Tim Watts, ‘The Return of the Radical Press: “New” Media Goes Back to the Future' [Australian Fabians Inc]


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		Home Resources Event Papers 2009 Tim Watts, ‘The Return of the Radical Press: “New” Media Goes Back to the Future' The media in 19th Century pre-Victorian England looked very different than it does today. According to media historians, the highest circulation newspapers in this period were; the delightfully titled Cobbett’s Twopenny Trash, The Weekly Police Gazette and the infamous Northern Star. While all of these publications have long since ceased production, there is something beyond their unfamiliar titles that truly sets these media outlets apart from those that we know today. These publications were representatives of a partisan ‘radical press’ that was funded by a combination of sales and subsidies from social movements rather than the combination of sales and advertising revenues that support the ‘independent press’ we are familiar with today. The combination of their large circulation and explicitly activist approach made these radical publications extremely influential. They played a key role in progressive movements like the Chartists and causes like extending the franchise in Britain. However, as technological change pushed up the capital costs of publication, by the end of the 19th Century the radical press had been reduced to a fringe medium. Importantly for progressives today, at the start of the 21st Century, international experience suggests that the wheel of technological change is once again turning. Thanks to the proliferation of Web 2.0 enabled ‘social media’, today’s media environment could once again include an influential place for the radical press. It is strange to consider in light of the past hundred years experience, but history shows that the independence of the media from political patrons is far from an immutable law. In pre-Victorian England, the circulation of the radical press far exceeded that of the independent press and the direct ownership or subsidisation of publications by partisans was still common through the subsequent Victorian and Edwardian periods. Given their popularity, why, by the end of the 19th Century, had these ‘radical’ media outlets been marginalised by the independent press? In a word, technology. Technological advances in the media production process dramatically increased the fixed capital costs of media outlets in the late 19th century. In fact, between 1855 and 1870, the upfront cost of establishing a daily newspaper in London increased from around £20,000 to around £150,000. These increasing costs favoured business models that rewarded scale and the commoditisation of news content. This advertising reliant model employed by the independent press gave the medium a major competitive advantage. It wasn’t long before the radical press, unable to compete on the basis of sales and subsidies alone, was reduced to a shadow of its previous influence. However, as changing technologies produced changing business models in the late 19th century, so too is it changing business models in the early 21st century. This change presents an opportunity for progressive politics to reclaim a direct voice in the media. In recent times, technological change has broken the historical nexus between advertising and content in the media sector. As Rupert Murdoch noted in this year’s Boyer Lecture the ‘rivers of gold’ that newspapers historically reaped from their classifieds pages are now being diverted by new, stand alone online competitors. Someone looking for a house, a car or a job is now just as likely to go to realestate.com, carsales.com or seek.com as they are a newspaper. Similarly, the collapse in content and distribution costs caused by the emergence of extremely low cost online publication tools has allowed a flood of new entrants into the new media environment. As a consequence, people looking for political news are increasingly likely to go to the fragmented online media environment rather than newspapers. In fact, the Pew Internet and American Life Project recently found that the Internet is now the primary or secondary source of political news for 46% of Americans. To be sure, traditional media outlets will be dominant in this new media ecology for some time yet, but the pincer movement of falling media costs and revenues has created room for new players. As Murdoch has presciently observed: ‘Once upon a time, the media and entertainment companies could count on the huge, up-front investments that discouraged competitors from entering the business. But in many sectors the barriers to entry have never been lower, and the opportunities for the energetic and the creative have never been greater.’ Importantly for the progressive movement, in the US and the UK, where these trends are already well advanced, ‘the energetic and the creative’ that Murdoch has heralded are overwhelmingly partisan. The largest and most influential new entrants in the US and UK online media environments make no claims to either independence or objectivity. There’s no doubt about where sites like the Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Instapundit, Guido Fawkes and ConservativeHome stand. While the polemical nature of these outlets has raised eyebrows recently amongst journalists and politicians, from a historical perspective the partisan nature of these outlets is really nothing new. In many ways, the new media is going back to the future. The opportunity for progressive politics in this context is obvious. If talented exponents of the medium are given structure and support, the progressive movement could once again have a direct and influential media voice. With a small investment in coordinating infrastructure, the membership base of the progressive movement could be extremely influential in the new media environment. It is true that we are still some way from seeing these media trends take hold in Australia. The Australian blogosphere in particular is still in its infancy when measured by per capita readership. However, media need not be ubiquitous to be influential. It’s worth remembering that when FDR gave his highly influential ‘fireside chats’, only 62% of US households owned radios. Given that according to AC Neilsen, 2007 was the first year that Australians spent more time online than watching television, the tipping point for the influence of the new media cannot be far away. If the Australian progressive movement acts now, the progressive media in the early 21st Centrury could once again be as influential as it was in the early 19th Century.