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THE UK’S LEVESON Inquiry continues to generate high levels of interest around the murky world of media responsibility and accountability, highlighting the fourth estate’s problematic relationships with other powerful institutions. But concerns about the manipulation and release of information to the general public are not new.
Governments have always been aware of the need to patrol media coverage of events, policies and politicians – even in times when the only onscreen news available was in the cinema rather than through an ever-expanding range of portable devices.
Coverage of the dynamic and conflict-ridden events unfolding in the first half of the twentieth century in Ireland coincided with the birth and development of the cinema newsreel, before it was replaced with television news in the 1950s. Post partition, governments North and South were highly aware of the possibilities of tapping into newsreel companies for PR purposes while Edward Bernays was still crafting his revolutionary philosophy of ‘spin’.
An acute example of this can be found in two films produced in the ostensibly peaceful1930s by the American March of Time company, which advertised competing versions of the ‘two Irelands’. The first film, Irish Republic (1937 – the title was prophetic rather than accurate) celebrated Irish industry and was strongly supportive of Éamon de Valera’s government. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, was depicted as violent and aggressive and Unionists are described as ‘implacable haters of their neighbours across the Free State border’. The film ultimately calls for ‘one indivisible nation’ as a the only solution to ongoing conflict.
However, Ulster vs Éire was made a year later – with the assistance of the government of Northern Ireland – in an attempt to ‘set the record straight’. In this film, the North is constructed as industrial, enterprising and loyal to the British Crown whilst the South is shown as rural, backward and economically inferior. Significantly, much of the footage used is the same as the previous film but the commentary frames these scenes in a very different way.
The fact that these two films, made only a year apart by the same company, offer almost contradictory renderings of the ‘Irish question’, testifies to the manipulability of the newsreel industry by forces of authority.
On the outbreak of the Second World War, so wary was de Valera of British wartime propaganda that all references to the belligerents were banned from Irish cinemas. In the case of the newsreels war was almost completely erased from the cinema screens for audiences in the south of Ireland. Whilst audiences in Northern Ireland watched a newsreel output which contained an estimated 85 per cent war-related material, viewers in the south watched neutralised stories about sporting events and personalities.
De Valera’s concern about the purveyors of British propaganda swaying the opinions of Irish audiences was not unfounded: coverage of Irish neutrality in newsreels screened throughout the UK was often problematic. One example was British Paramount News’s Ireland – the Plain Issue (1942) which suggested that the southern Irish people were backward, insular, shared their houses with pigs and lived under the rule of ‘dictator’ de Valera.
Conversely, Northern Ireland was congratulated for its support of the war effort, its plucky and enterprising nature and its industrial pursuits. Although clumsy, ill-advised and ultimately withdrawn from distribution after a limited exhibition, the film was symptomatic of attempts by the newsreels to send a message that Éire should enter the war on behalf of the Allies.
Despite strict censorship regulations, Southern citizens could still travel to Northern cinemas to see war news and there was an expectation that at least some of these propaganda messages could filter through the border. It was only at the end of the war that films and newsreels banned by the Official Irish Censor appeared in cinemas, the first time in six years that war footage was made readily available to southern Irish audiences.
As the split in viewing meant that Northern audiences had access to images of German concentration camps before those in the South, neutral Ireland’s expression of condolences, through its Taoiseach, on the death of Adolf Hitler in May 1945 was seen as a repugnant act by people in both Britain and Northern Ireland: a telling example of how the timing and context of the release of news (and in particular, visuals to back up details covered in the press and on radio) can directly influence public opinion.
This contrasting experience for audiences North and South not only reflected but also reinforced partition, testifying to the power of media images in the construction of national identities. The relationship between governments and news agencies has historically been fraught with difficulties. Currently, in an age where it is claimed the internet has democratised news dissemination, it is interesting to watch the ways in which storms of controversy associated with media power, political instititions and the release of information to the general public continue to rage.
Ciara Chambers is a lecturer in film studies at the University of Ulster. For more on Ireland’s relationship with cinema newsreels, see her book Ireland in the Newsreels, published by Irish Academic Press.
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Shelly, if your standard of writing is anything to go by then your results should be excellent. Superb piece.
Best of luck Shelley and all the other leaving cert students.
You are correct that these results are not the end of the world, they are a stepping stone, question tomorrow will bring is which direction you will step towards.
I did my leaving 7 years ago, and still remember the fear in the weeks leading up to the results. I didn’t get what I wanted (perfectly respectable points etc, but 15 off what I needed), but I wanted to stress to ALL the LC students that there is ALWAYS another way in to the area you want. I ended up doing a PLC which fed into a degree course, and now I have better degree than I would have gotten had I gotten the points.
Please don’t get too bogged down in tomorrow, it really isn’t the end of the world.
Good luck to you all!!
Well said Lauren
If this was an essay for the English Leaving Cert Paper One, I’d have given her about a B3.
Just wait until all of these naive, apprehensive sods have to fend for themselves in the real world. A bit of tension over Leaving Cert results will seem like a walk in the park by comparison with struggling to get a job, pay rent and afford food and bills for oneself. Enjoy the scrounger days while you can, teenagers!
Whether this is an A or a B grade article depends on the ‘Purpose’. Remember? Purpose, Coherence of Delivery, Aesthetic Use of Language, Mechanics.
Dinosaurs –
Skinny at one end
Fat in the middle
and skinny at the far end. Full stop.
