Mediating Hope: New Media, Politics and Resistance

In an attempt to reimagine the concept of resistance in media studies this article argues for a reconsideration of the concept of political hope in non-mainstream mediated political mobilization that will take us beyond a focus on resistance to one of political project(s). The critical first step in such an endeavour is to reach beyond the confines of media and communication studies. This article draws on political science, sociology, social movement studies and cultural geography, among other subjects, to consider the ways in which new media may allow a reimagining of hope so that a collective consciousness can be developed and maintained. In doing so the article suggests that if, as scholars, we wish to enhance our political purchase then the notion of resistance in media and communication studies should be made to engage with the struggle of changing the terms of the polity

A commentary: Communication, democracy and social change in crisis times – Disrupting power, dismantling injustices

This commentary reflects on what the actual conditions for a democratic politics might mean for media and communication scholars, as we try to make sense of the structures and nature of communication, the conditions of democracies around the world and the possibilities for social change in these crisis times. To do so will require that we focus on relations of power – the exercise of power as dominance as well as the potential of the constitutive power of subjects as free agents. Power as dominance leads us to interrogate the structural imbrication of injustices in a broader social, political and economic context in order to understand what might be done not only to disrupt power but to dismantle injustices

Understanding Civic Participation and Realizing Data Justice

To understand civic participation in the datafied society and the possibilities for social change, we must foreground social and political injustices and understand how citizens are frozen out of society and “democratic” processes in general. This requires decentering technology in our analyses and interrogating the structural imbrication of injustices in a broader social, political, and economic context, while recognizing the need to identify and address technological injustices that occur. This article illustrates how British civil society has become less able to play an active role in democratic processes over the past decade as digital tools have proliferated. Rather, we find a disciplining of dissenting voices and depoliticization of civil society. The article argues that it is only when we take a holistic and structural approach to data injustices situated in conditions of oppression and domination that we can reach an understanding of what data justice might become to take us beyond technical/regulatory fixes that offer no more than the tweaking and taming of capitalism to a newly imagined democratic political economy beyond capitalism

Critique is Dead – Long Live Critique: A response to Finlayson and Cusset

This piece offers some reflections and discussion points on the articles published by Alan Finlayson and François Cusset in this special edition of Media Theory. I argue the need to be cautious of tendencies towards techno-centrism even when so many of our lives are dominated by digital mediations; for the need to remember and take account of the longer history and prevailing influence of legacy media; to ensure that in our focus on front-stage politics we do not miss emphasising a critique of back-stage power and the growing influence of elites; that we must recognise that the myth of the value of inequality is not totalising and that it is surely the role of critique to identify the sites of its exposure; and finally the pressing urgency of reclaiming the emancipatory powers of critique

The Scandalous Power of the Press: Phone Hacking in the UK

Much news media thrive on scandal. But what happens when the scandal is about the media itself? In 2011 News of the World journalists stood accused of illegally hacking the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. This proved to be the tip of a very large iceberg as the scandal uncovered industrial-scale phone hacking taking place across the tabloid press. Rather than open up their practices of news production to scrutiny and accept the recommendations of an independent inquiry, the news industry closed ranks and hid behind the banner of ‘press freedom’. This story reveals the enduring power of the press and it’s ability to control scandal, direct the national conversation and set the agenda. It also reveals the continuing entanglement between press and politicians who still seek favour with those they think have the potential to influence voting behaviour. This chapter reflects on the power of news corporations to defy the public interest whenever it suits them and the role of mainstream news journalists as part of an elite power complex. Ultimately the chapter argues that media scandal, wherever it is found, is all about power and commercial priorities

The media, resistance and civil society

The relationship between the media and social/political mobilisation is a specifically modem phenomenon, contemporaneous with and responding to dominant capitalist communications. Today the trend towards concentration marches forth, policies of privatisation and deregulation of the media reveal a world-wide trend towards the commodification of information, culture and hence, of democracy. We are witnessing the privatisation of access to information and culture with the shrinking of public space in communications. My research begins from the standpoint that we can not ignore that we still live in deeply unequal capitalist societies, driven by profit and competition operating on a global scale. It is also undeniable that we live in a media dominated world with many different ideas and identities in circulation at any one time. We need to understand the former to appreciate the latter - the relation between individual autonomy, freedom and rational action on the one hand and the social construction of identity and behaviour on the other. The mainstream media as part of the political and economic infrastructure of society both disguise inequalities and frustrate any attempts to contest or reveal them. As a consequence dissident or oppressed groups have had to seek alternative means to be heard and to mobilise. These means include both organisation (investigated here in the form of the voluntary sector) and communication (including mainstream and 'alternative' media) within civil society. My research investigates why it is felt there is an ever pressing need to present oppositional views, how strategies of organisation and communication have been deployed and with what success. This research examines the relationship between the media and resistance - either as a dominant social force which through uniformity of representation encourages digression, or as a means of forging other identities and developing alternative political projects

