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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Talk: Interval Signals

Traditionally, most of the BBC relay stations all over the world has delivered so-called the 'Bow Bells' interval signals a few minutes before the start of the BBCWS English transmission of a particular shortwave frequency.

Until 2006, the relay station in Kranji, Singapore had delivered the interval signal. If you tuned into 9740 kHz at 8.00 or 9.00 GMT and 15360 kHz at 0.00 GMT in the Far East, you could hear the 'Bow Bells'.

However, recently the station does not seem to send out the signal any longer. In addition, 'exchange' relay transmissions via NHK shortwave plant on the Japanese mainland, which had always sent out the signal, through 9605 and 11945 kHz have ceased.

Strangely, so called 'B-B-C toned' interval signals are still transmitted by the time the Chinese Mandarin morning broadcast of the BBC World Service is beginning to start. (If in the Far East, tune into 6020 or 6090 kHz in the morning!)

I wonder if other BBC relays have ceased delivering the interval signals or the are still carried out. How about other relays in UK mainland (Skelton, Rampisham, Woofferton), Cyprus, Oman, and Ascension Island?

(NOTE: let me excluse the BBC relay in Nakhon Sawan Thailand; it has never sent out the 'Bow Bells' interval signals.)

Stats & Languages

Is it really necessary to have a list for all the languages? Could they not just as informatively-- perhaps more impressively-- be telescoped into a normal paragraph? i.e.

Albanian, Arabic, Azeri, Bengali, Burmese, Caribbean English, Cantonese, French, Hausa, Hindi, Indonesian, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mandarin, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese for Africa and Brazil, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

I think that looks better. Comments?

SimonTrew (talk) 20:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Trouble with DAB reception

I know this is off-topic in the sense it is not about the article but the article's subject. But I should like to know if anyone else has this problem, purely in case it is notable on the article.

I tend to work nights (British time i.e. UTC + 1 for summer, UTC + 0 for winter) and listen to world service during the night. Last week it was not the advertised programming but the African service. Quite enjoyable but not as advertised. Now (SimonTrew (talk) 02:29, 25 September 2009 (UTC)) it is simply not available and reverts to Radio 4 which is BBC 4 Schools i.e. programmes broadcast deliberately in the small hours for teachers etc to record. I wonder if any others have had, in the small hours (1am-5am BST, 12am-4am GMT oh UTC if you must) had odd experiences? guess is it is not the feed itself but the metadata, but I don't have a mediumwave or longwave radio here any more.

I just put the wireless to FM and it picks up world service on the R4 feed (as it is, at 93.30Kh). Which definitely indicates it is the DAB feed that is erroneous, or if deliberate, not advertised. They did say on R4 it would switch to schools, so I switched over to World Service, but it was dead after the switch over. Pah

And yes I remember how carefully "This is London" was announced so that others could come in or out before or after. I lived in some strange places. I miss this "This is London" too.

Signing off, oh two thirty hours, greenwich mean time (da da da da da da da da da... dadadadadada da ada da da ,, ) S,

At 4am BST (UTC + 1) it switched back to World Service on R4 DAB. world service still dead on DAB as its own channel. This could be notable, not for this incident but it is happening a lot, it seems, I recorded two the african spell and this one, and I know this is primary if that but I listem to it a lot. I am not expecting you to take my word for it, please not, but I will get on to BBC Engineering to decide why it is not on DAB.

It is coming through the cable TV about 3 seconds before the DAB on R4. SimonTrew (talk) 03:12, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Aim section

This section contains three citation needed tags that have been there for some considerable time. The first one relates to a quote from Thatcher, supposedly in Hansard, and has been tagged since 2006. There is no record that I can find in the online Hansard [1] (note that you can narrow the search down by year), and googling the full phrase give no hits except wiki mirrors. Some variants appear on blogs and forums but never with a precise reference. I propose to remove it unless someone provides a reference.

The second tag belongs to the "Some would argue" sentence in paragraph 3. This kind of editorialising has no place in the article - since it has been tagged since 2006 again I will remove it unless someone can provide an appropriate reference to someone "arguing" this.

