'There's no such thing as society?' A study of broadcasting and the public services under the three Thatcher governments, 1979-1990.

This is a historical project whose aim is to illuminate the ways in which the profound political, economic and ideological changes brought about by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative governments in the 1980s, were reflected in and mediated by the UK broadcast media. The aim is to explore the output of radio and television during the period from 1979-1990, particularly in relation to the public services and the concept of 'the public'.

The research will undertake an inventory of programming in the period 1979-1990 across all terrestrial television and radio channels. It will create a database of programmes which deal with the topic of 'the public', and specifically with changing patterns of public ownership and the public services. It will consider all broadcast genres, from news and current affairs to comedy, drama, chat shows and television advertising. To this end, it will be necessary to locate sources of information on the broadcasting output during the period.

Having established the basic data, the research will analyse the representation of the public services and the ways in which the concept of 'the public' was mobilised in the broadcast discourse.

It will then go on to focus on questions of the health service and on public health as a detailed case study.

This textual analysis will analyse and illustrate the implicit and explicit attitudes conveyed by the programming across the genres /for example the extent to which the programming was supportive of, or opposed to political changes. it will consider the language used to speak of the changes and their consequences, and the examples, both fictional and factual, which were put forward. It will consider the ways in which broadcast programmes mediated and interpreted political initiatives.

This analysis will be related to:
a. an account of the politics of the 1980s, specifically the evolution of the Conservative government's policies in relation to 'rolling back the state', privatisation and denationalisation, and the changing ideological discourse
b. the specific economic and organisational changes which were occurring within the National Health Service. The research team will bring specialised background knowledge of these changes.
c. the context of broadcasting itself, and the debate around its role as a 'public service'.
The period of this study covers the launch of Channel Four and its innovative programming across the 1980s, which itself involved a re-definition of 'public service' in broadcasting; and also the Peacock Report on the de-regulation of broadcasting and the future of the BBC.