful comments: Janet Christian, Philip Elliott, Ronald Frankenberg, David Murphy, Jeremy Tunstall and John Westergaard.

Oliver Boyd-Barrett 1 Abstract THE paper demonstrates that the provISIon of formal trammg in journalism, as possibly in any other industry or occupation, is not solely determined by a specific range of 'necessary' skills. On the contrary, politico-cultural factors may be equally, if not more, important. The paper finds the 'professionalisation' hypothesis insufficient, however, as an explanation for the emergence of a national system of compulsory training. It notes that the character of training has been greatly influenced by the requirements of a specific sector of the industry, on which, significantly, the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCT]) has been heavily dependent for financial support and legitimacy. Ambiguity in this sector's approach to graduate trainees created a vacuum which was one factor that encouraged the development of university and polytechnic based journalism and communications courses. More fundamentally, potential competition for authority in training has developed from the establishment of an Industrial Training Board for Printing and Publishing (PPITB) with statutory responsibility for training in journalism. These developments impired survival/adaptation responses from the NCT], including the formulation of a broader structural and financial base, a more positive attitude towards graduate training, a wider range of functions and a reappraisal of alliances. These in turn have had consequences for training content, Analyses of training in terms of 'socialisation' or 'professionalisation' which fail to take into account such aspects of industrial structure and political rivalry may be misleading.

I. Training as Socialisation Training for journalism is commonly thought of as a relatively recent phenomenon in the British context. This is an interesting thought, not so much for the implied significance it attaches to the Llirlv rapid development of'the National Council li'r Ih\· "1"1:11111111', "t" 1011111:dl\l\ since 1952, but lin Ih" linlltnl \\'11\\' III I\hl' It IIt, 1"1111'1'1 '11.11111111'.' I'. so often used. The' nolol'I\'1 I' 01 I It" ,lid \1 IlL 1'11\\ 1',11' 'I 1'.11\\ III lilli' II III 306

'll)

I

I,

I OIi,H'}" Bovd-B,Jrre/{

the eyes of those who worked under them, to their critical and often dictatorial intervention by word of mouth or by personal memo in matters of detail, and with undeniable impact on the performance of their employees. If the process of training involves a large measure of regular and informed feed-back on standards of performance, then certainly the journalists who worked for, say, Beaverbrook, or for Northcliffe, were to that extent well-trained. That the term 'training' in practice, however, should often be differentiated from the process of learning throughout life, In interaction with colleagues and clients, is not in itself unusual. One might say that the term refers simply to initial learning experiences through simulated exercises and in classroom situations. Yet those with training responsibility in journalism will use the term 'training' in reference both to classroom learning and to on-the-job induction. True, training is for the most part, though not exclusively, seen as something which happens at the initial stages of a career in journalism. But this too raises an interesting question. In the case of rather more complex or more specific skills than those required in journalism, to speak of 'initial training' is to speak of the process whereby certain fundamental skills are acquired-skills, in other words, which must be acquired before other equally necessary skills are capable of being acquired. In the case of journalism the really basic skills-of comprehension, verbal and literary fluencY-have normally been acquired, or it is considered should have been acquired, well before entry into the occupation, through the system of compulsory education. Now the teachers of journalism will argue that these are necessary but not sufficient, and that other skills need then be acquired, which is the purpose of having formal 'journalism training'. They refer for instance to instruction in basic law, or public administration, Shorthand or aspects of newspaper practice, all of which feature in the curricula of NeT] training courses. But then there were journalists before there were people who lectured in journalism skills.' Why is it then that one generation of journalists develops from induction to maturity without any formal 'training' of the kind which is typically meant when the term is used today, and another generation is obliged not only to undertake formal training, but coaxed into sitting for an examination which seeks to evaluate its performance at the end of the training period? And why is it that at least up to 1978 training is obligatory for one sector of journalism, regional newspapers, and voluntary in another, periodical journalism for example? 308

II

The Politics ol Socialisatioll: Recruitillcilt alld l'rl.1illillg j(Jr ]o/ll"llalislll One line of approach in response to such questions is to argue that because we live in a rapidly changing society, in which, for example, changing technology imposes new conditions to which training and practice must adjust, we should therefore expect to find in journalism as in many other occupations, that increasing job complexity has given rise to a more complex machinery for the acquisition of relevant skills. It is probably true, that journalism has not been excluded from the pace of technological change (electronic editing, for example, may have a significant impact on basic reporting, writing and editing skills in journalism) but this factor seems not to have been of great interest until well after a national machinery for formal job training had already been established. It is possible that the structure of society in general may be said to have become more complex and that adequate comprehension of the complexity of social relations requires formal training. But many journalists deny that their job is to supply answers to profoundly difficult sociological questions, and claim that their task is 'simply' to describe on-going fragments of a changing reality. Others believe that academic study of society impedes rather than facilitates understanding if it removes the individual from that everyday on-the-job involvement with a rich diversity of different situations which journalistic experience can provide. Nor is there much in the contemporary teaching syllabus of training courses in 1978 at pre-entry, block release or even post-graduate entry J that is remarkably different from the kinds of skills and the kinds of knowledge that were once acquired by bright young journalist entrants without the assistance of formal training machinery. Perhaps we are talking about a process of rationalisation therefore-the efficient provision of forms of training that before occurred only informally, unsystematically, and even haphazardly? But to an outsider it might not be immediately evident that the existence of competing bureaucracies in the field of training, and a confusing plurality of training courses and levels of entry, constitute an cjji"cicllt approach to the problem of provision. These do indicate a certain level of seriousness of concern, however, in response to a perceived problem. It is the nature of this problem that is somewhat elusive. Factors other than social change or organisational rationalisation bear consideration. An alternat ive line oj" approach is suggested through the sociological analysis of reClllitIlll'llI ~Illd I raining in the context of 'socialisation' studies, indicatillg I hat these processes involve considerably more than the silllpk 11';1I1~1ll1~~lOn of technical know-how. ) l)'!

II Oliver Boyd-Barrett

I

A distinction has been drawn, for example, between role socialisation which consists of training in the skills of a future role, and status socialisation which involves the acquisition of 'a more general social identity and patterns of behaviour acceptable to people in a future status 4 position'. Status socialisation may involve the commitment of the initiate to a body of norms, ethical standards etc., associated with the standards set by the appropriate professional body or trade association. This serves not merely to further the interests of the profession or occupation as a whole but also to protect the client from misuse of professional or technical authority, particularly important if, as may often be the case in the traditional professions, the professional enjoys a high degree of autonomy in day-to-day practice. But socialisation should also be seen in the light of what Barry Turner calls the 'industrial sub-culture', a distinctive set of meanings which are maintained 'by ensuring that newcomers to the groups undergo a process of learning or socialization. This process links the individual to the values of the group, and generates common motives, common reaction patterns and common perceptual habits ... But by far the most important instrument for establishing control over newcomers is the pre-existence of institutionalized patterns of behaviour to which newcomers naturally tend to conform unless they have reason not to'. l

The rigour and length of the training process might therefore be expected to vary according to the complexity and character of both role and status elements. Where complexity is high training may be initially academic in the sense of being removed from the actual production situation, and as such may last for a number of years. One of the interesting features of journalism training has been the element of resistance within the industry to too great an extension of such academic training. This may be explicable in terms of the perceived level of skill complexity (only moderately complex), which is an assessment of role requirements, and in terms of the potential conflict between the industrial sub-culture and the sub-culture of institutionalised educational settings, which is an assessment of staws constraints in the socialisation process.

The Polities of Socialisation: Recruitment alld Training for .Journalism

process mediated by some form of qualifying test. 6 A consequence of such functions, which may also arise because employers wish to ensure that those selected for training are those able to benefIt from it or because unions or professional associations wish to improve the market value of their labour by controlled scarcity, may be the imposition of restrictions on entry. All these elements can be discerned in the development of journalism training. Formalisation of recruitment and training procedures for reasons such as these is often seen as component part of a process known as 'professionalisation', an attempt, in its extreme form, to ape the characteristics of the ancient professions such as medicine or law. Some sociologists see this as an inevitable tendency in all occupations: e.g.'All occupations at some point in their growth are faced with the problem of convincing a lay public, and usually a government department, that the nature of their work is such that it can only be entrusted to people who have 'appropriate' qualifications. If it is achieved this claim brings with it a considerable level of internal control over the profession's organisation: the profession itself is likely to be able to defme its qualifications, to devise the relevant criteria and to register new members. Nor surprisingly, in order to legitimate its monopolistic practice it is also likely to create ideologies which combine an emphasis on the potentialities of its knowledge and skills for enhancing human life with an insistence on the dangers which can arise from their misuse'. 7

One motivating element in the introduction of formal training courses where there were none before derives from a desire to impress on the outside world that certain standards have been generally attained, and also to standardise minimum attainments for the benefit of employers in overcoming certain problems of personnel selection within an industry of diverse make-up. Formal training may also function as a means of selecting personnel for further promotion, a

Parity of esteem with the ancient professions, as I have argued elsewhere, however,8 would be very difficult in the case of journalism for a number of reasons, not least of them being the absence of a weighty body of theory and knowledge specific to journalism on which good practice must depend, the absence of any clear support for the establishment of a 'code of practice', and the indirect character of the practitioner's relationship with his 'client'. The degree of formalisation of journalism training that has already been achieved certainly suggests an attempt to establish a body of theory and knowledge specific to journalism, and to enhance occupational status by such means. But the 'professionalisation' hypothesis for the growth of formal training in this sphere should be treated with caution. First, some of the initiative for training came from outside the occupation in the form, for instance, of Royal Commission recommendations. For example, some of the strongest requests for improvements in training submitted to the McGregor Commission came from news sources like local authorities. The existence of such external pressures reflects a certain resistance within the industry to 'excessive' formalisation of training. This resistance has in the past limited the growth of advanced level training in journalism in

310

311

I

OIJuer Boyd-Barrell The l'olitics of Socialisation: Recruitlllc//t alld Trall/ing jiJr

I

institutions of higher (as opposed to further) education, and has possibly restricted the development of pre-entry training of other kinds. It is particularly surprising, indeed, that by comparison with many other countries, U.K. journalism has not gone further down the road of 'professionalisation '. For example, restricted or controlled entry to the industry has never, till perhaps very recently, ranked as a major priority. Cleverley's argument that the work of the NCTJ was the result ofa strategy of the National Union of Journalists (NUl) in pushing for controlled entry as part of the process of sharpening its industrial bargaining power') may be misleading. lo Support for training came from many quarters, employers included. Union interests do not dominate the membership of the NCT] council. The degree of control over entry is relatively slight by comparison with the ancient professions, and with many white-collar occupations: 5 '0' levels, extended to 2 'A' levels in the case of most pre-entry courses, at the time of writing. Selection is predominantly in the hands of individual newspaper editors, generally on the basis of interview only. The lead in supporting more sophisticated selection tests has been taken by an external, government agency, the PPITB, although the NCT] too has investigated such techniques. The most important 'restrictive' NU] activities with relevance to professional entry have included its move to ban the direct employment of new graduates by national newspapers and, more indirectly, through its campaign to curtail freelance cOntributions from non-union members and the promotion of the closed shop. The potential strategy of supporting radical upward revisions of entry standards in order to peg minimum salaries to educational attainment seems not to have found significant favour with the union, although in its evidence to the McGregor Commission it is apparent that its attitudes to the further development of certain forms of journalism education at undergraduate and/or post-graduate levels were more sympathetic than possibly at any time in the past. Meanwhile account should also be taken of the absence to date of strong NU] pressure for the introduction of obligatory training for non-newspaper journalism, although systematic training for all neWCOmers to periodical journalism was deemed 'desirable' by the union's education officer in 1978. The work of the NCT] in the 1970s on the other hand has certainly demonstrated a serious attempt to incorporate the training requirements of the periodicals industry within its overall programme, and through the pre-entry courses the NCT] is in a strong position to

]O/{f/Il1/islIi

promote greater centralised control over initial selection procedures. Whatever moves may have been made by the NCTJ in directions such as these, however, they cannot be interpreted by simple reference to union pressures or interests; rather they reflect the need for the NCTJ, first, to establish more securely its own legitimacy within the industry, particularly in view of the situation of potentially competing training authorities; second, to secure a future for the organisation, its full-time members, and for teachers of its syllabus in colleges of further education; and third, to promote what in its considered judgement is the most appropriate and efficient training machinery for its clientele. These preparatory remarks serve to support the sociologists' contention that there is more to recruitment and training than simple role socialisation) and also to focus attention on a number of issues which have sometimes been overlooked by sociological analysis. These include, for instance, the observation that a profession or occupation is no more a single identity than, say, the House of Commons, and that the development of recruitment and training procedures should be examined not only for what they say about the general nature of the industry they serve but also for the conflicts of interest which they represent. We may note, second, that recruitment and training procedures are likely to reflect outside interests and agencies-the compulsory education system, government industrial training boards, consumer interests etc.-which impinge on the structure and content of their development. The particular focus of this paper is on the one institution that has done the most to date in the promotion of formal training for journalism; its dependence on a particular sector of the industry for support and legitimacy; its vulnerability to competition for legitimacy in the wake of the government's 1964 Industrial Training Act and its response to this competition. 2. The Role of Sectoral Interest

The general provision of training for journalism in the U.K. has been almost conspicuously modest in its strictly vocational, almost craft-like character, reflected in the very choice of the term 'training' in the NCT]'s title. The dominant interests that have promoted journalism training in the U.K., for instance, have been strongly antagonistic to the kind of university-level journalism degree courses that are prevalent in the U.S.A. and in many other countries throughout the world. The most characteristic mode of training developed under the aegis of the NCT] represents what that body described in its written evidence

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to the McGregor Commission as a 'mixture of external, largely educational, courses at Further Education centres in the COuntry and a recommended programme of on-the-job training, development and experience'. The external courses began as weekly half-day release programmes and grew to the present system of sixteen weeks of block release or, alternatively, a year's pre-entry training, centred on eight colleges in the U.K. An increasing number of direct entrants, however, receive training through the facilities of their own newspaper companies rather than at colleges of further education; and a small number of the pre-entry students are graduates who take a one-year university-based course at either Cardiff University College or the City University in London. The initiative for the in-company and university courses came from outside the NCT], although the curricula of incompany courses is influenced by the syllabus for the NCTJ's Proficiency Certificate, and the university students are exempted from 15 months of the full apprenticeship period that must normally be served by non-graduate direct en (rants. II External training for journalism takes place mainly in colleges of further education, therefore, which in the English system are the major providers of post-compulsory non-advanced education-including '0' and 'A' level courses for recent school leavers, and a wide variety of vocational and technical courses below degree level. The changing attitude of the NCT] towards the possible growth of degree-level provision of journalism courses is instructive, since it sheds some light on the structural foundation of training in the industry and indicates possible developments for the future. In its oral evidence to the McGregor Commission, the NCT] underlined its opposition to the American situation, where schools of journalism produced many more graduates than were eventually employed in journalism. The evidence ignored the general character of the curriculum in American degree courses and the likely suitability of journalism COurses for a wide variety of allied or associated occupations. Only just under half of those graduating from journalism schools in the U.S. in 1976 had in fact majored in news-editorial studies; many of the others had majored in advertising (16%) and public relations (9%)." It was put to the NCT] by the McGregor Commission that in any case the over-supply of applicants would benefit journalism by increasing the competition for vacancies. This was a pertinent question in view of evidence submitted to the Commission which shOwed that the level of applicants per vacancy had fallen to below the level considered desirable by either 314

The Polzhcs of Socialisation: Recruitment and Training for Journalism

employers or the NCT]. I.J The NCTJ's response, through its director, Alec Newman, was that the Council would 'rather encourage competition among the best people at the beginning so that we can select the best people on controlled courses'. 14 The NCT] position at that time reflected not only caution towards the idea of higher-level education for journalists, but also an appreciation of the interests of that sector of the industry with which the NCT] has been most closely associated, the provincial newspaper industry. This association is demonstrated, first, by the voting membership of the Council, which is mainly made up of newspaper representatives. The BBC for instance has only non-voting representation, while the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) is represented only through the Periodicals Committee of the Council. Among the newspaper interests, second, it is the regional and provincial newspapers which are most deeply implicated in NCT] activities. Of the total number of journalists in the mid-1970s working for the national and provincial newspaper press, news agencies, periodicals and in freelance work, some 30% were based in provincial newspapers. IS But the vast majority of new entrants to journalism each year begin work in the provincial newspaper press, and three-quarters of these start in weekly newspaper offices. Moreover, as the Council pointed out in its written evidence to the McGregor Commission, it has been heavily dependent on the voluntary assistance it has received from management and senior newspapermen of the regional newspaper industry. Senior newspapermen who help the Council as tutors on short residential courses, for instance, receive only a 'nominal' fee and the NCT] has estimated that something like one thousand editors and senior journalists atlord assistance in running courses and in work associated with the Proficiency Test each year. The provincial press, especially the weekly provincial press, constitutes the most important training ground for the industry as a whole. It supplies a pool of experienced labour to daily newspapers, local and national broadcasting, public relations work, etc. It has had no strong interest in delaying the age of entry to journalism by pushing indefinitely for further entrance qualifications or extended pre-entry education, or in other ways incurring higher training costs. The provincial newspaper industry has come to depend on a relatively young workforce, and some of the smaller weekly papers are run almost entirely by juniors or recently qualified seniors. By the mid-seventies almost three-quarters of all entrants entered

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journalism aged 20 and under; while well over half(58% in ] 973/4) had one or more 'A' levels, a fifth had 5 '0' levels or above and 16% were graduates. 16 In the space of a decade the PropOrtion of graduates had in fact almost tripled and of those with One or more 'A' levels it had doubled. To some observers at the time the McGregor Commission collected its evidence these improvements had come to be regarded as representing a tOlerable ceiling. It could have been argued that any tendency to increase the average age of entry by increasing the entry qualifications or by increasing provision or extent of pre-entry training of whatever kind might exert unacceptable pressure on the level of initial salaries. And if the increase in average age of entry were to occur in the form of a higher proportion of graduates, as the McGregor Commission recommended, many provincial newspaper editors might resist. First, because relatively few senior journalists in the provinces themselves have degrees. Second, because graduates are often perceived by senior journalists as a potentialJy subversive force, unwilling to acclimatise quickly to the demands of provincial journalism, and even where willing, likely to move on quickly to other jobs. Graduates are seen as more cosmopolitan, less likely to have local roots (an important attribute in local journalism) and more ambitious to move on: 'Some editors, having recruited graduates, have found, in manv cases, that their motivation is Suspect; that they are using basic newspaper training quite deliberately as a stepping 011' point for work in other media; that they arc out of touch with the attitudes and interests of the general readership of many newspapers; and that thev are not prepared to involve themselves in the mundane work of reporting on a weekly newspaper'.:'

Graduates are therefore seen as less likely to accept the constraints of local, and especially weekly, journalism. The graduate attitude to journalism might be represented by the comments of one graduate exjournalist who has dubbed the weekly press as the 'silent watchdog', whose ideal type of story is 'one which involves the minimum amount of investigation-preferably a single interview-or the redrafting of a public relations handout, which Can be written quickly and cut from the end backwards towards the beginning without making it senseless'. 18 The survey on training commissioned by the McGregor Commission from Social and Community Planning Research (SCPR) did indeed reveal a slight tendency for better qualified entrants to think that graduates had a harder time than most in getting jobs on provincial newspapers, a view that was confirmed by a high percentage (39%) of editors. Graduates were more likely to have hunted around among several papers for their initial jobs, and this experience may have I

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explained their perception of entry difficulty. 19 The viewpoint of the editors and of the NCT] at the time of the McGregor Commission was in some instances a reasoned non-elitist view, or one which placed enthusiasm and talent before qualifications. But it did not adequately defend itself against the charge that with the expansion of educational opportunity talent is more likely in practice to be associated with higher educational attainment than the reverse; although of course it is entirely justifiable that there should be multilevel access. It was particularly significant therefore that following publication of the McGregor Commission Report the proportion of graduates among NCT] registrations continued to increase and reached a record level of 25% in 1977. Several factors may have accounted for the continued increase-the influence of the McGregor Commission itself; the possibly growing influence of larger newspaper groups on training and the growth of in-company training; a change of public outlook by the NCT] in an endeavour to contain potential competition from higher education courses in journalism and communications, to secure a more prestigious status for itself in the educational world, and to respond to what may have been perceived as a changing industrial situation. The continuing increase in graduate entry and the distinctly more positive noises from the NCT] in 1977/8 towards the graduate training issue (including the establishment of an experimental full-time graduate pre-entry course from 1979) reflected the NCTJ's increasing ability to disassociate itself from the short-term interests of the provincial and in particular the weekly newspaper industry, to lead rather than follow. This ability merits fuller consideration. First, it should be noted that there has been more than one perspective on training even within the provincial newspaper industry. Certain of the larger provincial groups have been considerably more open than others to graduate entry, and these include many which have run their own in-company training schemes for some time. In the SCPR survey, 49% of in-company trainees were graduates compared with only 30% of block release trainees and I % of pre-entry trainees.: 11 Thomson Regional Newspapers group took half its annual intake from graduate applicants, for example, and fPC Newspapers recruited wholly from graduates. Large groups like these of course have major regional and national dailies in their stables. Their recruitment of graduates is partially designed with a view to providing a career channel for high-ability candidates to rise quickly from one kind of publication to another 317