The last tag belongs to the sentence claiming that the world service is widely respected in parts of the world where the media is not free. Again this needs a reference, and has been fact tagged for a long time. If I can't find a source I will remove it.

Lastly, the figure for government spending on the w.s. is out of date and uncited. I should be able to find a source for this.

All in all, the article needs some serious work... 86.15.141.42 (talk) 23:23, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Now done. 86.15.141.42 (talk) 12:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

"radio network"? / BBC Arabic TV / BBC Persian TV / BBC Turkish

The info box describes BBC WS as a "radio network". Isn't that a bit limiting, considering for example that they broadcast TV in Arabic and Farsi and make TV programmes for Turkish television? Griffindd (talk) 11:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Condolences, and welcome

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject BBC. BrainyBabe (talk) 00:47, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Worldwide?

Following the recent and previous cuts in BBC transmissions to Europe and elsewhere the claim to worldwide coverage in the infobox is looking a bit thin. The BBC argues that Europeans will still be able to listen in via digital television channels and internet. Alas these are a different kind of and far less portable media than radio. Welcome to the "Bits of the World Service" Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 00:06, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Corrections

BBC world service no longer transmits on shortwave to the Carribean.96.230.232.49 (talk) 23:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 October 2019

please change {{EngvarB|date=April 2014|date=September 2019}} to {{EngvarB|date=September 2019}} which fixes the error introduced in the edits by User:DocWatson42. also change </br> to <br/> which is the proper self-closed br tag. 98.230.196.188 (talk) 23:05, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. I'm sorry that I did not notice that there were two date format templates crammed into one, along with the Devanagari characters—I was concentrating on the latter. I also added a {{Plainlist}} for the slogans in place of the HTML break tags. —DocWatson42 (talk) 23:30, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 June 2020

2401:4900:230A:D171:D173:E4B2:B33C:4017 (talk) 19:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Danski454 (talk) 19:51, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2021

Hello. Currently, in the "History" section, there is an un-sourced statement that reads: "In August 1985 the service went off-air for the first time when workers went on strike in protest at the British government's decision to ban a documentary featuring an interview with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin."

I am hoping someone with an account can add one, or all, of the following sources that confirm this:

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/08/world/british-newscasts-stopped-by-strike.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/08/07/bbc-world-service-falls-silent/057453eb-f526-49f4-962c-8fb8045c2ab6/

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-08-08-ca-3574-story.html

Thank you!

--23.28.91.150 (talk) 20:09, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

23.28.91.150,  Done! Please use the {{edit semi-protected}} template in future. —Belwine (talk) 20:15, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 June 2021

2A01:4B00:8862:2F00:70A0:441A:AE30:7FC2 (talk) 13:56, 2 June 2021 (UTC)BBC World Service and BBC Persian are funded by the British Foreign office
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:05, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 December 2021

Change the sentence fragment found on the summary from

The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest of any kind.[1]

to

The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest international broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach.[2]

the reason being that a) "of any kind" is vague and b) the original sentence is a runoff and grammatically nonsensical. - 2001:4453:5C9:CE00:90BE:E96A:AB1:6E2A (talk) 17:35, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Microsoft Word - The Work of the BBC World Service 2008-09 HC 334 FINAL.doc" (PDF). Retrieved 16 February 2011.
  2. ^ "Microsoft Word - The Work of the BBC World Service 2008-09 HC 334 FINAL.doc" (PDF). Retrieved 16 February 2011.
 Done Morneo06 (talk) 22:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 February 2022

Please change the image in infobox from File:BBC World Service.png to File:BBC World Service 2019.svg given that PNG version had low-resolution image compare to SVG one. 36.77.110.109 (talk) 04:14, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 15:46, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

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Cleanup 2012

I would recommend doing a few things to this page to improve the accessibility, notably adding all the details of services added/lost to the history section and having the current language services displayed more prominently. I am willing to do this but decided to give a warning. Rafmarham (talk) 15:15, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

This has now been completed. I have made the history section and languages more prominent and made the whole article easier to read and understand to someone coming to the article for the first time. A new operation section has been included, detailing the base and current broadcast methods of the different language services. I hope that this has met the approval of readers as sometimes an article needs an overhaul like this to bring it up to date. Rafmarham (talk) 15:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Bias in comparison to RT article?

