Business, Law and Social Sciences

There exists a discrepancy between how the news media portrays the drinking habits of the lower classes namely the 'underclass' and the working class, compared with the middle class and celebrity culture in Britain today. Using critical discourse analysis this research explores why the social classes are portrayed differently, who decides on this portrayal and why, as well as the social ramifications of such portrayals. This exploration will extend to the wider social issues which affect the discrepancy in media portrayal. Firstly by looking specifically at the nineteenth century, the social history of Britain's drinking culture and the class struggle that exists, as this was a period which highlights middle class dominance and has transcended the generations. Secondly, the acceptability of alcohol in British society and how this acceptability differs, dependent on the social class you belong to, according to media construction. Thirdly, an examination of class in modern Britain and how immunity is granted to the middle classes from condemnation from the media and the processes of the Law due to their perceived respectability and use of private and public space. Finally, media influence and how the news media is a business which seeks to increase its profits by being used as a tool in the transmission of ruling class ideology.

This paper will present the preliminary findings from interviews conducted with 24 community police officers involved in the organisation and policing of the Inverclyde Initiative.  The initiative was delivered by Strathclyde Police in Inverclyde Sub-Division as a multi-agency approach to tackling youth crime and anti-social behaviour in Inverclyde.  The central focus of the paper will be on the community police officer attitudes towards this initiative in the policing of problematised young people in hot spot areas within Inverclyde. The discussion will centre upon how the officers define their complex role in policing these young people. This paper will contribute to criminological literature in the area of community policing.

This study aims to identify and examine discourses of national identity which are distributed by the media in relation to sporting events. To typecast entire nations as having a single or collective identity with personable features is clearly untruthful and potentially damaging in the construction of ideologies and representations of nations and thus, their individual members. A small group of close friends of a particular nationality will no doubt share similar interests and qualities, but even within this small group there will be a range of differing personalities and traits. Yet sports’ reporting is consistently filled with national stereotypes, and similar specific themes and discourses arise constantly and are attributed to entire populations. Sport and sports’ reporting therefore has the power to change people’s perceptions and attitudes towards other nationalities because sport and the media have become inherently intertwined.

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The true role of drinking in Edwardian Britain was much more humdrum. Beer was the basis of leisure. It took the place which later became filled with cigarettes and television. Children would fetch jugs from the pubs for tired parents to relax at home at the end of the day. At funerals, at weddings, at harvest, at the initiation of apprentices, at ordinary work breaks, a glass of beer would be exchanged. 1

To the medically uneducated public [meat and malt wines] undoubtedly seem a most promising combination: extract of meat for food, extract of malt to aid digestion, port wine to make blood-surely the very thing to strengthen all who are weak and to hasten the restoration of convalescents. Unfortunately, what the advertisements say-that this stuff is largely prescribed by medical men-is not wholly true. 1 In an article in The British Medical Journal in 1898, Dr F. C. Coley argued that doctors should warn patients and the general population to be wary when buying meat and malt wines. The problem with tonic wines was that they made bold therapeutic claims about the healthgiving properties of alcohol based on flimsy medical evidence. Although the therapeutic use of alcohol was generally supported and propagated by doctors who wrote prescriptions for alcohol, it was important that its therapeutic use remains within the boundaries of medical control and not be thrown open to 'the medically uneducated public.' In other words, alcohol still had a place in medicine but the general public could not be trusted to use it wisely or responsibly. Yet despite the reservations of the medical profession, tonic wines were a commercial success and the idea of drinking for health was popular among alcohol consumers. Foley's argument highlights one of the main concerns about the marketing of tonic wines expressed by the 1914 Commission on Patent Medicines, which investigated the supposed endorsement of these CHAPTER 10

Chapter three investigates ideas about the ‘great army of drinkers’ that continued to drink alcohol despite moral pressure and political control of alcohol sale and consumption. One of the richest sources of information on alcohol consumers lies within the reports of parliamentary enquiries on alcohol held during the second half of the nineteenth century. During these enquiries, witnesses from across Britain gave detailed accounts of drinking within their towns, cities and districts. This provides insights into different types of drinking behaviour and also into the ways in which alcohol consumers were imagined and portrayed.

This chapter considers the tactics of the brewing industry by focusing on one of the largest and most successful brewers in Britain, Bass & Co. Ltd. In order to compete in a growing domestic and foreign market for beer, Bass began to use advertising as a means of reaching larger groups of consumers. By appealing to notions of Britishness and Empire, Bass secured a market for their products and established a strong brand image. The company also used ideas about the supposed health giving properties of beer in order to boost dwindling sales towards the end of the century.

On the guests being seated at the table: It is not unusual, where taking wine is en regle [customary], for a gentleman to ask a lady to take wine until the fish or soup is finished, and then the gentleman honoured by sitting on the right of the hostess, may politely inquire if she will do him the honour of taking wine with him. This will act as a signal for the rest of the company … at many tables, however, the custom or fashion of drinking wine in this manner is abolished, and the servants fill the glasses of the guests with various wines suited to the course which is in progress. 1