I have to confess to being a reader of the Saturday edition of The Daily Mail newspaper, and that my days as a weekend Guardianista are long gone. There is something about the indignation of the Mail which appeals to middle age. I'm sure that other forty something plus women will know what I mean. The Saturday edition does, however, usually last me until the following weekend, whilst I now catch up with other news online.
Today's Mail is the usual maelstrom of indignation, and perhaps surpasses itself on the subjects of culture, in particular with regard to the Arts Council and new media in the form of Google. The latter American import is singled out partly because of its close links with the office of the Prime Minster, and the Arts Council because of chair Dame Liz Forgan's fall-out with the Mail's Quentin Letts, himself a cultural aficionado. In short, Google and the Arts Council are respectively regarded as threats to British culture, in the form of contemporary creative industries and national heritage, but for very different reasons.
The article on Google is accompanied by a picture of the British singer Adele, whose music has recently exceeded that of Madonna and Bob Dylan in popularity (ie sales), and who was featured on last week's BBC Radio 4 "Profile" programme. Google's search engines are demonised for promoting pirated downloads of Adele's music. The Arts Council, on the other hand, is blamed for promoting multi-culturalism through encouraging better representation of ethnic minorities in the management of cultural institutions.
My own view of the Adele phenomenon is that this is a manifestation of "The X Factor" generation - or Generation X Factor perhaps - in both the UK and the US, where she is even more successful. An anti-American attack on Google, therefore, seems rather out of place. In recent surveys Google comes out as the most trusted global brand, ahead of all other media organisations. Rupert Murdoch, please take note ! The reason for this is, quite simply, that Google provides choice. Some of its choices may be crass, offensive and even illegal, but the ability to choose is what the modern punter wants, including, I imagine, most Daily Mail readers, the majority of whom will also subscribe to the Google preference.
The Prime Minister's desire to foster links with Google, therefore, seems entirely reasonable. "Brand Britain" is after all looking rather jaded, but for reasons that go beyond the arts and media dimensions of culture. Nevertheless, media and the arts are important dimensions of the national psyche, which is certainly in a state of confusion about issues such as multi-culturalism and the vexed subject of political correctness. Part of this confusion arises from the mix-up of multi-culturalism, with an emphasis on diversity and equal opportunities, with political correctness, which is now widely used as a form of explicit or implicit censorship. To their credit, new media organisations like Google have enabled this important difference to be clarified through the blogosphere.
As people of privileged position, both Quentin Letts and Dame Liz Forgan, previously a senior BBC executive, do not have need of new media channels to conduct their cultural conflict. Personally, I have sympathy for both positions: Forgan for standing up for unfashionable multi-culturalism and equal opportunities, and Letts for challenging the culture of political correctness which is like a canker at the heart of many British institutions. A more open and truculent public debate about what culture merits government funding and what should be left "to the market" is certainly needed, the more important question is just how this might happen.
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