After reading both the RT article and the BBC article it is apparent that the two, while both being funded by their respective governments. Wikipedia itself says that: "The World Service is currently funded by grant-in-aid through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government" , "The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a department of the United Kingdom government. It is responsible for protecting and promoting UK interests worldwide." while RT specifically states that: "RT, also known as Russia Today, is a government-funded[1] global multilingual television news network based in Russia. It was founded in 2005 as Russia Today by the government-owned[2] RIA Novosti." "RIA-Novosti said in a statement issued last month that it is "neither a sponsor nor a backer of Russia Today" and merely participated in establishing the channel as an Autonomous Non-Profit Organization, which provided for its complete legal, editorial and operational independence." Therefore the BBC article should be edited to reflect the same degree of severity that the RT article has against it, or the RT article should have its severity lessened. --Hentheden (talk) 15:08, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


BBC Caribbean

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:BBC Caribbean#Service closure in 2011. -- Trevj (talk) 09:51, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Outlook - notable enough for an article?

With thirty years' history and more, should there be a separate article on Outlook? (Full disclosure: I recently made a brief appearance on this program.) --Orange Mike | Talk 17:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Absoultely so. I would create it myself if I had more time. Uvghifds (talk) 22:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup 2013

I don't know enough of the detailsI don't know enough of the detail to fill in what's missing, but the article reads confusingly enough to suggest a need for more cleanup. For instance, there's no mention of the General Overseas Service, though the cited BBC publication says the Overseas Service was renamed the General Overseas Service in 1943, and though there's an internal Wikipedia link for "General Overseas Service." Also, the article says the External Services became the World Service in 1965 (which I think is accurate), but later the article says this happened in 1988. Wbkelley (talk) 06:33, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

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198kHz LW service at risk?

I'm sure I saw some talk elsewhere that this frequency was only going to be maintained as long as their remaining two transmitter tubes remained usable, and once they burned out that was it... possibly on a Radio 4-specific article, as the WS shares R4s frequencies in the UK. But, given the range of Longwave, and the frequency sharing, wouldn't that make the issue as pertinent to the WS as R4? After all, if they had a second transmitter, parts could be shared, so that suggests there's only the one.

(It's a silly thing as well, really - I don't expect there's any great magic to the ~200kHz frequency range that means you HAVE to use a discontinued type of tube to amplify it, rather than a MOSFET or similar; there's plenty other LW stations surviving in the world, and in any case you could probably use a high-end computer soundcard these days to create a pre-modulated signal to feed into a higher frequency transmitter for some sideband fun. I think it's merely an excuse to drop that service at some undefined but probably very distant point in the future... keep an eye out for a quiet, mostly buried announcement that "oh, an engineer was working to replace the burnt out tube with the final working one... but slipped, dropped and smashed the new one... so that's that". After all, it probably costs a bit to run in terms of electrical power alone and doesn't reach too many license-fee paying patrons...) 193.63.174.211 (talk) 10:36, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

License-fee paying is irrelevant - the World Service is funded by the FCO. 31.52.253.172 (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Criticism and controversy

Criticism and controversy - just one item covered in a single five-line paragraph. Really? 31.52.253.172 (talk) 15:44, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

You are wrong. There is no longer such a section. Clearly the consensus appears to have become that the BBC World Service is flawless, uncontroversial and agenda free.92.237.196.75 (talk) 17:16, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

BBC Overseas Service anti-communist propaganda

The article history section is missing coverage of BBC Overseas Service anti-communist propaganda activities and its collaboration with the Information Research Department. Here are some sources covering the topic:

