James Curran - Power Without Responsibility - Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain

This book attacks the conventional history of the press as a story of progress; offers a critical defence and history of public service broadcasting; provides a myth-busting account of the internet; a subtle account of the impact of social media and explores key debates about the role and politics of the media.

It has become a standard book on media and other courses: but it has also gone beyond an academic audience to reach a wider public. Hailed as a classic of media history and analysis by the Irish Times and a book that has cracked the canon by the Times Higher, it has been translated into five languages.

This edition contains six new chapters. These include the press and the remaking of Britain, the rise of the neo-liberal Establishment, the moral decline of journalism, the impact of social media and a history of attempts to reform the press. It contains new research on the relationship between programmes, institutions and society. It places key UK institutions in the wider context of international affairs and their impact. The book has been updated to take account of new developments like Brexit and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and the shift in authority and legitimacy prompted by social media. It does this with a clear explanation of how policy can shape media outcomes.

James Curran is Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Jean Seaton is Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster, and Director of the Orwell Foundation.

This is the book that changed everything in media studies.

Sally Young, University of Melbourne

This is a brilliant seminal history of broadcasting, press and the new media, vividly and insightfully told, with sharp vignettes of political interference and policy challenges. It is a powerful reminder of why public service broadcasting and truthful communication is vital to our democracy.

Baroness Helena Kennedy, President of Mansfield College, Oxford

This skillfully revised and updated edition of Curran and Seatons magnificent history is just as fresh and relevant now as it has been over the decades.

David Hesmondhalgh, Leeds University

The pleasure of a classic that just keeps redelivering. Power Without Responsibility proves itself yet again as the go-to source for analysis of the British media at their best and worst.

Barbie Zelizer, Annenberg School of Communication,

University of Pennsylvania

If I was able to suggest one book about the history of journalism whether to a student, a journalist or someone who simply wanted to know more about the role of the news media in our democracy it would be Power Without Responsibility. Much of our understanding of the past is altered by the present, so we are all indebted to James Curran and Jean Seaton for this excellent new edition. There has been no shortage of controversies and debates about the news media in recent years: this book guides us through them with a sharp eye, a clear head, and the wisdom that comes from a formidable sense of history. Packed with eloquently delivered information, it is analytical but jargon-free, critical without ever being doctrinaire.

Justin Lewis, Cardiff Udiversity

Press, Broadcasting and the

Internet in Britain

Eighth edition

James Curran and Jean Seaton

Routledge

Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Eighth edition published 2018 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN

and by Routledge

71 I Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

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

2018 James Curran and Jean Seaton

The right of James Curran and Jean Seaton 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.

First edition published by Fontana 1981

Second edition published by Methuen 1985

Third edition published by Routledge 1988

Seventh edition published by Routledge 2010

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. | Seaton, Jean, author.

Title: Power without responsibility: press, broadcasting and the internet in britain / James Curran and Jean Seaton. Description: Eighth edition. | London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018001982 | ISBN 9780415706421 (hbk) | ISBN 9780415710428 (pbk) | ISBN 9781351212298 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Press-Great Britain. | Broadcasting-Great Britain. | Digital media-Great Britain.

Classification: LCC PN5I I4.C84 2010 | DDC 072-dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/20l800l982

ISBN: 978-0-415-70642-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-71042-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-35 I-21229-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Garamond

by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK

MIX

Paper from responsible sources

FSC-C013985

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited

To our children and their partners: Kitty,Tristan, Cassie, Daniel, Margherita, Nathaniel, Seth and Pearl

Contents

JAMES CURRAN

About the authors

James Curran is Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and Director, Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre. He is the author or editor (some jointly) of Mass Communication and Society, The British Press; Newspaper History; Culture, Society and the Media; British Cinema History; Media, Culture and Society: A Critical Reader; Bending Reality; Impacts and Influences; Mass Media and Society; Cultural Studies and Communications; Media, Ritual and Identity; Media Organisations in Society; De-Westernizing Media Studies; Media and Power; Contesting Media Power; Culture Wars; Media and Cultural Theory; Media and Democracy; How Media Inform Democracy: A Comparative Approach; and Misunderstanding the Internet. He has been a weekly columnist for The Times, and a Visiting Professor at the Universities of California, Oslo, Pennsylvania, Stanford and Stockholm. In 2011, he won the Edwin C. Baker Award for his work on media, markets and democracy.

Jean Seaton is Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster and Director of the Orwell Foundation, which uses the work of George Orwell to help shape media and public understanding by celebrating honest writing and reporting and confronting uncomfortable truths. She is author, editor or joint editor of Carnage and the Media: the Making and Breaking of News about Violence; The Media in British Politics; The Media of Conflict; The Prerogative of the Harlot: Politics and the Media; What is to be done? Making the Media and Politics Better and her volume of the official history of the BBC Pinkoes and Traitors: the BBC and the Nation 197487, was published in 2015 and a much extended and amended paperback version in 2016. She was a founding member of the Board of Full Fact, and the Reuters Institute, and on the board of The Political Quarterly. She writes on a range of issues academically but also for the Guardian and other media and broadcasts regularly on contemporary history and current affairs.