The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) has lived up to its title. A corporate broadcasting service for Britain. What has this given us? The BBC was established in October 1922, and began broadcasting in November 1922.
One of the BBC’S statements on this centenary was
BBC 100 will celebrate and reflect on the unique role the BBC plays in the lives of audiences across the UK as our much cherished national broadcaster from its creation right up to the present day.”
When opening up their archives the BBC created research scholarships. Dr. Marcus Collins has investigated how the BBC did, or did not, react to social change. The 1950’s evidence shows that the BBC after the 1956 Suez Crisis and losing influence in Egypt, aligned itself with the British state, from Westminster to District Commissioners. In reports on ‘the African colonies’. audiences in Britain and abroad were given the message that enforcing colonial control continued the imperial mission of ‘civilising’ Africa
In Kenya the Kikuyu people had begun challenging the white settlers’ widespread control of land. The Mau Mau movement grew steadily during the 1950s. It was complex. There was violence. How much were people in Britain made aware of what was a war until information seeped out of massacres of prisoners in some camps?
Dr.Marcus Collins is Reader in Contemporary History at Loughborough University and the ARHC/BBC Centenary Fellow. His books include The Beatles and 1960s Britain, Modern Love; and he co-authored Why Study History?
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