--MarioGom (talk) 09:14, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I suggest a few minor touch-ups, mostly to make future editing easier (rearranging the fields in order of appearance, adding spaces before the pipe characters to make the text more readable and enable it to wrap in the editing box), and adding a few missing items:
  • {{cite book |last=Defty |first=Andrew |year=2004 |title=Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda, 1945–1953: The Information Research Department |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r46RAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=twopage&q&f=false |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780203495193 |oclc=7390527929 |ref=harv}}
  • {{cite book |last=Schwartz |first=Lowell H. |year=2009 |title=Political Warfare Against the Kremlin: US and British Propaganda Policy at the Beginning of the Cold War |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NJnWCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=twopage&q&f=false |location=Basingstoke, UK |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |doi=10.1057/9780230236936 |isbn=978-0-230-23693-6 |oclc=1050060435 |ref=harv}}
  • {{cite journal |last=Wilford |first=Hugh |year=1998 |title=The Information Research Department: Britain's Secret Cold War Weapon Revealed |work=[[Review of International Studies]] |volume=24 |issue=3 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=353–369 |doi=10.1017/S0260210598003532 |jstor=261219 |ref=harv}}
— DocWatson42 (talk) 04:14, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Scholarly criticism

I noticed that this article sorely lacked balance (especially vis-a-vis the article on RT News or CGTN, channels that serve a similar purpose even if the editorial control is far less obfuscated) namely, in regards to not only how the World Service is perceived around the world (especially in Iran, where it has a particularly contentious history and a lot of material, both scholarly and vernacular, has been written on its impact on local politics) within its historical foundation as a means of enforcing British cultural standards and perspectives throughout its colonial empire: Thus, I have included a lot more material (most of it well-referenced, no fringe sources) but also on how the BBC perceives itself: I have limited access to the BBC Written Archives Centre, and have put that to good usage, although I have also made reference to the Guardian and Al Jazeera as well (the latter a bit ironic, though I imagine no one would object).

I have been very careful not to misconstrue the context of the original information, and have done my due part to convey the exact meaning of what the original authors meant in regards to their views or opinions on the BBC (and these are no mere fringe authors, e.g Sir Harold Beeley). I imagine that there shouldn't be any reason to find the material I included as contentious.

PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 06:14, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I've been meaning to research this more myself. Thanks for taking up the mantle! An interesting set of accusations I saw towards the BBC was by the Chinese government's press conference during the back-and-forth about the Uighur's. It is an interesting claim and she quotes from a UK book when the press asks her where the information came from. And cues up a video. MOFA: BBC is not trusted even in the UK. CaribDigita (talk) 14:17, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think a youtube video can be used as a source like this. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 18:13, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I am not meaning add that video since then it peaked my curiosity about BBC. They mention a book by David Sedgewick out of the U.K. CaribDigita (talk) 18:27, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

User:RenatUK made this edit:

→‎Promoting propaganda and British soft power: WP:OR There is not a single word about "propaganda" in the section undothank Tags: Reverted Visual edit

That is patently false. I've reference a number of times to this primary source of scholarly research by former career diplomat (so hardly a fringe opinion) Sir Harold Beeley, which states literally in the first sentence:

"Britain's international propaganda is conducted through three principal agencies: the official Information Service, the External Services of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the British Council."

I even included the direct quote into the citation so that it wouldn't be misconstrued as WP:OR. I'm going to assume you made a mistake, but please be careful to read the sources in the future before deciding that they don't support the content. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 18:37, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@PeaceThruPramana26 please do not make edits like this - diff. See WP:ONUS. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. I removed this content and explained why. So it is expected that you will wait until we discuss this content, before including it again. Renat 18:42, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Your explaination wasn't satisfactory. For starters, you said the source didn't reference 'propaganda', when the word 'propaganda' is mentioned in the very first sentence. Secondly, you didn't even consult the talk page; You simply made a unilateral reversion without even looking at the page. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 18:45, 27 February 2022 (UTC) As for this claim:

→‎top: You will better and newer sources for this. 1 source: 1971? Really? WP:OLDSOURCES; 2 source: old opinion piece; 3 source: old with no page number

It's in reference to an event that happened in the 1970s! of course the primary sources are going to date from the 1970s. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 18:40, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@PeaceThruPramana26 you reverted it again. I do not understand your editing behaviour. It is very difficult to discuss something, when one side is trying to push its edits. I would like to ask to you to self revert. Renat 18:47, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

But you haven't made a justification of your edits. You just keep telling me to revert and that you have an issue with the content on the page, but won't explain what exactly it is, or something that I haven't already explained (e.g, why I used the word 'propaganda').

