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However, Recent Innovations In Technology Have Meant That Both Press And ...

However, recent innovations in technology have meant that both press and broadcasting will be forced to change.
William Boddy (2004)accounts for the historical transition of television's beginnings to the new digital age, which has caused a change in programming and audience behaviour. However, this book does more than chronicle the recent evolution in digital and New Media; he also takes into consideration the use of advertising, interviews and such programmes that incorporate current affairs, satire and correcting injustices (Brasseye (C4: 1997-2001), Mock the Week (2005 - ), Newsnight (BBC: 1980 -)). Nevertheless, something that Boddy explores, that has often been ignored hitherto is a gendered account of current affairs programmes. For Boddy, women have aided in the development of domestic television, and furthered the research which estimated that women have control over many domestic appliances within the home. Furthermore, with labour saving devices increasing the time that women could possibly spend watching television, their opinion is now just as important and Boddy hints that this too has changed the way in which broadcasters consider their audience. According to Curran, 54% of women use the internet as opposed to 57% (280) of men, showing that New Media as well as traditional television programming is just as applicable to the female gender. This is far from the gendered aspect that radio took on early in its life and subsequently became a masculine appliance, until, as Boddy argues, it became a part of the familial lifestyle, which was also echoed in the evolution of television. It is this allocation within the familial space and latterly as part of individual space, that has effected television programming and the form that current affairs programmes have taken in the UK and the US, especially since the 1980s.
However, perhaps the most axiomatic difference between the UK and the US current affairs programming is public service broadcasting. In the UK, the BBC, which until 1954 was the only television broadcaster, was run as a public service broadcaster, closely linked to the government (although it was to be impartial) and therefore cemented the belief that people had to have information. Even today, BBC News 24, the leading 24 hour News broadcaster in the UK, is effectively answerable to the tax payer and therefore remains impartial. Even commercial television stations (which began with the birth of ITV in 1954) started with public service remits and still adhere to strict regulations.
Conversely in the US, newscasters are often not perceived as completely impartial (McCauley: page 10). In fact, impartiality is still seen as an incredibly important part of British news broadcasting. As Underwood (2003) argues, ‘Its reputation for ‘impartiality' has contributed to making the BBC respected throughout the world'.


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