The Trojan Horse: The Growth of Commercial Sponsorship

Commercial sponsorship now pervades our lives, intruding private interests into the management of our public and collective affairs at great social cost and with few economic benefits as the weaknesses and failures of free-market economics become increasingly manifest. By demonstrating this in convincing detail, Deborah Philips and Garry Whannel’s broad-ranging and incisive study provides an invaluable service in re-asserting the principles of publicness that need to be defended against the Trojan Horse of privatisation. An important and timely book. –Tony Bennett, Research Professor in Social and Cultural Theory, University of Western Sydney, Australia

From art and sport to education and health, the authors describe how seemingly benevolent
sponsorship is the Trojan Horse that has facilitated a creeping erosion of corporate interests
into the public sector. In a devastating critique of the demise of the welfare state, Philips and
Whannel document the colonisation of public space by commercial priorities that enables private
enterprise to set the agendas of our schools, hospitals, care homes and surgeries with deleterious
consequences. Wide-ranging, insightful and shocking to boot, this is a must read” for anyone
interested in the nature of public value and the hidden power of corporations.” –Natalie Fenton, Professor of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Garry Whannel is Professor of Media Cultures, and Director of RIMAP: the Research Institute for Media, Arts and Performance, at the University of Bedfordshire, UK.