So what is your issue with the edit? Why is a source from 1973 too old to talk about something that happened in 1973? Please explain your contention. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 18:49, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@PeaceThruPramana26 "But you haven't made a justification of your edits" I did. And you even cited it here, in this section. In order to call the BBC World service a propaganda organisation in the infobox, we will need a lot high quality new sources. Why? Four main reasons: 1) WP:EXTRAORDINARY. 2) WP:OLDSOURCES. 3) WP:RSOPINION. 4) The BBC World Service in 1941 is not the same as the BBC World Service in 2021. The BBC World Service changed its leadership, structure and regulatory documentation many-many times. It is an old organisation, yes.
What do we have at the end? You are adding "propaganda" to the infobox only because of one 1971 source, one 2012 opinion piece and one 2012 source that has no page number so we can not even verify it. This is not enough to call the BBC World Service a propaganda organisation in the infobox. Renat 19:32, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Propaganda descriptor in infobox

Should the BBC World Service be described as propaganda in the infobox? — Newslinger talk 19:03, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Survey

  • No. Inadequate consensus in academic sources. Compared to the sources listed for the propaganda descriptor on the RT (TV network) article (on the talk page and in the article), the sources that label the BBC World Service with this descriptor are lacking in quantity and depth. This comparison is a false equivalence. — Newslinger talk 19:03, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
    Please explain in depth how the sources are "lacking in quantity and depth". This should be an interesting conversation. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 19:23, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
    Let's start with a brief overview. In terms of quantity, there are only 2 peer-reviewed academic sources (from 1971 and 2012) cited here for the BBC World Service. In contrast, on the RT (TV network) article, there are 6 peer-reviewed academic sources cited for the propaganda descriptor (citations). Different facets of RT's propaganda have also been examined in detail, with 8 peer-reviewed academic sources describing RT's propagation of disinformation (citations), and 4 peer-reviewed academic sources describing RT's propagation of conspiracy theories (citations) – some of which are also in the preceding groups.
    When you also factor in reliable non-opinion news sources, it's not even close: there's a non-exhaustive list of 30 different sources substantiating the descriptor on Talk:RT (TV network), compared to just the 2 academic ones here (since the Al Jazeera piece is explicitly labeled as an opinion piece). I'll have more to add to this discussion later. — Newslinger talk 21:25, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes Sources are all archival or primary scholarly sources (e.g, Sir Harold Beeley is yet one source who I use for the claim that the BBC World Service is intended for the purposes of soft power and propaganda, and he should know, considering that he worked for the organization that funds the BBC) that can be verified and adequately demonstrate the intention for propaganda and soft power that the BBC is used for. Afterall, it's not like the Foreign Office funds the World Service out of the pure good of their hearts, it explicitly wasn't financed for years from the licence fee explicitly because it was propaganda (this is also the same reason why BBC World Service is not available terrestrially in the United Kingdom). I think the conclusion that the sources are "lacking depth" compared to the sources on RT (which in my humble irrelavent opinion, are actually quite shoddy since they quote the Atlantic Council--an interest group--and opinion pieces from the Washinton Post, which is corporate billionare media) should be one that is scrutinised carefully for what it means. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 19:23, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
    Nowhere in the source given is it said that the BBC was financed for years from the licence fee explicitly because it was propaganda, and unless things have changed recently, it always has been available terrestrially in the United Kingdom. Not many UK people choose to 'tune in', since the (English) content is simpler and made accessible to those whose first language isn't necessarily English. Pincrete (talk) 18:01, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
  • No. There are two components, that are required in order to include something like that: 1) reliable up-to-date sources; 2) consensus among these sources. What kind of sources do we have in this case? The first source was published in 1971. The second source is an opinion piece (WP:RSOPINION) and its author talks about the BBC of the 1950s. The third source is also talking about the BBC prior to 1970. This is obviously not enough. Old weak sources, let alone the second component for inclusion. Infobox -type parameter reflects only relevant and up to date information. --Renat 22:11, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • No, for the reasons given by RenatUK and Newslinger. My personal opinion (OR) is that the label is probably correct, but we do not have sufficient sourcing to include it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • No, such a strong WP:LABEL would need strong support and consensus. To me they appear to have significant bias, but that’s a long way from planned and organized propaganda campaign. And my view isn’t citeable. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

