从1988年到1994年，英国政府努力审查广播媒体对北爱尔兰冲突的报道，这引发了严重的政治和社会问题, 电子游戏软件历史学家和爱尔兰电子游戏正规平台教员罗伯特·萨维奇说, but also had its moments of absurdity.
禁止播放支持暴力的政党代表的直接声明, BBC雇佣演员为被排除在外的政治人物的视频片段配音, such as those from Sinn Féin; the actors spoke the words in real time along with the person whose voice was being dubbed. But the British government still found fault with the tactic, said Savage, a professor of the practice in the History Department.
Robert Savage
“高层官员担心演员们演得太好了, 观众可能因此认为他们听到的是新芬党代表的真实声音,” explained Savage, author of the recently published book Northern Ireland, the BBC and Censorship in Thatcher’s Britain. “演员们必须得到指示，不要让他们的声音与电影中的人物太过同步, so that the overdubbing was obvious. 换句话说，这些英国官员希望人们知道音频是伪造的.”
The censorship law, and the degree of micro-management it engendered, 是玛格丽特·撒切尔首相长期以来对媒体——尤其是英国广播公司和独立广播管理局——的不信任的高潮吗, or IBA, networks—she saw as opposed, if not downright hostile, to her interests and policies including those related to “the Troubles,” Savage notes in the book.
Northern Ireland, the BBC and Censorship in Thatcher’s Britain 是萨维奇在爱尔兰广播公司出版的系列丛书中的第四本吗, and picks up from its predecessor, The BBC’s Irish Troubles: Television, Conflict, and Northern Ireland—which was released in 2015, 不久之后，BBC公布了撒切尔执政时期的档案资料, 包括内部通信和与政府官员和其他新闻机构的通信.
这本新书探讨了广播媒体和撒切尔政府之间在北爱尔兰冲突的各种爆发点上不断升级的紧张关系, including the 1981 hunger strike by IRA prisoners; a deadly IRA bombing attempt that Thatcher narrowly escaped; the killing of three Provisional IRA members in Gibraltar, followed by a loyalist’s attack on the funeral for the three in West Belfast; the killing of two off-duty British soldiers who drove into an IRA funeral procession; and a planned, but never aired, 1988年9月内政大臣道格拉斯·赫德在禁令发布前接受新芬党主席格里·亚当斯的电视采访.
“When Britain instituted the broadcast ban, countries with authoritarian regimes, like Cuba, 评论了这个民主灯塔压制新闻界的讽刺意味.”
这是英国在治理北爱尔兰问题上最值得质疑的决定之一, according to Savage, 广播禁令——也适用于一些亲英的忠诚组织——未能缓解冲突，也损害了英国作为全球领先的民主国家的声誉.
“The British government was obsessed with its image worldwide, 他们最不想要的就是被认为是在压制言论自由,” he said. “Thatcher herself said that ‘no viable democracy can institute censorship,’ but she bullied the BBC constantly, 发表威胁性的公开声明，并让她的盟友加入BBC理事会，以影响其运作. When Britain instituted the broadcast ban, countries with authoritarian regimes, like Cuba, 评论了这个民主灯塔压制新闻界的讽刺意味.”
As Savage points out, for decades, 英国广播公司的北爱尔兰地区电台与统一党有着密切的关系, loyalist/Protestant establishment, and hardly included the Irish nationalist/Catholic perspective. 但是，当民族主义者/天主教团体在20世纪60年代末开始要求民权时, and the sectarian conflict began, BBC和其他英国媒体更加努力地报道这一之前被低估的观点.
“By the 1970s, BBC意识到他们没有关注住房歧视问题, voting, and employment that had fueled Catholic resentment, and by doing so had failed as a public service broadcaster,” said Savage. “They tried to right this wrong, 并开始质疑导致暴力的政府政策, 让政府相信BBC和其他媒体有左翼偏见. 当撒切尔夫人(1979年)成为首相时，这种矛盾升级了:对军队和警察的批评, she believed, provided the ‘oxygen of publicity’ for the IRA. This was unacceptable, in her eyes, because it undermined the rule of law.”
Press coverage of organizations or individuals espousing violence, such as terrorist groups or mass shooters, has long been a source of controversy. But the British ban was problematic, according to Savage, because it applied to a popular political party, Sinn Féin.
Sinn fsamin被描述为爱尔兰共和军的政治分支, 但它也是一个老牌政党，其成员是民主选举产生的,” he said. “Meanwhile, 英国广播公司正在采访其他国家冲突中的战斗人员，这些国家的政府谴责这些冲突是由恐怖分子或颠覆分子发动的, such as the African National Congress in South Africa. There was a significant disconnect.”
1994年，决定性的北爱尔兰和平进程开始，政府最终取消了这一禁令.
“强加审查制度是一次不成功的尝试，目的是控制国内和国际观众对这场冲突的叙述. 显然，当时没有像今天这样的多平台或多来源的新闻. A two-minute segment on the national news could be very influential: The Foreign Office remarked that media coverage of Bloody Sunday in 1972 had ‘undermined all our work; now we’re seen as oppressors.’ The stakes were high.”
As a project for his Film, Media, and Modern Ireland class this semester, 萨维奇和他的本科生们从伯恩斯图书馆收藏的共和党和保皇派海报中组织了一次展览，这些海报目前正在历史系展出.
Sean Smith | University Communications | February 2023