Post-War Britain, Media and National Identity - Essay Example

Teacher 19 January 2008 Post-War Britain, Media and National Identity Introduction Following the Second World War, Great Britain faced a restructuring of its own national identity. Whereas the years prior to the War had been labelled largely by the Victorian era of gentility, the might of the British army and the British Commonwealth nations spread across the globe - Great Britain prided itself on strength and economic superiority under its monarchy. After World War II, however, the world on the whole became different as the countries involved in combat focused on rebuilding their infrastructures, economies and fragile international relationships. There were many different factors involved in the development of British post-war nationalism: the idea of modernity itself, literacy, the impact of the American media, urbanisation, regionalism, television and advertising campaigns. As the world embraced modernity in terms of pop culture, literacy levels were raised following national concerns about education, the wide expansion of American media and nationalism, the urbanisation of the population, the continued regional attitudes of the British people and the widespread distribution and concentration of television sets, British nationalism was destined to evolve after the War. Post-War Modernity One of the major features of the post-war era in Britain was the establishment of what remains now pop culture. It has been the focus of artists, writers and the media at large; in fact in the years immediately following the war, British citizens became very avid fiction readers. Through popular novels, Brits were able to not only see themselves through the eyes of the world but in terms of their own countrymen. Through literature, it became possible for the different regions of Great Britain, traditionally isolated from one another due to a lack of stable, consistent communication and media, to understand one another and what made them different and the same as each other (Parry 1997). Another facet of the evolving pop culture in Britain after the war was brought on by television; various game shows, soap operas and other entertainment began to occupy the minds of British citizens, and their focus shifted to the lives of celebrities where once it had remained primarily on their families and communities (Strinati and Wagg 1992). Through this change of focus, the British media began to have a larger impact on civilians than ever before; newspapers had been a popular medium for years before the war, however now the choice of newspapers, tabloids, television shows and radio meant that more and more people were able to keep in touch with the styles of outlying regions and countries. British people were able to see the world around them more clearly, and because of this they were able to establish their own, defining brand of style, literature, art, economy, politics and lifestyle in general. Literacy Richard Hoggart believed that pop culture was "full of corrupt brightness" that distracted people from the more integral of the media (cited by Levine 2006). What he saw was a nation becoming more and more defined by its celebrities and their outrageous behaviour, when the British population might have benefited from better attention to education, and in particular, literacy. Literacy levels in Great Britain were historically on par with most other European nations, in that the aristocracy had access to reading and writing tutors while the working class did not. The presentation of pop culture through media such as television and film meant that the majority of British citizens after the war focused their attentions on the new aristocracy of the times: the celebrities. These people became the definition of what it meant to be British, and despite regional differences it was the stars of the screen that pulled the country together as a nation. In the decades after the Second World War, literacy became one of the focal points of the British government and the education system; through a push for increased reading and writing skills in all classes of the British nation more and more people were finally able to read. This meant that people in all different regions of the country were reading the same news stories, the same novels and becoming involved in the same issues; literacy played a large part in the unification of the British regions and the development of British nationalism simply because the written media had a wider distribution and a much higher reader count (Houston and Longman, 1988, p.80). The Impact of American Media on British Nationalism In the post-war era, America played a large role in the reconstruction of European infrastructure and economy. The United States was stronger than ever after WWII and because of this it was not only in a position to help rebuild, but to strengthen international trade and political ties as well. During this time, the American media began to infiltrate most Western countries to an even higher degree than prior to the war, and because of this a great deal of American culture and national identity was broadcast blatantly for the British public to see. The British media reacted in two basic ways to the incoming American media; one sector decided to embrace American culture as its own, and the other decided to combat the foreign culture by promoting its own idea of Britishness (Paul, 1997, p.252). This divide in British media focus had one ultimate effect on the spirit of British nationalism: although the United Kingdom admittedly took on many cultural aspects of the United States, the tendency was for its citizens to advocate a difference between the two countries based on the fact that Britain had so long been the powerhouse of the world and now the United States was seemingly taking that place. The two facets of the British media actually were equally responsible for the developing British perception of themselves as the traditional leaders and born aristocracy of the world - old money, in a sense. Urbanisation The industrial age coincided with the post-war years and therefore saw the trend of residence change from rural to urban centres. After WWII more people than ever before moved into Britain's cities looking for industrial work, new opportunities and higher wages. As far as traditional media were concerned, this meant a higher volume of newspapers sold, a growing number of magazines and tabloids sold, and the