Power Without Responsibility ─ Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain

Power Without Responsibility is a classic introduction to the history, sociology, theory and politics of the media in Britain.

Hailed by the Times Higher as the 'seminal media text', and translated into Arabic, Chinese and other foreign languages, it is an essential guide for media students and critical media consumers alike.

The new edition has been substantially revised to bring it right up-to-date with developments in the media industry, new media technologies and changes in the political and academic debates surrounding the media. In this new edition, the authors consider:

•  the impact of the internet
•  the failure of interactive TV
•  media and Britishness
•  new media and global understanding
•  journalism in crisis
•  BBC and broadcasting at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Assessing the media at a time of profound change, the authors set out the democratic choices for media reform.

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 In?uences; 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 an amateur journalist, as 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 Of?cial Historian of the BBC. She is director of the Orwell Prize for political writing and journalism (theorwellprize.co.uk). 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 Con?ict; The Prerogative of the Harlot: Politics and the Media; and What is to be done? Making the Media and Politics Better. She is an editor of Political Quarterly; has written widely on the media, wars and disasters, and their impact on children and women; media policy, and on the role of the BBC nationally and internationally. She broadcasts regularly. Her next book will be The BBC Under Siege.