Oliver Boyd-Barrett

within the group, a facility which smaller groups or single newspapers can neither provide nor benefit from. The McGregor Commission team which examined training under Lord Hunt, moreover, was favourably impressed with the in-company schemes, an impression confirmed by the SCPR survey. The survey evidence indicated that the trainees and instructors on in-company courses were more satisfied with their courses than the trainees and instructors of other courses were with theirs. 21 Graduates on block release courses may have been especially inclined to find the level of teaching inappropriate after their degree learning experience, although the NCTJ also provide separate, and shorter, block release courses for graduates. (Its non-graduate block release courses in the mid-1970s still tended to suffer from too wide a spread of experience among those who took them in terms of on-the-job apprenticeship and educational qualifications). The fact that in-company training appeared highly satisfactory in many respects, and had been commended by the Commission, might in itself have given the NCTJ some cause for concern: first, because of the implication that training through external courses, the NCTJ's main task, might be less good; second, because of the encouragement of in-company courses by the NCTJ's potential rival for authority, the PPITB; and third, because of the possible suggestion that the NCTJ did not handle graduate entry through block release as satisfactorily as the companies which offered in-company courses. In fact 15% of all trainees were now starting on in-company schemes, and the percentage was very likely going to increase with further PPITB encouragement. On the other hand, ifmore and smaller companies began to establish their own schemes, with fewer resources at their disposal, the in-eompany schemes in general might eventually have less of an edge on the external training system. One might have expected the NCTJ to move much faster in promoting higher entry standards and longer periods offormal training, given the general tendency for bodies of full-time training personnel to seek to extend the process of routinisation of entry and training procedures, at least partly in the furtherance of their own interests. This arises as such bodies develop interests which are separable from the interests of their respective professions. Elliott for instance, argues that 'one of the consequences of increasing use of institutionalised settings ... has been the development in most professions of a separate group of professional educators. These are liable to develop a recruitment and career structure separate from that of the general 318

The Politics of Socialisation: Reeruitmcllt and Trailling for Journalism

professional practitioners.' 22 To the extent that journalism teachers are likely to follow separate career paths in further education once they have left journalism, such a development is true of journalism. 23 The formation of the Association of In-Company Journalist Training Scheme lecturers in 1975 suggested a similar tendency in that sphere as well. But the creation of separate career channels did not have quite as dramatic an impact on the length and status of courses as might have been expected, for some of the reasons outlined earlier. Nevertheless, a significant feature to note has been the constant tension between the NCTJ's desire to effect modest increases in the formalisation of training procedures and the attitudes of its major sponsor-the provincial, especially the weekly newspaper industry-which has tended to be sceptical of the value of 'academic' learning. The NCTJ's motives have been mixed, driven on the one hand by strictly professional appraisal of client 'needs' in the light of its own assessment of the objectives of training; and on the other, by the need to sustain and eventually increase its authority in the industry generally, so as to implement its objectives and perhaps to safeguard the separate career prospects of the full-time training and lecturing staff or NCTJ-approved college courses. The NCTJ's ability to ride this tension between professional objectives and client parsimony has been grounded in the limited acceptance by newspaper editors or their publishers of the desirability of some degree of formal training. This acceptance grew steadily in the post-war period. Particularly important was the demise in the midfifties of an agreement reached immediately after the war between the Newspaper Society (NS), representing employers, and the NUL to maintain a given ratio of senior to junior staff. There were progressively fewer senior journalists to every junior (by 1967 it was down to 1.37 seniors for every junior on weeklies and 2.36 for every junior overall). 24 This meant that it was no longer enough to assume that juniors would gain the experience they needed simply by working alongside their seniors. A second important factor was the expansion of higher education and the acceptance of the Robbins principle of 'higher education on demand' for suitably qualified candidates. This diverted a great number of potential recruits to journalism away into alternative careers for which they became eligible once they had attained their degrees. By that time, graduates who had retained an interest III journalism may have been discouraged by the lengthy period of provincial apprenticeship which the NUJ-NPA 1965 agreement to 319

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I I Oliver Buyd-Barreu

restrict direct recruitment on to Fleet Street dailies had imposed. Most of the available places had in any case been filled by younger candidates with fewer qualifications. A third and more recent factor was the growing concern expressed by many editors and senior journalists about the allegedly declining standard of literacy of school-leavers (voiced in professional conferences, journals, echoed in other professions and by journalism teachers in the U.S.A., and in the NCTJ's evidence to the McGregor Commission). This suggested either that journalism had not raised its entry qualifications sufficiently high to take account of the talent that was once available to it but was now diverted elsewhere, or else that journalism had suffered, along with many occupations, from the disruptive consequences for school teaching of high birth-rate, school reorganisation and high staff turnover, problems which characterised the 1960s and early 1970s. More speculatively, perhaps, one might argue that the decline of competition in provincial journalism and the rise of a corporate attitude towards newspaper journalism as something that is subject to rational commercial management may have heightened the interest of publishers in the need for a technically-skilled journalist workforce whose output would be commercially, sound and predictable. This in turn could be linked with a growing concern that both the upturn of student radicalism in the mid to late 1960s and the increasing militancy of the NUJ were trends that should be checked. Hence an increased emphasis on training in the apparently neutral skills of journalism, itself a form of normative socialisation, which ignored the broader ideological arguments about the social function of journalism, and the conflict-model of society to which such debate can give rise and which in the same period characterised much of the thinking about journalism in the U.S.A. Such arguments would have swamped journalism teaching in higher education had it been generally taught at that level in the U.K. Even so, suspicion of higher education was sufficient to prompt some editors to doubt even the benefit of external courses in colleges of further education (doubt which was confined by a temporary expression of student militancy amongst Harlow journalism students in 1975),25 and to endorse the growing switch to in-company training courses. This particular factor of course did not work in the NCTJ's favour: external courses expose students to a sub-culture different from and to some extent in conflict with the sub-culture of the local newspaper office. The response of some editors may have been a greater stress on on-thejob training, at least demonstrating a commendable seriousness of 320

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purpose, but few would have had the resources to achieve this. The SCPR survey disclosed fairly wide dissatisfaction among trainees with the extent of formal on-the-job training. 26 3. The Struggle for Legitimacy

While many newspaper publishers and editors may traditionally have entertained a bias against formal training, we have seen that there were several factors at work helping to bring about a more sympathetic climate. Such factors helped to define a role in the industry for the NCTJ but not quite sufficiently to erase all trace of doubt whether the role was, after all, really necessary. Evidence of such doubt continues. Consider the three most important criteria for the successful establishment of any training organisation. These are: a general acceptance of its training as necessary and therefore obligatory for all new entrants; the acceptance of the training organisation's control over entry standards and selection procedures to allow for routinisation of the training process and standardisation of the training output; and third, the introduction of an assessment system on which to base selection criteria for career advancement. Although the NCTJ achieved the first of these objectives for the newspaper industry, its success in the latter two was still open to question in the late 1970s. It was not until nine years after the NCTJ was first established, under the then title of National Advisory Council for the Training ~md Education of Junior Journalists, in 1952, that its basic scheme was made obligatory by a collective agreement between the Newspaper Society, representing the regional employers in England and Wales and the journalists' trade unions. This agreement applied only to newspaper entrants, thus opening the gates to potential rivalry from other training schemes catering for different but overlapping sectors of the industry, and in any case limiting the NCTJ's influence base mainly to the regional newspapers. The agreement, revised in 1975, specified the minimum educational qualifications necessary for entry into provincial newspaper journalism, which currently stand at 5 '0' levels (including a pass in English Language), and, in the case of students applying for the onc-year N< :TI pre-entry courses, 2 'A' levels. 27 When a junior jourlL!lisl l'llllll,lll,", 1111 period of probation (six l11onths) Ill" ur shl' IS ll!llll'.l·d III \11',11 Illdlllllll" and the employer undnl:lkl'S III Il'!',I\1l'1 Illl 11,111111 \',1111 III' ',I I I ""j to ensure that he or shl' Il'll'l\l'\ '"' II 11,11111111' ,I I " : ' " " PPITB and the NeT! \\111i ,I \1',', I" I,"" " 'I

O/i",,/" Bowl-Barrell

Proficiency Test within the period of indenture. The NCT] succeeded therefore in making its training scheme obligatory, in the sense that all editors were now obliged to make provision for the training of new recruits, according to NCT]established guidelines. It also succeeded in introducing controlled entry through the imposition of minimum entry standards. With these measures it acquired a greater authority within the industry, but did not by any means achieve total security of status. Within a few years of the 1961 agreement, the introduction ofthe PPITB created a dual authority situation which tended to undermine aspects of the NCT]'s position, while encouraging the development of in-company training schemes. Such schemes were still geared to the Proficiency Test but represented a trend away from reliance on external courses, while opening the door to greater PPITB influence in whatever external support such schemes did require. While the NCT] did succeed in establishing minimum standards of entry, these minimum standards were surprisingly modest. Of course there had been improvements in the average entry qualifications over and above the minimum standards, and a multi-level system of access was desirable in many ways. Some outside observers, including news 'sources' and news 'consumers' felt that a high level of general educational background was desirable for journalists at any level, and that it was in the NCT]'s interest to aim for a high level. But the NCT] could not, even had it wanted, move too far ahead of its major clientele, the newspaper editors in the provinces, many of whom could look back to a time when it was indeed true that talent too often failed to coincide with educational qualifications. In the mid-1970s however, with the rapid expansion of opportunity in education for all classes, it was less likely that talented people would ignore or fail to take advantage of available education. On the other hand, some of the newspaper groups which did place a high value on educational qualifications, and these included some, like IPC, which housed 'popular' rather than 'quality' publications within their stables,28 continued with training schemes that functioned with only the NCT]'s general approval, and in other respects seemed fairly independent operations. These aside, however, it could be argued that one hidden function of the relatively low standard at which minimum qualfications for entry were for long set was to ease the job of personnel selection for the national media. The national media could simply look to the graduates who had completed their provincial apprenticeships, and there was a strong inclination among 322

The Poli'ics of Socialisation: Recmi/lllelll and Trainillg for ]ollnwlislll

both trainees and senior journalists to think that graduates had the advantage in securing the national jobs. Few, in any case, thought the reverse. 29 Even more than the task of securing minimum standards, the NCT]'s introduction of an examination system indicated the potential for a real measure of control over career advancement by an approved body. The purpose of the Proficiency Test was to indicate the satisfactory completion of training during the apprenticeship period, and thus to qualify the holder of a Proficiency Certificate for advancement to the status of senior journalist and its associated salary advantages. Before a candidate was accepted for entry to the Proficiency Test he had to have passed the qualifying examinations to the standards set by the NCT] in the four basic subjects of English, Law, Public Administration and Shorthand. 3uThe candidate also had to show evidence of completing a specified period of editorial experience, including specific and identifiable programmes of on-the-job training. There were (and are) clearly certain pedagogic advantages to the Proficiency Test-for many students, the knowledge that training and apprenticeship were leading towards some visible goal in the form of an examination was in itself a stimulus to learning. But it might have been more of a stimulus, possibly, had a pass in the Test actually been necessary for advancement to senior status) I and if editors and senior journalists themselves had a high regard for the Certificate. Newspaper publishers were not obliged to present their junior employees for the test, although that was one of the objects of the NCT] requirement that they make provision for training. Nor was success in the Test a prerequisite for advancement to senior status. Senior status was achieved, in the case of trainees who were under the age of24 at the date of first employment, on the first anniversary of the day following completion of indentures, or, for those aged 18 and over who passed the Test before that anniversary, on the day following completion of indentures or the date the Test was passed, whichever was the later. (Adult entrants became senior journalists on the day following completion of 30 months employment). Success in the Test immediately entitled the trainee to a salary bonus of 10070 of the appropriate senior rate of pay. But NCT] figures showed that a relatively low percentage of the total number due to sit for the Test for the first time in fact did so-it fluctuated between 47070 and 69070 for the four tests held during 1974 and 1975 for example. The main reason for this, according to NCT]

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surveys,'! was failure of potential candidates to reach the qualifying standard in shorthand. Given the relatively modest training objectives of the NCTJ programme, this was a fairly serious criticism of its eflectiveness. Although a high number of those who said they had not qualified in shorthand also said they intended to sit for the Test eventually the incentive to take the Test was considerably reduced once potential candidates completed their indentures and knew that they must advance to senior status in any case. Despite the fact that many potential failures might select themselves out from the Test in advance, so to speak, pass rates among first-takers were not remarkably high, fluctuating between 52% and 80% between April 1972 and October 1975, and even among retakers not greatly improving, with a fluctuation between 50% and 790/0 in the same period. The NeTJ attempted to reduce the actual failure rate in the Test by the introduction of an editor's assessment score as component part of the overall assessment. There were four papers in the exam. 3J For each, the pass mark was 60%; and if the standard of work was below 50% the section had to be retaken. To pass the whole Test an aggregate mark of 60% had to be achieved. If, after consideration of the editor's report, a trainee achieved 60% of the total mark, he was considered a pass, even ifhe had failed in one of the four papers. But he had still to attain a minimum of50% in each of the papers. The introduction of the editor's report was considered to facilitate a reduction in the failure rate. The problematic character of the Test was reflected in the ambiguous attitude of editors, senior journalists and trainees towards it. While three out of four editors, lecturers and training officers in the SCPR survey were prepared to say that they thought the Test a 'fair' measure of journalistic skills, less than half of the recently qualified seniors and only a third of the junior journalists agreed. Despite the feeling of editors, lecturers and training officers that the Test could, be described as 'fair' they did not feel, for the most part, that there was any difference between journalists who had or who had not passed the Test so far as general reporting, writing, or sub-editing skills were concerned. 34

4. Compet/tiOil for Authority: Plural Control These problems with respect to the establishment of obligatory training, minimum standards and a 'qualifying' examination may be termed problems of 'regulatory' credibility. In addition to these there were other sources of relative insecurity for NCTJ authority within the system. Most important of these was the introduction of the PPITB on 32+

The Po!il/cS 01' 50(/<1/1.1<11/0/1: Reeru/tll/CIII alld Fralll/llg j
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studied 11;111I111!: II tTL' relatively satisfied that there was no serious duplic;illoll ot II'SP ol1 sibilities between PPITB and NCT], it seems reas<>lI;i/)k 10 suggest that such duplication has always been a possibility just ;IS coutlict over proper spheres of interest has always been a possIbility. Moreover, the empire-building of the Manpower Services Commission which in 1977 seemed set to take Over a large chunk of Department of Employment responsibilities and which only narrowly missed seizing responsibility for the careers service, might suggest that in any conflict situation the NCT] would be very much the weaker partner. Like other training boards the PPITB raised money by means of a levy on the wages bill of employers from which it financed its own training activities and grants. Prior to 1968 the NCT] had raised its OWn money from subscriptions and donations paid by its member bodies. But after 1968 these organisations Were reluctant to finance two training bodies. The (Fleet Street) Newspaper Proprietors' Association for instance no longer paid an annual sum to the NCT], thus further reducing the Contribution of the national papers to the training facilities from which they indirectly benefited to sUpposedly great advantage.

Th, NClJ "CMdlng)y moved ow to , n,w 'y'tem of fin,nclng, whereby its income was derived from per capita registration and examination fees. This was not a satisfactory solution, however, because it did not anticipate the problem of fluctuations in the number of entrants each year, nor did it anticipate changes in PPITB levy procedure. From April 1975 companies which provided training to standards approved by the PPITB could claim exemption from the training levy. The PPITB predicted that by 1981, 90% of all journalists would be employed by exempted companies. Allowing companies to be exempted

in th;, w'y w", fi"t, , hoo" to th, d'volopm'nt of in-comp,ny training schemes, and this could be viewed to some extent as a weakening of overall NCT] authority (although in-company training schemes still prepared students for the NCTT-set Proficiency Certificate test). The most significant feature of this deVelopment, however, was the PPITB's power to grant exemption, and the Power of inspection allied with it: the power to inspect the training arrangements provided by exempted companies so that any changes in the quality of provision that might affect the Companies' future status could be detected. Moreover the PPITB was Concerned about on-the-job as wel1 as academic training, and unlike the NCT] had the power to inspect on326

The Politics

0/ Socialisation:

Recmitl/lclll and Training j;)r ]o/ll"l/alislIl

the-job tralnmg provISIon as well. In theory, and possibly in future practice, the continued overal1 survival of NCT] authority and of the 'exempted' companies depended on the judgement of the PPITB. A further strength of the PPITB was its sheer size; its power to commission research for instance was far greater than that of the NCT]. Through its research the PPITB could 'set the agenda' so to speak in future discussion on training development. The McGregor Commission was reluctant to wade too deeply into the training river for this very reason, knowing that a major PPITB training survey was due to be published not long after the Commission's report, and that its survey might very wel1 have considerable influence on the future of the training effort and on the PPITB's attitude towards its training 'partners', in particular the NCT]. The PPITB's encouragement of in-company training schemes might lead, some felt, to excessive concentration by employers on training for the specific requirements of their own particular enterprises or groups of publication, at the cost of wider professional considerations. This might run contrary to the McGregor Commission's approval of a more broadly-based initial training course, one that would cover the basic skil1s of several different sectors of the industry, not just those required for provincial journalism. The PPITB had statutory responsibility only for publishing and printing, not for broadcasting. More important, the growth of in-company schemes threatened to restrict the NCTJ's external programme mainly to small newspapers. The growth of exemption and the decline of the residual levy lbalso seemed to threaten the demand for NCT] short courses. Exempted companies would not be able to claim a contribution towards the cost of these from the PPITB. The NCTJ's short courses were distinct from those associated with the basic training schemes, and were significant in a number of ways. They were designed for already qualified journalists who needed refresher courses or instruction in new skills such as subediting, lay-out and design etc., for which training was not provided in the initial schemes. More recently they had greatly increased in number and included courses in specialist subjects like industrial relations, local government and financial journalism, of potential value to experienced and possibly quite senior journalists. Such courses also appealed to a wider audience, from outside the regional newspaper press, and a number of them were of specific interest to journalists working for periodicals. The development of post-experience courses of this kind represented one means whereby the NCT] could define for itself a new 327

I' Oliver Bovd-Barre{[

role that would not be overshadowed by the growth of the PPITB. The full extent of PPITB influence on journalism could not be fully anticipated. Not a great deal of information was publicly available about the work of the board. Beyond issuing guidelines for the training of entrants in the regional newspaper industry and in periodicals, and the production of materials for in-company courses which had been tested in some companies, inspecting for exemption, etc., considerable effort appeared to have been expended in a survey oftraining needs (under the direction of an ex-training officer of the NU]), and in an assessment of selection techniques. The results of the survey were not available at the time of the McGregor Commission reported, but it was clear to the Commission's team that the PPITB's plans for the future hinged, ostensibly at least, on the survey results. The PPITB had so far supported the situation of joint responsibility with the NCTJ and in particular it had said that it could not hope to duplicate the VOluntary support given the NCT] by the provincial newspaper industry. But it would have been naive to assume that its assessment of the situation might not change in the future. 5. NCT] Response: Redefining the Boundaries A number of strategies were available to the NCTJ in its endeavour to secure for itself a stronger position in a situation of competing training authorities and an uncertain future. The most important of these inclUded a restructuring of its financial base; expansion of the area of its training responsibilities; and an increase of its control Over selection of candidates for entry into the industry. Perhaps the single most important initiative from the NCTJ was its proposal for a new system of financial backing for its training activities in order to overcome the problem of fluctuation in the numbers of new entrants from year to year, and also in the numbers of enrolments on short courses (hence fluctuating registration fees). The Council began to canvas opinion on the desirability of a system of financing that would involve a per capita payment by employers on the basis of the number of journalists employed, rather than the number of trainees registered. This would have considerable advantages. It would greatly increase the NCTJ's income, giving the Council more power and a security of independence from the PPITB and other Sources of VOluntary help which had enabled it to balance the books. (For example, in 1976 the PPITB promised a temporary grant of £25,000 a year towards the cost of the NCTJ's recently appointed regional organisers, and for 1977 it 328

The Politics

0/ Socialisatioll:

Recruitmellt alld Tri.1ill ing for ]ollrlwlism

agreed to a total grant of £35,000 to include funding of certain administrative costs. Other grants for 1977 were received from the Newspaper Society, NPA, Scottish Daily Newspapers Association, Institute of Journalists, lTV and BBC). J7 A new system of financing along these lines would allow the NCT] to engage in more accurate forward planning. In particular it would enable it to provide for specialist courses of a kind which might not attract a high demand, rather than having to respond entirely to market considerations. Thirdly, such a measure of finance would widen the spread of the NCTJ's income sources, so that it would not be as dependent on the local or weekly newspaper industry. Under the then existing system the weekly newspapers who employed most of the new entrants paid the most to the NCTJ in registration fees. Under the proposed new system all organisations which employed journalists, including the national newspapers and broadcast organisations, although these took on few trainees, would be making a far more significant contribution to the training process. While it was likely that the provincial press would support such a scheme, and the periodicals industry likewise, the attitude of the NPA and the broadcast organisations was more problematic. Meanwhile some of the larger periodical groups had already gone over to a per capita based subscription to the NCTJ in recognition of the value to them of NCTJ short courses in such subjects as sub-editing, lay-out and design. It was hoped that the support of the McGregor Commission for the new system might also prompt the national media organisations to do likewise and accept the heavier payment involved. For media groups with their own training schemes there was the difficulty that the difference between the original registration payment and the per capita payment might appear substantial in some cases. In the event the new system was partially introduced from 1978, but only with the agreement of the Newspaper Society, the Guild of British Newspaper Editors, the IoJ and the NUJ-the provincial newspaper and journalist interests. The NPA did not recognise the principle of the new scheme, but had already paid a sum of £7,500 for the 1977/8 financial year. This represented about half the amount it would have paid under the new per capita payment proposal. Companies who were not members of the Newspaper Society would continue to pay a registration fee unless they opted to join the new system. So periodicals were not after all automatically included. The national newspapers and broadcast organisations were not part of the new system though they 329

O//z't'l" Bovd-Burrerr

"'i,bt con,inu, witb volunt"y mnttibutio",. In tb, PtOvinei,1 new,pop" indu"ty m"nwhil, tb, new 'Y"'m m,y b,v, b'lp'd ",".,f" 010," influence 10 tb, I"g" PtOvinei,1 P'P''', tb, d,;Ii", " tb, OXpen" ofth, 010," nu""tOu., w"kli", ,"d if to, could b,v, bcen , schemes, lib,,,ting f'''Ot fOt tb, NCJ], giving i' 010," tOop, fO 010", ,mbitiou, t

Th, 1978 'b'og, "'P""med , '01,11 b,ginning, , fU"b" btO'dening of tb, NCJ]', m'in tOUte" of "'''nue migbt "ty w,ll 'if"t tb, COntent of '''ining mu"" 01 "die,"y, ,"d in po"icul" migb, enCOU"g, tb, i",tOdu"io n of 'ubjcet, ,"cb , d"ig '"d wi'bin tb, b"" t"ining tOb""" iftbi, w" to b , thtnb"ie eeom Ind'''' , t"ining tOb'me foc 'm"n" to ,11 fotm , of joocnoli,m. WOtking P'
°"

I'Y~ut

tOb~diting,

'ft"

b"",

Ptt~mty

A g"',,1 b"ie jOutnoli'm COOt" might 'I" PtOvid, th, NCT] with COut,,, 'nd ",

fonbet
n t COut" ttP'""nted , '''ond point of potenti'l The p"·tolty im""ntio fO th, NCT} in tb, to'k of boo"ing it, ,"thoti'y in tbe PPITa 'to. It W" , k,y to glt"" inflo"ce it g,,, th, NCT]

b",""

330

rIle j)o!illcs 0/ Soclulz'sarlOlI: Recnlltlllt'll1 ,wJ 'Frailllllg .1(11 ]olll'lwliSIII

more control over the initial training experience than block release courses, because it placed training much more firmly in the sphere of further education than such course~ and, especially important, it gave the NeT] the power to control entry into the profession not just in terms of minimum educational standards but in terms of initial selection, The majority of students who were taking the one-year preentry courses at the appropriate colleges of further education in the mid-1970s were 'non-sponsored' ~tudents. That is, they were not employed by any particular newspaper at the time of entry, and received no income from a newspaper during training, The number of places available on the NCT] courses was determined each year by the Newspaper Society, the NU] and Ioj. This was done on the basis of information supplied by publishers which indicated the number of vacancies expected to arise in the subsequent year for which successful pre-entry students would be suitable candidates, All successful preentry students could thus be assured of employment in the provincial newspaper industry. The non-sponsored students were selected by panels set up by the NCT] and consisting of representatives from management and unions and, separately, editors, lecturers and NCT] officers, Non-sponsored students could be eligible for LEA grants, though there was some vulnerability here to changes in LEA nonmandatory grant policies, especially during a period of economic recession, The pre-entry principle gave the NCT] the power to introduce a new measure of rationality into the process of selection, Already it was significant that its entry qualifications for pre-entry courses, 2 'A' levels, were higher than for direct entrants, The disadvantage may have been that many pre-entry candidates had tried and failed for degree courses at university or polytechnic and possibly felt that a journalism course was a second-best option, The NCT] also complained of the large fall-out of pre-entry students who accepted places in higher education alter they had already accepted places for pre-entry courses. There were also 'disciplinary' problems, Direct entrance on to newspapers, on the other hand, was entirely in the hands of employing newspapers, subject to agreements concerning minimum standards, training etc. The direct entry applicants normally presented themselves for newspaper jobs by writing on their own initiative rather than in response to advertisement. Despite NCT] attempts to e~tablish a clearing house system the method of direct recruitment took little account of imbalance between the major geographical regions in the Hi

I I

II

Oliver Boyd-Barrerr 'dll'ply and demand situation.

