Channel 4 (UK)
Broadcasting in October 1995. It began broad-
casting in January 1997.
Chapultepec, Declaration of, 1994 Adopted
on 11 March in Mexico City by the Hemisphere
Conference on Free Speech, organized by the
Inter American Press Association (IAPA), the
Declaration states that ‘A free press enables
societies to resolve their conflicts, promote
their well-being and protect their liberty.’ Th e
defence of the freedom of the press is absolute
and unqualifi ed: ‘No law or act of government
may limit freedom of expression or of the press,
whatever the medium.’ Chapultepec rejects
prior censorship (Clause 5), the imposi-
tion of licences for the importation of paper,
newsgathering equipment and the assigning of
radio frequencies (Clause 7), and asserts that
no news medium or journalist may be punished
for publishing the truth or for criticizing or
denouncing government (Clause 10). See
talloires declaration.
Characteristics of mass communications
See mass communication: seven charac-
teristics.
Chequebook journalism A euphemism for
bribery – newspapers paying someone for exclu-
sive rights on his or her story. Th e police pay
their ‘snouts’ or ‘grasses’ for the common good;
the press pay their informants for tomorrow’s
headline, to serve the public’s ‘right to know’ and
to boost sales in the war for circulation. While
the UK Bribery Act (2010) which came into force
in July 2011 is primarily targeted at the worlds
of business, commerce and industry, it applies
equally to the media, covering both individual
and organizational behaviour.
Chronology News narratives on TV are often
compared to those of fictional stories (see
storyness) but there are obvious differ-
ences, an important one being divergence over
chronology. ‘In news,’ writes Allan Bell in Th e
Language of News Media (Blackwell, 1991), ‘order
is everything but chronology is nothing.’ Indeed,
in the news narrative the climax is reported fi rst,
whereas in a story this usually comes at the end.
Chronology has a low priority in the construc-
tion of news stories to the point where audience
has to be highly news-literate to follow what is
going on. Bell says, ‘Th e time structure of news
stories can make the shape of a diffi cult fi lm or
novel look straightforward in comparison.’ See
agenda-setting.
Churnalism When journalism is subjected
to demands for more and faster news content
in an era of 24-hour media provision and
demand, it is in danger of ‘churning’ out copy,can handle at a given time. To discover this limit,
it is fi rst essential to know how much uncertainty- or entropy – a given signal will eliminate. See
redundancy.
Channel 4 (UK) Under the direction of Jeremy
Isaacs, in 1982, C4 became the UK’s fourth
TV channel; the ‘quality’ arm of commercial
television. Jean Seaton argued in James Curran
and Jean Seaton’s Power without Responsibility
(Routledge, 1997) that Channel 4 was ‘... an
important (and perhaps the last) reinterpreta-
tion of the public service role of broadcasting. In
this version, the freedom of creative individuals
to risk making the programmes they want to
make is seen as the guarantor of public good’.
Seaton identifies a number of reasons for
the establishment of Channel 4: the need for
television fare to better refl ect Britain’s growing
cultural diversity; the need to widen the terms of
political debate on television; the need to foster
greater creativity in programme-making; and
the need to address the requirements of niche
or minority audiences. In addition there was
also the desire of the then Conservative govern-
ment to subject the duopoly to the infl uence
of market forces. Th e adoption by Channel 4 of
the publisher–contractor model for programme-
making, and the subsequent boost to the inde-
pendent production sector, was one of the ways
it was hoped that these needs would be met.
Th e new organization quickly became a major
sponsor of independently made movies, drama
series and documentaries. From the start the
channel set out to challenge established ways
and attitudes. Much of its programming was
international in theme, whether the subject
was poverty in the Th ird World or American
football. Th e new channel proved the argument
for broadcasting – mixing popular viewing with
minority-interest programmes and showing that
the entertaining could be combined with the
serious without sacrifi cing standards.
C4 became the first channel to provide a
full hour of news daily. It was to create a high
reputation for the funding of feature fi lms, some
of which, like Four Weddings and a Funeral
(1994), proved worldwide cinema successes.
Th e broadcasting act, 1990 cleared the way
for C4 to negotiate directly its own advertising
revenue. The Welsh fourth channel is called
Saniel Pedwar Cymru (S4C). See communica-
tions act (uk), 2003; ofcom: office of
communications (uk).
Channel 5 (UK) The Independent Television
Commission of the UK awarded Britain’s fi fth
national terrestrial TV channel to Channel 5