![Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5927/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Information-Science2.jpg"})
Abstract
Drawing on manuscripts and transcripts of BBC programme output, and material from the Radio Times, and the BBC’s The Listener magazine, this article analyses radio talks and programmes that focused on Sweden in the immediate years after the Second World War when the Swedish model was widely popularised abroad. The article argues that BBC output entangled domestic politics and transnational ideas around post-war reconstruction and welfare. Sweden was used as a lens through which a modern welfare state could be visualised and justified. This was however Utopia in two senses since the image of Sweden presented was in itself a highly idealised representation.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge and thank the staff at the BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park, Reading, UK. The author would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 My 1000-mile tour of Sweden by Marjorie Banks, 8 November 1946, Radio Times, Issue 1205: 1 November 1946.
2 Nicholas, The Echo of War, 228.
3 The report is officially titled Social Insurance and Allied Services, however, often called simply the ‘Beveridge Report’, after William Beveridge, who was commissioned by the government to report on the future of Britain's post-war social security and reconstruction.
4 See Addison, Now the War Is Over; Hennessy, Never Again; and Jones and Kandiah, The Myth of Consensus.
5 Fielding, Thompson and Tiratsoo, ‘England arise!’, 36.
6 Nicholas, The Echo of War, 252.
7 Ibid., 253.
8 O. Rose, Which People's War?, 25.
9 Ibid., 25.
10 Betts and Crowley, ‘Notions of Home,’ 235.
11 Hennessy, Never Again, 119–83.
12 Hale, ‘British Observers.’
13 Glover, ‘Imaging Community.’
14 Bauerkämper, ‘Europe as Social Practice.’
15 Werner and Zimmermann, ‘Beyond Comparison.’
16 Lundberg and Tydén, ‘In search of the Swedish Model,’ 36.
17 Pred, Recognising European Modernities, 106.
18 Betts and Crowley, ‘Notions of Home,’ 228.
19 Hennessy, Never Again, 121.
20 Francis, Ideas and Policies under Labour, 229.
21 Cronqvist and Hilgert, ‘Entangled Media Histories.’
22 Ibid., 134–5.
23 Ibid., 134.
24 Betts and Crowley, ‘Notions of Home,’ 215.
25 See Tistedt, Visioner om Medborgliga publiker [Visions of Citizen Audiences]; Habel, Modern Media, Modern Audiences; and Nordberg, Folkhemmets röst [The Voice of the People's Home].
26 Nordberg, Folkhemmets rost [The Voice of the People's Home], 369.
27 See, for example, Lowe, The Welfare State in Britain since 1945.
28 Curran in Bailey et al., ‘Roundtable,’ 250.
29 Glover, ‘Imaging Community,’ 249.
30 Quoted Ibid, 251.
31 Langhamer, ‘Meanings of Home,’ 342.
32 Betts and Crowley, ‘Notions of Home,’ 229.
33 In Sweden, see interior and furniture designer, Lena Larsson in Hirdman, Lundberg and Björkman, Sveriges Historia [History of Sweden], 551–2.
34 Russell, Gordon. ‘New Ideas in Furniture.’ Listener [London, England] 7 March 1946: 299+. The Listener Historical Archive. Web. 10 July 2014.
35 Conekin, ‘Here Is the Modern,’ 236.
36 Woodham, ‘Design and Everyday Life,’ 474.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid., 463.
39 ‘Designed for Living’ Light Programme 12 November 1946, Radio Times, Issue 1206, 8 November 1946, available via: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/bb1b16ea6f38457e9c777ad8f38a73fb, accessed 19 April 2017.
40 Russell, Gordon. ‘New Ideas in Furniture.’ Listener [London, England] 7 March 1946: 299+. The Listener Historical Archive. Web. 10 July 2014.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 BBC WAC: ‘Window on Europe: Sweden’, 8 November 1946.
45 Ibid.
46 J Elias Svedberg, Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (art by Jakob Christensson), accessed 10 April 2018. https://sok.riksarkivet.se/Sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=34825.
