CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

THE COLD WAR

 From reading an edition of The Observer from the 1960s I learnt that people were very worried about the Cold War.

With the rise of the Soviet Union to global power, the UK and the US were concerned about the spread of communism across the globe. This affected the way Russians were reported in the media and inter-UK Russian relations were portrayed. The Cold War is considered to have begun in 1947, 2 years after the end of WW2. This war was not what could be considered a 'hot' war in which active combat occurs, instead most combat is subtle and done through spying and gathering intel on your enemy. This was most prevalent in the media when Russian spies were caught in the British government and were subsequently prosecuted. However, in some cases spies would have gotten so high up in British government ranks that if it came out to the media Britain would be completely humiliated. So some spies would face any charges at all.

Western audiences were concerned about the Cold War at the time as they felt the spread of Communism meant their freedoms may be lost. The general public was also concerned about a potential USA vs Russian war. This was because of the first-ever use of a nuclear bomb in warfare at the end of WW2. The Cold War involved a nuclear arms race between the USA and USSR which if upscaled to a full-on conflict could've meant devasting damage and loss of life to each nation. A lot of this fear was amplified by propaganda produced by both sides of the war.

In this edition of The Observer from the 1960s, we also see how women are portrayed in the media. Women were rarely seen in headlines or on the front cover of newspapers as at the time it was thought that women should stay home and live more family-oriented lives and not have jobs. The 1960s were the very first rise of women who wanted to not have families and be a part of the workforce. We see three women portrayed in this edition, the Queen of England, Jane Asher and a drawing of a woman for a lingerie advertisement. In my opinion, the most significant woman to be portrayed is Jane Asher as she has no grand title allowing her to be there and is not shown as an 'object' to advertise a product she is on the front cover portrayed as herself in an article.

It is also noticeable how there is no colour print on the front cover of the paper unlike what we would expect in news today. There is also no skybox on this cover. There is a much larger broadsheet with 8 columns in it compared to what we would see today. These elements allow us to see how media differed in the past from today.