Daily: Harsh Reality – How TV shaped modern Britain

The Bunker

Podmasters

News, Politics, Society & Culture, Government

4.6 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2021

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We treat TV as the most disposable art form – but for decades it has shaped our world more than we know. From Big Brother to Shameless to Little Britain and Benefit Street, television chose the winners and losers of consumer capitalism, made it OK to sneer at the underclass, and then allowed that underclass a token comeback or two. Author Phil Harrison explores television’s innate cruelty, class dynamics and political subtext in The Age Of Static: How TV Explains Modern Britain. Has TV made our politics worse? And should it just give up on live political interviews altogether? “A show called Britain’s Hardest Worker pitted benefit claimants against one another. You wouldn’t have written that in a dystopian fantasy.” “Maybe the BBC needs to be in that permanent state of conflict or it’s not doing its job of challenging what we think.” “When Mentorn took over Question Time they promised ‘adrenaline-fuelled Thursday nights’. Is that the purpose of a serious news show?” “Nadine Dorries as a kamikaze Culture Secretary scares the hell out of me.” Written and presented by Justin Quirk. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
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0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker I'm Justin Quirk. You can tell a lot about British society from the TV
1:15.2	shows on our screens. Perhaps more than any other country the UK still gets a
1:19.0	sense of itself from the output of its national broadcasters.
1:23.0	But this country has become more fractious and divided over the past two decades as
1:28.0	populist politics has informed the national conversation.
1:31.0	So what can we learn from the TV of the last 20 years and how is what we've been
1:35.0	watching not just reflected but also shaped the world in which we now live.
1:38.6	Joining me today to discuss this is Phil Harrison TV journalist and author of the recently
1:43.6	published at the age of static how TV explains modern Britain. Welcome to the
1:47.8	bunker Phil. Thanks Justin, thanks for having me. So with the book what was your starting point here was there a particular penny dropping moment which made you think
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