BBC Radio 4 LW

Learning to Love the Microphone

Learning to Love the Microphone: Episode 2

Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - Learning to Love the Microphone, Episode 2

Anne Perkins asks what today's politicians could learn from the spin doctors of the 1920s.

As new mass media were born in the 1920s, the first spin doctors were on hand to help politicians use them. Anne Perkins asks what today's politicians could learn from them.

Anne Perkins explores how politicians at the dawn of mass democracy utilised the new media of radio and newsreel. 

As mass democracy and new mass media were born in the 1920s, the first spin doctors were on hand to help politicians use them. Anne Perkins asks what today's politicians could learn about using new media.

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Factual: History

Factual: Politics

Anne Perkins explores how Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain used radio and newsreel

Anne Perkins explores how Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain used radio and newsreel, the new media of their day, and what lessons can our generation learn from theirs

How do politicians adapt to using new media? The question is highly relevant now as the internet, social networking and 24 hour TV news transform the political landscape. And as Gordon Brown now knows all too well, it is easy to come unstuck.

Yet the question was equally relevant in the 1920s and 1930s, when politicians grappled with the new media of radio and newsreels. What lessons can our generation learn from theirs?

Anne Perkins examines how two Prime Ministers – Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain – started slowly but gradually mastered the new media. She reveals how the first spin doctor used his wartime experience spying on the Germans to attack Labour and carefully craft the Conservative leaders’ images to appeal to a new mass electorate. And she explains why the other parties were so slow by comparison.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Learning to Love the Microphone

Episode 2

Genres

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4