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My name is Sian Nicholas. I'm a reader in Modern British History at Aberystwyth University and I research mostly in the history of the mass media in Britain in the 20th century. I think what's fascinating about the mass observation project is the way the media is kind of embedded in

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so many different parts of the output. There are a number of directives that directly address the media, August 1983 for instance. There are questions specifically about viewing and reading so television in particular and newspapers. But in 1986 there's a fantastic day diary where people are asked to

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write about what they do on Christmas Day. And there, you can see the role of television, for instance, embedded in what they're doing in a fantastic way. And then, of course, in autumn 1988 you have the day in the life of television project, which mass observation

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did in association with the British Film Institute where respondents were asked to write down everything they watch on the first of November 1988 for for a nationwide project. And that's a fabulous insight into the way television, in particular, is becoming ever more part of people's lives across

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the 1980s. The 1980s, I think, is a really fascinating decade in the history of the British media. It's almost like a holding decade, because for most people, their experience in the media is very like it was in the sixties and certainly the seventies. But things were about to change

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and change in revolutionary ways in the 1990s. So, for instance, you begin the 1980s with just three television channels, um BBC One BBC Two and ITV, and that's been the same since the 1960s. But in 1982 Channel Four is launched, in 1983 breakfast television is launched, programmes

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that we now think of as sort of emblematic of British television. EastEnders began in 1985, Neighbors began in 1986. So these cultural moments are very much part of the 1980s. You've also got structural changes in terms of the press. Rupert Murdoch moves his entire News International

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printing operation from Fleet Street to Wapping. Um, in 1986 early 1986 you've got the Peacock Report in Broadcasting 1986 which will lead to the government White Paper on broadcasting in 1988, broadcasting of the 1990s, which is going to deregulate broadcasting for the future, And even in

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things like technology. The first Sony Walkman is sold in 1980, VCRs video recorders are just coming into British households in the early 1980s. But we haven't yet got to things like satellite and cable, which again are going to take off in the 1990s. So the 1980s, is

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a sort of wonderful decade where things are beginning to shift very slowly. But people at the time probably aren't aware of how much change is building up, um, for the very near future. You could see these changes in mass observation, partly in direct ways in questions that are asked

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in the surveys. For instance, things like do you own a video recorder? And how many televisions does your household have? But also just in the way the day to day discussions that you find in the archives, the different kind of responses, day diaries and things like that, reflect on

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or show the way televisions are being used or newspapers are being used. So in the 1983 directive, there's a question. Do you watch Channel Four, sometimes, often, never. And that's of course, because Channel Four's only been broadcasting for less than a year at that point. Um, and it's

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surprising how many people say never or very occasionally. You've also got a question. Do you have a video recorder? Um, and most people say no. Most people say why? Why would I need a video recorder? Or I have a friend who's got a video recorder, you know. And if

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you have a video recorder what do you use it for? And most people, it's just to record programmes. It's not to hire films, but you see some people who are beginning to plan their viewing around what they do with the video recorder. And there's even one great

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report with, I think it's Lutterworth, someone reports of the three video shops that have opened in Lutterworth and actually went and did a little catalogue of everything that is offered in that video store. And he's very disappointed because there were no foreign language films that she

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wants to watch and it's mostly comedy and adult films. So you're seeing the beginnings of a new way of watching television developing through this. And by 1986, just three years later, when it talks about what people are doing at Christmas, quite a lot of them are recording

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programmes to watch later because they're having Christmas dinner. And when you get to 1988 you can see a lot of people, video is embedded in how they watch television, so in a very short period of time, television watching, you know it is absolutely changing. What's interesting as well,

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I think, is how some of the structural changes, particularly in broadcasting, are only very slowly being even recognized. I think by by many in the audience and not necessarily even appreciated. In 1983 there seems to be quite a lot of resistance to Channel Four. A lot of

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people, the way they write their responses is, of course, I don't listen to channel, watch Channel Four. Or they quite often say, I don't receive Channel Four. It hasn't come to, come here yet. And by the end of the decade, people are talking about multi channel television, you know,

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it's something that's obviously being discussed in the media itself. And for most of the responses, it seems people aren't actually that interested in multi channel television In 1983 they're saying we've got three channels, why do we need a fourth, by 1988 they're saying, we've got four channels, why

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do we need 12? Say, which seems to be the most they can even contemplate at that moment. You know, there's enough on already. It's hard enough choosing between four what are we going to do with, um, multi channel television. And I'm guessing if you look to the mass

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observation directive in the nineties, people are getting quite used to multi channel television. I get the impression the media plays a much bigger role in the light of the mass observers than they like, usually, to admit to themselves. I think a couple of the most interesting directives are the Christmas

