By Mursi Saad El-Din In July 1956 I participated in the PEN Congress held in London. The theme of the event was "the author and the public: problems of communication", and it was clear that the participants' main concern was, as C V Wedgwood, the eminent English historian who was president of the congress, aptly put it, the use of the new media of communication -- television, radio, cinema. We must remember that in 1956 television was an innovation, and most writers were wary of the effect it would have on their profession. Of course communication technology has gone a long way since, but it would not be amiss to refer to some of the opinions expressed by writers from across the world, since they constitute an interesting parallel to our present situation. The inaugural address was given by R A Butler, minister of education, and in it he dealt with what he called "the mass audience". Here I would like to quote the minister, the better to clarify what he meant: "The problem of the mass audience faces men of letters just as surely as it faces statesmen and politicians. There has certainly been no lack of gloomy prophecies about the debasing of standards that may too easily result." The minister went on to pose questions: "Are we to maintain that secret inner fire, the contact between individuals which is true art, and in the face what are called mass media which are our only means of communication with the public? Or are we all to descend together and take the intervals between [television] advertisements?" Butler asked the questions, he most certainly gave no answers. Yet watching our own TV programmes during Ramadan I can see exactly how rhetorical those questions were, and how prophetic his statements have since proved to be. It seems that both drama and shows are squeezed, as it were, between endless strings of advertisements. Going through the final report of the congress which dealt with mass communication in the relation to criticism, history and biography as well as poetry and fiction, one can feel the differences of opinion expressed as regards the mass media. J B Priestly stressed the fact that writers should go seek out the audience wherever it may be, and try to learn the new techniques demanded by the new -- mass -- media. He went on to say, "I feel very strongly that we would have better films, we would have better radio and we would have better television if more writers thought it their duty to learn how to use these media." Well, in Egypt writers kept away from the media, especially television, with the result that there emerged a new class of craftsmen producing not art but commodity. I often wonder whether these soaps and serials could ever be published in book form. In many cases a 30- episode serial would just about make a short story. But to go back to our London Congress of 1956. In complete opposition to Priestly, the poet Rosamond Lehman thought the writer should ignore the new media and forget about the so called mass audience. In her view the object was not how to reach this new public but how to reach oneself. To her the reader is "entirely absent". Another writer, Marghanita Laski, said that what writers were concerned with, in using the mass media, was commercial writing at its very lowest. She felt that, on the whole, such writing was "degrading and abominable"; it was writing, she said, of which one felt thoroughly ashamed. Forwarding an argument that was to prove very popular many years later here in Egypt, she claimed that in the long run such writing could only undermine a true author's sense of quality and value, perpetuating lasting damage.
