Critical Analysis of Financial Times “Are the British really the worst idlers in the world?”
The topic has been a longstanding motion, lurking on the fringes of British media. In 2012, five conservative MPs revived the argument after publishing a book called Brittania Unchained.
The book says:
“Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world.”
“We work among the lowest hours, retire early and our productivity is poor. Whereas Indian children aspire to be doctors or businessmen, the British are more interested in football and pop music.”
Ten years later, two of the authors — Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng — are now the prime minister and the chancellor respectively.
The genre of this story is a fact-checker article and it uses written and visual modes to help illustrate this.
How is the audience constructed:
The Financial Times (FT) constructs a British audience. The opening paragraph is set in a place called Surbiton and the author doesn’t provide any further detail about the place that might help a general audience get an idea of where this place might be.
For instance, if FT were trying to target a worldwide audience, they might describe the town or at least provide a reference point to its location (for example South West London).
Additionally, the story’s perspective has a British bias. The ranking graphs alongside commentary such as “lower than the US and Switzerland but higher than Sweden, Germany and France” highlight this.
This encourages the reader to think of themselves as singular, unified, individuals (Fulton 2005) and creates a “us” and “them” narrative.
Fulton continues, “This is the kind of stable subjectivity constructed for us by most media narratives because once placed in this subject position we are ready to be sold something.”
Character, setting and movement:
The characters and settings involved in the opening act of this story are intertwined.
We start the opening paragraph following five young typists in Surbiton, London. By the end of the introduction, we are now following two of the most powerful people in the UK. Prime minister Liz Truss and chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.
Although it is not said explicitly, we can infer that the setting is no longer in Surbiton.
The setting constructed in the opening paragraph is supposed to parallel Britain today.
The workers are working extra hours for free parallelling the unpaid internships that many young professionals take up to get job experience.
Additionally, the pound devalued in 1967, which draws parallels to UK’s current economy at the moment.
Moving into the second paragraph, the author signifies a time jump and switches from mimesis to diegesis to create movement in the story.
The opening paragraph shows a group of people being celebrated for working additional hours for free and the second paragraph tells us explicitly “Britain would be better off if people worked harder”.
Narrative Myth:
“When society’s core values are under threat — such as with physical or political violence- journalists switch to a cultural narrative that moves the public mind back toward the dominant cultural order.” Nossek and Berkowitz (2006).
The narrative myth this story is built upon is the idea that Britain has built itself up through hard work and is proud of its working-class routes.
During the recent conservative leadership election, Sunak and the eventual prime minister Liz Truss built their campaign around their alleged working class routes.
Fulton says, “As actual individuals who use media products, the extent to which we feel ourselves to be part of an audience depends on whether or not we feel addressed by a media text.”
Upon finishing the article, the audience breathes a sigh of relief as the narrative of the story draws the reader to reject the motion “Are the British really the worst idlers in the world?”
Fulton concludes “Media narratives tell us stories about who we think we are, and in so doing they skilfully reproduce the freely choosing consumers of global capitalism.”
Critical points
I would have provided some additional information about Surbiton.
Surbiton isn’t an iconic London area such as Wimbledon or King’s cross. I’d like to believe most people outside of London probably don’t know where the suburban town is. Simply stating “South West London” would help drive the narrative forward as the reader feels more grounded in the setting.
The story is heavily dependent on its audience relating to the narrator’s perspective.
To further develop this relationship, the article could benefit from adding a short interview with a political figure who agrees with the points put forward in this story.
The author concludes, “business investment has been weak in the UK by international standards” but doesn’t provide any data or statistical analysis to show this to the reader. It would be great if the article included graphs to show this.
Social Media Use
The author used Twitter to share their story. She published a thread of tweets that excellently summarised the key takeaways from the article.
Each tweet contained a graph from the article with a caption that succinctly explains them. The thread gathered mass interactions and it is something I have noticed the FT writers do really well. A skill I would like to learn and develop.
Financial Times Story:
References
Fulton. H (2005), Introduction: The Power of Narrative. In Narrative and media, Cambridge University Press.
Berkowitz. D, Nossek. H (2001), Myths and news narratives: Towards a comparative perspective of news, Ecquid Novi-African Journalism Studies. Vol 22.