ability to reach more readers than ever before. City dwellers were the first to buy TV sets as well; because of this urban residents in the UK were actively bombarded by the media from all angles. As far as the developing national spirit, the mass media could be confusing in its depiction of the true Brit but a lot of national pride and character was centred on the union of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. Through the political and cultural bonds of these ancient societies began a new history for the United Kingdom in which a world power was solidified (Woods, 2000, pp.303-311). In the cities of the UK, this unification was never more apparent because the newspapers kept citizens up to date on events in each of the four capitals. In addition to this aspect of urbanisation, the population trend led to more workers in the city and more entrepreneurs who were determined to establish businesses in city centres and then link them to other cities throughout the country. The media's role in such entrepreneurship was to link together traders from all parts of the country with financial magazines and stock tips that helped create a unified economy that all British citizens could be, and were, proud enough of to consider it a part of their national identities. Regional Media Apart from the larger regional divides of Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England, the United Kingdom houses a myriad of small regional divisions that have been isolated enough over the course of a few thousand or hundred years to cultivate their own specific culture, independent of the UK on the whole. Just England is home not only to such regions as the Southwest or the North, but to specific counties that are so old and steeped in history that they hold their own charm, their own traditions and their own source of regional pride. In the development of the overall British sense of nationalism, the largest role the media played in the post-war years was in breaking down the most stubborn of these cultural boundaries. Not only newspapers helped this process along, but television shows based on regional stereotypes; radio disc jockeys who had a clear regional dialect (traditionally, all radio and television personalities were required to speak the Queen's English, and therefore when a regional accent was heard, it made quite an impression on the listeners or viewers), and also national sports coverage helped to unify a fragmented nation and to make British citizens realise what they had in common with their neighbours (Christopher, 1999, p.219). In particular, it was mass media coverage of sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup of football (put on hiatus during the Second World War) that helped Britons to identify themselves in terms of each region of the country, and in terms of the world at large. In competing as Great Britain instead of England or Scotland, Britons understood that they represented each other in the media of the world and were less inclined to refer to regional divides. Advertising and Television Monica Dickens, niece of the English author Charles Dickens, wrote that she believed the advent of television was the end of polite society as history knew it (cited in Oswell, 1999). She believed that the shifting focus from the household to the world at large through the specific medium of the television would not just simply open up different cultural realities but that it would change the way British people looked at their families, their communities and their lives. Essentially, she was correct in the fact that television changed how not only the British but every nationality viewed itself and its culture in the eyes of the world at large. It simultaneously worked to preserve traditional regional cultures and to piece these together into a wider, national aspect where Britons felt that a large part of their culture came from multiculturalism. This was solidified decades after the war as more and more people from the colonies, Asia and the Middle East immigrated to the United Kingdom. Advertising played a large role in developing British nationality after the Second World War as well; what many of these focused on, however, was the presentation of the ideal Briton as a traditional, somewhat pompous and egotistical person (Morrisson 1997). This worked in conjunction with the eventual media pull away from association with American culture and media, and persists today in a drive for British broadcasters to present what they believe is more educational and well-researched media information. Conclusion The evolution of the British national identity in the post-war era has included aspects of American culture and media, regionalism, world modernity, advertising, television and literacy programs. Although following WWII there was a strong pull towards American media and culture, eventually the British media became focused on uniting its own regions in strength against the rising world superpower based on strong historical economy and politics, successful multiculturalism and an idealistic vision of the educated, traditional Briton. The media is responsible for the establishment of the current state of British nationality but only due to the successive years of different media broadcasting and the reactions of the various aspects of the British public. Bibliography Bassnett, S (ed.) 2003, Studying British Cultures, Routledge, New York. Christopher, D 1999, British Culture: An Introduction, Routledge, London. Houston, RA 1988, Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education, 1500-180, Longman, London. Levine, D 2006, 'Review Essay: Remembering the Past', Journal of Social History, vol. 40, pp. 205-217. Morrisson, M 1997, 'Marketing British Modernism: 'The Egoist' and Counter-Public Spheres', Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 43, pp. 63-79. Oswell, D 1999, 'And what might our children become Future visions, governance and the child television audience in postwar Britain', Screen, vol, 40, no. 1, pp. 66-88. Parry, A 1997, 'Idioms for the Unrepresentable: Post-War Fiction and the Shoah', Journal of European Studies, vol. 27, pp. 389-415. Paul, K 1997, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. Strinati, D and Wagg S (eds.) 1992, Come on Down: Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain, Routledge, New York. Woods, R 2000, The Demography of Victorian England and Wales, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. Read More