Orwell's BBC broadcasts: Colonial discourse and the rhetoric of propaganda

Kerr, Douglas

doi:10.1080/09502360210163435

Cited by 12 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The colonial government began the broadcast of AIR’s external services, in languages such as Arabic and Pushtu, in an effort to reach frontier regions and peoples. Writing about George Orwell’s tryst with war-time broadcasting, Kerr (2002: 474) notes the dynamics of policy and security that propelled broadcasting in a milieu of war-time propaganda, and its geostrategic implications. The account illustrates British considerations of the importance of the subcontinent in their war-time pursuits, and their reflections in the radio broadcasting policy:The BBC, like the print media, came under the supervision of the Ministry of Information, housed in the University of London Senate House and later to serve as a model for the Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four .…”

Section: Colonial South Asia and Broadcasting Imperialism: A Dialoguementioning

confidence: 99%

Airing imperium: A historiography of radio governance in South Asia

Raghunath

2021

Global Media and Communication

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The 1920s emerged as a landmark decade in the world history of radio, more particularly in South Asia. About a century later, this paper seeks to stitch together a critical historiography of radio governance in colonial South Asia. In doing so, the paper seeks to unravel colonial constructions, norms and rationalities associated with the modern medium of radio in the South Asian context. This paper draws on the works of Pinkerton, Zivin, Brayne, Potter and gleanings in their work of the autobiographical writings of Fielden and Reith, the first broadcasting controller of All India Radio and the general manager of the British Broadcasting Corporation, respectively, besides some official documents cited in these works pertaining to the goings-on in British South Asia and its broadcasting. Ultimately, this paper seeks to not only historicize the eventual decolonization and democratization that occurred, but also sets the stage to locate, understand and move towards sustainable media governance in a post-2015 world.

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Section: Colonial South Asia and Broadcasting Imperialism: A Dialoguementioning

confidence: 99%

Airing imperium: A historiography of radio governance in South Asia

Raghunath

2021

Global Media and Communication

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“…7 ZAB, loyal to the Empire if sceptical of the claims of many Englishmen to superiority, threw himself into propaganda work at the BBC with gusto. Unlike Orwell who was indeed deeply sceptical about Empire (Kerr 2002), in a personal letter, sent 7th March 1940 to his colleague Monck, ZAB sketched out his vision of Empire with not the 'masters' broadcasting to the 'subjects', but a reciprocal and mutual bond, A far flung empire needs every bond, not only of sympathy, but also of knowledge, to secure its cohesion … into this gap can be flung two exceedingly positive factors -films and radio programmes. By means of these two mediums, it is possible to build real lines of communication in thought and understanding, and the process should be reciprocalEngland to India,India to England.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Partitioning the BBC: from colonial to postcolonial broadcaster

Thiranagama

2010

South Asian Diaspora

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This article explores the BBC's transition from colonial to postcolonial broadcaster in South Asia from 1940 to 1955. It argues that the BBC occupied a special place within the subcontinent in its own, and others' imaginations, by virtue of its (disavowed) yet (for it) productive colonial origins. The article focuses in particular on the Indian staff of the BBC pre and post independence and takes the BBC as a hierarchically constituted but creative collegial space. It examines: (1) the collegial relationships within BBC Bush House in London, as well as those that played out between the BBC, All India Radio (AIR) and Radio Pakistan (RP); and (2) the BBC and colonial British India and postcolonial India and Pakistan. Both interpersonal and macro-level relationships were at times read by those within them as a relationship between Britain and its former colonies, with all that entails.

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Imperial Fears and Transnational Policing in Europe: The ‘German Problem’ and the British and French Surveillance of Anti-colonialists in Exile, 1904–1939

Brückenhaus

2016

Anxieties, Fear and Panic in Colonial Settings

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Orwell's BBC broadcasts: Colonial discourse and the rhetoric of propaganda

Cited by 12 publications

References 4 publications

Airing imperium: A historiography of radio governance in South Asia

Airing imperium: A historiography of radio governance in South Asia

Partitioning the BBC: from colonial to postcolonial broadcaster

Imperial Fears and Transnational Policing in Europe: The ‘German Problem’ and the British and French Surveillance of Anti-colonialists in Exile, 1904–1939

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