Introduction

I will be using this space to document, protest against, and opine on what I have chosen to term the 'subtle fascism' which is increasingly pervading British society.

Since New Labour swept to power on a tide of optimism in 1997, life for the average individual in Britain has become less and less private, more catalogued and more recorded and documented than at any other era. The all-pervasive 'Big Brother' police state of George Orwell's 1984 has well and truly arrived, and the ConDem coalition look keen to continue this fine tradition.


I created this page a year ago, on Blogger's 10th birthday, and intended to try and use the democratising virtues of blogging to attempt to resist, in my own small way, the increasingly un-democratic society of which I am a member. Unfortunately time was not my friend last year, and so it is in November 2010 that I publish my first post here.


Jurgen Habermas, the German cultural theorist, is one major thinker to draw attention to the modern media's erosion of what he calls the 'public sphere'. Habermas describes how the first newspapers (arguably the first form the 'modern' media took) served two main purposes. One was to unite the nation as one homogenous being, through the standardisation of language and the creation of the idea of the nation as a 'community' (you should read Benedict Anderson's 'Imagined Communities' if this interests you). The second was to act as a forum for raw democracy - newspapers would be read aloud in coffee-houses, as large groups of men debated the issues raised, questioned government policy, and sought democratic change by challenging the actions of the state.


Contrast this to today's media outlets - both newspapers and television. As well as the obvious shift from factual or political content to a much more entertainment-focused media, there is also the question of whether newspapers and other media products really present us the news in order to stimulate democratic debate, or whether instead they seek to manipulate the emotions of the media consumer, and bend their will to fit the ideologies and financial motivations of the media institution. A quick flick through the Daily Mail or The Sun is enough evidence to support the latter - with the Mail forever pushing seemingly set ideologies, and The Sun twisting every story to fit the face of whichever power outfit is set to offer them assistance. It does not take me to tell you of Murdoch's perennial plays for power through the switching of The Sun's party allegiance.


There are many problems with Habermas' theory which immediately present themselves - as his image of wealthy, educated and at-leisure men negates the majority of the populace, who could not afford, or were not permitted to, participate in their coffee-house 'democracy'. However, the point he is making, about the media as a 'medium'; i.e as a reasonably impartial purveyor of information, as opposed to a mouthpiece of ideology, holds true. For me, all that has changed is that the men of the coffee-house are now the heads of the media themselves, a closed-off group of private-interest holders who force their version of events upon a public for whom supposedly 'democratic' decisions have already been made.


Submissions are always welcome, email me at shhbbailey@gmail.com if you want to submit anything.


Sam Bailey