Where there were few vacancies, applicants stood less chance than in parts of the country where there were many, regardless of ability, unless of course they were prepared to move. But many weekly newspapers preferred candidates from the immediate locality. The PPITB had done research on methods of rationalising employer selection; while the NCT], encOuraged by the McGregor Commission, was likely to step up its careers publicity work. Pre-entry selection overcame many of these recruitment problems. The tests for pre-entry selection were more rigorous than most of those applied by individual employers (it was not unknown for a nonsponsored student who had been rejected for a pre-entry place to turn up again as a sponsored student, and on half-pay). The pre-entry mode of selection of non-sponsored students also facilitated the balance of recruitment between the sexes. The number of students on pre-entry COurses remained fairly constant through the 'seventies, at or around the 130 mark, while the number of 'sponsored' students amongst these fell from 35% in 1970171 to a recession low of 6.5% in 1975/6. However the SCPR survey revealed that editors were more likely to favour the pre-entry COurse as a better foundation for journalism than in-company, block release or POst-graduate diploma courses. 39 Most lecturers on NCT] courses favoured the pre-entry option. The NCT] itself gave Some prominence to the finding of Ken Goodwin, editorial training officer with Essex County Newspapers, that it was cheaper to sponsor pre-entry students than to depend on the block release system. He claimed that sponsoring cost £500 less, but his figures assumed some LEA suPPOrt for the pre-entry stUdent. The NCT] argued that the pre-entry course was a faster means of learning than block release (which was spread over two to three years), that it avoided trainees having to do work for which they had not yet been trained at college or received instruction in the company, and that it avoided disrupting the office when the trainee was away, as happened with block release training. On the other hand some editors considered pre-entry COurses 'too academic', in the sense of being removed from real-life conditions, just as some felt this about the block release COurses also. An NCT] working party established in 1976, however, favoured steady growth of pre-entry training 'until recruits from this source reached by far the majority of the intake'. Because pre-entry COurses were relatively lengthy and were collegebased, the question of their status within the educational World was also significant. Ideally the NCT] would have liked its Courses to be 332

[he PoliTics

0/ Socialisation:

RealliTmem and Training lor JOllrnalism

polytechnic-based. But initial explorations revealed that the polytechnics would not have been happy to take on such highly vocational and skills-based courses of which some, the first year block release courses, were on a lower Burnham scale than is normally associated with polytechnic work. The Council would have been reluctant to split its block release courses or to separate its pre-entry courses from the colleges providing block release. Their smaller numbers would spread too thinly between colleges of further education and polytechnics. One idea that had been mooted for future development, but which was not adopted by the 1976 working party, was that of amalgamating courses within a smaller number of colleges to rationalise course provision, especially in specialist areas such as law or shorthand which were sometimes provided by other departments, and to give journalism training courses more political muscle within the colleges. But this could destroy valued regional links. The question of the NCTJ's relationship with polytechnic-based courses in media studieslcommunications continued unresolved. They were regarded with some suspicion by the Council and by the industry generally as being too 'academic' and with little practical relevance to work experience. The polytechnics had done little to dispel such suspicion. Although the Council had approved the one-year postgraduate journalism courses offered by the University College, Cardiff and the City University, London, it did not initiate these. It did begin negotiations with the Open University around the possibility of a linkup between certain Open University courses and the NCTJ's postexperience journalism diploma (almost defunct in its present form), but these did not appear to have been productive at the time of writing. More significant was the preparation for a 1979 launch of an experimental post-graduate pre-entry course at the NCTJ's Cardif course centre, the South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education. This seemed to be a move in direct competition with the university journalism courses (yet overall student demand for such courses was high enough to absorb several centres) although the 1976 NCT] working party had expressed the view that the universities should accept the involvement of the Council and that the number of students on post-graduate courses should be considered in relation to total preentry numbers decided upon by the employers' organisation and the journalist organisations each year. The Council pursued with some enthusiasm, but without substantial financial support, the possibility of establishing a residential training centre for its own short courses, 3n

Oliver Bovd-B,nTC/(

which would greatly rationalise existing course provision and administration, and might provide a centre from which other activities, such as research and development, might later grow. One possibility mooted in 1978 was a link up between the NCTJ and the Thomson Organisation's Cardiff training centre. (In 1979, the NCTJ and the Thomson Foundation agreed to set up a joint residential centre near London. In 1980 the NCTJ approved plans for a vocational BA Journalism course at Chelmer Institute of Higher Education.) The interest in a post-experience diploma and in the idea of a residential college indicated that the NCTJ saw the post-experience area as one of important potential growth. It went along with the expansion of short post -experience courses to which reference has been made-17 such COurses were offered in 1975/6 attracting almost 300 journaiists, and a further schedule of 19 courses was proposed for 197617. Many of those who attended such courses suggested they could usefully have been longer, and there was little doubt of their practical value to those who did attend, as the McGregor Commission team discovered. The SCPR survey found that some 28% of the senior journalists surveyed had been on a course since completing their apprenticeship; in almost all cases the expenses had been met by the employing newspaper. The courses that were most popular were subediting, layout and design. This particular demand might be reduced by the introduction of a more broadly based initial training course. But some 75% of senior journalists in the SCPR survey favoured the provision of some specific courses for seniors; 300/0 specified subediting; 15% layout and design; while other COurses for which there appeared to be a potential demand included law (22%), specialist reporting (13%), production and printing technology (8%) and government/public administration (5%).40 The short course provision appeared amenable to expansion, therefore, although without a residential training centre much of the NCT]'s past revenue from such courses had disappeared on hotel bills. Overall therefore the evidence indicated considerable SCOpe for NCTJ expansion, but a great deal would still depend on how the PPITB viewed its Own future role. In the post-experience field, for instance, the PPITB was in 1977 monitoring the progress of its sub-editing training package, and there Were similar PPITB initiatives designed to encourage the development of selfSUfficiency in training, which might undercut the NCT]'s role. HI

Thc Politics of Socialisation: Rccl'llilllleJll alld Trainillg jill" ]olll'lla/isl/I Conclusion

Journalism makes an interesting case-study for the sociological analysis of training. While there have been significant pressures in the directioD of occupational 'professionalisation', there have also been significant factors tending to arrest the pace and mode of such development. Of particular importance has been the way in which the structure and content of training provision has tended to reflect the immediate needs of one particular sector of the industry, rather than a considered analysis of all the skills that might be regarded as fundamental for the industry as a whole, and of the available careeropportunities in journalism. Pressure for change in journalism training provision has been accelerated by inter-sector conflicts of interest, by the imposition of a state-controlled training body alongside the industry's self-generated training scheme, and by external competition in the higher education sector. Postscript

The trend towards graduate entry became more pronounced in the late 'seventies and the attitude of the NCT] towards graduate entry more relaxed. This change may have been prompted in part by the increasing rate of turnover in the provincial newspaper industry. 41 The NCT]'s Chairman in 1978 claimed that it was 'crazy' to facilitate 'training for some doubtful school leavers and turn away young people with proven aptitudes and maturer attitudes towards careers'. 42 The IoJ representative on the NCTJ was quoted as saying 4] that 'by pegging recruitment to school leavers it is helping to keep wages at a disgracefully low level'. But NCTJ involvement with university and polytechnic courses continued to be restricted, by and large, to consideration of whether to recognise them in respect of their vocational elements and the suitability of such clements for journalism entry. In a possible bid to attract graduate entrants away from university post-graduate journalism courses which it had not itself initiated, the NCTJ established its own 18-week post-graduate pre-entry courses in 1979 for small numbers of sponsored students. One distinguished NCTJ examiner, an ex-NUJ education officer and PPITB consultant, George Viner, ventured the opinion in 1979 that 'sooner rather than later journalism training might be well advised to end its comparative isolation, and bring itself into the main stream of further and higher education in the interest ofthe parity of esteem, mutual recognition of qualifications, and access to resources 33'5

OliZ'('}' B"yd-Barrefl

both material and intellectual'. 44 In the meantime a new N CT] survey had been initiated to investigate its 'whole basic training operation covering the duration, phasing, and content of its external courses and their relationship with on-the-job training',4\ One question it might well further investigate would be that of the link between training for regional newspaper journalism and training for other modes of journalism. The Royal Commission on the Press, as we have seen, had urged a broader training perspective. Opinion in training circles in 1979 was divided. NCTJ's chairman for 1979, Ken Holman, spoke of a 'more radical change which I hope to see. This should be the recognition that the NCT], by virtue of its name, must be involved in training for all forms of journalism. Already we are engaged in the periodical field. Now is the time for a step forward into radio and TV and, possibly, public relations.' 46 In this view he had the support of the NUl's Education Officer, Gordon Parker, and of one of Parker's predecessor's, George Viner, who believed that a broad foundation course of the kind envisaged by the Press Commission was possible. 47 But NCTl's full-time director, Alec Newman, did not see this as a realistic prospect in view of financial and staffing limitations; in this view, Newman was supported by Colin Brannigan, President of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors in 1979, who took the line that there was insufficient common ground between print and broadcast journalism, and that broadcast 'pilfering' of qualified journalists from the provincial press was threatening to denude regional journalism of the necessary talent and expertise. 48 Nor did the results of the NCTl's financial restructuring suggest anything very different, since by far the bulk of its monies still came from the Newspaper Society and its Scottish equivalent which in 1978-9 accounted for some five-sixths of the total. Meanwhile there was every sign that with the growth of independent radio there would soon be a flourishing network of independent centres for broadcast journalism training, based partly in universities and polytechnics: e.g. University College, Cardiff and the Polytechnic of Central London. On the other hand the PPITB's commitment was limited to print journalism and this might lead the NCT] to seek a broader remit in order to establish its authority in alternative areas. But in this it might be hampered by any future dependence on PPITB funds which might be given on the understanding that no such monies should be used outside the field of print journalism. In the atmosphere of public spending cuts by the late 'seventies the scope for an innovative PPITB 336

[he Polincs o/Socialisalioll: }?eCl'llilll/L'II! alld Traillillg jiJl' ]'l/lI'Ihdisll/

role might seem to have been curtailed, with possibly negative consequences so far as any future grants might be concerned. Reductions in LEA budgets also threatened discretionary grants for non-1>ponsored students on NCT] one-year courses, while prospects at higher and further education levels for further innovations in journalism training and education seemed bleak. Both the NCTJ's preentry and block release programmes were threatened by the continuing development of in-company training courses. The Open Uniz'ersily

I The author was engaged by the Royal Commission on the Press as part·time consultant from January 1975 to June 1976. l'art of his work for the Commission involved co-operation with an independent research agency, Social and Community Planning Research, in establishing survey procedures for a national study of journalism training provision.

2 It is important to note that the NCTJ was not the first venture into formal journalism traming. Lee has described one or two short-lived nineteenth century experiments. A. J. Lee: 'Early Schools of Journalism Training-from 1878-1900; .Journalism Srudiel Review, Vol. I, No 2, 1977, pp. 35-7; while Hunter has reminded us of the London University Journalism Studies Diploma Course, 1919-1939. F. Hunter: 'What Became of Mr. Khoo?' UK Press Gazelle, August 22nd, 1977, pp. 11-12. A few enterprising publishing companies also launched in-service training arrangements. But it is unlikely that formal training ever reached more than a very small proportion of all new entrants until recently, or that it was anywhere regarded as an absolute requirement for advancement in the profession. Shorthand, however, has always been regarded as important, and many journalists before the time of the NCTJ made their own arrangements where instruction was not provided by the employing company. Even so many illustrious journalists have thrived without the aid ofa good shorthand capability. J Journalism courses which are taken before entry on to newspapers are described as 'pre-entry'. These are generally taken at either post-'A' level stage or at post-graduate level. Courses which arc taken during the first few years of actual newspaper experience, leading to the NCT]'s Proficiency Test, are described as 'block release', because they last several weeks at a time in contrast to the 'day-release' pattern that preceded them. 4

P. Elliott: The Sociology of Ihe Proj'ellions, Macmillan, London, 1972, p. 79. B. Turner: ExplOl'ing Ihe lnduslrial Sub-C1Ilrure, Macmillan, London, 1971, p. I.

" Cf. Dale, 'Additionally, it has been argued (by Andre Gorz 1972) that many technical and vocational qualifications are not actually essential to the performance of the jobs for which they provide qualification (since Gorz argues most of these jobs can be performed as well on the basis of experience as on the basis of a paper qualification). Rather these qualifications serve to legitimise the hierarchical division of labour to those at every level of it' (R. Dale: 'Work Cultures and Consciousness', Unit 9 of Pcc'ple 'lIId Work, Open University, 1975; A. Gorz: 'Technical Intelligence and the Capitalist Division of Labour', Telos, No. 12, Summer, 1972, pp. 27-41). , G. Esland: 'Professions and Protcssionalism', Unit 12 of People <1l1d If"'Jrk, Open University, 1975, p. 37. 8 O. Boyd-Barrett: 'Journalism Recruitment and Training: Problems l'rofesslOnalisation' m J. Tunstall (ed): Medi<1 Soci,'logv, Constable, London, 1970.

337

m

OIl'I't'/' BOI'd-Barrcrr I ,.1, III

v (,. C1e erley: 1/,c H,w Slreel Duasl!'r: Brill"/i Nali(iflai ll;cw.lpdpcrs as d Case Jtli,mdnagefnml, Constable, London, 1976, p. J05.

,I' It is certain that in its early historv the NU] specifically rc}ecte] training as an issue with which it should be involved. This was considered something more approprime for the more 'gentlemanly' and non-mdilallt association, thc Institute of Journalists. " Similar exemptions are allowed pre·entry students, direer entry graduates, and in one case the students of a polytechniC communications source. The exact extent of exemption ditTers according to category. But exemption from a Proportion of the apprenticeship period is a standard expression of the NCT]'s approval, either of Courses or of Lellainlevl'/s of entry qualification. The NCT] also formally approves blOck release and pre-entry courses for students of periodJCal journalism at the London College of Prilltmg and' allows studenrs of the LCp's liND Communications course to sit f('r the NCT/'s Certificate in Periodical Journalism, subject to vetting b\· an industrial panel. ,.' Editor and Publisher, April 9th, 1977, p. 13. 58% 0( all American journalists arc graduates, of which a third major m journalism. 86% of all journalists have had at least some college expeflmce (Johnstone, Slawski and Bowman, 1977). In the United Kingdom approximately 16';'0 of journalism em rams in the mid-1970s had degrees rising to 25% by thc laiC 197()s; while a much smalIcr proportion of all journalists were graduates. " This leVel was recorded CommiSSIOn, HMSO, 1977, p. as 178.2.5: I in the final report of the McCiregor Royal 19-i'). _ Hotel, October 30th, " Statement 10 the ROYal Commission on the Press, PiccadilIv I.' It has been estimated that thcre arc 26,OO() journalists in the UK: 30% in provincial newspapers, 2()'7" on national newspapers and news agencies; 15% in periodicals, 6.7% in broadcasting; !O'l'o in freelance /ournalism, with the remainder in a variety of OCCupations inclUdIng publIc relations and press inf(1fmation work. Of a total entry of 8ll in 1971/4 into provincial papers and agencies, 637 began on weeklIes, 192 on dailies and 4 in agencies. About 2')0 enter periodicals each year. (Evidence to the Royal Commission on the p.Press Commissi,m, 1977, f72).Irom NCT] and PPA. Also, see Final Report of the Royal

" Statistics supplIed by NeT]. For evidence of entry qualilications, 1964-1975, see Appendices to the Royal Commission Repon, p. 150. Evidence to the Royal Commission, Piccadilly lIotel, OCtober 30th, 1975. "

D. Murphy: The Silent Watchdog, Constable, London, 1976.

", Social and Community PlannIng Research: The Recruitment and Training of Journalists, SCl'R, London, 1976, summarised in Royal Commission Report Appendix H, Pl'. 1')1-/62. :0

01'. cit., p. 6

.' , ibid., p. 22- 32.

The Politics of Socialistltioll: Rea/lltll1ellt tllld Traillil/g for ]olll"!wlisl/l this element; but another element was the demand for a less 'academic' education, i.e. training more closely in tune with actual newspaper practice-perhaps rellecting preference among some of the trainees fot the highly pragmatic sub-culture of the newspaper office, a case either of 'anticipatory socialisation', or among block release students, simple impatience with the constraints of college facilities. For an account of how JournalIsm displays similarities with other media occupations in the lack or preferred lack of routinised procedures; multiple career paths, etc., see EllIOtt: 'Media Organisations and Occupations: An Overview' in ]. Curran, M. Gurevitch and ]. Woollacott (eds): Mass Communication and Society, Edward Arnold, London, 1977, '" SCPR: op, cit., pp. 15,21. 2' The McGregor Royal Commission recommended that the 2 'A' level requirement for pre-entry students should be made the minimum requirement for all entrants. 18 It is possible that large groups which house 'popular' newspapers tend to see popular journalism as requiring more 'professionalism', in its technical sense of sheer proficiency of performance within fairly rigid constraints of design and popular taste, and as such requiring evidence of high attainment before entry.

" SCPR: 01'. cit., pp. 35-38. 10 Graduates are exempt from the English requirement. The method of shorthand must be one which is approved by the NCT], and the qualifying examination must be the NCT]'s own test. Subjects such as current affairs and sociology are also studied in addition to journalism practice,

3' This was recommended by the McGregor Royal Commission. 32

Made available to the author by the NeT].

JJ

The structure in 1978-9 remained very similar.

" SCpR: op. cit., pp. 33-34. 35 Not completely justifiable: the ppTIB fin instance funded a City University lectureship in 1978 to encourage teaching for specialist journalism: the NCI']'s short course programme also caters for specialist journalists in many diverse fields.

" The 'residual levy': up to 1975 all firms were levied (0.9% of their payroll). Up to 80% of the levy could be repaid in the form of grants for purposes of training to individual firms. The remainder constituted the 'residual levy' which financed general training and research activities undertaken by the pPITB. As more and more firms became exempt from the levy the size of the residual levy fell. An application by the PPITB to the TSA to have general training projects funded directly by the Exchequor was not accepted . -" These grants were to help the NCT] pay offits deficit; they were mainly small, nor renecting, in the NCT]'s view, the extent of benefit these organisations derive from training.

Elliott, 1972,01'. cit, 1'.86. " The lecturers are employed by the LEAs but they follow NCT] syllabuses, and their idenl ity is bound up with the NCT]: the more so in view of the relatively low status of many Journalism Courses ('non-advanced') in the further education sector. " Boyd-Barrett, 01'. cit.

," SCPR: 01'. cit., p. 41. ." ibid., p. 30. ibid.,p, l2.

It would be over-simplistic, however, to describe the Harlow incidents as an example of left-wing demands for an ideological1.y ditTerelll training; there was certainly

" About 20"lo in 1979: Mcdill Reporler, Vo!. 4, No. I.

3lH 339

()!i'i'CI' ROvd-BalT('{(

',' UK, Press GciC'ellc, July 24th, 1978, «

ihid, July 17th, 1978,

BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY AND JOURNALISM

" Ltfcdlci ReportCl', VoL 3, No, 2, p, 14. ~, Viner,

Philip Schlesinger

in ibid.

~(, Ll.K. Press Gu::ettc.

