Page 71 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION

The public service duopoly, comprising by 1982 four channels
(BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4) lasted until the late 1980s, when
the flowering of cable and satellite technologies, reinforced by the
Conservative government’s policy of broadcasting deregulation,
began to erode it. By 2003 British viewers had access to dozens of
television channels, most of them financed by subscription revenues
and advertising. With the introduction of digital TV in 1998 and the
BBC’s takeover of digital terrestrial TV from ITV in 2002, Britain
was well on the way to becoming what America had already been
for many years: a multi-channel broadcasting environment.
Unlike the press, British broadcasting has always been subject
to close regulation, both by legal means and through regulatory
bodies such as the Independent Television Commission and the
Broadcasting Standards Commission. These monitor the perform-
ance of the broadcasters to ensure that it is consistent with public
service criteria such as good taste, diversity and, of particular
relevance to the present discussion, political impartiality.
The 1990 Broadcasting Act requires broadcasters to observe ‘due
impartiality’ in their coverage of political issues, ensuring ‘adequate
or appropriate’ balance during and between election campaigns, for
party and non-party political actors (McNair, 2003). This require-
ment does not extend to political organisations which, like the
Provisional IRA and loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland
before the conclusion of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, adopt
unconstitutional campaigning methods.

DEMOCRACY AND THE MEDIA

We have already referred in general terms to the important role
assigned the media by liberal democratic theory. As Nimmo and
Combs put it, ‘historically, the mass media were heralded as the
ultimate instruments of democracy. . . . [They] were destined to
unite, educate, and, as a result, improve the actions and decisions
of the polity’ (1992, p. xv). Of broadcasting, Scannell and Cardiff
observe that the BBC’s role, from its very earliest years, was
to create ‘an informed and reasoning public opinion as an
essential part of the political process in a mass democratic society’
(1991, p. 8).
The media’s democratic role would be fulfilled, on the one hand,
by journalists’ adherence to the professional ethic of objectivity in
reporting the facts of public affairs. Objectivity implied a clear

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