Contemporary Images and Ideas of the Home Front

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, conflict and war are geographically distanced from domestic life and civilians are neither endangered nor conscripted in Britain. Yet the Home Front and the domestic and local consequences of war have never had a higher profile. This can be seen in the storylines of television dramas, the popularity of the Military Wives Choirs and the introduction of the Elizabeth Cross which, since 2009, has been awarded to the next of kin of members of the armed forces who are killed on active service. The growing concern for families and wives of those serving in the forces and an interest in the domestic consequences of war is to a significant degree a direct consequence of the role that television plays in mediating war and conflict for public consumption. Broadcasting is a domestic medium; audiences consume television and radio in their homes. In the 1930s when radio shifted from being an ‘unruly guest’ to becoming ‘a friend in the corner’,¹ it adopted an intimate mode of address which placed the broadcaster unobtrusively at the listener’s fireside. Since then broadcasting’s linguistic style and the focus of many programmes has privileged personal and family concerns; domesticating and arguably feminising the airwaves. Thus the lexicon of images broadcasting provides for its viewers to witness and imagine war is frequently concerned with the consequences of armed conflict on home and families.