" Cf. C. Parker: 'Instant Demand from the Young' in Af,'dlci R,-porter, Vol. 3, No.1, 1979, Pl'· 16-18: and G. Viner: 'The Case Il)r UniJied Training' in Medici Reporter, Vol. 3, No.2, 1979, pp. 12-14. '" Cf. Alec Newman: 'Going Well-No Time lor P,R" in Medici Report<'/", Vol. 3. No. 1, 1979, pp, 18-19; and Colin Brannigan: 'Brass Cheek' Irom the N.U.].' in Medici Reporter, Vol. 3, No.2, 1979, pp. 26-27.

'You feel you can argue with literature, temper its vicarious experience with your own. Journalism intimidates because its currency appears 10 be irrefutable fact and the great myth about himself and his profession to which the journalist succumbs is that he is engaged mainly 10 the communication of objecti"e fact. But if we view journalism as a chemical compound and break it down we would lind the ingredient 'fact' existed in only small quantities and even then lumbered by hutnan irnpurities' . Arnold Wesker

Introduction

q()

THE principal aim of this paper is to give an account of my fieldwork in the BBe's News Division between 1972 and 1976. The BBC gave me generous access over a lengthy period of time. The rarity of this research opportunity in the context of frequently poor relations between sociologists and broadcasters makes it worth reflecting upon. In the British literature of media research there have been hardly any accounts analysing the relationships between sociologists and broadcasters during the course of a piece of research. The most substantial of those which have appeared have taken the form of methodological appendices to books. 2 For those attempting to study the news process in British broadcasting organisations there is unquestionably an unfavourable contrast to be drawn between the attitude of ITN towards research-one best described as unremitting hostility-and the more positive views of the BBe. My own approach to ITN for access was rebuffed with sneers and insults. By contrast, the BBC was unfailingly courteous, even on the one occasion-described below-when I did have problems in gaining entry_ BBC News and ITN are both legitimated by an ideology of public service and accountability. Social scientific research is one form of public inquiry which may contribute to accountability by making the workings of broadcasting known to the wider public. Of course, it cannot claim to be of more than minor importance in the process of holding the media accountable, nor indeed to command an especially wide credibility. But it does have its place. The BBC, at times reluctantly, has recognised the claims of media research and has now permitted several inquiries, both limited and fullscale, into its news operations. ITN has kept its doors firmly locked, 341

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although its public responsibilities are no different from the BBC's in principle. Critics of the BBC have often overlooked this fact. The bulk of this paper is devoted to analysing the course taken by my fieldwork and the problems encountered. Naturally, one cannot derive general maxims of conduct from a single piece of research. But undoubtedly there are situations, problems and experiences in such work which may be usefully discussed. In the later sections my research experience is connected to some of the continuing debates in the sociology of mass communication. Thus, I consider the relevance of the BBC's response to my study for the current Controversy surrounding the Katz report on social research into broadcasting. I also present some arguments for the value of an ethnographic focus on the processes of cultural produClion at a time when there is perhaps an over-emphasis on the explanatory power of analyses of cultural produCls. The Phases of ResParch 1. Sizing up the BBC

The nature and course of the fieldwork described and analysed below may be best understood by first recognising the BBC's exposed position in British society. The Corporation is, in Lord Reith's celebrated phrase, 'an organisation within the constitution'. As such, it has been the object of continual scrutiny from successive committees of inquiry into broadcasting, from politicians, the press, free-lance moralists, and increasingly of late, from academics. The BBC's sheer size, national importance, and cultural weight have ensured its especial, almost unique, newsworthiness. It is no great surprise, therefore, that where it can, the Corporation shuns publicity. To a neophyte entering the close-knit culture of media sociology in Britain, in 1971, this resistance to scrutiny was one major talking-point. Two tales were then in circulation, each rather different, but both carrying the same import. First, there was the Tom Burns Saga. He, one was told, had suffered from the BBC's restrictions, since he had given them a veto on his findings, and had been unable to publish his study in full. By then, of course, an extract had appeared, J but the lesson of the tale sank in. As an eager PhD supplicant, I wrote to the esteemed professor for further counsel, to be informed, discouragingly, that he thought the Corporation's 'paranoia' made it a bad prospect. Burns's own aCCOUnt has SUbsequently filled in more of the detail of his dealings with the 342

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BBe. 4 The net effect of the tale as originally told to me was to make me especially careful not to upset the Corporation when I began to have dealings with it. The second cautionary tale came form Leicester's Centre for Mass Communication Research. Discussions there in October 1971 made it clear that researchers were not in good odour in the BBC after the publication of Demonstrations and Communication." At Leicester it was thought highly unlikely that the BBC would grant access to facilities. This story, too, suggested that considerable sensitivity would be needed. 2.

Gaining access

Chance may playa role in creating openings for research. My thesis supervisor at the LSE, knowing of my interest in the media, mentioned that the husband of one of his colleagues worked for the BBC as an announcer. This person kindly broached the question of my gaining access to the Editor, Radio News, Mr Peter Woon. In November 1971, I was told that Mr Woon had no personal objections to letting me in, but that official permission had to be obtained from the Editor, News and Current Affairs, the late Mr Desmond Taylor. I duly wrote to Mr Taylor asking for a week's access to find my feet, and mentioned that I had been advised by experts in the field that a full study might take some two or three months. In December 1971 a reply came from Mr Andrew Todd, Managing Editor, News, which suggested that I should have 'two brief preliminary discussions' with Mr Stan Taylor, Deputy Editor, Radio News, and with Mr Gerard Slessenger, Chief Assistant to Editor, Television News. (Mr Slessenger is no relation, but the similarity of our names did, in the newsrooms, occasionally give rise to semi-serious accusations of nepotism). Mr Todd's letter also pointed out that 'any study that is going to take two or three months would not be easy to arrange and I would hope that ... you can cut the field study bit down to a reasonable period of time.' The meetings with Mr Taylor and Mr Slessenger marked the first significant step in gaining access, and were held at the beginning of January 1972, a time when the BBC was under assault over the 'Question of Ulster' programme. b The discussions were lengthy and sought to establish what I wanted to know, and were also, presumably, designed to let the two news executives decide whether I was likely to be a nuisance. At this stage, the outcome was that I should be allowed into each News Department for an initial two days' observation. jt)

P. Schlesinger Between Soclology and ]ollnhzlism

This period, like the interviews, was evidently a further test of suitability. I had to prove, quite reasonably from the BBC's point of view, that I could be unobtrusive. No complaints were made, and the conditions for more regular access were now clarified. These were far more generous than the scare stories had led me to expect. The agreement made with Mr Slessenger and Mr Taylor was purely verbal and informal: I should telephone or write for periods of two or three days' observation at a time. Naturally, I have often wondered why the BBC let me in just then, particularly in view of the difficulties others have experienced. Burns has speculated that the influx of new personnel at the top of the Corporation who were more open-minded towards research, and the growth of serious writing on the media had together made for a changed climate in the 1970s. The first reason is plausible, the latter rather dubious, given the kinds of consideration raised later in the paper. As for myself, I can only speculate that there were advantages in not being well-known, like Burns, or in being seen as a member of an institution with a dangerous mission, like those at Leicester. This meant that the decision to let me in was not of particular weight, and the above description of its 'reference downwards' through the organisation, until it became a Departmental matter, would seem to support this view. 3. Phase One, 1972-74

Initially, permission for access to the BBC's newsrooms was granted without question. However, the fact that requests meant bothering two busy executives tended to keep their number dOwn. In the earliest stages both Mr Taylor and Mr Slessenger were exceptionally helpful, arranging interviews and introductions. After a while, they left me more to my own devices, subject to my letting them know when I wanted to come in so that the editor of the day could be informed of my presence. 1972 passed quite uneventfully, and without much pressure. During some thirty full days in the field I learned as much as I could about the basic structure of the News Departments, trying to SOrt out how the production process actually worked, and to learn journalistic jargon. By 1973, a certain amount of pressure began to be exerted on me to be much more specific about what I still wanted to know. Mr Taylor, for instance, asked during one encounter 'Has it come to fruition yet?' In general, newsmen were extemely obliging, but they also made me aware of the passage of time by referring to the study as 'a big soft story' or as 'an epic'. Much later on, but in similar vein, the Editor, Television

News explained my presence to a correspondent thus; 'This is a philosopher (sic.) who's writing a book on news. It'll be finished in about a hundred years.' The effect of this-apart from sensitising me to the different values placed upon time in academic and journalistic cultures-was increasingly to make me feel that I had to justify my requests for more access. In early 1973 I wrote two draft chapters. Both dealt with organisational structure: one in television news and the other in radio news. Both were highly descriptive, and specified further areas for research, posing questions in the texts themselves. These chapters were written for two main reasons. First to placate the academic gods at LSE, by showing that I had some understanding of what I was studying. Second, I wished to show the deficiences of my knowledge to the BBC, to get some feedback, and continue with the research. The chapters were sent to Messrs Slessenger and Taylor for their views. On the whole, these were favourable. Minor factual errors were corrected, and I was given a disquisition on the role of the editor of the day (actually a crucial position in the newsroom) which I had not fully grasped. As hoped, the chapters provided a passport, as they made apparent areas about which I was still in the dark. For instance, I had not interviewed any specialist correspondents or news readers, or spent much time with reporters on assignments. So far, most of the fieldwork had concentrated upon newsroom roles and routines, and aspects of the planning structure. To gather this material I would frequently attach myself to the incumbent of a particular role for a whole day in order to build up a picture of his work. Such individual descriptions were gradually related to form a more comprehensive view of the overall production process. During 1973, therefore, I began to concentrate on a number of emergent themes which proved to be of enduring importance, such as impartiality, the time-factor, tne newsmen's conception of the audience. That June, definite pressure came from Television News to 'wrap up' the study. Television News tends to be more of a goldfish-bowl than Radio News, and particularly in the Summer the question of access always seemed to be more touchy. When I responded to this pressure and presented what Mr Slessenger jokingly called my 'final demands' it was anyway impossible to continue the fieldwork since my SSRC grant had run out and I was forced to leave London. Probably, it would have been possible to continue the research at Radio News. In the event, a forced disengagement was no bad thing. I was

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mated by the material gathered and needed time to think about it. Consequently, I made no further approaches to the BBC until mid-1974 by which time a number of draft chapters had been completed: on impartiality, accuracy, time concepts, the newsmanaudience relationship, the editorial system, and revised versions of those on editorial structure. At this point, having discovered some further gaps which needed filling, I gritted my teeth slightly and sent letters to both News Departments, thinking very optimistically that the thesis would be completed by July. I asked both News Departments if! could come and tidy up some details on organisational structure, for some further interviews, and for 'an authoritative reaction to the entire draft'. Permission was granted for further observation of news planning and the foreign news departments. I also had interviews with several senior executives, including the two Departmental Editors. This brought the first phase of the fieldwork to an end, and my thesis, mainly written in 1974, but presented in 1975, was based on this material. \.11

4. Phase Two, 1975-76

In early 1975, when a complete draft of the thesis was ready, copies were sent to both Radio News and Television News. I wished to hear any objections to its content, although the Burns Saga had made me determined not to accept any restrictions on ultimate PUblication. In the event, this determination was not to be tested, for neither at this stage nor any other was any pressure applied. Mr Taylor and Mr Slessenger were evidently the persons charged with giving an official response. Mr Taylor wrote, in a letter, 'I found it very readable. You wouldn't expect me to agree with everything you say!' In a subsequent discussion he did not enlarge greatly upon his reservations, but did remark 'It shows a damn good grasp of how things work'. Mr Slessenger similarly acknowledged the study's descriptive accuracy. He said he had been surprised by the extent to which a 'system' actually existed, since it was not something people noticed when they were working. He said that my fieldwork had left 'no trail of mUddy boots'. Both men said they felt that the study had got as close to the reality of BBC News as was possible for an outsider. This seemed an auspicious moment to ask for further access in order to develop the thesis for publication. Both Mr Taylor and Mr Slessenger were amenable to this suggestion. In the event, gaining access to Television News in Summer 1975 proved to be rather difficult. The account ofmy efforts which follows is

presented because it shows so instructively how bureaucratic obstacles may be raised without thereby constituting a formal denial of access. This highlights the precariousness of the researcher-broadcaster relationship. It is, after all, the broadcaster who has the power to admit, and it is the researcher who is the supplicant. This relationship is founded entirely upon goodwill and is not grounded in any institutionalised right of access for independent research. Whether such a right should be instituted, together with due safeguards for the broadcaster, is worth debating, since it would remove a major source of friction. In considering the problems which arose in 1975 it is not my intention to make criticisms, but rather to show what may be learned from the experience. It was integral to the study, and its very atypicality revealed clearly what could have happened if I had prejudiced my bona fIdes. A background factor should be noted. By 1975, any casual comings and goings to the BBC to see newsmen of my acquaintance had been made quite impossible by the new, stricter security procedures. These, which involved a checking of passes at the entrances to Broadcasting House and Television Centre, had been instituted after IRA bombings on the British mainland in 1974. In May 1974, ever optimistic, I wrote to Television News, assuming on the basis of discussions earlier that year that access would be forthcoming. The reply asked me to be precise about 'the extent of your further observation so that we could fix, say, a particular week when you'd come in. I should also prefer it later, rather than earlier: we are pretty pressed for most of June.' I had asked for a security clearance so that I could come and go without continually having to make a formal arrangement. Concerning this, the letter read, 'The reason why I'm shying away from "erratic comings and goings" is that, as you know, we have a fair number of visitors, and unless we can control them, even good friends are not always welcome. Of course, I shall look forward to bumping into you'.

While this explanation was perfectly reasonable, the conditions set out were more restrictive than I had hoped. The classification of me as a 'good friend' with its implicit appeal to be understanding was significant, since, as I was later to learn, other research currently going on was clearly being classified as hostile. When I telephoned Television News to try and liberalise the arrangement I was asked to fix some specific dates, and told that a chief sub of my acquaintance would be 'overseeing' the visit. Next, I

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contacted an assistant editor with whom I had always had a good relationship and asked him to intercede on the ground that I would not be a nuisance. This approach failed, as, several days later, he told me that the existing arrangements would have to stand. I then wrote to Television News saying that the period between the 9th and 22nd July would suit me. I received the following reply: 'Thanks for your letter-(the chiefsuh) will expect you on Wednesday, 9th July and will arrange three or four more days between then and 22nd July. J do not wish to appear to he "rationing" you, but our people here have become a hit sensitive about the surfeit of visitors, and you would he risking your reputatIOn-excellent so far-for sinking into the woodwork as required, if you appear too often. '

A bit of a contradiction, since an experienced shrinker like myself would have been merely a part of the furniture, whether I was there a lot or not. This argument was not acceptable. The grounds offered for limiting my access were completely genuine, moreover, since, as I discovered on a lightning tour of the television newsroom there was resentment towards outsiders, and some local dif1iculties. The first day which I spent with the chief sub was really quite bizarre. I was kept out of the newsroom, and after being shown round the news training section (of marginal concern to my current interests) I completed a very short day by watching a video-cassette of the BBe programme Inside the News. To be sure, this was not the warp and woof of fieldwork. The chief sub was perfectly amiable, and promised to make arrangements for me to accompany a film crew. He stressed that things were 'sensitive' in the newsroom. After this one day, matters were left hanging in the air. I wrote to the chief sub to thank him, since he was now clearly ill loco parentis) and asked once again whether I could spend a couple of days in the newsroom to update the study, stressing that I would be very careful not to offend anyone. The cold winds of exclusion were still at gale force, however, and I was informed that I could spend between 2.30 and 6.00 pm on one particular day inside the newsroom. This, it was said, would be enough to convey what was currently going on. I took this opportunity, and was quite surprised at the unprecedented hostility encountered from journalists with whom I had hitherto had cordial relations. Those few hours were sufficient to indicate a crisis of morale in the Television News Department. One cause of this was the axing of the BBC-2 programme News Extra, the most adventurous of the Department's outputs. A couple of years later further questioning

rounded out the story. The fact of my exclusion was not a product of my fevered imaginings. It had been deliberate, although, since I had established considerable goodwill I could not be refused access pointblank. Three reasons were advanced to explain the situation. First, precisely at the time I had made my request, Television News was being visited by a researcher from the Glasgow Media Group. The relations between this research team and the BBC were evidently exceedingly poor. ) The researcher's conduct was, according to several journalists' accounts, not especially endearing. This had tended to cancel out my own credit, and would have made it necessary for me to work very hard to re-establish relations of trust. Television News management simply did not want the bother of further upsets on the shop-floor, and this was understandable. A second fact, as I had discovered, was the axing of News Extra. The Department was at the time going through its seasonal round of bargaining for the Autumn schedules, and the restructuring of news outputs had lowered morale. There was some anxiety for this not to be aggravated by outside attention. Lastly, there was a feeling of exposure to the gaze of Annan, particularly because there had been much public discussion of newS and current affairs. Viewed in retrospect, these factors had clearly combined to make an untenable field situation. More in hope than with conviction I decided to contact Radio News and try to pursue the fieldwork there. I was surprised to receive a cordial invitation without strings attached, and subsequently spent three weeks in the Radio News Department filling out my understanding of the control system, the creation of corporate identity, the role of gossip, and studying the handling of particular stories. There were no problems about gaining entry to Broadcasting House since I was provided with a letter for the security guards. The Radio News Department, being less in the limelight, had tended to be more casual in its approach to access. Therefore, to make comparisons between the two departments is not to suggest that the one was more helpful than the other, since that was simply not so. What this difference does underline is the considerable extent to which they functioned autonomously so far as my research was concerned. I did not realise how much this was so until the problem of access at Television Centre first arose. This casts doubts upon any crude view of the BBC as a hyper-integrated monolith. This point is of particular importance for researchers making individual approaches for access. It suggests that in certain circumstances Departments may have sufftcient autonomy to WJ

H8

P. Schlesinger offer facilities, and that approaches at this level may payoff. Regional and local broadcasting have been quite neglected since virtually all research efforts have been directed towards the national production units. In January 1976, I began to circulate the completed thesis to newsmen I knew would be interested in reading it. It is difficult to summarise the reactions of some twenty individuals. Most general was the view that the study was 'accurate' and 'objective', and if anything that it was not sufficiently conclusive or prescriptive about where change should come. In February 1976, I contacted Mr Desmond Taylor, Editor, News and Current Affairs and asked for an official verdict on the study. I had been offered a Contract for a book and was looking for reactions which would help me reshape the manuscript. One of the curiosities of these repeated requests for an authoritative view was the complete absence of any written comments. In addition, there seemed to be no formal channel through which one could obtain such a statement. It was never clear who, at an official level, had read the study or whether the views given to me orally by senior newsmen were simply personal ones or vehicles for a collective opinion. It would be useful for ongoing research to be discussed in a series of seminars of broadcasting personnel at all levels of the operation. Mr Desmond Taylor did, in fact, agree to see the study. The following month I received a note from Mr Siessenger which said that he was reading the manuscript on Mr Taylor's behalf. Mr Siessenger was now Managing Editor, News and had taken a most constructive attitude towards the research all along. In early April he telephoned to arrange a meeting and said he felt the study-which he described as 'more a kind of observational anthropology than sociology'-would be of interest to the layman. Subsequently we had a longer, cordial discussion at which no major points of criticism were raised. This was the nearest to an official response I recei.ved, although it was not characterised as such. I took the opportunity of asking whether it would now be possible to do more research in Television News in order to revise the thesis for publication. At Mr Siessenger's suggestion I sent two chapters to Mr Andrew Todd, the new Editor, and asked if access was forthcoming. After an interview, Mr Todd and I came to an arrangement identical to the one with Radio News the previous year and I was provided with a letter for the security check. While it was clear that this additional work was for publication no requests were made to vet the content of 350

Between Sociology and Journalism anything written, nor even to see the finished product. This liberal attitude was characteristic of the BBC's dealings with me. The final phase of fieldwork at Television News enabled me to explore the effects of a change of Editor, to have discussions on Northern Ireland, and to conduct some detailed case studies of particular stories. To conclude this section it is worth considering whether anything may be learned from the quite fortuitous way in which I was given access to the BBe. Most recent British studies have taken place during rather tightly demarcated periods of time and for specific purposes. Blumler' studied the BBC's Television Current Affairs Group during an election campaign. Halloran et Lll. 'J gained access to media organisations, including BBC Television News and ITN in the immediate run-up to a given news event. Elliott's study 10 of documentary production focussed on the making of a single television series. The Glasgow Media Group I J had only a fortnight inside the BBe. Burns J 2 whose two sets of interviews took place a decade apart comes closest to my own experience. It is evident from his book that the possibility of returning to the field enabled him to become aware of organisational changes. This is undoubtedly one great advantage of a study based upon a series of visits. This also, incidentally, forestalls the stock argument that case studies are necessarily invalid since they do not deal with the typical, but only the aberrant. A further advantage of being able to return to the field is the opportunity it gives to rethink one's view and formulate new lines of inquiry which can actually be carried out. It would be going too far to recommend as ideal what was essentially the product of an accident. For there were disadvantages too. One, in particular, was the stress involved in the constant need for renegotiation with its attendant uncertainties. It seems that an ideal balance could be found, however, if the broadcasting organisations, and other media, were willing to co-operate. What would be best would be for researchers to be allowed access to the production process for discrete periods of time to study specific aspects of the medium in question. There should be an opportunity for a return to check up on the validity of earlier fll1dings, and also to develop new themes which were not apparent through a lack of focus in the earlier stages. Demarcated periods would minimise the nuisance value of researchers (although this should anyway be kept to a minimum as a matter of professional practice). During such periods outside the field the researchers could write up their fll1dings, and circulate them throughout the organisation for

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discussion by all who are interested. This procedure will not abolish disagreement between researchers and those they study. For, as I argue later, this is inevitably grounded in institutional differences. But it would de-mystify the research process itself, possibly contributing to a more tolerant view of its difficulties. It would also generate new data for researchers, who can learn a lot from explicit discussion of their findings. And it would certainly institutionalise self-critical reflection amongst media personnel.

misconceptions was allowed to persist. In general, my personal style was self-effacing, and I took care not to proclaim my commitments or convictions. There were several reasons for this. First, so far as possible, I did not want to pre-form people's responses to me-although the very fact of being an outsider, and a sociologist to boot, necessarily had effects. Second, my continued admission depended on unobtrusiveness. Third, it fairly rapidly became clear that there was an acceptable personal style in the BBC. Burns has called it 'urbanity'. Being uncommitted politically is a central component of this style, and any serious 'axe-grinding' is frowned upon. I was made acutely aware of this by a number of newsmen who thought that my background must have been subjected to a security vetting. Many points concerning vetting made during the research have been subsequently independently asserted in the press (e .g. The Guardian, 21 st and 26th May 1977). This does not make them true, but I assumed that they were.

