Alban Webb

Broadcasting britishness, strategic challenges and the ecology of overseas broadcasting by the BBC

In December 2007, the BBC World Service celebrated 75 years of broadcasting overseas: from the first transmission on the original Empire Service to the explosion in foreign language services induced by the Second World War and the subsequent establishment and continuous re-development of a post-war pattern of broadcasting around the world that still bears an imprint on output today. Yet despite global public familiarity with the World Service as an institution, symbolised by its home at Bush House in London and the unmistakable Britishness of the ‘voice’ that emanates from it, the history of overseas broadcasting by the Corporation is little known and perhaps even less understood. It is more than a little surprising that the BBC World Service, or the External Services as they were known prior to a name change in 1988, have still to receive anything like the kind of critical and detailed examination warranted by their role in the political, diplomatic and cultural lives of those countries and diasporas to which they broadcast. Notwithstanding Asa Briggs’ colossal and extensive official history of the BBC up to the mid-1970s, Bush House remains an icon, though a relatively unexplained one. There has been a general failure in the academic community, as Philip Taylor has pointed out, to sufficiently mesh the media and other forms of cultural exchange into mainstream political and administrative histories and this remains the case today.

AUNTIE GOES TO WAR AGAIN:: The BBC External Services, the Foreign Office and the early Cold War

The period between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the 1950s represents a forging experience for the External Services of the BBC, as they initially defined themselves in an unfamiliar peacetime context before rapidly coming to terms with a cold war in which they again became a principal mediator between Britain and estranged or strategically important communities overseas - either behind the Iron Curtain or in regions such as the Middle East. The Cabinet decision on publicity policy in January 1948 was a pivot around which the tenor of the voice of Britain was attuned to these prevailing geopolitical considerations. Its working out in the BBC was, however, part of a continuing understanding of the purpose of broadcasting overseas that once it was set in its cold war mode, as it was in this period, defined policy and output for years to come.

Diasporas and diplomacy: cosmopolitan contact zones at the BBC World Service, 1932-2012

Diasporas and Diplomacy analyzes the exercise of British ‘soft power’ through the BBC’s foreign language services, and the diplomatic role played by their diasporic broadcasters. The book offers the first historical and comparative analysis of the ‘corporate cosmopolitanism’ that has characterized the work of the BBC’s international services since the inception of its Empire Service in 1932 – from radio to the Internet. A series of empirically-grounded case studies, within a shared analytical framework, interrogate transformations in international broadcasting relating to: - colonialism and corporate cosmopolitanism - diasporic and national identities -public diplomacy and international relations -broadcasters and audiences The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology and anthropology, media and cultural studies, journalism, history, politics, international relations, as well as of research methods that cross the boundaries between the Social Sciences and Humanities. It will also appeal to broadcast journalists and practitioners of strategic communication.

Constitutional niceties: three crucial dates in cold war relations between the bbc external services and the foreign office

The experience of the Second World War demonstrated the influence and importance of overseas broadcasting both in its own right and as an adjunct to wider government strategies. It had also shown, in contrast to the German propaganda instrument, the value of building credibility with audiences through, as far as circumstances allowed, objective and truthful reporting. During the war, however, the BBC’s External Services had rapidly become a very expensive and big operation, which posed tricky questions about its future management and financing in addition to those of its editorial purpose. Indeed, such was its perceived importance in maintaining Britain’s influence overseas that it was even questioned by ministers whether an independently minded BBC was the right home for these overseas services. The BBC did, of course, retain this right but there was a steep learning to curve to be negotiated as the Corporation and the government came to terms with the major forces of change in the world around them and, just as importantly, with how to manage each other. The tone of this relationship, how they learnt to speak to each other after the Second World War, was instrumental in defining the task of overseas broadcasting from Britain during the subsequent cold war and in establishing the voices with which the BBC spoke to its many audiences around the world. As an ongoing conversation, its pitch was continually modulated to reflect the political, cultural, economic and practical dynamics bearing down on it. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate this

Cold War radio and the Hungarian Uprising, 1956

Overseas broadcasting during the Hungarian uprising indicated a new phase in the relationship between the media and the international events they report. Mapping the course of the uprising for Hungarian and global audiences alike, the western radios occupied multiple broadcast, diplomatic, and cultural terrains. The anti-communist rhetoric of their output allied to their perceived influence on listeners behind the Iron Curtain made the Hungarian uprising a cause célèbre of international broadcasting: one that revealed both the strategic significance of cold war radio as well as the limits of its use as a tactical weapon.