Socialist Television Drama, Newspaper Critics and the Battle of Ideas During the Crisis of Britain’s Post-War Settlement

Fielding, Steven

doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwz004

Authors

Steven Fielding

Abstract

Due to the difficult methodological issues it presents, political historians are wary of using television - the most important mass medium of the later twentieth century - as a means of exploring vernacular political thinking. Attempting to show how television audiences were encouraged to think politically, the article outlines a method generated through an engagement with the work of disciplines beyond history, to help political historians more systematically assess the medium's popular impact. The article takes as its case study Britain during the 1970s, one of the most ideologically contested periods in the country's history. It analyses how television critics employed by the Daily Mirror and Daily Express encouraged their millions of readers to respond to the dramas of socialist playwrights Jim Allen and Trevor Griffiths, thereby giving historians an insight into the shape of those conversations spawned by their work, such private dialogues being the place where the full political meaning of television was ultimately created.

Citation

Fielding, S. (2020). Socialist Television Drama, Newspaper Critics and the Battle of Ideas During the Crisis of Britain’s Post-War Settlement. Twentieth Century British History, 31(2), 220–251. https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwz004

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Feb 1, 2019
Online Publication Date	Mar 11, 2019
Publication Date	2020-06
Deposit Date	Feb 5, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Mar 12, 2021
Journal	Twentieth Century British History
Print ISSN	0955-2359
Electronic ISSN	1477-4674
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	31
Issue	2
Pages	220–251
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwz004
Public URL	https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1519574
Publisher URL	https://academic.oup.com/tcbh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/tcbh/hwz004/5374751