A survey/poll/vote goes against multiple Wikipedia policies, whether you agree with those policies or not. Specifically WP:NOTDEM and WP:Vote. Giving your opinion on how pages should be written is the purpose of talk pages; Wikipedia operates on consensus, not voting. Use reliable, verifiable and citable information to move towards that consensus. — Bacon Noodles (talk • contribs • uploads) 20:20, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Please note that templates such as {{collapse top}} and {{collapse bottom}} are intended only for off-topic discussions, and not to hide on-topic comments submitted by the majority of editors in an active RfC, per WP:COLLAPSENO. I've removed the templates for that reason. If and when this RfC is formally closed, the closer will evaluate comments in the Discussion section the same way they evaluate comments in the Survey section; the sections are for organizational purposes only, and there is no consensus to disallow them (please see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Archive 18 § Survey sections). — Newslinger talk 07:39, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
  • No, insufficient sourcing to put something like this in a template as undisputed fact, although it should definitely be discussed in the body somewhere, perhaps more than the few brief mentions of wartime propaganda we have currently. See eg. the abstract here, which discusses it in a way that makes it clear there are concerns worth covering but also that it's clearly not something we could treat as indisputable propaganda in the article voice. See here as well. Plainly the BBC World Service claims to be impartial; that claim is obviously disputed, but it is given enough credence that we cannot outright dismiss it in the article voice - we should likely cover the dispute over it in more depth in the article itself where we can go into more detail and back-and-forth than is possible in a template. Also, I should point out that I don't think that soft power and propaganda necessarily have the same meaning; a broadly-accurate and relatively impartial news source can nonetheless be a form of soft power. --Aquillion (talk) 05:20, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • No, while the source from 1971 [2] and the one from USC in 2022 [3] are interesting and relevant for attributed discussion in the article body, they are by no way sufficient to make such a broad claim in the infobox. Cedar777 (talk) 17:36, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
  • No, certainly not something that is an undisputed fact. If this was the case, there would be many similar claims in the literature, but there aren't. Hogo-2020 (talk) 17:37, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
  • No, insufficient sourcing to put something like this … as undisputed fact per others. The Al Jazeera says specifically (of the overthrow of Mosaddeq): “Even the BBC was used to spearhead Britain’s propaganda campaign. In fact, Auntie agreed to broadcast the very code word that was to spark revolution.” … "Even the BBC …" actually implies that propaganda was not the normal function of the World Service and agreeing to broadcast a code-word that the Beeb may not have understood, hardly amounts to being inherently propagandist. Also conflating wartime (WWII) and peacetime World Service is just plain silly, the wartime function of all news and other media was more "morale-boosting" and thus to a degree propagandist than in the nearly 77 years since. Is the World Service 'soft power'? Certainly, but so are The Beatles, Elvis, Dickens, Shakespeare and the English language itself. If anything "soft power" is the antithesis of propaganda, to the extent that propaganda has come to imply selective and manipulatively presented information and argument. Pincrete (talk) 17:26, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

