Cultural Protest in Journalism, Documentary Films and the Arts

Between Protest and Professionalization

Daniel H. Mutibwa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351374880
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Radicalism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Cultural Protest in Journalism, Documentary Films and the Arts: Between Protest and Professionalisation entails a comprehensive account of the history and trajectory of contemporary journalistic, (documentary) film, and arts and cultural actors rooted (partially or wholly) in radical, alternative, community, voluntary, participatory and independent movements primarily in Britain and Germany. It focuses particularly on the examination of production and organisational contexts of selected case studies, some of which date from the countercultural era.

The book takes a transnational and interdisciplinary approach encompassing a range of theoretical perspectives – drawn from the political economy of communication tradition; alternative media scholarship; journalism studies; critical sociological and cultural studies of media industries; cultural industries research; and critical and social theory – in conjunction with extensive ethnographic fieldwork. It does so to reveal the obscure nature of media and cultural production and organisation at seventeen media and cultural actors based in Britain and Germany, including South Africa and Nigeria. A particular focus is placed on how such actors balance competing imperatives of a civic/socio-political, professional, artistic and commercial nature as well as various systemic pressures, and on how they navigate the resultant ambivalences, paradoxes and tensions in their day-to-day work.

In essence, the book highlights key insights into a changing nature and quality of engagement with social and political realities in protest cultures.

1 Introduction

1.1 Research context: media and cultural work in protest cultures

Media and cultural work in protest cultures is witnessing an unprecedented growth, expansion and resurgence in Western Europe. This derives from the significance accorded to the social and cultural value of such work which, it is believed, consists not only of facilitating democratic communication and practice, but also of encouraging innovation and experimentation in form and content (Atton, 2002; Bailey et al., 2008; Forde, 2011; Rodriguez et al., 2014). Notably, the actors of such work are playing a crucial part in filling the gap left by mainstream media, namely public service and commercial media. Many commentators feel that mainstream public service and commercial media are proving unable to provide a full range of media and cultural programming that adequately serves the diverse groups, communities and geographical regions to be found within most West European societies (McCain and Lowe, 1990; Blumler and Gurevitch, 1995; Curran and Seaton, 2010).

Scholars have attributed this situation to the following developments. First, from the 1980s onwards, mainstream public service media have faced multiple challenges as a result of deregulation, fierce competition in a multi-channel environment, audience segmentation and technological transformation (Tracey, 1998; Born, 2003; Barnet, 2007; McNair, 2007). Numerous and fierce debates raged about whether such media were worth the resources spent or even merited the preferential treatment they got (Curran, 1991; Blumler, 1993; Dahlgren, 1995). These factors gradually compelled mainstream public service media to restructure their organisation and operations in order to adapt to and remain competitive in the newly deregulated media landscape (Atkinson and Raboy, 1997; Lowe and Bardoel, 2007; Peters and Broersma, 2013).

Arguably, this led to the abandoning of many public service obligations considered less profitable yet crucial in facilitating ‘informed, rational and inclusive public debate’ (Curran, 2002: 227). Such obligations include the provision of local news and other informational content, investigative reporting and diverse socially relevant cultural outputs (Curran and Gurevitch, 1996; Murdock and Golding, 2005; Barnet, 2007). In essence, these obligations ‘give priority to public affairs programmes, reasoned discussion and […] pluralistic representation’ and in doing so, ‘put the needs of democracy before those of profit, and are supported in this by public law and regulation’ (Curran, 2002: 227). The inability or unwillingness of mainstream public service and commercial media to fulfil such functions has created a void that media and cultural actors in protest cultures strive to fill. Second, the ownership of commercial media has tended to be concentrated in the hands of a few corporations. Political economists of communication have argued that the power accruing from such concentration of ownership can be exercised to control the production and distribution of ideas, values and beliefs inherent in media and cultural content (Cottle, 2003; Hesmondhalgh, 2006b), a scenario that has dire consequences for the processes of interaction and communication among different groups in society.

Third, and following on from the first two developments, in both mainstream public service and commercial media, scholars have observed a significant shift away from audiences being addressed as citizens to being viewed and treated as consumers. This has coincided with an increase in the volume of sensationalist and populist programming directed at such ‘consumers’, ranging from ‘infotainment’ in print to reality television and game shows in broadcasting (Murdock and Golding, 1999; Croteau and Hoynes, 2001; Hesmondhalgh, 2005; Witschge et al., 2010). Some critics claim that there has been a tendency in both mainstream public service and commercial media not only to limit the range of opinions expressed therein, but also to marginalise, discredit and even exclude dissenting perspectives that advocate ideas and viewpoints considered to belong outside the boundaries of perceived dominant norms (Galtung and Ruge, 1981; Hackett, 1984; Blumler and Gurevitch, 1995; Curran, 2002).