5. Tlte research role

At the outset of the fieldwork my role was explained to the more senior personnel present at meetings I attended by Mr Siessenger and Mr Taylor. The usual formula was 'This is Philip Schlesinger of the LSE who's doing a thesis on how we work.' Any memoranda concerning my activities were couched in such general terms and asked for full co-operation provided I did not get in the way. The turn-over of staff and continual changes of personnel due the shift system meant that I continually had to explain my presence. While eventually many journalists knew who I was, there were always some who did not. My usual formula was that I was a sociologist writing a PhD thesis (later a book) on the news operation. During the first phase, when such an idea still seemed quite novel, the journalists were curious and even flattered that their work should be the object of 'respectable' academic attention, although there was also some scepticism about what an outsider could learn. In the second phase, with the controversy over Birt and Jay's articles in The Times,IJ and the publication of Bad News 14 the news itself had become news, and the scepticism seemed even more marked. However, it must be said that hardly anyone refused co-operation, and many were positively enthusiastic. In general, the roles assigned to me by newsmen who did not at first know what I was doing underlined the observable similarities between ethnography and journalism. Frequently, I was seen as a trainee subeditor learning the tricks of the trade by talking to his more experienced elders. This interpretation was understandable given the existence of the BBC's News training scheme and the rough correspondence in age between the trainees and myself. Another version had me classified as a journalist who had come in to write about the BBC, or alternatively as one in search of work inside the News Department. Since there had been visits from management consultants before the fieldwork began I was occasionally thought to be a 'time and motion man'. None of these 3')]

6. Captivation and disengagement

The process whereby I got under the BBC's skin was also one whereby it got under mine. There was a time when it was exceedingly difficult to detach oneself from the persuasiveness of corporate ideology. The process whereby I arrived at this point may usefully be labelled 'captivation'; the gradual retreat I call 'disengagement'. 15 This experience is typical in ethnographic research. In many respects a high degree of personal involvement in the field being observed is desirable. It enables one to penetrate a given culture more thoroughly. I shared the excitements of bulletin production, the gossip about promotions and private lives, the overall sense of being in a charismatic organisation exposed to the political winds. There came a time when people on the desk would make 'serious' jokes about my being there for so long that I knew the job better than they did. To 'work' through the newsday shifts, eat, drink, and talk with the newsmen brought me quite close to some in personal sympathies. While I was not a participant in the process of making the news, nor was I eventually just an observer. The research style adopted meshed so well with the way in which corporate identity was expressed on an individual level that eventuall y I had the somewhat vertiginous realisation that my own commitments and convictions were in the process of becoming thoroughly submerged. In essence, I became partially socialised, and this L:xplains 3') 3

P. Schlesinger

why at one point it became so difficult to generate problems for investigation. While the kind of rapport established was essential for an effective analysis, it went beyond necessary good relations and began to exact a certain sociological price. One instance, my analysis of Northern Ireland coverage, illustrates this point eloquently. When the fieldwork first began the BBC had just been assailed by the British Government for screening 'The Question of Clster', and a debate was under way concerning the censorship of news from Northern Ireland. I realised that this was of importance, but certainly had no strategy for investigating the BBC's handling of Northern Ireland coverage, other than wishing to talk to people about it. Eventually, in 1975-76, I began to see more clearly how Northern Ireland was a crucial illustration of the BBC's complex relationship to the State. In 1972, I simply saw it as a potential talking point. In fact, it proved to be no real talking point at all. I did touch on it in a number of interviews, and even collected some field material germane to the question of censorship-reporters' opinions, the ground rules for Northern Ireland coverage. But quite rapidly it ceased to be a matter for investigation. In some respects my loss of interest is not too surprising. I had no political commitment to sustain it, for one, and the subject dropped out of political debate by mid-1972, to reappear only sporadically afterwards. Inside the News Departments there was no open critical discussion of the problems of journalism in Northern Ireland. The position of broadcasting management was made available through public statements, and such questioning of executives as I attempted in the early stages produced restatements of known positions. The coverage of Northern Ireland itself, while certainly 'big' until 1974 was already heavily routinised. In short, therefore, objective conditions in the field militated against sustaining an investigation. There was more to it than that, however. Reinforcing the inauspicious objective conditions was a subtle subjective change through which I began to steer away from the subject because I had to some extent adopted the Corporation's view of it as taboo. When I came to write my thesis, therefore, Northern Ireland was discussed in a dozen or so pages at the end of a general chapter on impartiality. I certainly raised the issue of censorship but my views were very equivocal, and I showed no full appreciation of the way in which constraints actually operated. Captivation, therefore, produced a kind of suppression effect, a self-censorship malgre soi. I was certainly 354

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uneasy about this, as in the methodological appendix to my thesis I justified my lack of investigative vigour by the following arguments: that to raise the issue would have made me seem an enemy of the BBC; that the journalists could not have told me very much; that the attitude of senior people had been discouraging; that access was uncertain. In retrospect, my second argument was plainly wrong. Some journalists could have enlightened me during the first phase; whether they would have is another matter. Undoubtedly the climate was much easier during the second phase of fieldwork, and even then anxieties about confidentiality were great. The other three arguments still seem persuasive. But this persuasiveness only exists if one takes into account the fact that I was actually able to do something later on which I had felt was impossible earlier. How was I to know then that the BBC would still be so generous about access? Had it not been, the price would have been high because the material I had gathered would not have been adequate to document the argument I later developed. And I would probably not have been able to develop that argument anyway without more time in the field. When, finally, I came to write a separate chapter on Northern Ireland in Autumn 1976, I found that the suppression effect had led me to under-utilise material gathered in my earliest field notes. In other words, even the thesis could have contained more details than actually it did. Disengagement from the field material only really began after completion of the second draft of the thesis. Integral to this process was the gradual reassertion of the primacy of sociological concerns. The main effort of simply decoding a journalistic setting was in the past; it was now possible to address the material I had gathered more theoretically. My own sociological interests had shifted from the micro to the macro level, and from more phenomenological to more structural concerns. Having a job in a sociology department was in sharp contrast with the intellectual isolation of writing a PhD. The rapid growth of academic work on news also forced my attention in new directions and reminded me of older concerns which had become more peripheral while in the field. The process of disengagement enabled the fieldwork in phase two to address a number of themes much more sharply, and to make the process of gathering material more efficient.

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II The BBG's re;ponse, Katz, alld criticism

An ethnography necessarily gives an account of a particular social group which is at variance with that group's view of itself. Or at least it should. When a sociological account is challenged by those whom it analyses that challenge is itself a worthy object of study. It should reveal a great deal about the core values of the group in question. The BBe's reaction to my study PUlling 'Reality' Together is instructive in precisely this way, since it represents a kind of ideological counter-offensive in a continuing war of position. The arguments presented also relate closely to the current debate over broadcaster-researcher relations, and the vexed question of the place and direction of media research. Can one reasonably expect such research to have an effect on the policy and practice of media organisations? The answer would seem to lie in whether one conceives of sociological work as external to, and critical of, existing media structures. Or alternatively, whether such work should be embedded in them, and made relevant to the concerns of executives and producers. A focal point of much recent debate has been Professor Elihu Katz's report Social Research 011 Broadcasting. 16 This booklet was compiled as a result of an initiative taken by the BBC in the high season of the Annan committee's reflections on the future of broadcasting. The Katz report contained a review of much existing media research, a set of recommendations as to the way in which such research should be developed, and a view of the place of academic research in relation to the needs of the broadcasters. The details, while of interest, need not detain us. The main points made here concern the view Katz takes of the broadcaster-researcher relationship. While noting the 'strained' relations between these two groups, Katz nonetheless proposes the view that there has been a 'striking convergence' of late in both their ideas and outlooks. 17 Depending on the kind of research enterprise one is engaged in, one greets Katz with either a quiet hurrah or polite scepticism. For those in what Katz designates 'critical' as opposed to 'evaluative' or 'policy-orientated' research the scepticism is particularly marked. For Katz sees 'critical' research as being conducted at a 'greater distance' from the broadcaster than the other two. Katz amplifies this phrase by saying 'this is not the equivalent of saying that certain kinds of research require access to the organisation while others do not'. 17 'Greater distance' may therefore be 356

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plausibly interpreted as meaning 'is least important for the broadcaster to know about' but which should, nonetheless, be allowed to go on. Katz's statement that his report 'clearly leans in the direction of research that is 'close' to the broadcaster' carries the implication that critical research should be consigned to a limbo (well-funded if circumstances permit) there to make portentous and harmless noises off-stage. Katz's view of broadcasters as a 'diagnostic profession' 19 plainly locates him amongst the endorsers of myths rather than the debunkers. By taking public service goals at face value his orientation necessarily implies business as usual: research must be tailored to the needs of existing structures, not set out to rock the boat. As Gaye Tuchman 2U has pointed out, Katz thus 'falls prey to the professional ideology of communicators'-and it is this very ideology that a sociology of the media must needs confront. As regards studies of newsmaking professionals, Tuchman sees them, as I do, as inherently challenging the concept of journalistic professionalism itself, a concept which is selflegitim ising rather than self-critical. Earlier, I gave an analysis of my personal experience of the process of captivation. One might suggest that Katz's entire report renects a 'captivated' view of the way in which research should be conducted: in short, that it should be institutionalised in ways which serve the needs of the broadcasting organisations, rather than question those needs. James Halloran has also made this point, and has linked it to his long argued-for view that the media 'have an obligation to support independent mass communications research fully, by granting access to their operations and by providing other essential facilities'. 21 While not dissenting in principle from Halloran's proposal one must note that it draws other issues in its wake. Most fundamentally, it presupposes a more extensive and penetrating democratisation of British society than presently exists, and is not therefore really on the agenda. It also raises, but does not resolve, the question of what structures are to be created to feed in independent critical research to the media, and to ensure that such work is in some ways considered in policy-making. Nonetheless, as a radical statement which highlights present shortcomings Halloran's position is useful, especially when contrasted with the anodyne proclamations of Katz. The BBe's response to PUlling 'Reality' Together would tend to support the view of those who are sceptical of Katz's claim that a great meeting of minds is just around the corner. It came in the form of a

157

P. Schlesinger lengthy book review in The Listener, and was written by Mr Richard Francis, the BBC's Director, News and Current Affairs, a fact which gives it both weight and a semi-official status. 22 I received indications that this review reflected the collective opinions of a number of senior people in News management, and as a carefully constructed response it deserves to be taken seriously. First, while conceding that such work was worthwhile, Mr Francis raised doubts about the limits in principle of studying newsroom routines and editorial structures and of drawing conclusions about their effects on the output. Rather, he argued, it was important to recognise the role of other structures inside broadcasting in creating the BBC's ethos, and to recognise the actual dispersal of control inside the BBe. The last point was amplified in a rebuttal of my analysis of the system of editorial control by a restatement of the traditional BBC position on 'responsibility'. Second, Mr Francis argued that the 'sociological' approach (his quotes) failed to appreciate the determining role of the time-factor in news production, and the need to pass on the news as soon as possible. This particular view had earlier received full and more coherent expression in a speech by another of the BBC's theorists. Sir Charles Curran, when still Director-General, accounted for the currer:! structures of journalism in the BBC by arguing that technology determines time-cycles and thus the forms of organisation of news production. 23 Mr Francis's third argument was, in essence, that Putting 'Reality' Together was out-of-date (or 'late news' as the title of his article put it). The out-of-dateness argument was a main strand in the rebuttal of my analysis of Northern Ireland coverage, which was also held to misconstrue the relationship between the BBC and the State. Out-of-dateness was also used against my contention that no significant changes could take place in the nature of broadcast news without a restructuring of the place of broadcasting in British society. Against this, Mr Francis cited a number of changes which he saw as of fundamental importance. These arguments may be reduced to three fundamental propositions: (I) that the sociological study of the actual news production process is in fact focussing on only one set of determinants and giving these a disproportionate explanatory value; (2) that the sociological approach is incapable of really understanding the fundamental priorities of journalists, such as the need for immediacy; 358

Between Sociology and Journalism (3) that conclusions 'drawn in the present tense' (Mr Francis's phrase) are bound to be wrong because the object to which they refer has, in the meantime, changed. These three propositions constitute a coherent defence against sociological findings, and are, at the same time, a positive assertion of the integrity of journalistic professionalism. In fact, they go further and deny the entire credibility of the sociological analysis of journalism (which is fair enough) and, as will be seen, are to be found in one variant or another in others' responses to similar research. It seemed to be worth the effort to go behind the official view. Some illuminating comments came from one senior executive. The collective reaction in News management, he said, was that the book had been somewhat different from the thesis. Whereas the thesis had been largely straightforward, the book had extrapolated, theorised about motives, practices and attitudes in a way which went further than the facts justified. While the methods employed, 'meticulous observation and recording' were 'a change for the better from some sociologists' it had been expected that the result would also be different. Particular exception was taken to the chapter on Northern Ireland which had received little attention in the thesis. In general, this conversation seemed to indicate that as a 'friendly' sociologist I had disappointed those in authority by reverting to hostile type. This view was given more sophisticated voice by another senior executive who was by no means fundamentally opposed to the study or research in general. Sociologists thought of journalists as the victims of their production systems, he said. But sociologists were not immune to a similar charge. I, like others, had entered the field with preconceptions and handled the evidence in ways which supported these. Thus much of what I had written betrayed an unintended bias which produced a selective use of quotations. In addition, I had 'listened to the wrong people'. This view of the sociologist-as-victim neatly relativises sociological findings by presenting them as the outcome of conventional wisdom and institutional pressures. In general, this would seem to he a fruitful line of defence for journalists to develop. There is nothing very unusual in such responses. Indeed, they become much more intelligihk when plan:d in the context of other reviews of books on the l11edl~1. Opprohri lim is no! reserved for sociologists alone, as Arnold Weskcr,'" also a sn'pt ic ahout the claims of journalism, discovered when writIng ahollt 11", ,1.,'/111,1,11' Fill/cs. But h'l

P. Schlesinger

the occasional playwright will not sustain an entire demonology. Two reviews by prominent broadcasters suffice to indicate the persistence of certain typical responses without, of course, constituting anything like a serious sample. ,5 While Philip Whitehead's review 26 did not question the accuracy of Demonstrations and Communication (1970), it did question the interpretations. While, in general, acknowledging that the media accounts of the 1968 Grosvenor Square demonstration over-stressed the element of violence during a generally peaceful march, Whitehead still defended the news angle taken as based upon a reasonable expectation. Thus the sociological attempt to tease out the 'inferential structure' of reporting was converted back into common sense, precisely what the study set out to question. Whitehead also argued that to focus on one day's news coverage limited the validity of the study. This last point was also central to Grace Wyndham Goldie's review of The Making oj a Television Series (1972). The fact that Philip Elliott took 'a particular case of television production which was far from typical' invalidated his generalisations. Like Whitehead she argued that to question impartiality was to seek to substitute propaganda. With a neat twist she turned the sociologists' demand for communicators to be trained in sociology right upon its head. On the contrary, she argued, sociologists should first be trained in television production before being considered competent commentators. This point was linked to the argument that the sociologist-observer lacked the necessary language to comprehend what is going on. These arguments should be borne in mind by sociologists writing on the media, or at least those of us who consider journalists to be one important audience and not merely an object of study. It is hard to see how one can escape from the circle of counter-arguments. If the factual accuracy of a study is conceded then either it is of limited validity, or out of date because things have changed. An observer is unlikely to draw the right conclusions because of his linguistic and professional incompetence. But ifhe does get under the skin of the organisation then he has probably listened to the wrong people and therefore misconstrues what he has seen. To question impartiality as a legitimising myth is-horror of horrors-to seek to subject the public to propaganda of the worst kind since it will be compiled by sociological eggheads. 27 In addition to these points one has to take account of the incomprehensibility of sociological language (a criticism far too often justified). For good measure one may add 'the besetting addiction of 360

Between Sociology and Journulism

modern sociology: a cravll1g to stick to issues rather than personalities' 28 which means that sociologists' studies of journalists are 'deadly serious, never as lively or amusing as ... if newsmen had been more fully portrayed,.)4 What research method can survive these hurdles? Not the most superb ethnography nor the most positivistic blunderbuss of a content analysis. What would Professor Katz make of this? Perhaps he would reiterate one of the afterwords to his report: 'Researchers at Universities are uni4uely e4uipped to ask their "own" 4ucstion, i.e., to bring a diITerent frame of reference to bear. Broadcasters must be prepared for this, and intellectually (if not always emotionally) accepting of the strain it son1ctimcs induces.'

HI

One can hear the upper lips stiffening all over Europe. In fact, Katz's advice to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous critics returns us to a central and unanswered question in his report. What possible role can critical research play within the structures of media production as presently constituted? Answer: either be ignored, be abused, be neutralised, or be refuted from within the framework of a self-sustaining media professionalism. Attempts to overcome the researcher-broadcaster antagonism have been made, although without notable success. A seminar on the theme of 'co-operation' was held in Leicester in 1970. There the BEC's Director-General gave a classic resume of virtually all the arguments against media research and summed up by saying 'Research must always be subservient to programmes'. JJ The conference proceedings are a locus classicus of the relevant arguments. More recently the question 'What use is research?' was asked at one of the periodic 'consultations' run by the IBA. A reading of this document does not incline one to believe that Professor Katz's 'bridge building' (as Lady Plowden, the IBA Chairman called it) had been all that successful. This time Katz suggested that 'only an understanding of the deeper mutual concerns of broadcaster and researchers' would help them overcome their difficulties'.n This reduces an opposition plainly rooted in institutional positions to a problem of misunderstanding. At the same forum Stuart Hall suggested that the frameworks and problems of researchers might be, in effect, translated to those working in other frameworks with different problems. Dissenting from Katz, he could not, however, see how it was possible to avoid the tensions engendered when 'one set of people confronted another with a critical image of their own practice.' 3J Professor Jay Blumler, in a recent impassioned attack on the raison )61

\

P. Schlesinger d'etre of critical research (especially as espoused by Professor Halloran)

has proposed one solution to these tensions. He has argued that criticism of the media should not be a starting-point but rather 'a conclusion arrived at after the appropriate evidence has been sifted-evidence which in principle should be capable of leading to a non-critical judgment or more likely a partially critical one.'J4 Blumler went on to suggest that where media researchers conceived themselves as adversaries they could not hope to have credibility. Whereas for Katz such critical research nonetheless warrants 'access to decision-making within the organisation and on the studio floor,' Blumler goes much further, suggesting complete banishment: 'Either critical researchers should find ways of satisfying the essential preconditions of entering into relallons of mutual respect with media personnel, or they should be content to work at a distance from those who cannot really be expected to play ball with them otherwise,')j

Implicit in the concept of 'mutual respect' seems to be a general endorsement of the way things presently are. So media research must be reformist, but never radical. In any case, Blumler's criterion of 'mutual respect' does not really do the work of demarcation he intends. It is perfectly possible to respect the work and honest intentions of broadcasters without thereby restricting oneself to a position of overall endorsement. While it is tl ue that some have recently interpreted an adversary stance to mean disrespect or downright rudeness this is by no means a necessary feature of criticism. Blumler conflates both style and substance and his formulation shows that the question of antagonism cannot be resolved by reference to an attitude of tolerance or some other such psychological construct of the human relations school. In fact, what Blumler suggests is but another variant of the great meeting of minds proposed by Katz, which is not so much a meeting as a process of seduction, in which one partner comes out definitely on top. What James Carey says about the Katz report holds a fortiori for Blumler: 'were Katz successful, it would rob sociology of the one useful role scholars can perform: the statement of problems, issues, and solutions that are outside and opposed to the established centre of power and authority' J6

One might qualify this observation by saying that this is not the one useful role, but only the most useful role. The Katz·Blumler approach denigrates the posing of alternatives to the way things now are, although Katz does pay lip-service to such questioning. It is wrong to think of criticism as, at worst, merely negative, or, more charitably, as

Between Sociology and Journalism

misguided utopianism. To conceive of alternatives, or even more modestly, to provide rational criticism of ideologies and myths is of definite importance. To make such proposed alternatives and such criticisms available to the public for debate is as integral to genuinely democratic activity as a more moderate reformism.

