Broadcasting graphic war violence: the moral face of Channel 4

Drawing on empirical data from Channel 4 (C4) regarding the broadcasting of violent war imagery, and positioned within Goffman’s notion of the interaction ritual (1959, 1967), this article investigates how C4 negotiate potentially competing commercial, regulatory and moral requirements through processes of discretionary decision-making. Throughout, the article considers the extent to which these negotiations are presented through a series of ‘imaginings’ – of C4 and its audience – which serve to simultaneously guide and legitimate the decisions made. This manifestation of imaginings moves us beyond more blanket explanations of ‘branding’ and instead allows us to see the final programmes as the end product of a series of complex negotiations and interactions between C4 and those multiple external parties significant to the workings of their organization. The insights gleaned from this case study are important beyond the workings of C4 because they help elucidate how all institutions and organizations may view, organize and justify their practices (to both themselves and others) within the perceived constraints in which they operate

Max Miller plays with Freud's obstacle: Innuendo and performance technique in variety comedy

This article examines the performance dynamics of the variety comedian Max Miller's use of innuendo. I argue that whilst Miller's use of sexual humour fits Freud's basic model of obscene tendentious jokes, his techniques go beyond the forms of wordplay, which Freud discussed and are firmly situated in the performance itself. I draw on the various live recordings of Miller's act, as well as contemporary criticism, the 'Little Kinsey' report into attitudes to sexuality, and theories of stand-up comedy and popular performance to analyse how stage persona and audience-performer rapport were central to conveying hidden sexual meanings