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Day Diaries in 1986 where the respondents detail and sometimes in in absolutely forensic detail, um, what they've done during the day. One of the reports is 26 pages long, detailing their day. And television is there in the background all the time in very interesting, and quite often

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they say, well, we don't just watch it much, but it's interesting to see how much it's part, by the mid 1980s, just part of the wallpaper, if you like, of the home during the time. And by 1988 and the a day in the life of television

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diary, people use it to itemize what they watch, and that's interesting in itself. But a lot of the respondents also used the opportunity to say something about what television means in their lives, and it's quite interesting, actually, how defensive a lot of them are, you know,

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I watch quite a lot of television, but it's because it's company, or they say I watched quite a lot today, but I don't always watch quite so much on other days. Or they explain why television is important in their lives. Um, or why it's not so important. So

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they watch X, Y and Z, but I could do without it. So it's quite interesting that slightly conflicted attitude I think people have to television. On the one hand, it's just absolutely part of their lives. I think you see that by the 1980s, it's just there.

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People don't even necessarily detail it, for Christmas it's just we turned on the television. They don't explain even what they what they saw it's just enough to say they were watching it. Um, but there's a conversation about the role of television in their lives, and I think sometimes they

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want to say to mass observation as an organization, you know that maybe their friends are reliant on television, but they're not so much. So there are fascinating elements, I think, there of what television means to people in their lives, in their families and in the wider

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world. In terms of newspapers, that's mostly mentioned in the 1983 Spring directive, where people were asked directly what newspapers they read, what magazines they read, whether they read newspapers regularly or not. And there you can see a lot of newspaper reading, a lot of very diverse

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newspaper reading so people will read The Guardian or The Telegraph, they say. And you might think those are such political polar opposites, they may have allegiance to one or the other, but there seems to be quite eclectic newspaper reading. And people will read The Daily Mail and

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The Daily Express. People read The Daily Star, though they always seem to qualify it with something like not page three, or only because my brother brings it into the house. So even then there's there's a sense of what's a respectable paper and what's not a respectful

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paper. A lot of people are still reading local newspapers, which might surprise some, local newspapers still seem to be very important in people's lives. There are a lot of comments, so on things like the cost of newspapers, there's a directive where the respondent, who's a pensioner,

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says he used to get The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror. Now he only gets the Daily Mirror because he can't afford 36p a day for the two newspapers. Just as someone you again, I thought about inflation. He wanted The Telegraph, but his wife insisted on

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the Daily Mirror. Um, but newspapers are not very much commented on unless there is a very specific question which I think is quite interesting again because this is a period where newspapers, the whole future of the newspaper industry, in fact, you know, is on the cusp. It's

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the movement towards computerization. It's the movement away from Fleet Street towards Wapping and people don't seem to notice that there are, um, revolutions going on in the newspaper industry. I think, what's always so interesting when you look back with hindsight at these kind of responses is how people

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are if you like blissfully unaware of the wider things going on around them. So, for instance, the way in which the newspaper industry is going to transform by the end of the 1980s, the way in which the print unions are going to be destroyed, the way in

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which new technology will come in, um, and completely revolutionize the way newspapers are printed, are published. The locational shift from Fleet Street to the Isle of Dogs and to Wapping um, no one really notices those sorts of revolutions as they're happening, I think around them. Um,

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and aside from a few references in one of the directives to the Wapping dispute, you know, as a news story, I think no one seems to recognize. And why should they? You know, that they are actually living through the beginnings of a revolution in the print

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media, and they're actually living through a revolution in television and broadcasting technology. They're asked in 1986 to list any news stories that come to mind, you know, from the previous year, um, and it is interesting the way in which the same news stories come up. The

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accident at Chernobyl is one of the ones most often mentioned. You might see, it's had a very big effect on people. And again, presumably from mostly the television coverage, the television pictures, what people saw, what people didn't see. You know, of course, because of the story leaking out,

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that seems to have had a big effect. Um, the Reykjavik summit between Reagan and Gorbachev, and again, you can see that was very much a you know, an international peace photo opportunity and that seems to have come through very much and stuck in people's minds. The royal

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wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson again is something very often mentioned, usually very favorably. You know, there are a few people who object to it, but for most people, they seem to have had a lovely time watching it. This one respondent who says, a shot in the arm,

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is the royal wedding. Another one who says how although she regards itself as left wing and a feminist, she just loves royal weddings and in fact, took a day off work in order to be able to watch it all day. And I think again the idea

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of experiencing these things through television and then talking about with your friends afterwards comes through very much in mass observation. There's even one woman who wanted to get away from the royal wedding. So went to volunteer at her local Barnardo's shop, then was struck by the fact

