Wow! eBook
The Return of the Public: Democracy, Power and the Case for Media Reform
Author(s): Dan Hind (Author)
- Publisher: Verso Books
- Publication Date: 23 April 2012
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 256 pages
- ISBN-10: 1844678636
- ISBN-13: 9781844678631
Book Description
WINNER: 2011 BEST BOOK OF IDEAS – FESTIVAL OF IDEAS Under the incurious gaze of the major media, the political establishment and the financial sector have become increasingly deceitful and dangerous in recent years. At the same time, journalists at Rupert Murdoch’s News International and elsewhere have been breaking the law on an industrial scale. Now we are expected to stay quiet while those who presided over the shambles judge their own conduct. In The Return of the Public, Dan Hind argues for reform of the media as a necessary prelude to wider social transformation. A former commissioning editor, Hind urges us to focus on the powers of the media to instigate investigations and to publicize the results, powers that editors and owners are desperate to keep from general deliberation. Hind describes a programme of reform that is modest, simple and informed by years of experience. It is a programme that much of the media cannot bring themselves even to acknowledge, precisely because it threatens their private power. It is time the public had their say.
Editorial Reviews
Review
A book marked by a sombre and scathing rhetoric that recalls the Frankfurt School critique of thinkers such as Adorno and Marcuse. –Boyd Tonkin, Independent
A superb analysis of the way in which citizens have lost power in a political and economic system built around the free market. –Roy Greenslade, Guardian
A persuasive and vital analysis. –Times Higher Education Supplement
About the Author
DAN HIND was a publisher for ten years. In 2009 he left the industry to develop a program of media reform centered around public commissioning. His journalism has appeared in the Guardian, New Scientist, Lobster and the Times Literary Supplement. His first book, The Threat to Reason, was published to much acclaim by Verso in 2007.
