Richard Hoggart

Abstract

The major theme we started with and kept coming back to was ‘authority’ and especially, though not only, authority in broadcasting. It is worth recalling that broadcasting is the one medium of communication on which all nation states took conscious thought before they set up systems. The first reason for this was that resources were limited, channels were limited; by comparison, printing outlets are potentially infinite. So governments had to decide in advance; but of course how they decided to set up broadcasting, how they financed it, what structures they gave it, reflected the different natures of different societies. Many wanted to keep their hands on it, to be able to censor it; but the universally applicable reason for governmental intervention from the start was shortage of resources. Yet it is now possible to say that that shortage is about to disappear — this is why we are all aware of being at a kind of watershed.