Sorry – I just thought it would be better to say something more sensible than the crap Orly has to say…………. get a life child ….. and perhaps a friend – you’re going to need some with that negative attitude………
I had all but forgotten P.C.L.M.! For one thing, the headline of the article; that which gives it “Purpose”, is a sentence which doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fit the appropriate criteria for a headline, displaying a lack of capital letters and questionable syntax. I should read:
“Fearing Expectations of Failure – How the Wait for the Leaving Certificate Results Feels” or something like that. What is there is just appalling.
Moreover, the “Wednesday” theme is unconvincing and juvenile – a Junior Cert tactic, perhaps; never something you would employ for your Leaving Certificate or at third level.
Peter, not having friends is definitely the biggest problem faced in the real world, after the Leaving Certificate. Oh woe, how I wish I had a friend!
:P
Agreed with the above poster that you’ve nothing to worry about if this is how you write. Come Monday afternoon, results will be gone and done and dusted.
the bell curve is there for a reason. statistically, everyone wants to do the same courses. if you want to be different, then you have to think outside the bell curve. would be interested to know what your top choices were on cao form were?
I’m getting my LC results tomorrow too. Oddly enough, I didn’t have that familiar looming feeling right until yesterday, I always thought I did much better than I needed to. Now I’m not so sure. Point is my results didn’t suddenly become worse overnight but my attitude changed, upon seeing nervous Leaving Certs and reading wonderful articles such as this. One thing you got to do is feel auspicious about tomorrow and don’t succumb to general panic.
It will all work out in the end, if it’s not working out it’s not the end!
P.S. Lovely Aesthetic language.
And in case any of you good people were wondering how Shelley got on??
600 well deserved points
worth 420 points in old money.
Rememer Shelly…… Trinners is for Winners!
WIT, TIT, LIT et al is for Losers!……………..
Funny…I know more people who’ve graduated from TCD who are now out of work than other colleges like DIT/DCU etc. Maybe if their courses were slightly more applicable to modern industry it wouldn’t be so….
Am I the only one who keeps having nightmares about tomorrow? The last one I failed everything except for Irish and…erm ..footing turf…which I got an A1 in…I think i’m spending too much time in the bog
I kept having nightmares for at least fifteen years. Mind you, I failed. Twice.
Its going to be the longest Tuesday of our lives.. isnt it?
The leaving cert is out dated. College students do assessments and exams throughout the year plus are able to repeat the exam again a couple of months later if they fail but we put our young kids through 5 years to 6 years of secondary school just so they can sit one exam – have a bad day and fail and have to repeat the full year.
Come on, if the college structure is good enough for our future doctors, lawyers why can’t it be used in secondary school?
How many teens have committed suicide over the leaving cert? One is too much!
Time for a change!
I am very glad you wrote this. One extremely high stakes exam can not accurately measure the knowledge, intelligence, or strengths of a person, yet it really can effect the rest of your life. It is completely unreasonable. I am writing an article about depression and suicide caused by leaving cert stress and results, and would love to hear from people.
It can only serve those who are good at taking tests, and it robs them of the joy of learning when test cramming becomes the norm.
If this article is any indicator, I’m sure you’ll do just fine. One thing to remember though is in some industries, your leaving cert does follow you around! No matter how much under graduate or post grad studies you do, companies still ask about your leaving cert results and from speaking to my recruitment department in work, it is a factor for applications. I’m speaking from experience in Accounting and I have a masters in the subject.
Shelley definitely got an A in English anyway!
Oh Shelley I’m so proud of you for writing this article!! It really sums up how most of us are feeling, and I too counted my weeks by Wednesday!
And Shelley definitely deserves an A in English, judging by all the work she put in the past two years :)
Good luck Shelley! I agree with the above that you will have nothing to worry about, what a fantastic piece of writing x
You can actually do many PLC courses without an LC (despite the name!).
i still get anxiety dreams about the leaving cert and im 25!
Haha, so do I! Only recently I dreamed I was being made sit the English Paper 2, but hadn’t read the texts!! Good luck to everyone, unfortunately the nerves are a rite of passage :(
The Leaving Cert. has been around for a while but most useful things we know have been around for much longer and evolved over millions of years. LC is a fairly short chapter in the big book. Basically, what I’m saying is that in the big picture, it isn’t significant at all.
Without a Leaving Cert you’re fecked, You’ll be lucky if you can get job packing shelves in Tesco!
I really enjoyed reading this piece , very well written and it brought back my own memories of the leaving cert results looming….that was 31 years ago…. Wow ! Well my son is waiting for his results tomorrow and I have no doubt that he did his best and it all boils down to the points system and will his efforts gain him a place in his chosen college/ University? We will have to wait and see. . . .
Good luck to every one who are awaiting their results and remember it is a stepping stone not the end , but a beginning to moving forward.
Well said Shelly. Best of luck tomorrow. Nearly over Thank God. x
There is a life after the Leaving Certificate. Remember that!
I remember only to well the fear in me the day I got my results 4 years ago. The 10 minute walk down to the school that felt over an hour, all the way getting phone calls. It seemed for every person happy there was one disappointed. When I got down I went in to the vice principle to pick up that brown envelope and sat in the tea room chatting my friends and after 2 cups of tea I finally gathered the courage to open it! Thankfully I got my points and went to NUIG. I was thrilled! I checked it the next year and I would not have gotten into the same course a year later had I tried. I would have missed out by 5 points!
Through out the summer before that day was the best of my life so far! No cares, no more school and if I’d not gotten into NUIG I would have been in AIT. I wasn’t pushed at the time
Well, after reading this article, I at least know one person who’s getting a big fat A1.
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