As a result of these developments over the last decades, strategies for democratic communication spearheaded by a range of media and cultural actors in protest cultures have gained greater social and cultural significance. Essentially, such communication aims to prioritise relevant, civic information and to facilitate debate, innovation, greater access and participation of ordinary people and marginalised and disempowered groups in media and cultural production processes in a bid to foster change (McGrath, 1990; 1996; Downing et al., 2001; Atton, 2002; Gillmor, 2006; Lewis and Jones, 2006). Studies on the production and organisational processes in media and cultural work in protest cultures have drawn on social and political theory to argue that for this to successfully happen, actors behind such work need to maintain their own communicative spaces in which they can express and defend their interests outside the supervision of dominant groups (Atton, 2007; Atton and Hamilton, 2008; Bailey et al., 2008). More importantly, Atton, drawing on the work of James Hamilton, asserts that such companies must be ‘de-professionalised’, ‘de-capitalised’ and ‘de-institutionalised’ (2002: 25) if the different forms of ownership typically exhibited by media and cultural actors in the sector are to be of any meaningful social and cultural value. In this book, I conceptualise the pursuit of such democratic communication with a view to effecting change (broadly defined) as socio-political imperatives. More follows on this idea below.

However, the research presented in this book shows that changing socio-economic and socio-political circumstances dating as far back as the late 1970s gradually fostered the ascendancy of professional, artistic and commercial imperatives alongside socio-political ones in the production and organisational processes of media and cultural actors in protest cultures. The problem is that embracing all these different imperatives pulls producers¹ in different directions. Whereas some producers uphold socio-political imperatives, others maintain a balance between the different imperatives. Still for others, the tensions, conflicts and ambivalences emanating from the interaction between the different imperatives can sometimes be so strong that it poses great problems. Additionally, numerous systemic influences such as political controls and demands from subsidy, funders and broadcasters may sometimes not only aggravate the tensions with which producers are already confronted, but they may also threaten the independence of producers. All these factors impact media and cultural work in protest cultures. As such, there is a need to gain insights into how contemporary media and cultural producers in protest cultures face up to and deal with these challenges. Given these tensions, contradictions and problems that I return to in Section 1.3 in more detail, this book investigates the following questions:

In what ways do media and cultural producers in protest cultures respond to the interplay between different imperatives?

In which ways do producers respond to political controls and demands from subsidy, other funders and broadcasters?

How do producers perceive their work following the navigation of conflicting imperatives and systemic pressures?

I explore these questions across three genres: in journalism and/or news production, documentary film-making, and arts and cultural programming, concentrating on the period between 1968 and 2018. I chose to focus on these genres for three reasons. First, the three genres are the most common and oldest in protest cultures. Second, deriving from their prevalence and longevity, these genres have accumulated sufficient literature which allows for comparison between historical and contemporary contexts. Third, the three genres seem the most affected by artistic, professional and commercial imperatives as well as subsidy, political controls and in some cases, broadcaster influence. It is useful to briefly look at what the different genres constitute in the context of protest cultures.

Journalism and/or news production generally involves assembling events into news accounts. Early research on news production tended to view news as the result of a reporter’s subjective experience, attitude and expectations. This tradition came to be known as the gatekeeping model following White’s (1950) and Breed’s (1955) classic studies which emphasised the individual reporter’s subjectivity in controlling and selecting items for news stories. Despite their contribution to the understanding of journalism and/or news production at the time, these seminal studies were later critiqued by sociologists of news production for their inability to explain the impact of broader social systemic factors such as news work routines, newsroom relationships and organisational cultures (Tuchman, 1978a; Fishman, 1980; Galtung and Ruge, 1981; Reese, 2001). I discuss these factors in more detail in Chapter 2.3 indicating how they shape the nature and content of what passes as news. News production in protest cultures can be said:

to play a role in creating avenues for people to connect with each other and their public institutions by bringing awareness of problems, issues, and potential solutions to people in a community […] stimulate growth of knowledge, enhance civic attitudes [with a view to] reinvigorating public debate about issues of concern to citizens, and improving participation in civic activities, such as voting, belonging to community organisations, or participating in community problem-solving.

(Choi, 2008)

The term ‘documentary’ – coined by John Grierson in 1926 – referred to work that reflected ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ (Grierson, 1966: 13, cited in Kilborn and Izod, 1997: 12) and which served a clearly defined social purpose (Corner, 1996). Since then, leading documentary scholars have tended to define this genre in relation to its functions (Barnouw, 1993; Rosenthal and Corner, 2005; Rosenthal, 2007). Corner (2000a: 2), for example, notes that ‘the functions of documentary work have been at least as important in its history and generic identity as its forms’. For him, then, documentary film-making is about:

how a film or programme was made (according to what recipes, methods and ethics), how it looks and sounds, and what job it was designed to do, what kind of impact and use-value it was to have for audiences. Only in relation to at least one of these features, and probably by reference to more than one, we will identify something as documentary work.

(Ibid.)

