Media

22 November 2020
07:54

THE MEDIA(from British Civilization An introduction by John Oakland Fifth

edition published in 2002 by Routledge)

THE TERM ‘MEDIA’ MAY INCLUDE any communication system by

which people are informed, educated or entertained. In Britain it generally
refers to the print industries (the press or newspapers and magazines)
and broadcasting (terrestrial or earth-based television, cable and satellite
television, radio and video). These systems overlap to some extent with
each other and with books, film and the Internet; are profitable businesses;
and are tied to advertising, sponsorship, commerce and industry.

The print media

The print media (newspapers and magazines) began to develop in the eighteenth
century. Initially, a wide circulation was hindered by transportation
and distribution problems, illiteracy and government licensing or censorship
restrictions. But, over the last two hundred years, an expanded
educational system, abolition of government control, new print inventions
and Britain’s small area have eliminated these difficulties and created
allegedly free print media.

Newspapers

1. What proportion of British people read

newspapers?
2. About 80% (– it is now considerably lower
in terms of copies purchased)
3. Where and when do British people buy
newspapers? Typically: in the morning, at
newsagents; letterbox delivery organised
by the newsagents; on the streets in larger
cities later in the day (evening papers; late
editions)

National newspapers

Media Page 1
 Times New Roman is a font family commissioned by the
British newspaper The Times in 1931

National newspapers are those which are mostly published from London
(with some regional versions) and are available in all parts of Britain on
the same day, including Sundays. Many are delivered direct to the home
from local newsagents by newsboys and girls. The good internal distribution
systems of a compact country enabled a national press to develop, and
Internet online copies now offer updated and immediate availability.
The first British newspapers with a limited national circulation
appeared in the early eighteenth century and were followed by others, such
as The Times (1785), the Observer (1791) and the Sunday Times (1822).
But most were so-called ‘quality’ papers, catering for a relatively small,
educated market.
The national press in Britain today consists of ten daily morning
papers and nine Sunday papers. It is in effect a London press, because most
national newspapers have their bases and printing facilities in the capital,
although editions of some nationals are now published outside London, in
Europe and the USA. Most of them used to be located in Fleet Street in
central London. But all have now left the street and moved to other parts
of the capital
National papers are usually termed ‘quality’ or ‘popular’ depending
on their differences in content and format (tabloid or broadsheet).
The ‘qualities’ (such as The Times) are broadsheets (largesheet),
report national and international news in depth and analyse current
events and the arts in editorials and articles. The populars (such as the
Sun) are mostly tabloid (small-sheet), deal with relatively few ‘hard news’
stories, tend to be superficial in their treatment of events and much of their
material is sensationalized and trivialized.
Sales of popular papers on weekdays and Sundays far exceed those
of the ‘qualities’.

Regional newspapers

Media Page 2
Some 1,300 regional newspapers are published in towns and cities
throughout Britain. They contain a mixture of local and national news; are
supported financially by regional advertising; and may be daily morning or
evening papers, Sundays or weekly. Some nine out of ten adults read a
regional or local paper every week and 75 per cent of local and regional
newspapers also operate an Internet website.
Britain’s ethnic communities also produce their own newspapers and
magazines, which are increasing in numbers, are available nationally in the
larger cities and are improving in quality. There is a wide range of publications
for Jewish, Asian, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese and Arabic readers,
published on a daily or (more commonly) periodic basis.

The broadcasting media

The BBC

Media Page 3
The BBC is based at Broadcasting House in London, but has stations
throughout the country, which provide regional networks for radio and
television. It was created by Royal Charter and has a board of governors
who are responsible for supervising its programmes and their suitability.
They are appointed by the Crown on the advice of government ministers
and are supposed to constitute an independent element in the organization
of the BBC. Daily operations are controlled by the Director-General, chosen
by the board of governors.
The BBC is financed by a grant from Parliament, which comes from
the sale of television licences (£1.6 billion per year). These are payable by
anyone who owns a television set and are relatively cheap in international
terms (£104 annually for a colour set). The BBC also generates considerable
income from selling its programmes abroad and from the sale of a
programme guide (Radio Times), books, magazines and videos.
The BBC’s external services, which consist of radio broadcasts in
English (the World Service) and 42 other languages abroad, were founded
in 1932 and are funded by the Foreign Office. These have a reputation for
objective news reporting and programmes.
The BBC now has two television channels (BBC1 and BBC2). BBC1 is a mass -appeal channel
with an audience share of 28 per cent. Its programmes consist of news,
plays and drama series, comedy, quiz shows, variety performances, sport
and documentaries. BBC2, with an audience share of 11 per cent, tends to
show more serious items such as news analysis and discussion, documentaries,
adaptations of novels into plays and series, operas, concerts and
some sport. It is also provides Open University courses.
BBC Radio performs an important service, although some of its audiences
have declined recently. There are five national channels (to be
increased by five new digital channels); 39 local stations serving many
districts in England; and regional and community services in Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland.

ITV (with 30 per cent of audience share) is the oldest independent

channel and once seemed only to provide popular programmes of a lightentertainment

Media Page 4
channel and once seemed only to provide popular programmes of a lightentertainment
and sometimes trivial type. But its quality has improved and
it now has a high standard of news reports, drama productions and documentaries.

TheWorldWideWeb
A British man gave us theWorldWideWeb as we know
it today. Although the Internet evolved through
decades of research and collaboration, it was the work
of Sir Tim Berners-Lee that first got it working in
synchrony with browsers, servers and websites, or in
his words: “I just had to take the hypertext idea and
connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and
domain name system ideas and – ta-da! –
theWorldWideWeb.” Sir Tim topped a recent list of
‘Greatest Living Geniuses’ compiled by The
Daily Telegraph.

As a nation, Britain is fairly switched on to the Web.

In 2008 the Office for National Statistics confirmed that
16.46 million homes had some form of access to the
Internet, which equates to 65 per cent of the total.
Over 85 per cent of this access was via broadband.
There is, however, a degree of regional disparity, with
around 70 per cent of London and the SouthWest
online but only 60 per cent of Yorkshire and the
Midlands. Two out of every three Brits use the Internet
every day. Age also plays a part – 70 per cent of over
65-year-olds confessed to never having been online.
Perhaps most interestingly, Internet use seems to be an
all or nothing pursuit: a quarter of all Brits said they’d
never used it.

Media Page 5