— Newslinger talk 21:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, it's a flat-out no, on a number of grounds. The first of which is how a book detailing the BBC's place in the world, until 1970 (52 years ago) has relevance in describing it as active state-sponsored "propaganda". I don't want to undermine the source, as I have only done minimal checking and not read it, but if it does have a place, it would surely be in the History section, as opposed to a position as prominent as describing its output as propaganda for the UK, comparable to Voice of Korea. — Bacon Noodles (talk • contribs • uploads) 14:45, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
    Thought it was worth mentioning, Voice of Korea doesn't use the word "propaganda" in the actual article, emphasising the significance of including it on BBC World Service. — Bacon Noodles (talk • contribs • uploads) 14:47, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Why is an article or book on the BBC World Service's foundation as a tool for propaganda considered obsolete if neither the partial government funding, the mission, nor the ultimate control lying with the Foreign Office has changed? Everything except the name that has been mentioned in Sir Harold Beeley's article is exactly the same as it is today, except that the licence fee now partially supports the WS and there has been some reshuffling of brands, but the programme is still exactly the same. Is there any source that would challenge the claims made by Sir Harold Beeley et. al. that would render them anachronistic sources?
  • RE: Voice of Korea: It doesn't have the word 'propaganda' in the article (though given it's history and mission as the voice of the ruling Worker's Party of Korea, it probably should), but Press TV, RT News, (whose article ironically uses Western propaganda published on Medium as a valid source) and Al Jazeera, all of which have in common with the BBC World Service being [partially]state-funded, foreign ministry-controlled external broadcasters created for the purpose of exporting soft power and interests abroad, use the word in their respective articles; The only thing I can think of that differentiates these external broadcasters from the BBC or VOA or RFE or France24 is that the latter three don't express Western points of view. Aside from that, I reiterate the fact there is very little difference in funding, control, or purpose. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 23:07, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
    Per the verifiability policy, Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. The RT (TV network) article uses the term propaganda because of the overwhelming consensus in academic and reliable news sources that RT is a purveyor of propaganda (referred to with the exact term propaganda), all of which are recent reliable sources due to RT being founded in 2005. In this RfC, your comments have cherry-picked a couple of the non-academic sources in the RT (TV network) article that you have reservations about, but your comments do not address the vast majority of the 30+ reliable sources I mentioned. On the other hand, the few sources provided for the propaganda descriptor for the BBC World Service article are insufficient to establish such an exceptional claim in the infobox.
    Maintaining soft power and promulgating propaganda are not the exact same thing, and should not be conflated with each other. Promulgating propaganda is one of the many possible activities that can be taken to maintain soft power; an entity that maintains soft power is not necessarily an entity that promulgates propaganda. The connotation of the term propaganda has become more negative over the past century, which shows why a critical mass of recent high-quality sources that describe the BBC World Service's current operations as propaganda is required to justify using the term in the infobox:

Even if in 1939 Cultural Propaganda or public diplomacy did exist under various forms, but, those actions were not labeled as Public Diplomacy.22

Footnotes

22 At the time often, actions labeled today as pure Cultural Diplomacy would have been labeled as "Propaganda", at the time a word without negative connotations. Many European countries use to have at the time a "Propaganda ministry" or at least a Propaganda department (Germany, Italy Romania etc).

Jora, Lucian (March 2013). "EU External Communication Capacity - Steps from a Research Agenda". Cogito: Multidisciplinary Research Journal. 5 (1). Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University: 117. ISSN 2247-9384 – via HeinOnline.

In recent times, entities that do not have a reputation for publishing disinformation (something that RT has a reputation for publishing) are less likely to be described as propaganda. The BBC World Service does not have a reputation for publishing disinformation; in fact, it was trusted as a reliable source of information by leaders of the Soviet Union (during a non-recent time period), despite allegations made in Soviet publications:

The BBC World Service was particularly successful among Western international broadcasters in portraying itself as a relatively trusted source of valuable information to its listeners in the Communist bloc, particularly towards the end of the Cold War. A 1984 Soviet treatise on the BBC’s ‘history, apparatus, methods of radio propaganda’, while denouncing the BBC’s Russian language broadcasting as politically motivated anti-Soviet interference, admitted that these broadcasts were difficult for the Soviet authorities to discredit, describing them as ‘factological propaganda’ whose bias ‘can be uncovered only by means of a specialised, lengthy and painstaking analysis’. Even those leading the Soviet Union turned to the BBC at times of crisis: Mikhail Gorbachev famously tuned into the BBC’s Russian Service while under house arrest during the failed military coup against his leadership in December 1991, stating in a press conference soon after his release that ‘the BBC was best of all’ in helping him to keep up to date with developments while cut off from the outside world.

