British television has acted out its role as the ideological arm of the State more efficiently than any other broadcasting system. Belief in its presumed "independence' (of class war) and therefore 'objectivity,' has been effective since the invention of that "independent" status by Lord Reith in the early days of television. The Left has analysed television and Lord Reith's amazing invention with a lack of resolution that has reduced explanation of the nature of television output to middle class prejudice on the part of programme controllers and programme makers. On the contrary, the functions of television in helping to maintain and impose the capitalist system of relations, economic and political, are not explicble in terms of the personalities of either programme makers or programme controllers. Suppression and repression have worked as efficiently inside the organisations as they have outside: up till now it has been possible for those working in television to uphold the definition of themselves handed on by the management, ie., that they are free intermediaries, professionals, who interpose themselves benevolently between the audience and "reality". This definition is disintegrating. from the point of view of those working in television as well as from the point of view of the audience. "Loyalty" has been used up and the real humiliation of the television professionals situation has begun to be exposed. The mythological nature of the "independence' of television has begun to show. The ideological projection of 'reality" expressed by television is losing its plausibility as a class reconciling influence; the "balanced", supposedly "objective" mode of "reality" is becoming increasingly and obviously repressive when confronted with the real experience of economic slump and the necessity for censorship in Northern Ireland. The ruling class's ideological grasp, which has been so firm, is slipping, sanely a situation that imposes an obligation on the Left to analyse what is Eg and take advantage from it.
A recent example will give some idea of the hysterical hypersensitivity of television management in the face of the ominous sound of cracking ideologies.
MANIPULATION BEGINS TO FAIL Late Night Line Up recently decided to throw caution to the winds and, after a suggestion by Lord Hill the Chaitman of the BBC Governors, set up a series of open ended debates about the so-called "bias" of the BBC. The debates were set up at the BBC's regional centres and were transmitted late at night on BBC2. The second programme, about the BBC's apparent bias against the working class (!), came from Manchester and became, unfortunately, the model for all future BBC excursions in this field.
Immediately, obstructions gathered. The editor of News and the World At One tried to prevent the use of evidence that had been gathered (producer). The list of 50 names of those who were to be invited to the studio had to be vetted order, it was explained, 'to make sure that no one in the programme was left of the Labour Party"! When the producer protested the Editor of Line Up withdrew support and told him he would have to fight the Controllers on his own. The producer fought but with little avail. In the front of the studio were the Labour Party members while hidden at the back could just be seen half a dozen Pilkington workers the sole representatives of the working class. Then as a final kick in the teeth the chairman was told just before the programme went out that those members of the audience who had been given £20 fees were to be given priority. It soon became clear just who had been paid fees. When the Pilkington men pointed out that they had not had time to put their case, the supposedly open ended programme came quickly to a close. The third programme, from Birmingham, introduced by an uncomfortable Stuart Hall, was on the treatment that television applies to the black community. Once again in the front rows were the journalists and writers, BBC executives, two racialist councillors and community workers. At the back were two black militants. One of them from the Indian Workers Association managed a suggestion in at the end that the only way to do a programme on this subject would be to hand over the studio to the blacks in the audience and let them run it. Pat Beech, the Controller of English Regions, naturally ignored this suggestion and came out with a pathetically inadequate piece of BBC double talk about the BBC doing its best under difficult conditions. The programme then closed.
Further humiliation of BBC executives was avoided, The fourth programme, on Youth and the BBC, was cancelled and so was the rest of the series. Management interference had become so intolerable that the production staff had decided that they could not carry on.
This example is particularly instructive because it shows the way in which public television is failing to work its ideological techniques. Television has to provide an explanation of current events and, of course, by providing this explanation it states what the event is. In order to remain plausible television's explanations have to include coverage of the 'events' that are public knowledge. Thus, Lord Hill's suggestion in the first place. Line Up's debates were an attempt by the BBC management to explain disaffec tion with the BBC. It failed.
'THE STATE IS AN ORGAN OF CLASS RULE' LENIN Television's 'explanations' are made by identifying the participants in a particular way. The "pillars of society" will mass at the front of the studio audience, the 'outcasts' at the back. In the debate on blacks and the BBC a couple of racialists were invited for the very compelling reason that their talk of compulsory repatriation was guaranteed to drive militant blacks into fury. An angry man in a studio is uncontrollable, itresponsible, etc. etc. when compared with the "sane" tones of BBC executives. This is known as 'good television, ic., when compelling identifications are being made. Equally the outline of televisions connections with the power structure" made by Stuart Hail (who is an academic) can be sidestepped casily by talk of the "practical problems' of broadcasting. Fortunately these well worn techniques are producing dwindling dividends. Despite every attempt at manipulation the Line Up debates only succeeded in emphasizing the inability of the BBC to explain or do anything about the class repressive nature of its identifications and explanations. This inability has nothing to do with the BBC 'not doing its job', rather it has to do with the BBC 'doing its job". Television's vital connection with the State makes it inevitable that when the actual class repressive nature of the State is vividly exposed by the actions of a right wing government then television's "phantom" position of "independence" of class war is exposed. Class reconciling identifications (the masses deceived by trouble makers) are exposed as class repressive.
The maintenance of the class oppressive nature of the State depends on the illusion of class reconciliation. Thus, the identifications of television are made from a position which takes class reconciation as us rundamental premise. This is the position from where the 'objectivity" and the "balance' of news, current affairs, and documentaries derive. An irreconciliable class attitude cannot be expressed on television without a qualifying identification, ie., terrorist. However, where the hegemony of the State is threatened, as in Northern Ireland, even the qualifying identifications are not enough. The State cannot afford to identify even the physical existence of the IRA. If members of the IRA vanish from television screens they can be identified in their absence as a abstractly demonic force which is being fought courageously by our Army in the cause of sanity, justice and honour. Censorship is the withdrawal of identification.
WHAT IS CENSORSHIP?
It is vital at this point to see what television censorship means. It is the last desperate stage of the repressive process of ideological identificat n It is not a qualitative break with a previously benign 'objective' television system A 'socialist" perspective which assumes the value of unbiased" reporting is barking up the wrong tree. 'Bias" assumes a correct path which has been diverged from. There is a 'correct' path, or the approximation to it, but that path is the pattern of identification imposed by the class reconciling (and therefore class oppressive) "point of view' of the State. In an industry that has still rising unemployment, increasing intichidation and casualisation of directors and researchers, there is an undounted change in the awareness and consciousness of television workers. Television is not a monolithic block in servitude to the State. The more ideological patterning of programming is attacked the more repressive management has to be. The more repressive management becomes the more will the internal opposition gain adherants and confidence. It is useless to protest outside the walls of the studios. Television's repressive functions can only be subverted from within.
Paul White.
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