Class composition: John Axon, cultural debate and the British left

Harker, B 2009, 'Class composition: John Axon, cultural debate and the British left' , Science & Society: A Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis, 73 (3) , pp. 340-356.

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Abstract

This article presents influential BBC documentary radio programme The Ballad of John Axon (1958) as a text which refracts, recodes and intervenes into anxious debates within the late 1950s British left about shifting class formations, working-class investment in consumer capitalism and the attempt to formulate an appropriate cultural strategy. It contextualises the programme with reference to the writing of New Left intellectuals Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart; it also reads the programme as a critical response to the hesitant cultural policies of the post 1956 Communist Party. It argues that in complex ways the radio programme’s nostalgic construction of contemporary reality is generated by an impetus to contain late 1950s economic, social and political shifts within the framework of older and now contested modes of political analysis and organisation.

Item Type:	Article
Contributors:	(Author)
Themes:	Subjects / Themes > D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain Subjects / Themes > J Political Science > JC Political theory Subjects / Themes > M Music and Books on Music > M Music Memory, Text and Place Subjects outside of the University Themes
Schools:	Schools > School of Humanities, Languages & Social Sciences Schools > School of Arts & Media > Arts, Media and Communication Research Centre
Journal or Publication Title:	Science & Society: A Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis
Publisher:	Guildford
Refereed:	Yes
ISSN:	0036-8237
Depositing User:	B Harker
Date Deposited:	26 Nov 2010 15:35
Last Modified:	30 Nov 2015 23:37
URI:	http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/11558

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