47 Ibid.
48 Robach, ‘Design for Modern People,’ 196.
49 Russell, Gordon. ‘New Ideas in Furniture.’ Listener [London, England] 7 March 1946: 299+. The Listener Historical Archive. Web. 10 July 2014.
50 Ibid.
51 Fielding, Thompson and Tiratsoo, ‘England arise!’.
52 Quoted Fielding, Thompson and Tiratsoo, ‘England arise!’, 91.
53 Ibid., 92.
54 Ibid., 102.
55 BBC WAC: ‘Window on Europe: Sweden’, 8 November 1946.
56 Ibid.
57 ‘Amabel Williams-Ellis [by] Gavin Stamp, 31 August, 1984, Page 16,’ The Spectator Archive, accessed 1 May 2017, http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/1st-september-1984/17/amabel-williams-ellis.
58 Hennessy, Never Again, 172.
59 BBC WAC: ‘In Europe Today: Sweden the Middle Way’ by Amabel Williams-Ellis and Clough Williams-Ellis, 23 June 1946.
60 Ibid.
61 Rudberg, ‘Building the Utopia,’ 155.
62 BBC WAC: ‘In Europe Today: Sweden the Middle Way’ by Amabel Williams-Ellis and Clough Williams-Ellis, 23 June 1946.
63 Homer, ‘Creating New Communities,’ 63–5.
64 Ibid., 68–70.
65 Rudberg, ‘Building the Utopia,’ 156.
66 Hirdman, Lundberg and Bjorkman, Sveriges Historia [History of Sweden], 552–6.
67 BBC WAC: ‘In Europe Today: Sweden the Middle Way’ by Amabel Williams-Ellis and Clough Williams-Ellis, 23 June 1946.
68 Ibid.
69 BBC WAC: File R19/1453 Entertainment: Window on Europe 1945–1951, ADF to Wellington, 23 July 1945.
70 Ibid.
71 BBC WAC: ‘Window on Europe: Sweden’, 8 November 1946.
72 BBC WAC: File R19/1453 Entertainment: Window on Europe 1945–1951, Wellington to A/C (ENT), 11 March 1946.
73 Glover, ‘Imaging Community,’ 247.
74 BBC WAC: ‘Window on Europe: Sweden’, 8 November 1946.
75 The Face of Sweden, BBC Home Service Basic, 18 April 1940, Radio Times, Issue 863, 12 April 1940, available: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/d002e794dbd84b4187db1cc9ab7f7c72, accessed 24 April 2017.
76 BBC WAC: ‘Window on Europe: Sweden’, 8 November 1946.
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid. (emphasis original).
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid. (emphasis original).
82 Nordström, Lort-Sverige [Dirt-Sweden].
83 BBC WAC: ‘Window on Europe: Sweden’, 8 November 1946.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Andersson, Introduction to Sweden, photograph, 74.
87 BBC WAC: ‘Sweden’ by Georgie Henschel, Woman's Hour, 5 December 1946.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid.
91 Skoog, ‘Neither Worker nor Housewife.’
92 Beaumont, Housewives and Citizens, 165–88.
93 BBC WAC: ‘Gardening in Sweden’ by Frances Perry, Woman's Hour, 28 July 1947.
94 BBC WAC: ‘Christening by radio’ by Alan Ivimey, Woman's Hour, 1 August 1947.
95 Andersson, Introduction to Sweden, photographs 78 and 79.
96 BBC WAC: ‘Christening by radio’ by Alan Ivimey, Woman's Hour, 1 August 1947.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Gullers and Reichardt, Sweden, 61.
100 Habel, Modern Media, Modern Audiences, 10.
101 Daunton, Wealth and Welfare, 601–2.
102 Cronqvist and Hilgert, ‘Entangled Media Histories,’ 134.
![Supercharge Your Next Research Paper: Research and write your next paper with Jenni AI.]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/112447/MPU-L1HU.png"})