This chapter highlights the fact that the BBC's representation of empire during the Second World War is both challenging and revealing. Consistent with its policies from the 1930s, the BBC broadcasted a considerable number of empire programmes. But during the war, the empire and Commonwealth had to be constructed with even greater deliberation and precision. The BBC continued to employ the empire as a symbol of British unity and common effort. The themes of the benevolence of British rule and imperial unity, well established in the programmes of the 1930s, continued during the war. Three aspects of the BBC's projection of empire during the period 1939–53 are that, first, empire programmes during and after the war emphasized the full equality of the Commonwealth, second, the BBC promoted an image of empire that could accommodate itself to declared war aims and third, progressive themes such as the Commonwealth ideal of brotherhood and the ‘professional empire’ continued after war, but the mid-1940s also saw a revival, in broadcasting, of rousing and racist juvenile imperial fiction.

This chapter offers an introduction and reconsideration of regional broadcasting in Britain. As part of this effort, it examines an important, but overlooked, aspect of broadcasting history and regional broadcasting during the Second World War. For, although the BBC suspended its regional networks during the war, regional programmes continued to be made and broadcasted on the home service and forces programme, which is a completely ignored part of the broadcasting history. Another example of English disregard for the Scots, Welsh and Irish, wartime regional broadcasting saw the BBC, for the first time, project a truly multi-national image of Britain as regional productions had to be carried by the one of the two national networks.

This chapter argues that the BBC played a pivotal role in helping to remake the monarchy into a symbol of British diversity. The BBC presented the coronations of George VI and Elizabeth II as celebrations of Britain's multi-national make-up. Each of the BBC's regions carried its own special coronation programmes, and the regional networks covered royal visits to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland extensively. Each region related to the monarchy in its own way, and the BBC persistently pointed out the multi-national nature of the monarchy. The monarchy and the BBC found their relationship mutually beneficial. George V and other royal broadcasters gave radio a legitimacy it was lacking in the early years of broadcasting. The BBC, in turn, helped maintain the popularity of the monarchy by providing it with a powerful new means of communication. The BBC projected the monarchy as an apt representation of the diversity of Great Britain and the British Empire and framed monarchy as an ideal that united Britons under the umbrella of Britishness, but also respected other national, regional and local identities.

This chapter outlines a theory of micro-mobilisation, which explains the emergence of punk in London between late 1975 and the end of 1976. It argues that music worlds emerge as an effect of collective effervescence within a networked critical mass of actors who are defined by shared interests of some sort. The chapter also outlines a theory of the emergence of music worlds. Music worlds are a form of collective action and they arise through a process of mobilisation and collective effervescence. This is only possible, however, where a critical mass of interested individuals are connected to one another in a social network, or at least where sufficient interest among appropriately resourced individuals within a network can be mustered. The chapter considers the role of homophily and 'social space' in the process of world formation.

This chapter tracks the evolution of London's punk world and the network which underpinned it. It investigates the formation of ties between pioneer punks, the emergence of punk's stylistic conventions and the broader relational dynamics and division of labour between protagonists. Network graphs and measures are referred to, but only in so far as they inform discursive attempt to fit the process of punk's emergence together. The chapter suggests that the Sex Pistols' gigs played a big part in the growth of London's punk network. It explains the basic mechanisms of network formation. Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's shop served as a magnet, drawing likeminded individuals into a common space, servicing their (fashion) needs and facilitating the formation of a network which, in turn, cultivated the collective effervescence that gave birth to punk.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is about punk and post-punk as social worlds or 'music worlds'. The transformation of punk into various forms of post-punk in Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield between 1977 and 1980 focuses primarily upon the structure and dynamics of emergent music worlds. The book discusses the concepts of 'critical mass' and 'social networks'. It charts and explains the evolution of London's proto-punk network between January 1975 and December 1976, before punk 'went national'. The book reviews the most often cited explanations of punk in both the sociological and the wider literature, identifying strengths, flaws and gaps in these explanations. It considers how talk about punk migrated from face-to-face networks to mass media networks.

This chapter suggests that the network of Britain's post-punk world between 1976 and 1980 involved elements of network structures. It begins by looking to complexity science, a branch of academic inquiry which precisely addresses the question of coordination in very large systems, from insect swarms to neural networks. The chapter discusses two theories of network structure which show how very large networks are sometimes characterised by relatively short average path lengths, a property which, in turn, makes effective, efficient coordination and diffusion possible. One of these theories, posited by Duncan Watts, hypothesises a structure involving numerous dense clusters, connected by 'weak ties'. Watts's model envisages small world networks as tightly integrated clusters. The other, posited by Albert-Lászlo Barabási, suggests a structure centred upon a small number of hubs, each with a huge number of connections to other nodes in the network.