James Curran - Culture Wars

Culture Wars

Culture Wars investigates the relationship between the media and politics in Britain today. It focusses on how significant sections of the national press have represented and distorted the policies of the Labour Party, and particularly its left, from the Thatcher era up to and including Ed Milibands and Jeremy Corbyns leaderships.

Revised and updated, including five brand new chapters, this second edition shows how press hostility to the left, particularly newspaper coverage of its policies on race, gender and sexuality, has morphed into a more generalised campaign against political correctness, the liberal elite and the so-called enemies of the people. Combining fine-grained case studies with authoritative overviews of recent British political and media history, Culture Wars demonstrates how much of the press have routinely attacked Labour and, in so doing, have abused their political power, distorted public debate, and negatively impacted the news agendas of public service broadcasters. The book also raises the intriguing question of whether the rise of social media, and the success of its initial exploitation by Corbyn supporters, followed by Labour as a whole in the 2017 General Election, represent a major shift in the balance of power between Labour and the media, and in particular the right-wing press.

Culture Wars will be of considerable interest to students and researchers in the fields of media, politics and contemporary British history, and will also attract those with a more general interest in current affairs in the UK.

James Curran is Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. He is the author or editor of over twenty books about the media, including (with Jean Seaton) Power Without Responsibility , 8th edition (2018).

Ivor Gaber is Professor of Political Journalism at the University of Sussex, UK. He has published widely in the field of political communications and is a former producer and programme editor for BBC TV and Radio, ITV News, Channel Four and Sky News.

Julian Petley is Professor of Journalism at Brunel University London, UK. He is the editor of Media and Public Shaming (2013), a member of the editorial board of the British Journalism Review and is a principal editor of the Journal of British Cinema and Television .

Communication and Society

Series Editor: James Curran

This series encompasses the broad field of media and cultural studies. Its main concerns are the media and the public sphere: on whether the media empower or fail to empower popular forces in society; media organisations and public policy; the political and social consequences of media campaigns; and the role of media entertainment, ranging from potboilers and the human-interest story to rock music and TV sport.

For a complete list of titles in this series, please see: https://www.routledge.com/series/SE0130

Africas Media Image in the 21st Century

From the Heart of Darkness to Africa Rising

Edited by Mel Bunce, Suzanne Franks and Chris Paterson

Comparing Political Journalism

Edited by Claes de Vreese, Frank Esser, and David Nicolas Hopmann

Media Ownership and Agenda Control

The Hidden Limits of the Information Age

Justin Schlosberg

An Introduction to Political Communication, Sixth edition

Brian McNair

Misunderstanding News Audiences

Seven Myths of the Social Media Era

Eiri Elvestad and Angela Phillips

Culture Wars, Second edition

The Media and the British Left

James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley

Culture Wars

The Media and the British Left

Second edition

James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley

First published 2019

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2019 James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley

The right of James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Curran, James, author. | Gaber, Ivor. | Petley, Julian.

Title: Culture wars: the media and the left in Britain/James Curran, Ivor Gaber and Julian Petley.

Description: Second edition. | Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. | Series: Communication and society | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018010457| ISBN 9781138223028 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138223035 (pbk.: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315406183 (ebook: alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Social changeGreat BritainHistory. | Political cultureGreat BritainHistory. | Social valuesGreat BritainHistory. | Conflict of generationsPolitical aspectsGreat Britain. | Mass mediaPolitical aspectsGreat Britain. | New LeftGreat BritainHistory. | New LeftPress coverageGreat Britain. | Right and left (Political science)

Classification: LCC HN385.5 .C86 2018 | DDC 306.0941dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010457

ISBN: 978-1-138-22302-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-22303-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-40618-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Praise for First Edition

Admirable book, Times Higher

Deftly illustrates how the audience can be influenced on some occasions and not others, Guardian

Useful and accessible text for teaching about media power and influence, Journalism

The strength of the book as a whole lies in the way it highlights, in an easily digestible fashion, the complex and two-way relationship between politics and the media, Media, Culture and Society

An excellent history and analysis, Free Press

Praise for Second Edition

I read this book with mounting enthusiasm as it documented and analysed the roller coaster journey of what in the 1980s was ridiculed and repressed as the Loony Left, with its roots in the counter-culture of the 1960s, through the defeats of the Blair era to its resurrection from the undead in the leadership of Corbyn and McDonnell.

Careful and revealing in its empirical analysis, Culture Wars provides an original and convincing perspective from which to understand the medias changing relation to Labour politics, including the new Labour leaderships ability to establish its own rapport with a new generation of voters.

Hilary Wainwright, Co-editor of Red Pepper

We may be living through a media revolution but this brilliantly forensic book shows that one constant factor still applies the relentless anti-Labour bias in most newspapers and their continuing influence. Culture Wars is a must-read for all those seeking to make sense of UK politics. Indeed, it is impossible to make sense of what is happening and what has happened without reading it.