Language and Culture I Prof. Adriana M.

Fernández

Language and the Media in the UK and in the USA

(Summarized from Joanna Thornborrow, Chap 4, Britain by O’Driscoll, Aspects of Britain and the UK by
Garwood and the Internet, for academic purposes only)

The Media, which is usually understood to refer to the press, radio and television
broadcasting, have become one of the most pervasive phenomena in our culture. Our
knowledge about the world is mediated through the press and broadcasting institutions and
that mediation can affect the representation of people, places and events.
The mass media have become one of the principal means through which we gain
access to a large part of information about the world. The media decide the significance of
the things that happen in the world for any given culture, society or social group.
We use the media for many different purposes; for information, for entertainment
and for education, through a range of programmes for schools as well as university
broadcasts. We listen to the news on radio and television for information about local,
national and international events; many people spend hours every week being entertained
by a variety of programmes, from regular soap operas to weekly quizzes and chat shows.
Sometimes the boundaries become blurred between information and entertainment and a
new term has been coined to refer to programmes which serve both functions: infotainment.
The media are always there, and have come to be taken for granted as an integral part of
most people’s lives.
However, we should not be too quick to see the media as all-powerful and the
public as mere puppets of media control. The relationship is not a straightforward one. The
reading, viewing and listening public can also choose not to buy, listen or watch; they can
switch off, change allegiances and in some cases challenge versions of events.
It is clear, then, that the media can have a powerful role in establishing discourses,
and in the same way as they coined the new word “infotainment”, they are sometimes
responsible for labelling certain events or social phenomena, and these labels enter the
language as new terms, for example, the phrase “political correctness”. This refers to the
practice of paying more careful attention to the use of words and phrases in order to
represent social groups in a fairer, more positive manner.

1
Language and Culture I Prof. Adriana M. Fernández

In the early days of news broadcasting in Britain, the accent used almost exclusively
by presenters was one called advanced Received Pronunciation (advanced RP). This was
the accent of the educated and the wealthy, which gave no indication of what part of the
country the speaker came from. This accent gave rise to the expression “BBC English”,
because the link between this accent and the BBC was very strong. This has now given way
to what is known as “mainstream RP”, an accent which sounds less formal than advanced
RP, and one that most people in Britain generally hear when they listen to newsreaders on
national television.
Register, on the other hand, has been defined as linguistic variation according to the
context of use. This means that we expect to find language used in different ways according
to the situation it occurs in, and according to different types of media. And still, it does
remain the case that the media are constantly shaping our expectations about the way
different kinds of information are transmitted, and these conventional formats can play an
important part in the way we interpret the messages they contain.

British people are reported to be some of the most dedicated television and home-
video users. They are also the world’s third biggest newspaper buyers, after the Japanese
and the Swedes.
Newspaper publication in the UK is dominated by the national press, which is an
indication of the comparative weakness of regional identity in Britain. The morning
newspaper is a British household institution. Nearly 80% of all households buy a copy of
one of the main national papers every day. There are more than eighty local or regional
daily papers, but the total circulation of all of them together is much less than the combined
circulation of the national “dailies”. The only non-national papers with significant
circulations are published in the evenings, when they do not compete with the national
papers, which always appear in the morning. Most local papers do not appear on Sundays,
so on that day the dominance of the national press is absolute. The “Sunday papers” are so-
called because that is the only day on which they appear. Some of them are sisters of a
daily (published by the same company) but employing separate editors and journalists. The
Sunday papers sell slightly more copies than the national dailies and are thicker. “The

