[Commlist] Call for Papers: Liberalism Inc - 200 Years of the Guardian

_Initial Conference Call for Papers_

*Liberalism Inc. - 200 years of the Guardian*

Goldsmiths, University of London, Saturday 9 May, 2020

Keynote speakers: Priya Gopal (author of /Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial 
Resistance and British Dissent/) and Alan Rusbridger (author of 
/Breaking News /and former editor-in-chief of the Guardian)

In May 2021, the Guardian turns 200. From its inception in Manchester in 
1821 as a response to the murder of ordinary people by soldiers in the 
1819 Peterloo Massacre to its historic identification with centre-left 
politics, the Guardian has long been a key institution in the definition 
and development of liberalism. The stereotype of the ‘Guardianista’, an 
environmentally conscious, Labour-voting, progressively minded public 
sector worker remains part of the popular mythology of British press 
history.

Yet the title has a complex lineage.

The Guardian advocated the abolition of slavery in the US, criticised 
the Boer War, backed women’s suffrage and supported the Republican cause 
in the Spanish civil war; it has published some of the most celebrated 
examples of investigative journalism – from the breaking of the phone 
hacking scandal to Edward Snowden’s revelations of US and UK 
surveillance programmes.

Yet it owes its existence to a cotton merchant determined to head off 
more radical ideas at the start of the Industrial Revolution; it opposed 
direct action by the suffragette movement; has at various times called 
for a vote for the Conservatives, Social Democrats and Liberal 
Democrats; supported the First Gulf War and the NATO bombing of 
Yugoslavia; and has been accused more recently of consistently 
denigrating Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. It has both 
fiercely defended the need for fearless, independent journalism and 
handed over documents and hard drives to the authorities; it has carved 
out a niche for itself in the UK press market as a progressive voice but 
has also consistently diminished more radical projects to the left.

Its business model is equally distinctive. It has been owned by the 
Scott Trust since 1936 and has been partially protected from the 
proprietorial interference that its counterparts have always faced; it 
has led the way in innovative design and formats and it now champions a 
membership model with some one million people signed up to the scheme.

Its forthcoming anniversary provides an opportunity for academics, 
researchers, historians and journalists to assess the contribution of 
the Guardian to British politics, society and culture through a major 
conference. We are looking for a range of contributions from more 
theoretical reflections on its foundational principles to empirical 
assessments of specific features of its coverage. In particular, we are 
looking for papers on:

·Historical and theoretical accounts of liberalism

·Issues of balance, bias and sourcing in Guardian journalism

·Press power, partisanship and propaganda

·The history of the Guardian with an emphasis on its founding in 1821

·Its party political affiliations and election endorsements

·Its reporting of women’s liberation and gender issues

·Its coverage of race and empire

·Foreign reporting with a particular interest in its coverage of UK 
military interventions

·Its reporting of Israel and Palestine

·Its business model: critiques of Trust ownership, Guardian membership 
and international expansion

·Its commitment to investigative journalism

·Newsroom culture and internal democracy

·The shift from ‘hard news’ to comment and opinion

·Philanthropic funding and branded content

·The Guardian, surveillance and national security

Selected papers will be invited to submit to an edited collection to be 
published in 2021 ahead of the Guardian’s anniversary.

The conference is organised by the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research 
Centre and will be held in the Professor Stuart Hall building at 
Goldsmiths, University of London in New Cross, South East London on 
Saturday 9 May 2020.

Please send your abstract of approximately 300 words to 
(goldsmithsleverhulmecentre /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(goldsmithsleverhulmecentre /at/ gmail.com)>. We will also consider 
panel proposals.

Deadline: 30 September 2019.

For more information, contact the conference organisers Des Freedman 
((d.freedman /at/ gold.ac.uk)) and Becky Gardiner ((b.gardiner /at/ gold.ac.uk))

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