Defending Whose Democracy? Media Freedom and Media Power

Rarely has the relationship between media and democracy been so centre-stage. Whether regarding regulatory reform brought about by phone hacking in the UK, concentration of media ownership in Italy, Hungary, Australia to mention but a few; or in relation to social media and the internet as a supposed means to increased access to information and citizen production and circulation of non-mainstream content leading to greater so called media freedom. The debate on whether or not and in what form the media are related to the nature and practice of democracy is raging; and rightly so. Yet too often this debate, usually cast in populist terms, belies complexity. We are frequently told that one leads to the other. In one formulation, ‘free’ media are seen as a pre-requisite for democracy to flourish. Here we see an ill used interpretation of the concept of ‘freedom of the press’ used to defy explanation and justify most anything ‒ who can be against freedom, particularly press freedom when the press have such a crucial relationship with a healthy democracy? Such a knee-jerk response is frequently no more than a cheap disguise for the promotion of free-market capitalism which is then seen as a direct path to enhanced democratisation on the gravy train of commercial media. Alternatively, it is proposed that ‘freedom’, as a free floating concept more generall

The media, resistance and civil society

The relationship between the media and social/political mobilisation is a specifically modem phenomenon, contemporaneous with and responding to dominant capitalist communications. Today the trend towards concentration marches forth, policies of privatisation and deregulation of the media reveal a world-wide trend towards the commodification of information, culture and hence, of democracy. We are witnessing the privatisation of access to information and culture with the shrinking of public space in communications. My research begins from the standpoint that we can not ignore that we still live in deeply unequal capitalist societies, driven by profit and competition operating on a global scale. It is also undeniable that we live in a media dominated world with many different ideas and identities in circulation at any one time. We need to understand the former to appreciate the latter - the relation between individual autonomy, freedom and rational action on the one hand and the social construction of identity and behaviour on the other. The mainstream media as part of the political and economic infrastructure of society both disguise inequalities and frustrate any attempts to contest or reveal them. As a consequence dissident or oppressed groups have had to seek alternative means to be heard and to mobilise. These means include both organisation (investigated here in the form of the voluntary sector) and communication (including mainstream and 'alternative' media) within civil society. My research investigates why it is felt there is an ever pressing need to present oppositional views, how strategies of organisation and communication have been deployed and with what success. This research examines the relationship between the media and resistance - either as a dominant social force which through uniformity of representation encourages digression, or as a means of forging other identities and developing alternative political projects.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Post-democracy, Press, Politics and Power

Transnational media corporations now wield enormous power and influence. Never has this been displayed so starkly and so shockingly as in the revelations that emerged during the Leveson Inquiry into the culture and ethics of the press in the UK. This paper considers the implications of the relationship between media elites and political elites for democratic culture and media reform. The paper argues that the culture of press–politician mutual interest in which media executives and party leaders collude will continue as long as the solutions proffered focus on the ethical constraints of professional journalists rather than wider structural issues relating to plurality of ownership and control and funding of news in the public interest

Regulation is Freedom: phone hacking, press regulation and the Leveson Inquiry – the story so far

In March 2018 the culture minister Matt Hancock announced the government’s response (DCMS 2018) to the public consultation on the Leveson Inquiry and its implementation. The government declared that it will repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and will not continue with the Leveson Inquiry Part 2 that was supposed to consider corrupt relations between police and media and was unable to proceed at the time because of court cases that were ongoing. It was an announcement designed clearly to put the Leveson recommendations to bed once and for all. This article recounts the twists and turns of recent history in relation to press regulation in the UK. Tracing back seven years ago to when the Hacking scandal first broke, and the Leveson Inquiry was launched, it considers how the relationship between press and politicians has developed, how the relationship between freedom of the press and press regulation has been defined and what lies ahead