Page 225 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

204 Interventions and change

1970s challenged dominant power and social arrangements including media
provision and representation. Social movements provided the impetus and support
for alternative media production but also agitation to gain access to media
apparatuses. This pressure for change also blends with drives to incorporate at
least some of the new currents from within the mainstream.
In the UK one important and well-documented moment of integration was
the opening up of Channel Four television in 1982 (Curran and Seaton 2010).
Channel Four was the last terrestrial television service created with a full public
service remit. It developed from an establishment policy process, the Annan
Committee, that was nevertheless open to influences from the left, such as
socialist intellectuals and activists in the Free Communication Group, and from
new social movements, feminists, LGBT, Black and ethnic minority activists.
Lord Annan’s committee challenged the ‘cosy duopoly’ of mainstream provision
and advocated a more radical remit for Channel Four to cater for tastes and
interests not otherwise served by the BBC and ITV. The committee rejected
calls for workers’ representation on governing bodies, but adopted calls for an
‘open broadcasting authority’, a publisher model in which the broadcaster would
commission programmes from independent providers. The Annan Committee
reported to a Labour government, but when Channel Four began broadcasting
Britain was being reshaped by the New Right government of Margaret
Thatcher. The publisher model of entrepreneurial independent producers
appealed to the right, against that of strongly unionised in-house production,
and Channel Four survived while providing a programme mix that included
some powerful challenges to Conservatism on issues ranging from the conflict in
Ireland to gay sexuality and multiculturalism. Channel Four is also an example
of institutional communication space being opened up. In a ground-breaking
deal, the trade union (ACTT) together with film and arts funding bodies agreed
arrangements supporting commissioned programmes from community-based
non-profit workshops. The experiment was short-lived and not without tensions but
it provided access slots for groups like Amber Films and Sheffield Film Co-op
that tackled social action issues in new ways from below. One landmark film was
Handsworth Songs, by Sankofa, directed by John Akomfrah. Made following urban
riots in 1985, it combines newsreel and archive footage to explore the historical,
social and political background to the racial unrest in Britain at the time.
Another example from a very different media ecology is Spike Lee’s powerful,
Emmy award winning film When The Levees Broke (2006), examining the poverty
of responses especially by the federal government to devastation caused by
Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Here a distinguished Black independent
filmmaker produced work financed ($2m) by a premium subscription channel,
HBO, and subsequently shown worldwide. This example, in contrast to Channel
Four, may fit McNair’s celebratory account of capitalism’s capacity to invest in
dissent if this fits into the logic of capital accumulation overall. Yet, such overtly
critical filmmaking remains exceptional in the media cultures of commercial televi-
sion. In the case of HBO, a niche market service could cultivate and respond to