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Free Dissertations - Journalism Dissertations

[] These New Readers Were Lower Middle Class, Upwardly Mobile, With ...

[] These new readers were lower middle class, upwardly mobile, with increasing leisure and spending power to enlarge and satisfy their curiosity about the world (Catterall, Seymour & Smith 2000, 10). As such, the aims of the free press can in actuality be regarded as a successful attempt by the Government to instigate its exact opposite by eroding the solidarity of the working classes through the starving out of presses that remained non-capitalist in their intentions, the creation of a newly emergent lower middle class could be exploited via the mechanisms of the free market and by entrepreneurs such as Northcliffe himself. The juxtaposition of the popularity of Northcliffe's newspapers, along with their broadly nationalistic and imperialistic agenda supports the persuasion that censorship and press freedoms continue to be impeded, but merely operate beneath a chimera of supposed freedom. Although Northcliffe's campaigns for the Daily Mail were, technically speaking, free from direct government control, it still represented the agenda of one person rather than as the direct result of government censorship and propaganda. Also, to what extent did the scenario of the free capitalist press popularise this nationalistic, imperialistic status quo? To what extent do these crusades that Northcliffe directed during the war represent his own opinions, and to what extent to they represent the desire to increase sales revenue? Chalaby (2000) suggests that Biographers generally point out that Northcliffe was not a cynical character and felt quite strongly about the campaigns he conducted. On the other hand, personal convictions and commercial interest are not necessarily incompatible, and evidence shoes that circulation can tremendously benefit from crusading (37). The freedom of the press in this instance therefore depends on whether Northcliffe himself censored the process from within, or whether the market itself acts as censor. The press barons that operated prior to the First World War and the importance of their specific ideologies have a direct impact upon the exposure of the threat it has to press freedoms during the mass carnage of the First World War. Curran (2003) comments that the ideologies of the press barons had a notable impact upon the contents of the paper: Proprietors' perceptions of their readers set the tone of their papers. The Daily Express aimed, in Beaverbrook's words, at the character and temperament which was bent on moving upwards and outward (43).


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