Thus, the BBC World Service is generally not described as propaganda, especially in recent reliable sources that cover its current operations in the context of today. — Newslinger talk 09:29, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Newslinger: even if the strategy of successive British Governments- of all political persuasions- in funding the BBC World Service has been to assert soft power, it's demonstrable that its tactics have for many years been to do so by making accurate information available to listeners abroad. That tactic argues strongly against any accusation that it's a tool of propaganda. MarkMLl (talk) 16:40, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the characterisation that BBC isn't propaganda because it provides 'accurate news (let alone the idea that BBC gives off accurate news, which is a contentious opinion that only seems to be echoed in the West, and thus isn't really WP:GLOBAL). For example, in India there is seen to be a massive anti-Hindu bias in the reportage of the World Service from lay journalist and academic alike, which has been heavily documented here; Providing acccurate information (a claim which btw, is contested by many academics, especially in the Global South) has nothing to do with propaganda, as propaganda need not necessarily be misleading, but to persuade one's opinion towards another direction. From the Brittanica's own definition:

Propaganda is the more or less systematic effort to manipulate other people’s beliefs, attitudes, or actions by means of symbols (words, gestures, banners, monuments, music, clothing, insignia, hairstyles, designs on coins and postage stamps, and so forth). Deliberateness and a relatively heavy emphasis on manipulation distinguish propaganda from casual conversation or the free and easy exchange of ideas. Propagandists have a specified goal or set of goals. To achieve these, they deliberately select facts, arguments, and displays of symbols and present them in ways they think will have the most effect. To maximize effect, they may omit or distort pertinent facts or simply lie, and they may try to divert the attention of the reactors (the people they are trying to sway) from everything but their own propaganda.

As the BBC World Service:

  • a.) is government funded for an intended purpose of soft power and global influence;
  • b.) seleects facts, arguments and displays of symbols and presents them in a way that they think will have the most effect;
  • c.) omits and distorts pertinent facts;

I would say in this case, the BBC World Service is still clearly propaganda, except that they practice by omission and distortion, not outright lying (which is rarely ever done these days). They are still by any academic definition considered as propaganda. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 04:47, 6 March 2022 (UTC)


As per the quote:

2 At the time often, actions labeled today as pure Cultural Diplomacy would have been labeled as "Propaganda", at the time a word without negative connotations. Many European countries use to have at the time a "Propaganda ministry" or at least a Propaganda department (Germany, Italy Romania etc).

This is irrelavent, since the BBC is not cultural diplomacy, but ran by a government agency for the projection of soft power and to influence public opinion  : i.e, it is propaganda. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 04:50, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

  • Using a dictionary definition and then arguing that something meets it is WP:OR / WP:SYNTH. But more generally, you are definitely right that sources exist criticizing the BBC World Service's claim to impartiality; the problem is that in order to describe it as propaganda in the article voice, it isn't sufficient that criticism exists - we'd have to show that the best sources more or less unanimously agree on that or treat it as settled fact. I don't think that's the case - a lot of sources cover it as an active dispute. I would suggest writing a section in the article about the dispute over the BBC's purpose and its claims of impartiality instead. (See eg. the sources I linked above, especially the George Orwell quote in the first one, for possible places to look.) It's just that a template doesn't allow us that sort of nuance, so putting it there would require essentially complete unanimity. --Aquillion (talk) 05:20, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • No What sort of twisted extreme regime, or more likely its fellow travellers, would consider the World Service to be propaganda? Like the rest of the BBC it has its bias issues resulting from the groupthink of its editorial cadre, but to dismiss it as propaganda is sheer apologism for dictators and oppressors easily in breach of WP:FRINGE.Romomusicfan (talk) 12:12, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
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