III The value of ethnography in the study of news

In this concluding section I wish to assert-rather than fully develop-a number of arguments in favour of the ethnographic approach. There is no scope for more elaborate argumentation in a paper which is primarily concerned with reflecting on a particular case study. More general methodological and theoretical considerations are developed elsewhere. J1 It is worth stressing that I see ethnography as a complementary approach to the various forms of textual analysis, and structural and historical studies of culture. Certainly, it must be acknowledged that there are limits to the results which may be achieved by, say, an ethnography of news production which is allied with interviews and some exceedingly limited access to internal documentation. Such an analysis is only likely to be fruitful when conducted in the light of a number of theoretical assumptions, the most relevant of which concerns the relationships between ideology, politics and the economy within a capitalist system of production. I. The most obvious general argument for the ethnographic approach in media studies as a whole is in order to make available basic information about the working ideologies and practices of cultural producers. While this kind of approach has become more popular of late, our knowledge is still based on relatively few studies. 2. The ethnographic approach, unlike other approaches which focus on the media product, permits the theoretically informed observation of the actual social practices which constitute cultural production. All forms of external analysis of products face intractable problems of inference concerning the production process as such, and therefore contain an explanatory lacuna. 3. In the particular case of news, dil ect observation may act as an important corrective to conspiracy theories, Two instances suffice to illustrate this point. First, during the fieldwork I encountered an 'internal' conspiracy \hl")]\', whose' ~\dllc'rcl\ts. BBe journalists, alleged that the nature orthe Cml'ul ;\t lUll \ ~(H \ h,'l'I1 Irdand coverage could be explained by the preSel1L'l' ut :111 '['1,1,,\ ,":rI'!:I' IIl,ide the BEe. It was ',I)

362

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( P. Schlesinger

possible, as a result of the fieldwork, to otTer an alternative explanation which concentrated Upon the internal mediation of editorial policy and BBC's interpretation of its public responsibilities. The wide compliance with official policy made it clear that if there was a conspiracy it extended throughout the News Division. At this point the utility of the notion plainly disappeared. Second, there are indications that conspiracy theory is rearing its pointed head amongst some media sociologists too. For instance, it was one of the main planks of discussion at the panel on 'Debates in TV News research' at the 1978 BSA Conference. 38 One writer has even gone so far as to argue that it is time 'to reinstate the category of conspiracy' by which he means 'that conscious Use of the media by the ruling class, its servants or agents, to achieve desired political, social or economic ends. At the theoretical leVel there seems to be no reason to regard the Proposition that the ruling class, like any other class, articulates conscious class goals and organises to implement them, as in any way exceptionable.' J9 If this is taken to mean merely that extensive news management goes on in liberal-democratic capitalist states (notably in the field of 'law and order') then it is uncontroversial. But that is hardly likely. The above formulation reads like the familiar exercise in reductionism which characterises all conspiracy theories. Media conspiracy theories hinge heavily Upon two assumptions: (a) that collusion over the presentation of some particular picture ofreality has taken place between ruling class figures and media producers; and (b) that the consciously formulated intentions of news producers are of crucial importance in explaining news as a product. Concerning the first assumption, it is true that there have been moments of evident collusion between, for instance, the state and broadcasters. The BBC's handling of the 1926 General Strike is a case But such collusion is rare. Moreover, it precisely in point. 40 presupposes the clear-cut articulation of conscious intentions by agents of the state. But this is not always forthcoming. Northern Ireland may provide yet another illustration. Mr Richard Francis, in a deservedly much-publicised speech indicated the problems raised by the view that 'in a situation lacking consensus the BBC should stand by the Government "in the national interest"'. Rut which Government? Which national interest? Often the Government at Westminster has been at odds with Stormont. Often the Westminster Government's view has been opposed, not only by undemocratic and violent organisations, but also by a majority of elected politicians in the PrOVince.'" Assuming 36-4

Between Sociology and .Journalism

the unlikely scenario of the BBC entering into a series of conspiracies with the state (or fractions of the ruling class?) one thing is at least clear. And that is that the state's claim to stand for the national interest would have to be pretty credible (pace Mr Francis) and also unambiguous in the sense that only one power centre made the claim. Conspiracy theories tend to ignore the contradictions-and the considerable complexities-of liberal-democratic forms of state. As regards the second assumption, it is clear that an emphasis on the content of news may well incline researchers to place far too much implicit emphasis on news producers' inlenrion.\~ and to ignore the crucial elements of routine in the production process. Production routines both embody and are constitutive of ideology. One of the successful consequences of production studies has been to develop a fuller understanding of the role of routines. As a result they have shifted attention away from intentional bias theories of the news (first cousins to conspiracy theories), and rather attempted to uncover the 'inferential structures' of journalism and how these are embedded in actual practices. 41 4. Ethnographic studies are necessarily concerned with journalistic culture, and therefore force us to concentrate on the mediatedness of cultural production, a perspective which is apt to disappear when media products alone are the object of study. A consequence of down-playing mediation is the resort to a mechanistic conduit theory of news. It is, for instance, undoubtedly valuable and correct to discount the 'neutrality/impartiality' theory of news as one which actually explains both the product and practices of journalism. The recent book Bad News did this, and thereby merely confirmed a sociological conventional wisdom which had been established for a decade or two. However, what such analyses forget is the positive defensive function of the neutrality doctrine-which may be used against encroaching sociologists (of course) but also against excessive pressure from the state. An area of genuine autonomy does exist, and news shaped according to the dictates of 'impartiality' is not, therefore, simply a relay system distorted to fit the interests of capital. A stress on the mediatedness of the production process is a further corrective to conspiracy theories. What may replace-and one hopes completely displace-conspiracy-based explanations is a sophisticated appreciation of the complex and ramified nature of editorial systems, and the ways in which these sustain the belief in autonomy while generally reinforcing dominant views, and hence the reproduction of 365

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possible, as a result of the fieldwork, to ofTer an alternative explanation which concentrated upon the internal mediation of editorial policy and BBC's interpretation of its public responsibilities. The wide compliance with official policy made it clear that if there was a conspiracy it extended throughout the News Division. At this point the utility of the notion plainly disappeared. Second, there are indications that conspiracy theory is rearing its pointed head amongst some media sociologists too. For instance, it was one of the main planks of discussion at the panel on 'Debates in TV News research' at the 1978 BSA Conference. H One writer has even gone so far as to argue that it is time 'to reinstate the category of conspiracy' by which he means 'that conscious use of the media by the ruling class, its servants or agents, to achieve desired political, social or economic ends. At the theoretical level there seems to be no reason to regard the proposition that the ruling class, like any other class, articulates conscious class goals and organises to implement them, as in any way exceptionable.' 39 If this is taken to mean merely that extensive news management goes on in liberal-democratic capitalist states (notably in the fIeld of 'law and order') then it is uncontroversial. But that is hardly likely. The above formulation reads like the familiar exercise in reductionism which characterises all conspiracy theories. Media conspiracy theories hinge heavily upon two assumptions: (a) that collusion over the presentation of some particular picture of reality has taken place between ruling class figures and media producers; and (b) that the consciously formulated intentions of news producers are of crucial importance in explaining news as a product. Concerning the fIrst assumption, it is true that there have been moments of evident collusion between, for instance, the state and broadcasters. The BBC's handling of the 1926 General Strike is a case But such collusion is rare. Moreover, it precisely in point. 40 presupposes the clear-cut articulation of conscious intentions by agents of the state. But this is not always forthcoming. Northern Ireland may provide yet another illustration. Mr Richard Francis, in a deservedly much-publicised speech indicated the problems raised by the view that 'in a situation lacking consensus the BBC should stand by the Government "in the national interest"'. But which Government? Which national interest? Often the Government at Westminster has been at odds with Stormont. Often the Westminster Government's view has been opposed, not only by undemocratic and violent organisations, but also by a majority of elected politicians in the Province." I Assuming 364

BetweelI Sociology and .Journalism

the unlikely scenario of the BBC entering into a series of conspiracies with the state (or fractions of the ruling class?) one thing is at least clear. And that is that the state's claim to stand for the national interest would have to be pretty credible (pace Mr Francis) and also unambiguous in the sense that only one power centre made the claim. Conspiracy theories tend to ignore the contradictions-and the considerable complexities-of liberal-democratic forms of state. As regards the second assumption, it is clear that an emphasis on the content of news may well incline researchers to place far too much implicit emphasis on news producers' intentions, and to ignore the crucial elements of routine in the production process. Production routines both embody and are constitutive of ideology. One of the successful consequences of production studies has been to develop a fuller understanding of the role of routines. As a result they have shifted attention away from intentional bias theories of the newS (first cousins to conspiracy theories), and rather attempted to uncover the 'inferential structures' of journalism and how these are embedded in actual practices. '2 4. Ethnographic studies are necessarily concerned with journalistic culture, and therefore force us to concentrate on the mediatedness of cultural production, a perspective which is apt to disappear when media products alone are the object of study. A consequence of down-playing mediation is the resort to a mechanistic conduit theory of newS. It is, for instance, undoubtedly valuable and correct to discount the 'neutrality/impartiality' theory of news as one which actually explains both the product and practices of journalism. The recent book Bad News did this, and thereby merely confirmed a sociological conventional wisdom which had been established for a decade or two. However, what such analyses forget is the positive defensive function of the neutrality doctrine-which may be used against encroaching sociologists (of course) but also against excessive pressure from the state. An area of genuine autonomy does exist, and news shaped according to the dictates of 'impartiality' is not, therefore, simply a relay system distorted to fIt the interests of capital. A stress on the mediated ness of the production process is a further corrective to conspiracy theories. What may replace-and one hopes completely displace-conspiracy-based explanations is a sophisticated appreciation of the complex and ramified nature of editorial systems, and the ways in which thcsl" sustain the belief in autonomy while generally reinforcing dOI1lin'1I11 Vll'WS. and hence the reproduction of .; (1 ~

I

P. Schlesinger

I'

the existing social order. 5. The ethnographic approach permits the observation of moments of crisis which are concealed from the outsider who simply studies news content. Putting 'Reality' Together gives numerous examples which may bear brief repetition. For instance, one could see journalists strugging with the 'correct' label to be applied to the National Front. Or how they should handle a politically and diplomatically touchy massacre in Mozambique. Or how a news story on which the embargo had been broken should be dealt with. Other crises concerned the internal reorganisation of the news departments and the implications of changed styles of work and programme concepts. The existence of such moments of crisis corrects any view of the production process as somehow 'automatic'. While the production of news is, in general, routinised, the routines are themselves continually revised, and their combined elements enter into new relationships. An ethnography may uncover the fragilities, as well as the strengths, of forms of ideological labour.

III

Postscript

II "

I

~I

II I,

I

I

Since this paper was written I have had the opportunity of speaking to Mr Kenneth Lamb, the BBC's Director of Public Affairs, who has responsibility for the development of research in the Corporation. Several points made during this conversation are of particular relevance to Section II above. The account of the BBC's response given above failed to distinguish between the views of the professional journalist and those of the senior administrator looking for ways of making research useful to the Corporation. In general, Mr Lamb welcomed studies such as Putting 'Reality' Together; senior BBC journalists clearly did not. While, on the one hand, Mr Lamb endorsed the criticisms made of the chapter on Northern Ireland, on the other he said that my argument about the 'missing link' between the news audience and the broadcasting journalist was of value. In this connection, he pointed out that the Corporation had engaged Professor John Robinson to study the public's comprehension of news broadcasts, and he hoped that this would help make for more effective communication. Mr Lamb said that Professors Percy Tannenbaum and Jay Blumler were both engaged in research directly stemming from Katz's recommendations. The former was conducting 'formative' research into programme production, and the latter was working on what governed audience choices of programme. 366

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Since all this work is (in Professor Katz's terms) 'close' to the broadcasters it remains to be seen whether similar support will be forthcoming for critical research. While Mr Lamb's main interest would seem to be the development of policy research, from what he said it would appear that critical viewpoints would find some kind of place in a forum on (or possibly institution for) broadcasting research which the BBC was hoping to fund. Such a proposed forum or institute stems directly from Katz's recommendations. Its value will be determined by its form and composition. If it is an institute then its credibility will depend upon its support for a wide range of views, and not just those of the endorsers of the status quo. If it is a forum then there is a certain danger that the institutionalisation of the debate might result in a certain homogenisation of views and the 'captivation' of critics. However, the likelihood of this would be limited if the forum in question were to include not only pro-policy research broadcasters and pro-broadcaster policy researchers, but also broadcasters who are sceptical of research, and researchers who emphasise the limitations of broadcasting. In that case the principal value of a forum-if it were to get off the ground-would be in the elaboration and clarification of contrary, and even irreconcilable, views on a series of issues which are of general public concern. It could in that respect perform the useful role of informing the public about the current course of the debate on broadcasting. From the more narrow viewpoint of researchers' achieving access to broadcasting operations obviously the possibility of making informal approaches in a more equable climate would be preferable to the prevalent trench warfare. Thames Polytechnic

I I am grateful to Philip Elliott and Ernest Schlesinger for their hel pful remarks. This article draws on material originally presented at a graduate workshop on research methods at the university of Kent in 1976, and at a panel discussion, 'Debates on TV news research' at the 1978 BSA conference.

) 1'. Elliott: The Making of a Tele",slon Series: A Case Study ill the Sociology of Culture, Constable, London, 1972; T. Burns; The BBC: Public Illstitution alld Pri-vate World, Macmillan, London, 1977. I T. Burns: 'Public service and private world' in Sociological Review Monograph, No. 13, University of Keele, Staffs, 1969.

4

Burns, 1977, op. cit., pp. ix-xviii.

D. Halloran, 1'. Elliott and (; ,\1urdock; Demo1lstratiolls and Communication: a case study, Penguin, Harmondswonh, 1'i70. l

}.

)(,7

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P. Schlesinger 6 cf. P. Schlesinger: Pu{{ing 'Re,,/itv' TOKerher: BBG News, Constable, London, 1978, Ch. 8; A. Smith: 'Television coverage ofNonhern Ireland' in The Po/irics of Illformarioll, Macmillan, l.ondon, 1978, Ch. 9. 1 Glasgow Media Group: Bad News, Volume I, Routledge and Kegan Paul, l.ondon, 1976, pp. 51-57.

H J. G. Blumler: 'Producers' attitudes towards television coverage of an election campaign: a case study' in Paul Halmos (ed): 'The Sociology of Mass Media Communicators', Socz'o/c;gical Review MOllograph, No. 13, University of Keele, StafTs, 1969

H

Halloran, 1970, op. cit.

III

Elliott, 1972, op. cit.

II

Glasgow Media Group, op. cit.

12

Burns, 1977, op. cit.

I.' In the literature this is usually spoken of under the label of ,going native'. This is not quite appropriate here. We are discussing two groups which are not especially distant in socio-cultural terms, academics and journalists, and there are some who inhabit both cultures comfortably enough. What I want to convey is something particular about the BBC's cognitive persuasiveness over both its admirers and detractors. So there are two aspects to the process of captivation: one's general adaptation to journalistic culture, and the specific attractions of the BBe.

E. Katz: Social Research l.ondon, 1977.

!1 I cannot resist quoting from my own favourite piece of abuse: 'I dread to think what the sociologist's News at Nine would be like. 'Good evening, and for the first hour we're looking at the closure of Speke in its proper context of the history of Merseyside, British l.eyland's evolution, the employment crisis, man's inhumanity to man and the fall from Eden. And this is Doeror Philip Schlesinger reading it so you'd hetter bloody well listen. But first a footnote .. ' Austin Mitchell, 'This staring anomaly', Labour tf'eekly, March 31st, 1978.

" G. Honeycombe: 'This is the 9 o'clock news: And here is a sociologist taking the BBC apart', Evellillg News, l.ondon, March 28th, 1978.

Glasgow Media Group, op. cit.

16

" P. Whitehead: 'Views', The Lisreller, August 6th, 1970.

'" B. Inglis: 'Birth of a bulletin', The Times Lirerary Supplemelll, June 16th, 1978.

11 J. Bin and P. Jay: Television journalism: the child of an unhappy marriage between newspapers and film', The Times, Sept. 30th, 1975; J. Birt: 'Can television news break the understanding harrier?', The Times, Feb. 22nd, 1975.

14

Tunstall said, 'if press and TV journalists, who are willing to tackle any topic under the sun, then say that serious outsiders cannot understand their trade, what can one do but smile?' Indeed.

011

Broadcasrillg: Proposals for Furrher Dfve!opmelll, BBC,

10

Katz, op. cit., p. 108.

JI Sir Charles Curran: 'Researcher/broadcaster co-operation: problems and possibilities', in J. D. Halloran and M. Gurevitch: Broadcasrer/Researcher cooperarioll ill Mass Gommulliearioll Research, University of l.eicester, 1971, p. 58.

J2 Independent Broadcasting Authority: 'What use is research?', A report on a consultation on research held at IBA headquarters, Jan. 17th-18th, 1978.

" ibid., p. 12. J4 J. G. Blumler: 'Administrative and critical communications research revisited', Paper presented to the British Sociological Association Mass Communications Study Group, Jan. 18th, 1978, p. 9.

Jj

ibid., p. 11.

" ibid., pp. 4, 7. H James Carey: 'The ambiguity of policy research', JOU1"l"" of GommJlllicarioll, Vol. 28, No.2, 1978, p. 117.

" ibid., p. 96. IH

ibid., p. 39.

'" G. Tuchman: 'Professionalism as an agent Lammullicarioll, Vol. 28, No.2, 1978, pp. 106-113.

of legitimation', Jourllal of

17 In P. Elliott and P. Schlesinger: 'Some aspects of Communism as a cultural category', in A/edia, GulllIre alld Sociery, Vol. I, 1979 and in a forthcoming paper entitled 'Ideologism, economism and the study of culture'.

J8 !I J. D. Halloran: 'Further development-or turning the clock back?', .Journal of Gommullicarioll, Vol. 28, No.2, 1978, pp. 120-132.

22

R. Francis: 'l.ate news is no news', The Lisreller, May 25th, 1978.

2J Sir Charles Curran: BBG .Journalism: l.ondon, 1977, p. 4.

The ReleL'allC<' of SrrJ/clllres,

BBC,

F. Grant: 'The rise of the media mafia', Broadcasr, April 17th, 1978.

.'" e. Sparks: Book review, Screell Educarioll, No. 21, 1976-77 p. 76. 411 A. Briggs: The Birrh of Broadeasrillg: The His{()ry of Broadcasrillg ill rhe Ullired Killgdom, Vol. I, Oxford University Press, l.ondon, 1961; and M. Tracey: The Producrioll of Polincal Televisioll ill Briraill, Ph.D. thesis, Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of l.eicester, 1975.

!4 Arnold Weskcr: .Journey illio Journalism: A ,'erv persollal accoulll in four parrs, Writers and Readers Publishing Co-operative, l.ondon, 1977.

41 R. Francis: 'Northern Ireland: Francis answers BBC's critics', Broudcasr, Feb. 28th, 1977, p. 10.

:5 I have onlv scratched the surface of the issue here. For those interested in following up so~e of the debate in detail, it is worth looking at the response to G. Wyndham Goldie: 'The Sociology of Television', The Lisrt'llfr, Oct. 19th, 1972, by Paul Croll and Peter Golding 10 The Lisrt'ller, Oct. 26th, 1972. See also Jeremy Tunstall's letter in The G'h".diall, which was quoted in a lengthy review of Elliott, 1972, op. cit., hy that newspaper's television critic, Peter Fiddick (Sept. 1st, 1972).

" cf. K. l.ang and G. E. l.ang: Polirics alld Televisioll, Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1968; Halloran et aI, 1970, op. cit.

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A/all Beards7JJorth

Inlroduclion

The media of mass communication are seen, by both laymen and social scientists alike, as centrally important features of contemporary society. As such they represent an enduring focus of research interest and public concern, and the attention devoted to them is seen as justified by the extent to which they seem bound up in so many facets of the social system and its processes: 'Mass communications ar~ uniquely a feature of modern society; their development has accompanied an increas~ in the scale and complexity of societal activities and arrangements, rapid social change, technological innovation, rising personal income and standard of life, th~ decline of some traditional forms of control and authoritv. Th~ link is evidently something more than coincidence of timing'. I -

The scale and complexity of society are regarded as factors which place upon the institutions and organs of mass communication the vital role of mediating between the individual, with his short range, personal knowledge of the social world, and those large scale macro-social processes which constrain him and impinge upon him, but which are by their very nature beyond his experience. Mills! has emphasised the distinction between 'troubles', which occur and are recognised within the personal milieu of the individual, and 'issues', which have to do with facts, movements and processes at the societal level, and which provide the often little understood background to everyday life. The articulation of these two levels, the placing of troubles in the context of issues, is one of the key roles of the mass media. Indeed, in this sense, it has been argued, the mass media are capable, quite literally, of setting the agenda of issues of concern for vast audiences: 'Puhlication is thus the basis of community consciousness. . among large groups of people too num~rous or too dispersed to interact face-to-tace or in any other personally mediated fashion. The truly revolutionary significance of modern mass communication is its 'public making' abilitv ... The terms of broadest social interaction are those availabl~ in the most \videlv shared message systems of a culture. Increasingly these are mass-produced message systems. That is why mass media have been called the 'agenda setters' of modern society'.'

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Naturally enough the press, as one of the oldest of the mass media, has typically been regarded by social scientists as one of the most inf1uential of such agenda setters. Voyenne 4 for example, has argued that in a 'mass society' the press may act as a powerful formative force, generating images and controversies which f10w through audiences whose members might otherwise never grasp their similarities and common concerns. Given the importance of the role allocated to the mass media in general, and to the press in particular, it is hardly surprising that a good deal of attention has been focused, particularly by sociologists, on the content of mass communication. Since such content is seen as so significant, it has been systematically and repeatedly searched for its underlying themes, images, stereotypes and biases. (One reason why the press has received quite a high proportion of such attention is that its output, in printed form, provides a very convenient and easily handled source of raw material for the analyst, when compared, e.g., with output from sources like television and the cinema). But, as implied above, social scientists have not normally been prepared to rely upon explicitly subjective or intuitive assessments of content (assessments which would be analogous inform to a kind of detailed literary criticism). Rather they have sought to devise and routinise methodical procedures for the analysis of text or document content. The ultimate rationale behind this attempt at procedural standardisation is the desire to produce 'hard', 'objective' data. Such data can then be expected (it is hoped) to show a high degree of interobserver realiability. This in turn should provide the basis for the building up of ClImulative knowledge concerning document content, and hence facilitate the production of 'scientific' generalisation. The implications of this view of research will be discussed in some detail below. However, there can be little doubt of the appeal of systematic content analysis techniques for the student of mass media output. The number and range of empirical studies of media content employing these techniques bear eloquent witness to this fact. Limiting the choice of examples to those concerned with press content, these include, e.g., detailed analyses of the editorial content of 'elite' or 'prestige' newspapers, j studies of international news coverage,6 and analyses of political campaign coverage. 1 Researchers have also focused a good deal of attention on the coverage of deviant activities by the press, e.g. the handling of issues like drug abuse x and crime. 4 Attempts have also been made to compare press

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crime news with public images of crime and criminals by com paring the results of crime news content analyses with opinion survey and interview data. IU The small sample of studies referred to above gives some idea not only of the range of press content analyses, but also of the time span over which this approach has been in use, dating back to early studies like that of Harris in the nineteen thirties. However, although the underlying philosophy of content analysis has survived the intervening decades, far-reaching innovations in data processing and analysis have taken place, along with a series of methodological elaborations. The purpose of this paper, therefore, will be to offer a working definition of content analysis, and to discuss its methodology as a research tool lor the examination of press content, with particular reference to use of computer-assisted techniques. Following this discussion an attempt will be made to draw up a balance sheet of benefits and limitations, and finally content analysis will be looked at against the more general background of the methodological and philosophical bases of the social sCiences. COlllent Analysis as a Research Technique Definitions: Even a superficial survey of the content analysis literature reveals a whole range of apparently competing definitions of the technique. For example Berelson II offers the following: 'Content analysis is a research technique for the objective, sy'tematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication'.