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an old man came in to buy something and was shocked that the television wasn't on showing the royal wedding, even in the shop. So you can see again how those kind of events permeates through culture and through television in particular. Other news stories that seem to

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have grabbed people's attention include the explosion of the U.S. space shuttle Challenger at the beginning of the year, um, the Libyan bombings, which seemed to cause a lot of controversy. A lot of respondents are very concerned about British involvement in those bombings. And there are some respondents also who

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note the knock on controversy, with Norman Tebbit complaining to, about the BBC's coverage of the Libyan bombings. Other events Ian Botham being caught in a drug sting, which a couple of respondents think is good riddance, and others think are an appalling intrusion into his private life. The

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other thing is, is the Spycatcher affair. Peter Wright's autobiography, which is a subject of a prosecution in Australia, attended by the Cabinet secretary, Robert Armstrong. What is clear is several of the respondents remember quite vividly Robert Armstrong's response when asked to differentiate between a misleading statement and

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a lie when he famously said a misleading statement is to be economical with the truth. Several respondents remember that exact phrase clearly again from the news reporting. So it's interesting how stories develop, develop catchphrases, you know, in a sense of their own, but that that line being

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economical with the truth clearly stuck in many people's minds. And, of course, there's the AIDS Crisis, which a lot of people comment on in terms of the publicity. You know given that there's at least one respondent who says how curious it is that, you know, only a year

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ago no one even knew about AIDS and now it's being publicized all over television again, all over the newspapers and in the public media. And that, obviously is a public health story that's coming into people's lives, really out of the blue almost. And it's dominating a lot

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of public discourse. I think the Christmas 1986 directives are some of the most interesting responses I've read, partly because they encapsulate I suppose a Christmas Day that could have been typical of any day in the previous 20 years, maybe, but is likely to have changed a lot

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when you get to the 1990s. Um, for the first time you're seeing for instance children getting computers for Christmas, that is something that can only get much more popular as things go. For another, it's a day dominated by the Christmas meal. Some of the respondents detail

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the menus, detail the cooking procedures in intricate detail. You get a snapshot of the kinds of presents children were getting in 1980s by by listing it. But the kind of day that's being described I'm certainly, is very familiar to me, having lived through those Christmases as a child in

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the 1970s, so it's sort of getting up early, starting the cooking, opening the presents while watching Top of the Pops, the omnibus edition. There's the Disney film in the afternoon, there's the Queen's speech at three o'clock and so many of the directives, clearly, the respondents arranged Christmas

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dinner about in order to be able to watch the Queen's speech at three, and many of them comment on how they never missed the Queen's speech, how important the Queen's speech is to them. That's something I think that's that's gonna drift away. Um, as you get to

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the era of computers, home computers, multi channel television. You know that's going to disappear. Um, you have the comedies in the evenings, Only Fools and Horses. You have the James Bond film in the evening. What you have is it's a traditional Christmas of a television watching society

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in the late 20th century, just before the revolution in the media that will come in the 1990s. And as such, it's a fantastic snapshot of social history, not just for media historians, but for any social historians of Britain in the period. It's absolutely amazing to read. And

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Christmas 1986 of course is also famous in television terms as being the Christmas EastEnders, where in part one Den gave Angie divorce papers for a Christmas present, and in part two Arthur Fowler had a nervous breakdown facing misery and unemployment and tore up all the Christmas decorations. That's well known to

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media historians as the most watched episode of EastEnders ever. Apparently 30 million people half the population watched EastEnders on Christmas Day 1986 and it's interesting, so many of the respondents mention seeing watching EastEnders, very few of them seem to have realized they were participating in a

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great moment of British television culture of the 20th century, but it clearly is becoming, and it's still only, EastEnders has still only been going two years at this point. It is becoming a marker point of Christmas Day, maybe not quite equaling the Queen's speech but getting there. Digitizing this

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mass observation material is an absolutely fantastic resource for teaching and for research in late 20th century British social history, political history and especially for my purposes media history, the kinds of responses you get are absolutely unique. The personal responses, the the range of personal responses to the

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world in which people are living are just fantastic, they're amazing for students to embed themselves in. You could see the personalities of the mass observers coming out in the kinds of things they read, the information both up front and the information embedded in the kinds of everyday things

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they talk about are a really unique insight into life at this period. I mean, just, for instance, the Christmas Day you could recreate a Christmas Day, a typical Christmas Day in 1986 by reading the reports. They're in such amazing detail, and they're equally as powerful as the

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earlier mass observation material you know, going back to the 1930s and 1940s. You know, the detail, the depth, the texture. It's as valuable for the 1980s as that resource is for the 1940s, for instance, it's a way of getting students to live the period to really embed

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themselves in a period and understand the period in a way you simply can't with more conventional types of source material.