Available online
Description
Realism is the dominant currency of television. In all kinds of programme categories, TV presents itself as being true to life, placing us before a reality which seems simply to unfold before us. T...his programme deconstructs the realist claims of documentary and drama by analysing extracts from four programmes about the 1926 General Strike. The Twenties Revisited uses a conventional narrator to explain the meaning of archive film, while Nine Days In 26 favours working-class witnesses and film editing which highlights the class conflict of the period. Yet both documentaries lay claim to truth. Of the dramas, Upstairs, Downstairs uses the strike as an event which initially divides the household, but although different characters express different views, they are eventually reconciled around a social democratic view which owes much to the mid-1970s period when this episode was made. Days of Hope, a drama-documentary with a thesis about the betrayal of the working-class by the union leadership, uses naturalist conventions to put across its view. There are several competing realisms on television, and it's not just the past which is at stake.
Realism is the dominant currency of television. In all kinds of programme categories, TV presents itself as being true to life, placing us before a reality which seems simply to unfold before us. T...his programme deconstructs the realist claims of documentary and drama by analysing extracts from four programmes about the 1926 General Strike. The Twenties Revisited uses a conventional narrator to explain the meaning of archive film, while Nine Days In 26 favours working-class witnesses and film editing which highlights the class conflict of the period. Yet both documentaries lay claim to truth. Of the dramas, Upstairs, Downstairs uses the strike as an event which initially divides the household, but although different characters express different views, they are eventually reconciled around a social democratic view which owes much to the mid-1970s period when this episode was made. Days of Hope, a drama-documentary with a thesis about the betrayal of the working-class by the union leadership, uses naturalist conventions to put across its view. There are several competing realisms on television, and it's not just the past which is at stake.
| Module code and title: | U203, Popular culture |
|---|---|
| Item code: | U203; 05 |
| First transmission date: | 29-05-1982 |
| Published: | 1982 |
| Rights Statement: | |
| Restrictions on use: | |
| Duration: | 00:49:20 |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | Susan Boyd-Bowman |
| Contributors: | Tony Bennett; Rene Cutforth |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | Days of hope; General Strike; Nine days in 26; Realism; Television; Television documentaries; Twenties revisited; Upstairs Downstairs |
| Master spool number: | HOU3898 |
| Production number: | FOUP086F |
| Videofinder number: | 1224 |
| Available to public: | no |