Interestingly this definition specifies the mawfest content of communication as being the proper concern of the content analyst, and this position is echoed by that of Budd, Thorp & Donohew: 'Content analysis is a systematic technique It)r analysing message content and message handling-it is a tool for observing and analysing the overt communication behaviour of selected communicators'. I:

It will be noted, however, that the above definition is wider than that of Berelson, in the sense that it also refers to message handling as a suitable topic for analysis. A definition olTered by Holsti 1 Jspreads the net even wider by omitting any reference to 'manifest' or 'overt' content, thereby allowing for the possibility that an analyst might wish to attempt to deal with 'latent' or 'implicit' features of the communication content under study: 'Content analysis is any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteri,tics of me'5ages'. .

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Analysing Press Content: Some Technical & Methodological Issues

Numerous other definitions are available, but quite clearly what is required is not an exhaustive list of such definitions, but a reasonably concise statement of the underlying features which form the foundations of the approach. Such a summary has been attempted by Holsti J 4 who seeks to subsume the characteristics of the technique under the three headings of objectivity, system and generality. His requirement of objectivity stipulates that the research procedure should be based upon 'explicitly formulated rules and procedures'. This implies that classification categories are to be defined clearly in advance, and effectively distinguished from one another, and that once the classifactory scheme has been set up, clear rules must be laid down for assigning content elements (words, themes, &c) to particular categories. In other words, an attempt is made to minimise the subjective aspects of the analyst's examination of a particular document. The requirement that the analysis be systematic means that the allocation of content elements to categories should be done according to consistently applied rules. That is, the analyst must code content elements or units consistently, in order to avoid the 'contamination' of his data by bias. The requirement of generality is no less critical than the preceding two, although it has a rather different significance. It is not a technical requirement of content analysis per se, but rather a requirement of content analysis as a research technique within the social sciences. Put briet1y, this requirement demands that the analysis be linked to, or be part oC a wider process of theorising about social processes. This su~gests that the description of 'manifest' or 'overt' content can hardly be seen as in itself the end-point of a study. Rather, such descriptions can only make sense in terms of a properly elaborated conceptual framework. It should be borne in mind, however, that the above scheme does not mention explicitly what is, substantively, the most striking characteristic of content analysis, i.e. its production of qllJnlztative data. However, counting is implicit in the two notions of objectivity and system, as defined above, in that frequencies are the obvious way of recording the allocation of units to categories. All four features of the technique laid out above (objectivity, system, generality and quantitative data) pose important technical and methopological problems for the analyst. A brief discussion of the problems associated with each of these features will be presented below, although it will be argued that the problems associated with the

requirement of generality are by far the most far-reaching, and in a sense subsume those associated with the other features. Although before such a discussion is attempted, it will first be necessary to examine in some detail the actual methods and techniques of content analysis. Methods and Techniques: In this section, then, the aim is to clarify the methods of content analysis (i.e. those methods which generate data by means of a coding frame that can be applied to 'texts' or 'documents') and to look at some of the computer assisted techniques which arc available for data processing and analysis. One important distinction must be made, however, prior to the presentation of a step-by-step description of the content analysis method, and that is the distinction between what can be termed textual analysis and theme analysis. Textual analysis involves the detailed examination of the lexical contents andlor syntactic structures of documents, and normally takes actual words as the basic content elements. Theme analysis, on the other hand, does not rely on the use of specific words as basic content elements, but relies upon the coder to recognise certain themes or ideas in the text, and then to allocate these to predetermined categories. While both such approaches are applicable to the study of press output, in practice the latter seems to have been used more frequently. Computer assisted data handling and analysis techniques are available for either of these approaches. For examples, in the case of textual analysis, word count program packages such as WORDS are available. The WORDS system is designed to analyse psychotherapeutic interview material, and is capable of discriminating between various parts of speech, ignoring some and counting others, and then producing a correlation matrix of the 215 most frequently appearing words in which each word is correlated with all the others. Factor analyses can then be carried out on the matrix. 15 A rather more sophisticated and t1exible textual analysis tool is represented by the 'General Inquirer' package of content analysis programs. 16 As far as theme analysis is concerned, powerful generalised data processing and statistical analysis packages are now available tailormade to the requirements of social scientists, and these can be used to handle the sort of material that theme analysis generates. Certainly the most successful and best known of these packages is SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciencies. 17 Since the 'General Inquirer' and SPSS systems are the most widely known packages appropriate to the needs of content analysts, it would

)74

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seem appropriate to focus some fairly detailed attention upon them, particularly in view of the fact that such packages inevitably influence the shape and approach of the projects which employ them. The 'General Inquirer' is in fact a purpose built system for textual analysis, employing the facility of suitably programmed modern machines actually to 'read' texts presented in a standardised form. Its authors summarise its procedures and capabilities as follows:

category a 'tag', and the procedure by which the machine assigns categories to each word for which it has a dictionary entry is thus termed 'tagging'. All words without tags are printed out on a 'left over list', unless the investigator has previously specified that they should be omitted (e.g. in the case of frequently occurring but usually untagged words like 'a', 'the', &c). Once the tagging function has been performed, a number of subroutines exist to provide the analyst with the data he requires. For example the text can be listed sentence by sentence, along with assigned tags. 'Tag tally' procedures are available which can perform word counts for the whole text, or sentence counts for particular tags. A subroutine is also available to present tag tallies graphically, and 'cooccurrence' tests can be performed on the data. From this brief description it should be clear that the General Inquirer represents a very flexible tool for textual analysis, permitting the researcher a great deal of freedom in the specification of dictionary entries, idioms &c. This flexibility implies that as far as the analysis of press output is concerned the system can deal with material as diverse as editorial comment, 2" features, news coverage, and even advertising

'The General Inquirer is a set of computer programs to (a) identify systematically, within text, instances of words and phrases that belong to categories specified by the investigator; (b) count occurrences and specified co-occurrencies of these categories; (c) print and graph tabulations; (d) perform statistical tests; and (e) sort and regroup sentences according to whether they contain instances of a particular category or combination of categories'. IS

The use of the General Inquirer involves the transfer of the text to be analysed on to standard IBM cards, allocating one card to each line. Certain simple text preparation conventions have to be followed, involving, e.g., punctuation, and optional text editing can be performed at the punching stage in order to facilitate 'unambiguous' reading of the text by the machine. This editing process may include the use of syntax codes like 'subject', 'verb', 'object', 'unclassified' &c, which can be attached to given words to indicate their syntactic significance. The text is then scanned using a 'dictionary' programmed into the computer by the analyst. This dictionary consists of a listing of the words which the researcher has decided are significant in terms of his research interests, along with a specifICation of the category or categories to which they are to be allocated when 'read' by the machine. Typical dictionary entries would be laid out as follows:

Thus, on the left hand side of the equals sign the actual word to be read is entered, and on the right the two-digit codes of the categories into which each occurrence of that word is to be counted. Further to the right of the entry the investigator may also include optional remarks, e.g. the names of the categories in question. The system can also be adapted to handle idiomatic expressions, in that the dictionary entry for a particular word can also contain instructions for the computer to check for the presence, e.g. of a certain key word or set of words preceding it. In this way, in fact, a whole list of idioms in which the original word might appear can be specified. The authors of the General Inquirer system call each dictionary entry

copy. In contrast to the General Inquirer, the SPSS system is a much more generalised package of data handling and analysis sub-routines, and rather than being focused on a specific technique like content analysis, is designed to provide a range of capabilities to meet the needs of social scientists. Indeed the strength, and the appeal, of the SPSS system is that it allows researchers with little or no programming experience to have access to a battery of sophisticated sub-programs which can cope with large amounts of data, whether these be the products of surveys, interviews, content analyses, secondary statistical sources, or whatever. The researcher is simply required to specify the variables which make up his data following certain straightforward lexical and syntactical conventions which render his instructions readable by the machine. He must also specify the input medium (which is usually cards), the number of cases to be processed, and the format in which the data are to be presented (in terms of a simple Fortran statement). If necessary, the researcher can specily codes for missing values in his data, and may include extended 'variable labels' to render eventual print-outs more readily intelligible. Further, extended 'value labels' can also be writtenin, so that the various values which a given variable can take can easily be read off. (For example, a variable OCCUPN might be specified, in

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JUDGE MANAGER

21,64 JOB 21,62 JOB

LEGAL ECONOMIC 19

Alan Beardsworth

Analysing Press Content: Some Technical & Methodological Issues

conformity with the conventions imposed by the system, along with the explanatory variable label 'Occupation of Head of Household', and taking the values: (1) professional, (2) intermediate, (3) skilled nonmanual, and so on).

newspaper A have more or less crime coverage than newspaper B, and does it concentrate its attention on different types of offence?). Having looked at two examples of computer assisted approaches to content analysis, the actual method can now be laid out step by step, to provide a general description of the approach as a prelude to an assessment of its utility and its limitations. For this purpose it can be divided conveniently into a sequence of five basic steps: research design, frame design, coding, sampling and data analysis.

All that is then required is for the data to be fed into the system, where they can be processed and filed according to the variable list and input format instructions already provided. Once such a data file has been created the researcher can call repeatedly upon a whole range of processing and analysis sub-routines simply by using a small number of keywords which act as task definition instructions for the machine. Of course, the generalised nature of the SPSS system means that it does not have the text reading capacity of packages like the General Inquirer. Thus the content analyst will do his own reading of the text, coding content units into the pre-constructed categories or variables of the coding frame. These content units would normally be 'themes' rather than words, (since word scanning can be done automatically by textual analysis programs). The processing and analysis capacity of SPSS can be used to assist a wide range of content analyses of press output, and the fact that 'theme' data are being coded direct by the analyst may mean that far more copy can be examined, since the laborious and costly process of punching actual text on to cards for input (as required by the General Inquirer) is avoided. A brief example will serve to illustrate the use of the SPSS package for press content analysis. Let us say we are interested in patterns of crime reporting in a given set of newspapers. One of our variables would certainly be CRIMTYPE (to use a mnemonic which would conform to SPSS limits on available characters for a variable name). We might then give the explanatory label 'Type of crime' to this variable, and specify that it will take the following values: (1) crime against the person, (2) crime against property, (3) sexual offence, (4) motoring ofIenee, &c. We can then begin our scan of a suitable sample of issues of the newspapers under study, and will code all crime news items under one of the above headings. We might also include variables like the social status of the accused, the social status of the victim, the location of the ofIenee, and so on. Once all these data have been put into the SPSS system we might begin to look for 'significant' associations between variables (e.g. is there an association between the social status of the offender and the type of crime?). Comparisons between the crime coverage of different newspapers might also be made (e.g. does )/R

Research Design

This initial step in the sequence involves quite literally the production of a 'master plan' for the research project in mind. At this stage the investigator must clarify not only the question or questions which he is seeking to answer, but also the nature of the empirical research he intends to undertake in order to address himself to the problem at hand. Thus the purpose of the design is more than the specification of a research question, rather it is also the scheme in which all the other steps in the research process are articulated and coordinated. Further, all such research designs are, Holsti suggests, explicitly or implicitly comparative in nature. Indeed he delineates a whole range of comparative designs available to the analyst. 21 For example, we might wish to compare the messages produced by source A at time t 1 with the messages produced by the same source at a later time t 1. This might take the form of the examination of the editorial comment, or news content of a given newspaper at different points in time. In this way significant trends in communication content may be pointed up. Alternatively, the messages produced by source A in a given situation s I may be compared with that source's messages in a different situation s 2. For example, the peace-time and war-time news coverage of a given newspaper might be compared and contrasted with each other, and an attempt made to assess the impact of a particular situation (i.e. a state of war) on the content and message handling of a particular medium of communication. Still focusing only upon one message source, the analyst may seek to assess the relationship of various content variables to each other, in the messages under study. For example, in a given newspaper's crime coverage, he might wish to investigate the extent to which certain types of offence arc associated with certain types of oflenders or victims. Quite clearly, however, in many cases the comparative approach will 379

Alan Beardsworth

involve the analyst's looking at more than one message source. In such a situation we might wish to compare source A with message source Bin terms of one or more content variables. Thus we might compare the contents of two different newspapers in terms of editorial comment, news coverage &c. Further, this kind of research design might also involve the comparison of different types of communication media, e.g. newspaper coverage of a given topic or event, and television coverage. The possibility also exists that comparisons might be made between the content of messages from some source A (in terms of some given content variable) with some set standard B. This, in effect, involves the evaluation of the performance of the communicators at source A in terms of some kind of norm. Such an evaluation might entail, e.g., the comparison of a particular newspaper's output in a given area with standards laid down voluntarily by the industry, or imposed by government. (Obviously this kind of analysis may represent an exercise in 'policing' rather than an exercise in research per se). However, whatever the nature of the comparative approach adopted by the investigator, one decision of particular importance must be made early on in the research design process. This decision hinges upon the question of whether the research is to be seen as 'exploratory' in nature (i.e. as searching systematically tor significant features of press content), or as 'hypothesis testing', (i.e. designed to test explicitly formulated hypotheses concerning such content). In effect, this issue reduces to a choice between formalised, clearly specified hypotheses which contain their own operational realisation, and the vague, implicit hypotheses or 'hunches' which must, inevitably, be behind even the most 'open ended' piece of exploratory research. If we imagine a continuum between these two types of approach, then substantively most press content analyses seem to tend towards the 'exploratory' end of that continuum. Frame Design

The coding frame represents in effect the operationalisation of the interests, concerns, hunches or hypotheses of the underlying research design. The frame itself consists of the set of categories to be employed for the classification of communication content. Where the emphasis in the research design rests upon 'hypothesis testing', the hypotheses to be tested, if they are adequately formulated, will themselves delineate the structure and content of the coding frame. Where the approach is more 'exploratory' the frame may contain a high proportion of categories and 380

Analysing Press Content: Some Technical & Methodological Issues

values which are present largely because the researcher suspects that they might turn out to be significant. In the case of a system like the General Inquirer the actual form of the coding frame is set, in that, as we have seen, the investigator is required to produce a 'dictionary' of categories, along with lists of words, or idiomatic combinations of words, which are to be counted into these categories by the machine, as it scans the text under study. In this instance, then, the frame is literally a dictionary of significant terms. However, where a 'theme analysis' approach is being used, particularly when large amounts of text are being scrutinised, it may be impossible to specify comprehensive 'dictionary entries' for each and every theme. Rather, we rely upon the ability of a human coder to recognise that a particular news item, editorial, or piece of advertising copy contains a given theme. Thus, in such an instance, the coding frame will be a collection of themes provided with operational definitions. If computerised data processing and analysis are to be employed, via the use of a package such as SPSS, it clearly makes a good deal of sense to construct the coding frame in such a way that it is compatible with the input format required by the system. SPSS, as we have seen, operates with 'variables', which occupy a column or field of columns on an IBM card, and with the 'values' that these variables can take, the values being represented by a punch in a given position in a variable's field. To construct a coding frame in SPSS terms then, involves reducing themes to variables with a specified range of values. An example of this process was given above, where the theme 'type of offence reported in a given crime news item', was reduced to the variable CRIMTYPE, taking values (1) and (4). Coding With a textual analysis system like the General Inquirer, the process of coding, i.e. the allocation of content elements (words or groups of words) to content categories, is automatic. However, in the case of theme analysis, as emphasised above, a human coder has the task of reading the material in question, and of deciding how its various features should be classified. In this aspect of content analysis, therefore, we are faced with perennial problems of the validity and the reliability of coding procedures. What is required, it would seem, is a body of coding rules which will provide criteria for valid coding decisions (i.e. valid in terms of the categories being employed), and which will also be sufficiently clear to produce repeatable results, either 381

Alan BeardSZJJorth

by different coders, or by the same coder at different times. Sampling

Given the sheer volume of press output, it is quite clear that, under normal conditions, the researcher may often be compelled to resort to the detailed analysis of only a small sample of the material which interests him. However, provided certain straightforward procedures are adhered to, the sampling approach can produce acceptable results. In fact a large body of literature exists in the area of sampling theory and its associated statistical techniques, and much of this material seems ideally suited to the needs of sociologists. 22 Given his interest in the relative frequencies of occurrence of given content units, the content analyst will be most interested in those statistical techniques which are designed for the estimation of population proportions from sample proportions, within given confidence limits. While this is not the place to discuss such techniques in detail, two very basic points are worth making: (a) the researcher must define clearly the population of press items about which he is making estimates, and (b) the items which make up the sample for detailed analysis, and on which estimates are to be based, must be selected at random from that population. Thus the researcher's sampling procedure must embody a system which assigns an identity to each element in the population (every editorial appearing in a given decade, &c), and which then selects such elements randomly, in order to avoid bias. Data

alJa~ysls

With the arrival of powerful data processing machines what is arguably the most arduous task for the investigator, the sorting and analysis of a large body of data, has now been rendered, in principle at least, one of the less demanding phases of a research project. The two systems so far discussed are both capable of performing complex analysis tasks on receipt of a set of simple and concise instructions. As already mentioned, the General Inquirer can provide highly detailed text and tag listings, in which each sentence of the text under study is printed out along with the dicticnary categories which appear in it, as well as word counts for specific items appearing in a document, and sentence counts of sentences containing a given tag. As well as these essentially descriptive capabilities, the system can also be used to search the data for significant associations between categories, using 'cooccurrence tests' and 'contingency strategies'. 2J Thus, for example, an 382

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investigator might wish to know whether a category like MALE-ROLE is typically associated with certain other tags. 14 A suitable program instruction will cause the machine to retrieve all sentences in the text being analysed which contain the MALE-ROLE tag, and then print out the frequencies of associated tags occurring in those sentences. Using this kind of approach a text can be analysed and re-analysed in as many ways as are required to reveal its various facets. The SPSS system can also provide the researcher with descriptive listings of his variables and the frequencies of their various values, and it can also be used to highlight associations between variables via the process of crosstabulation. Such crosstabulations can be performed between two variables, or between three variables (by cross tabulating two with a third held constant). A particular advantage of SPSS is that the tables and matrices that are printed out using such procedures are highly legible, and can be interpreted quite easily even by a nonspecialist reader. However, certainly one of the most important features ofSPSS is its wide-ranging statistical capability. Indeed the second edition of the SPSS user manual!·1 contains a literally bewildering array of statistical procedures, including, e.g., significance testing, bivariate correlation, multiple regression analysis, path analysis, analysis of variance and covariance, discriminant analysis, factor analysis and scalogram analysis. Since anyone of these procedures can be called upon by the use of very simple coded commands, the limits to analysis would seem to be set no longer by the complexity of the procedures themselves, but rather by the scope of the investigator's own imagination and by the depth of his competence to select the statistical tools most appropriate to his task. Any discussion of the methods of content analysis should, of course, be accompanied by an attempt to assess the advantages it offers the investigator, and the limitations which are involved in its use. In drawing up such a balance sheet, the benefits are probably easier to specify than the limitations. Indeed many such benefits have already been alluded to, so our assessment can begin with a summary of the kinds of advantages claimed for the approach: The Benefits. One of the most important features of content analysis is its systematic nature, and this is seen as vital protection against the kinds of bias which might result from an 'intuitive' or 'subjective' reading ofa document or set of documents. Indeed Lasswell, Lerner & Pool!6 pose the following general questions:

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Alan Beardsworth 'Can we assume that a scholar read his sources with the same degree of care throughoUl his research? Did he allow his eye to travel oVer the thousands of pages of parliamentary debates. newspapers. magazines and other SOUfl'e lists in his bibliography or notes? Or did he use a sampllng system scanning some pages superficially, though concentrating upon certain periods. Was the sampling system for the Frankfuner Zeitung, if one was employed, comparable with the one for the Manchester Guardian'.

If our scholar's research design is based upon the procedures of formal content analysis, these fundamental questions will, ideally, all be answerable, and it will be feasible to judge his work and results in the context of their underlying methods and assumptions. What is more, the amenability of the approach to the use of sampling procedures based upon well elaborated statistical theory should mean, if such procedures are correctly applied, that reliable inferences can be made concerning the content of a very large corpus of press output on the basis of the detailed study of quite small amounts of actual text. Next on the list of advantages claimed must be the fact that the approach generates quantitative data, data which are seen as inherently 'harder' and more 'precise' than purely intuitive assessments. Holsti 2' makes this point in the following terms: 'Foremost among the arguments is the degree of precision with which one's conclusions may be stated. Descriptions such as '45(70' or '27 times out of a possible 30' convey information more precisely than statements such as 'less than half or 'almost always".

Precisely expressed frequencies, then, it is being suggested, are more likely to qualify as 'hard' 'objective' facts for the social scientist than are subjective judgements concerning a given text. (Just what the significance of the frequencies the content analyst produces might be, however, is a question to which we will return below). The exploratory function of content analysis, it has already been suggested, must also appear on the profit side of the balance sheet:

Analysing Press Content: Some Technical & Methodological Issues

Finally, the very unobtrusiveness of content analysis as a research strategy is one of its strongest recommendations. The fact that the analyst need have no direct contact at all with the originators of the texts he is studying is a considerable advantage in any situation (a) where such contact is not feasible, or (b) where such contact is not desirable, for fear that the analyst's presence might affect the process or content of communication. There may be, for example, a whole range of situations where direct contact with the subject may be impossible for practical reasons. There may be social or institutional barriers which cannot be overcome, or the investigator may be separated from his subjects by distance or time. Using content analysis, however, such problems are solved and even historical materials can be incorporated into a research project. But even where subjects are potentially accessible, it may be that an attempt to study beliefs, values, motives &c in great depth and at first hand, could itself modify or influence the views in question. Since content analysis effectively removes all the 'observer effects' which so often plague the fieldworker, and since it side-steps the host of problems involved in research which involves any kind of interaction between investigator and subject, this unobtrusiveness may well be the basis of the technique's most potent appeal for the sociologist. All the issues of entry into the field, relationships with authorities and subjects, the degree and nature of observer participation, ethical responsibilities to respondents, &c, are put aside. The investigator using the content analysis approach to the study of the press, for example, simply addresses himself to a body of documentary material which has already been published, and to which access is perfectly open.