From this, Corner identifies three classic functions of documentary film production, namely ‘providing publicity for citizenship’, ‘documentary as journalistic inquiry and exposition’ and ‘documentary as radical interrogation and alternative perspective’ (ibid.). To these, he adds a relatively new function he terms ‘documentary as diversion’ meaning ‘popular factual entertainment’ in the form of ‘Docusoaps’ (ibid.: 3). Nichols summarises the ‘use-value’ of the varied forms and functions in documentary work in the following:

Some documentaries set out to explain aspects of the world to us. They analyse problems and propose solutions. They try to account for aspects of the historical world by means of their representations. They seek to mobilise our support for one position instead of another. Other documentaries invite us to understand aspects of the world more fully. They observe, describe, or poetically evoke situations and interactions. They try to enrich our understanding of aspects of the historical world by means of their representations.

(2001: 165, emphasis by the author)

This is the understanding that informs documentary production in protest cultures. Arts and cultural programming, in a general sense, is ‘engaged in creating, producing, presenting, distributing and preserving as well as educating about aesthetic, heritage and entertainment activities, products and artefacts’ (Wyszomirski, 2002, cited in Carpenter, 2008: 8). In a similar vein, Blandy views such programming as encompassing ‘the formal and informal ways in which organisations and institutions address, cultivate, present, preserve, and celebrate the creative and symbolic forms associated with culture’ (2008: 174). Such ‘creative and symbolic forms’ are derived from common customs and beliefs allowing for a folkloric and artful expression of such values in myriad forms and interactions (ibid.: 177–178). Cases in point could be ‘a play, video, or piece of music – the function of which is a self-conscious, personal, or collective expression of something’ (Lewis, 1990: 5). Balfe and Peters developed a useful taxonomy that appears to capture most of the existing activities, art forms and experiences that make up arts and cultural programmes. Their taxonomy reads as follows:

1 visual arts (painting, jewellery making, tattooing, designing, crafting);

2 literary arts (writing poetry, screenplays or books);

3 media arts (creating computer art, choreography, composing music videos);

4 musical arts (song writing, instrument making);

5 dance and other movement arts (choreography, gymnastics, skating);

6 performances, exhibitions;

a music (playing a musical instrument or singing; opera, bluegrass, hymns, rap);

b dancing or moving (ballet, ethnic, folk, ice dancing);

c acting (performing in plays, musicals, mime, or comedy);

d literary (reading poetry, storytelling, giving lectures);

7 multimedia or other (music videos, street performers, circuses);

8 ancillary activities within all these performing and exhibiting activities (directing, technical assistance, production);

9 media (films, TV, computerized art, animated film, Internet art);

10 selling or renting art objects, media products, and so on (fairs, festivals, shows, stores);

11 collecting, preserving (libraries, archives, museums);

12 teaching about arts and culture (theory and appreciation, arts management);

13 administrative, technical, governance, fundraising work (artists’ collaborative, boards, technical work).

(2000, cited in Carpenter, 2008: 9–10)

For my purposes in this book, I use Balfe and Peters’ taxonomy because it seems exhaustive and also acknowledges overlaps between the different activities, art forms and experiences in the same way as arts and cultural programming in protest cultures does.² I focus on the performing arts, particularly theatre, musicals, pantomime and comedy, although I also make reference to the literary and visual arts such as creative writing, poetry and storytelling all of which take place in the companies under study in Chapter 7 of this book.

Having outlined the context of this research, I proceed as follows in this chapter. In Section 1.2 I define the term ‘protest cultures’ and explain why I choose to use it and not the other terms that have been used to describe ‘non-mainstream’ media and cultural production processes and associative forms of organisation. In Section 1.3 I define what I mean by socio-political, professional, artistic and commercial imperatives. I then explain the role of subsidy, other funders, broadcasters and politics in shaping media and cultural work in protest cultures. I discuss the main problems associated with the interaction occurring among all these factors across the three genres introduced earlier. I outline the key theoretical and empirical aspects underlying this research before specifying how this book is organised in Section 1.4.

1.2 Protest cultures and constitutive media and cultural work

As hinted at above, actors involved in ‘non-mainstream’ media and cultural production processes have been referred to by various terms in different contexts. The most common terms are alternative media, community media, citizens’ media, independent media, social movement media, participatory media and third sector media. To begin with, Atton (2002: 9–10) notes that the term ‘alternative’ in alternative media can be seen as ‘a blanket term [whose] strength lies in the fact that it can encompass far more’ forms of production than other terms. But, he qualifies this, noting that ‘[t]o deploy “alternative” as an analytical term, however, might afford us little more specificity than saying “non-mainstream”’ (ibid.). Harcup observes that ‘[d]efinitions of alternative media are not fixed or universally accepted’ (2005: 361) while Comedia (1984: 95) noted that alternative media were defined in terms of what they were not. Other scholars are wary of the term ‘alternative’ because they think it too often positions ‘non-mainstream’ organisational and production processes in a rigid dichotomous relationship with the mainstream public service and commercial media which, they argue, is not accurate (Rodriguez, 2001; Bailey et al., 2008). Even John Downing, one of the key scholars in this area of study, retracted from this rigid binary position,³ in one of his recent books. In fact, some empirical studies have identified blurring boundaries between mainstream and ‘non-mainstream’ media in terms of practice and aims (Eliasoph, 1997; Kidd, 1999; Atton, 2001; Harcup, 2005).

Still other empirical research has identified that...