HST288: Media and Popular Culture in Twentieth-Century Britain
20 credits (semester 2)
Module Leader: Dr. Adrian Bingham
| Pre-requisites |
Pass in at least two of the Level One modules offered by the Department of History.
| Module Summary |
This module will explore the ways in which the press, the cinema, and radio and television broadcasting shaped politics, society and culture in twentieth century Britain. The first half of the module will examine the historical development of each of the major media forms and discuss the different types of content that they provided. The second half will explore a number of key issues, such as the impact of the media on the evolution of modern democracy, the media´s role in reflecting and shaping identities such as class, gender and ethnicity, and the media's contribution to the emergence of a consumer society.
| Teaching |
There will be a one-hour lecture and a one-hour seminar per week.
| Lectures |
| Approaches to the media and popular culture |
| Press and publishing |
| Cinema |
| Radio, BBC and public service broadcasting |
| Television |
| News, politics and democracy |
| Morality, regulation and the media |
| The media and the formation of identities: gender and class |
| The media and the formation of identities: race and nation |
| The media, advertising and consumerism |
| Overview and conclusions |
| Selected Reading |
- Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, Best of British: Cinema and Society from 1930 to the present, 2nd edn. (London, 1999)
- Martin Conboy, The Press and Popular Culture (London, 2002)
- Andrew Crisell, An Introductory History of British Broadcasting, 2nd edn. (London, 2002)
- James Curran and Jean Seaton, Power without Responsibility: The Press, Broadcasting and New Media in Britain, 6th edn. (London, 2003)
- Jeffrey Hill, Sport, Leisure and Culture in Twentieth Century Britain (Basingstoke, 2002)
- Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures: England 1918-1951 (Oxford, 1998), chaps XI-XIII.
- Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, 2001)
- Colin Seymour-Ure, The Press and Broadcasting since 1945, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1996)
- Kevin Williams, Understanding Media Theory (London, 2003)
- Kevin Williams, Get Me a Murder a Day! A History of Mass Communications in Britain (London, 1998)
| Intended Learning Outcomes |
By the end of the unit, a candidate will be able to demonstrate:
- A clear understanding of the historical development of each of the main media forms in twentieth-century Britain
- The ability to synthesise the relevant historiography and critically assess the main interpretations of the impact of the media on British politics, society and culture
- An awareness of the methodological issues involved in using the output of the media as historical evidence
- The ability to use a range of sources to produce informed and coherent arguments in written and oral form and to defend these arguments in debate.