In other words, where the investigator has only vague or tentative notions concerning the significant features of the texts he wishes to study, a properly constituted content analysis may well permit him to refine and clarify his ideas, and thus take a step towards the construction of a more coherent and better elaborated theoretical framework, which may in turn send him back to his source material with a clearer perspective on just what it is that he ought to be looking for.

The Limitations. The inventory of advantages presented above seems to suggest that content analysis represents a very attractive research tool for the student of mass communication, particularly one working in the area of the press, where large amounts of easily accessible printed source material are available. Inevitably, however, these advantages are counterbalanced by a range of important problems which are inherent in the technique. Perhaps the most obvious ofthese problems is that which emerges out of the underlying assumption that communication content forms an area of 'common ground' between communicator, audience and analyst. This assumption is, naturally, an extremely important one for the researcher, since having made it he can then go on to use his own familiarity with the culture which is the basis of this common ground to

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'Content analysis is valuable for suggesting hypotheses and developing a broader understanding of the subtleties and nuances of symbolic expression'. 28

Alan Beardsworth

ask the 'right' questions and to devise 'meaningful' categories out of which to construct a research design and a coding frame. In other words, the analyst must draw upon the resources of his own 'common sense' (available to him as the result of his membership of a particular society and of a particular language community) in order to produce a coherent piece of work. This reliance on common sense need not involve any problems, if we can be sure that the common ground, upon which the communicator, audience and analyst are supposed to stand, can be seen as firm and stable. But once the possibility is admitted that it may not be so firm, and that what was seen as a common culture may be in fact a rather confused amalgam of many competing views of the world, a problem arises concerning the relationship between the perspectives of the various parties. Thus, if we admit that content analysis , ... presupposes a common culture unequivocally translatable into written forms'. 29

we must also admit the possibility of discrepancies between the intentions and perceptions of those who communicate via the mass media, of those who consume that communication, and of those who seek to analyse it systematically. Many actual content analysis projects, however, do seem to neglect this issue, and as Cicourel J9 po ints out, what is required is explicit reference to the normative rules which govern communication and interpretation. Without such explicit reference, the epistemological underpinnings of content analysis remain vague and rather nebulous. This problem is, of course, a very general one, and also shows itself in the activity of coding. This is true whether the coding takes the form of constructing dictionary categories or tags for words or phrases, or involves the act of coding in a more literal sense, where the analyst himself examines the text or document and assigns 'themes' to categories. In either case he must draw upon his own knowledge as a speaker of the language in question in order to make sense of the material under study and to categorise its various elements. As Pool states: 'Most content analysis procedures use the coder as a judge of what lexical forms convey what meanings of interest. They have relied on the common sense of a coder who was, of course, a user of the language in which the analysis was being done. His common sense enables him to recognise, for example, that the phrases 'a man of courage', 'a brave man', and 'a guy with guts' all mean the same thing'.lI

Tht' 'theme' coder's reliance upon common sense for the performance

Anazvsing Press Content: Some Technical & Methodological Issues

of his task may well raise doubts about both the reliability and the validity of the data he generates. The remedy for this state of affairs would seem to involve specifying as clearly as possible the boundaries of the coding categories in use, and making as explicit as possible the coding rules which lay down the criteria by which actual content elements are to be judged. In this way, we might expect to minimise the coder's dependence upon his own subjective assessments. However, Garfinkel 32 has argued that the attempt to remove the common sense basis of coding by more and more rigorous specifications may well be misguided. Indeed, he suggests that common sense knowledge is literally indispensable. He illustrates this proposition by using the example of a study which employed graduate students for the coding of the content of psychiatric clinic folders: 'To no-one's surprise, preliminary work showed that in order to accomplish the coding, coders were assuming knowledge of the very organised ways of the clinic that their coding procedures were intended to produce descriptions of. More interestingly, such presupposed knowledge seemed necessary and was most deliberately consulted whenever, for whatever reasons, the coders needed to be satisfIed they had coded 'what really happened' ... We soon found the essential relevance to the coders . .. of such considerations as 'et cetera', 'unless', llet it pass' and 'factum valet' (i.e. an action that is otherwise prohibited by rule is counted correct once it is done)'. n

Garfinkel calls procedures like 'et cetera', 'unless' and 'factum valet' ad hoc considerations, maintaining that they cannot be eliminated from the coding process since they are at its very foundations. Indeed, he argues ad hoc considerations cannot be expunged through the use of more and more definite or precise coding instructions, because such considerations also have to be employed by the coder in order to decide what the coding instructions are 'actually' talking about. He goes on to suggest that to treat the ad hoc features behind coding instructions as a nuisance to be removed is rather like believing that removing the walls of a building will enable one to see better what is holding up the roof1 The implications of the above comments concerning the role of common sense and ad hoc considerations in content analysis are far reaching. A technique which holds out the promise of a systematic approach and objective findings turns out to be reliant upon unexplicated and ultimately elusive forms of pre-supposed knowkdgt' about the social world. However, it would clearly be quill' Wltlll)' I" claim that this was a problem peculiar to content ana h''''''''' "I \., \\ , present, in varying forms, in many of the method . . ,,1111 \ "". \ ,I It does, nevertheless come into particular! v . . 11:11\' 1\\, '\. ", I I, technique which claims to be morl' ri~tll (" I'. 111.1" ",I, , 'I I .'l'\.'j

0,86

Alan Beardswortlz

,I,

I I

I

Ana~vsing Press Content: Some Technical & Methodologic'al Issues

the study of communication content. On the other hand, there is one problem which is peculiar to content analysis, the problem of just what significance can be attached to the quantitative findings which it produces. The fact that quantitative results are produced is, as we have seen, regarded as advantageous, in that such results offer a 'precision' which would otherwise be lacking. However, behind this view that precise frequencies of occurrence of content units represent significant findings concerning a text, is an important assumption. This assumption is that the frequency of occurrence of a given item is an effective and reliable index of that item's significance and importance. That is, we assume the more frequently an item occurs the more significant it is, or the more it is a focus of concern for the communicator. What is more, we also assume that the frequency actually measures that concern, which implies in turn that for example an item which occurs 20% more frequently than another item can be seen, by comparison, as 20% more significant. This view is itself the logical conclusion of the claim that frequency counts offer precision. Yet on closer examination this position seems to yield absurd results. Can we conclude, e.g., that because in a given newspaper's crime coverage over a particular time period, reports of crimes against property occur 20% more frequently than reports of crimes against the person, that 'preoccupation' with the former is actually 20% greater than with the latter? Indeed, we might ask whether such a proposition makes sense. Is it sensible, for example, to conceptualise the concerns of a communicator in terms of a sum total which is then allocated on a percentage basis to particular issues? Is such a view congruent with any elaborated theory of human personality? If such a theoretical basis exists, it seems to have been neglected in the literature of content analysis. Similar problems arise when the 'effect' of mass communication content on the audience is considered. If such content can directly or indirectly influence or shape the ideas and attitudes of audience memhers (bearing in mind their selective use of it), can frequency of occurrence also be seen as an accurate index of such effects? If an item occurs 50% more frequently than another, does it have 50% more impact? Once again, such a view seems to have no theoretical justification, and even the kind of empirical evidence that exists seems to contradict it. J4 Interestingly, one of the most influential workers in the area of content analysis seems to have taken up a relatively cautious position

The use of content analysis techniques, particularly in an 'exploratory' role, can be seen as an example of inductive social research, where the investigator attempts to extract general features from a set of cases, events or instances. In this way generalisations are produced which ..Ire given the status of 'laws', or less deterministically 'tendency statements'. Willer & Willer, 3J for example, have argued that in the social sciences such induction is often based upon what they term 'systematic

3HH

3H9

over the issue of frequency: 'Now it is deEnitely not implied here that higher precision is always necessary or even desirable. That depends upon the problem. In many cases it docs not matter whether the magnitude is 60% or 70"7u or 75% or 85%; all that matters is that it is 'high".35

This statement of Berelson's seems to involve a direct contradiction of Holsti's claim that the apparent precision offered by quantitative data is in itself desirable. In fact we are now faced with an obvious paradox: On examining a research technique designed to generate quantitative results, we find we are unable to assess unambiguously the significance of the numbers produced, and are therefore advised to state our quantitative findings in qualitative terms like 'high' or 'low'! Indeed this retreat towards the 'imprecision' of the qualitative is supported by George 36 who reminds us that the qualitative analysis of the manifest content of a document is very often the most obvious and sensible way of judging the ideas and intentions of the communicator who produced it. We do not, in fact, need to look very far for the origins of this paradox. Content analysis, with its emphasis on hard, quantitative data handled by sophisticated computer packages looks very like a systematic measuring instrument. But as a measuring instrument it is an oddity, since its application does not take place in the context of a theory of human communication that can specify what the magnitudes and frequencies our measurements give us actually mean. We seem to be placed in the position of trying to measure, without being quite clear just what we are trying to measure. Once the problem is posed in this way, however, it becomes apparent that it is perhaps not quite so peculiar to content analysis as has been suggested, but is, rather, one more manifestation of deeper problems inherent in a whole tradition of social research. Inductive Social Research and the Ana~ysis of Press Colltent

Alan Beardsworth

Analysing Press Content: Some Technical & Methodological Issues

empiricism'. Using such an approach, the authors suggest, the investigator starts out with a set of common sense observational categories (misleadingly termed 'concepts'), which he then uses to generate data, usually in the form of percentages, counts, scores, &c. The next step involves an attempt to uncover 'associations' between these categories, normally via the use of more or less complex statistical procedures like bivariate and partial correlation, multiple regression, path analysis, factor analysis and so on. Once statistically significant associations have been discovered (say, between two categories like 'delinquency' and 'social class'), these associations are elevated to the level of generalisations, although typically expressed as tendencies rather than laws. What systematic empiricism involves, then, is the sifting of 'pretheoretical' data in order to discover the underlying regularities, and then to express these as empirical generalisations. This may well be an interesting exercise, but, it has been argued, 38 its practitioners make the mistake of confusing this procedure with the procedures of science, and of believing that their empirical generalisations are 'scientific'. Science itself, on the other hand, the Willers maintain, rather than attempting to discover relations between empirical categories, involves the construction of an articulated scheme of theoretical concepts which can give rise to its own observables and its own measures for these observables. Of course, for the systematic empiricist a whole range of data gathering techniques exists other than content analysis, including interviewing, surveys and experiments (although the last mentioned are more typically associated with the work of social psychologists than of sociologists). However, all these techniques share the limitations of the empiricist approach as a whole when employed in the furtherance of its aims. Put very briefly, the 'generalisations' made on the basis of interview, survey, content analysis or experimental data turn out to be very narrowly applicable generalisations indeed. In the case of surveys, interviews and content analysis they are relevant only to those populations from which samples were drawn, and then only for the particular point in time at which the research was carried out. Experimentally based generalisations may be even more narrow, in that they may be applicable only to the experimental groups in question, and then only in quite specific laboratory situations. These problems, however, do not seem to have detracted from the popularity of the empiricist approach, despite the fact that empirical

generalisations can never be equivalent to the general statements of a science. Further, the role of the modern computer, with its great capacity for data processing and analysis, should nOt be overlooked. With access to such machines the empiricist can handle the mass of cases which he regards as essential as the basis for generalisation. What is more, by the use of a few simple commands he can call up dozens or even hundreds of data tables, and have performed large numbers of statistical calculations of enormous complexity. The very ease by which the social scientist can now employ such powerful procedures has led the authors of the second edition of the SPSS package 39 to warn against the temptation of going on 'grand fishing expeditions' in which everything is crosstabulated, correlated, &c with everything else in order to uncover 'significant' relationships. This approach, the authors conclude, involves:

which will produce 'literally hundreds' of such tables. The statistical procedures in such a package also present dangers when they are made so readily available to researchers who may have little idea of the assumptions and mathematical foundations upon which they are based, and of the conditions under which they may be sensibly employed. For example Willer & Willer 411 point out the widespread misapplication of significance testing (available in packages like SPSS) to data which are generated under inappropriate conditions (e.g. survey materials). The SPSS authors, too, go to some length to stress that each of the statistical procedures available is applicable only under certain rigorously defined conditions concerning the nature of the data in question. From the above remarks it might be concluded that the investigator intending to use computer assisted content analysis as a means of

390

391

, ... substituting the crudest form of empiricism for the careful interaction of concepts, hypotheses, and data analysis'

What is more they provide a graphic example of just how easy it is to set up a 'grand fishing expedition', by contrasting the SPSS command: CROSSTABS

TABLES=A BY Z

which will produce just one crosstabulation table, with the only slightly more complex command: CROSSTABS

TABLES=A TO Z BY A TO Z

Alan Beardsworth

Analysing Press Content: Some Technical & Afethodological Issues

studying press output may be particularly susceptible to the lure of systematic empiricism. It has already been suggested that content analysis can be seen, in a sense, as a measuring device bereft of any coherent theoretical basis. Add to that the point that it employs largely common sense observational categories and the recipe seems complete. In fact, substantively, most press content analyses seem to have followed this pattern. They commence with a set of vaguely formulated 'hypotheses' rather than with any clearly formulated theory, and go on to employ the process of counting elements into empirical categories, in the hope of then being able to discover regularities, trends &c, which can be given the status of generalisations about press content. What has been said, however, should not be taken as implying that empirical generalisation per se is worthless. Quite the reverse is the case, since such generalisations form the foundations of most everyday activities, and often prove to be of enormous utility in making sense of the world. 41 This may mean that the findings of the systematic empiricist social researcher may have considerable utility in the context of practical action and decision taking, whether by policy maker, reformer, entrepreneur, administrator, or whatever. On the other hand, the accumulation of such findings cannot in itself result in statements of a scientific nature. Thus despite the fact that content analysis data on press output may look 'hard' and objective, given their numerical nature, and given the impressive trappings of powerful computing machines that lie behind them, they cannot in themselves give rise to a science of mass communications. Take, for example, an attempt to make a general statement about the tendency of the press to report crimes against property. A series of content analyses might show that over a given period in newspaper A such crimes figured in 50% of crime reports, in newspaper B in 60% of reports, and in newspaper C in 70% of reports, and so on, taking as many samples from as many newspapers and time periods as we wish. The next step might be to sum these results and calculate an average (in the above case this would be 60%), and then use this figure as the basis for a 'tendency statement' about the propensity of newspapers to print crime stories dealing with offences against property. What is significant about such a figure, however, is that it is simply a device for indicating the central tendency of a range of variation, and as such will change with every new observation which is added to it. If, for example, we study a fourth publication, newspaper D, and produce a figure of 20%, which seems 'out of line' with the

previous results, this need not pose any problem, since we simply add this result to the previous array of results, and come up with a new average (50%). This process can be continued ad infinitum, adding little to our understanding of the mass communication process, or of particular communication media.

procedures. But, as has been emphasised, the potential offered by the computer may well serve to encourage a form of empiricism which, although it may have some practical utility, cannot in itself contribute directly to a social science of communication. If a technique like content analysis is to be of relevance to a sociological understanding of the communication process in general, and of the press in particular, it must be employed as a measuring device within an explicit theory of communication. Such a theory, moreover, would need to be one to which the quantitative and statistical aspects of content analysis were directly relevant. In other words it would have to contain within its framework ways of deriving quantifiable observables, and ways of allocating theoretical significance to the magnitudes produced by measuring these observables. In a sense, though, this is putting the cart before the horse, since it seems that what is being suggested is that since we already have a measuring device, we should devise theories to fit it. Quite clearly the reverse is the case; measuring devices are derived from theories, and not vice versa. Content analysis in its present form may, or may not, turn out to be relevant to an adequately elaborated theory of communication, although it may well be that material already generated by this technique could be of value in providing clues, even if very tentative ones, to the form such a theory might take. However, to imagine that general theoretical statements about the communication process can be

392

393

Conclusions With the advent of modern computer program packages, the social researcher now has at his fingertips data processing facilities capable of handling large amounts of material. The content analyst, for example, is no longer constrained by the amounts of labour that would be required for the manual processing of his findings. The limiting factors now become the work involved in compiling dictionaries, in feeding texts into the machine, or in actually coding theme material. Thus certain aspects of the drudgery involved in a technique like content analysis have been removed, and the investigator's scope has been widened by a new-found ease of access to complex statistical

Alan Beardsworth

Analysing Press Content: Some Technical & Methodological Issues

derived directly from a mass of content analysis data is rather like assuming that if one takes enough readings on a speedometer one will eventually arrive at the laws of motion. Loughborough University 1 D. McQuail: Towards a Sociologv of Aims London, 1969, p. I.

Communication;~

Collier-Macmillan,

C. W. Mills: The SocIological Imuginution, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp. 9-10.

16 see P. J. Stone, D. C. Dunphy, M. S. Smith and D. M. Ogilvie: The Generul Inquirer: A Compueer Approach to Coneent Analysis, The M.LT. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966. I ' see N. H. Nie, D. H. Bent and C. H. Hull: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970; and N. H. Nie, C. H. Hull, J. G. Jenkins, K. Steinbrenner and D. H. Bent: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Second Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1975.

" Stone et ai, op. cit., p. 68.

2

] G. Gerbner: 'Toward Cultural Indicators: The Analysis of Mass Mediated Public Message Systems' in G. Gerbner, O. R. Holsti, K. Krippendorf, W. J. Paisley and P. J. Stone: The Anuzvsis of CommUmCa/lllll Content, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1969, p. 126.

" ibid., p. 87. 20

see Namenwirth and Brewer, op. cit.

" Holsti, op. cit., pp. 27-37. see M. R. Spiegel: Theory and Problems of Statistics, Schaum Publishing, New York, 1961, pp. 141-216; and J. E. Freund and F. J. Williams: Elementury Business Statistics: The Modern Approach, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1964, pp. 179-295. 22

4

B. Voyenne: 1.u Presse dans la Sociite Contemporaine, Armand Colin, Paris, 1962, p.

19. 5 1. de S. Pool: The Pres/lge Papers: a survey of their editorials, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1952; J. Z. Namenwirth and T. 1.. Brewer: 'Elite Editorial Comment on the European and Atlantic Communities in Four Countries' in P. J. Stone et al: The General Inquirer: A Computer Approach to Content Analysis, The M.LT. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966.

2J

Stone et ai, op. cit., pp. 107-119.

14

ibid., p. liS.

" Nie et ai, 1975, op. cit.

J. 1.. Woodward: ForeIgn News in American Morning Newspapers, Columbia University Press, New York, 1930; 1. Abu-Lughod: 'International News in the Arabic Press: a comparative content analysis', Public Opinion QuarTerzv, Vol. 26, 1962, pp. 600-12.

H. D. Lasswell, D. Lerner and 1. de S. Pool: The Compurutive Study of Symbols, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1952, pp. 31-2.

, R. Batlin: 'San Francisco newspapers' campaign coverage: 1896-1952', Jourtzulism Quurterly, Vol. 31, 1954, pp. 297-303; N. B. Blumberg: One purty press) Coverage of the 1952 Presidential CampaIgn in 35 Daily Newspapers, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1954.

28 A. V. Cicourel: Method and Measurement in Sociology, The Free Press, Ncw York, 1964. p. 147.

6

, F. Gaedt, C. Gaedt and K.-H. Reuband: 'Zur Rauschmittelberichterstattung der Tageszeitungen in der Bundesrepublik und West-Berlin: Ergebnisse einer Inhaltsanalyse', in K. H. Reuband: Rauschmittelkonsum: Soziale Abweichung und insTitutionelle Reaktion, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Wiesbaden, 1976. " F. Harris: Presentation of Crime in Newspapers, Minneapolis Sociological Press, Minneapolis, 1932; R. Hauge: 'Crime and the Press', in N. Christie: Scandinavian Studies in Criminology, Vol. I, Tavistock, London, 1965. IOF. J. Davis: 'Crime News in Colorado Newspapers', American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 57, 1952, pp. 325-330; R. J. Rosher: 'Crime and the Press', New Society, No. 468, 1971, pp. 502-506; P. Croll: 'The Deviant Image', Paper presented at British Sociological Association Mass Communications Study Group, March 1974. II B. Berelson: Content Analysis in Commlllli"utiOll Research, Free Press of Glencoe, New York, 1952, p. 18.

12R. W. Budd, R. K. Thorp, and 1.. Donohew: ellltent Analysis of CommunicaTions, Macmillan, New York, 1967, p. 2. "0. R. Holsti: Content Analysis for the Sod.:" Sdetlcies and Humanities, AddisonWesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1969, p. 14. 14

ibid., pp. 3-5.

26

n Holsti, op. cit., p. 9.

29

ibid., p. 149.

JO

ibid., p. ISO.

I. de S. Pool: 'Trends in Content Analysis Today: a Summary' in his Trends in Content Analysis, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1959, p. 226. J 1

J1

H. Garfinkel: STudies in EThnomethology, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1967.

JJ

ibid., pp. 20-21.

J4 Roshier, op. cit.; Davis, op. cit.; Cross, op. cit.; and J. c. Nunally: 'Mental Illness: What the Media Present' in S. Cohen and J. Young: The ManufaClure of News, Constable, London, 1973.

'5

'" A. 1.. George: 'Quantitative and Qualitative approaches to Content Analysis' in Pool, 1959, op. cit., p. 7. )7 D. Willer and J. Willer: Systematic Empiricism: Critique of a Pseudo-S"ience, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1973.

" ibid., p. 31. " Nie et ai, 1975, op. cit., p. 3. <0

see e.g. H. P. Iker and N. 1. Harway: 'A computer approach toward the analysis of content', Behavioral SCletlCe, Vol. 10, 1965, pp. 173-182. 15

394

Berelson, op. cit., p. 119.

<1

Willer and Willer, op. cit., p. 81.

J.

Willer: The Social Determinu/lon of Knowledge, Prentice-Hall. New Jersey, 1971,

p. 22.

)95

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