Most Americans tend to view censorship as a repressive aspect of other societies or historical eras, one that touches on our lives only in relation to national security or certain cold war considerations. In this provocative history of censorship, Sue Curry Jansen challenges conventional thought with a bold new view: that censorship, an embodiment of the relationship between power and knowledge, is as much a feature of liberal, market societies as it is of totalitarianisms. Building on an analytic tradition laid out by such thinkers as Marcuse and Foucault, Jansen addresses the notion of...

Fires, floods, accidents, celebrity lifestyles, heroic acts of humble people, cute acts by family pets and the weather. Television's non-news about non-events takes up an increasingly large part of contemporary broadcast journalism, but is regularly dismissed by television pundits as having no place on our screens. To its critics, this 'other news' distracts our attention with trivialities and entertainment values, and undermines journalism's relationship with the workings of democracy. Yet, in spite of these protests, this 'lite news' remains as entrenched and as popular as...

Not only is everyday conversation increasingly dependent on television, but more and more people are appearing on television to discuss social and personal issues. Is any public good served by these programmes or are they simply trashy entertainment which fills the schedules cheaply? Talk on Television examines the value and significance of televised public debate. Analysing a wide range of programmes including Kilroy, Donohue and The Oprah Winfrey Show, the authors draw on interviews with both the studio participants and with those watching at home. They...

The work of the Glasgow Media Group has long established their place at the forefront of Media Studies, and Getting the Message provides an ideal introduction to recent work by the Group.
Contributors discuss themes such as the relationship between the media and public opinion, the emergence of TV news formats and styles, and the relations between theory and method in media research. Recent work undertaken by the Group on the media's role in reporting on AIDS, Vietnam, Northern Ireland and the Gulf War is also represented.
In its fresh approach to the relationship between...

Radio journalists have witnessed much of the history of the twentieth century. From early documentary recordings, to the ground-breaking war reporting of Ed Murrow and Richard Dimbleby, to the sophisticated commentaries of Alistair Cooke and reporters such as Fergal Keane, International Radio Journalism explores the way radio has covered the most important stories this century and the way in which it continues to document events in Britan, America, Europe and many other countries around the world.
International Radio Journalism is both a theoretical textbook and a...

Media, Ritual and Identity examines the role of the media in society; its complex influence on democratic processes and its participation in the construction and affirmation of different social identities.
It draws extensively upon cultural anthropology and combines a commanding overview of contemporary media debates with a series of fascinating case studies ranging from political ritual on television to broadcasting in the third world.

In the fifties British cinema won large audiences with popular war films and comedies, creating stars such as Dirk Bogarde and Kay Kendall, and introducing the stereotypes of war hero, boffin and comic bureaucrat which still help to define images of British national identity. In British Cinema in the Fifties, Christine Geraghty examines some of the most popular films of this period, exploring the ways in which they approached contemporary social issues such as national identity, the end of empire, new gender roles and the care of children.
Through a series of case studies on films...

De-Westernizing Media Studies brings together leading media critics from around the world to address central questions in the study of the media. How do the media connect to power in society? Who and what influence the media? How is globalization changing both society and the media?