2
Language and Culture I Prof. Adriana M. Fernández

Observer” is the oldest Sunday paper. It was founded in 1791 and today has a circulation
of around half a million and is politically moderate in views. Founded in 1961, “The
Sunday Telegraph” is more right-wing and its circulation has been steadily declining. The
best-selling Sunday popular newspaper is “The News of the World”. Its circulation is over
five million, and it has a reputation for its detailed reports of crime and sex stories but also
for its sports coverage. “The Sunday Mirror” offers a lot of photographs and much
gossip.
Each of the national papers can be characterised as belonging to one of two distinct
categories: The “quality papers” or “broadsheets”, which cater for the better educated
readers, and the “popular papers” or “tabloids”, which sell to a much larger readership. The
latter contain far less print than the broadsheets and far more pictures. They use larger
headlines and write in a simpler style of English. While the broadsheets devote much more
space to politics and other “serious” news, the tabloids concentrate on “human interest”
stories, which often mean sex and scandal. However, the broadsheets do not completely
ignore sex and scandal or any other aspect of public life, but the topics are treated in a
different way. Both types of paper devote equal amounts of attention to sport. The
difference between them is in the treatment of the topics they cover, and in which topics are
given the most prominence. The reason why the quality papers are called broadsheets and
the popular ones, tabloids is because they are different shapes. The broadsheets are twice as
large as the tabloids. However, some broadsheet papers, such as The Times and The
Independent have recently switched to a smaller size, preferring to call themselves compact
rather than be stigmatized by the tabloid label.
Although different papers have differing political outlooks, none of the large
newspapers is an organ of a political party. Many are often obviously in favour of the
policies of this or that political party (and even more obviously against the policies of
another party), but none of them would ever use “we” or “us” to refer to a certain party.
The British press is controlled by a rather small number of extremely large
multinational companies. This fact helps to explain two notable features. One of these is its
freedom from interference from government influence. The press is so powerful in this
respect that it is sometimes referred to as “the fourth state” (the other three being the
Commons, the Lords and the Monarch). This freedom is ensured because there is a general

3
Language and Culture I Prof. Adriana M. Fernández

feeling in the country that “freedom of speech” is a basic constitutional right. The other
feature of the national press which is partially the result of the commercial interests of its
owners is its shallowness. Few other European countries have a popular press that is so
“low”. Some of the tabloids have almost given up even the pretence of dealing with serious
matters. Apart from sport, their pages are full of little except stories about the private lives
of famous people. This emphasis on revealing the details of people’s private lives has led to
discussion about the possible need to restrict the freedom of the press. This is because, in
behaving this way, the press has found itself in conflict with another British principle which
is as strongly felt as that of freedom of speech – the right to privacy. There is a widespread
feeling that if the press behaves like that, they are being too intrusive.
Here is a possibly witty though true classification of English newspapers:
“The Times” (quality paper) is read by the people who run the country; it is rather
conservative in the views it expresses, though it is reliable and unbiased and claims to be
politically independent. However, “The Times”, as many Englishmen stress themselves,
always supports the government in power, the bureaucracy, because the bureaucracy in
Britain, they say, does not change when the general elections take place. It is, thus, the
newspaper for the upper echelon of the civil service. Actually all newspapers in Britain,
both the quality and popular ones, have their sister Sunday issues. Thus, “The Sunday
Times” leads the field in the Sunday qualities.
“The Daily Telegraph” (quality paper) is read by the people who think the country ought
to be run as it used to be; it is a very conservative paper. However, it has a circulation twice
as big as that of “The Times”, “The Guardian” or “The Independent”. It has a nickname –
“The Torygraph” after the nickname “Tory” of the Conservative Party. This newspaper has
rather a comprehensive news and sports coverage. Some say it has a more objective
reporting of what is going on in the world than any other quality newspaper. It is right of
centre and has always supported the Conservative Party.
“The Independent” (quality paper) was founded in 1986 and has rapidly acquired a
reputation for its excellent news coverage, intelligent reports, informal commentaries, and a
well- balanced sense of humour.
“The Guardian” (quality paper) is read by the people who think about running the
country; it has a slightly bigger circulation than “The Times”. It is a liberal newspaper,

4
Language and Culture I Prof. Adriana M. Fernández

noted for its lively reporting and campaigning support for “worthy causes” such as
education, medical reforms, the problems of aging people and retirees, protection of the
environment, etc. It also claims to be politically independent, but it is left of centre and
formally supports the Liberal Party of Britain.
“The Mirror” is read by the people who think they run the country; it has always
traditionally supported the Labour Party.
“The Mail” is read by wives of the people who run the country;
“The Daily Express” is read by the people who think the country is still run as it used to
be;
“The Sun” is read by the people who don’t care about who runs the country as long as the
naked girl on page three is attractive.
In Britain today there are five nationwide quality papers: “The Times”, “The Daily
Telegraph”, “The Guardian”, “The Independent” and “The Financial Times”. “The Daily
Mail”, “The Daily Mirror”, “The Sun”, “The Daily Express”, “The Daily Star” and
“Today” are usually considered to be “popular”.
If you go into a well-stocked newsagent’s in Britain, you will not only find
newspapers. You will also see rows and rows of magazines catering for almost every
imaginable taste and specializing in almost every imaginable pastime. Among these
publications there are a few weeklies dealing with news and current affairs. Partly because
the national press is so predictable (and often so trivial), some of these periodicals manage
to achieve a circulation of more than a hundred thousand. The Economist is of the same
type as Time or Newsweek. However, its analyses are generally more thorough. It is fairly
obviously right wing in its views, but the writing is of very high quality, that is why it has
the reputation of being one of the best weeklies in the world. The New Statesman and
Society is the left-wing equivalent and is equally serious and well-written.
Terrestrial television in the United Kingdom is made up of two chartered public
broadcasting companies, the BBC and Channel 4 and two franchised commercial television
companies, (ITV and Five). There are five major free-to-air analogue networks: BBC One,
BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five.
Just as the British Parliament has the reputation for being the “mother of
Parliaments”, so the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) might be said to be “the

5
Language and Culture I Prof. Adriana M. Fernández

mother of information services”. Its reputation for impartiality and objectivity in news
reporting is, at least when compared to news broadcasting in many other countries, largely
justified. The BBC has often shown itself to be rather proud of the fact that it gets
complaints from both sides of the political divide, because this testifies not only to its
impartiality but also to its independence. The BBC world service was set up in 1932 with a
licence to broadcast first to the empire and then to other parts of the world. Television
broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946 during the Second
World War. Today, the world service still broadcasts around the globe, in English and in
several other languages. The BBC is funded by public money accrued from a television
license fee gathered from all UK households with a television set. This fee is legally
compulsory and failure to pay it is punishable by prosecution, resulting in a fine or
imprisonment. There are exceptions to paying, for homes with a pensioner (person over 65
years old). The BBC also runs several radio stations. In terms of the size of its audience,
television has long since taken over from radio as the most significant form of
broadcasting. Its independence from government interference is largely a matter of tacit
agreement. There have been occasions when the government has successfully persuaded the
BBC not to show something. But there have also been many occasions when the BBC has
refused to bow to government pressure. Competition to the BBC was introduced in 1955
with the commercially and independently operated television network ITV, however, the
BBC monopoly on radio services would persist into the 1970s. There is no advertising on
the BBC, but Independent Television gets its money from the advertisements it screens.
BBC, ITV and Channel 5 show a wide variety of programmes. They are in constant
competition with each other to attract the largest audience. The most famous soap operas so
far have been Coronation Street, on ITV, which was set in a working class area near
Manchester, and EastEnders, on BBC, set in a working class area of London. Television
broadcasting in Britain has expanded to fill every part of every day of the week. Although
the BBC has changed society, society has also changed the BBC. The term BBC English
(Received Pronunciation) refers to the former use of Standard English with this accent.
However, the organization now makes more use of regional accents in order to reflect the
diversity of the UK, though clarity and fluency are still expected of presenters. From its
'starchy' beginnings, the BBC has also become more inclusive and now attempts to

6
Language and Culture I Prof. Adriana M. Fernández

accommodate the interests of all strata of society and all minorities, because they all pay the
license fee.