International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2007

This article looks at the cultural politics of journalism, broadcast news and media research. Since the appearance of its first book, Bad News (1976), the Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) has made a sustained contribution to our understanding of media culture and especially to notions of objectivity and impartiality. Despite this, for the last 30 years the group has been the object of a diffuse and often gratuitous campaign of ridicule and misrepresentation. The authors of this misrepresentation first caricature the group, labelling it a band of Marxist conspiracy theorists, then blame the group for alienating journalists and retarding the cause of media research. This article presents evidence of this misrepresentation and then offers an apologia for the GUMG, in the now archaic sense that to apologize is to defend. It specifically seeks to explode some of the enduring myths that have gathered around the GUMG and its work. This article argues that the GUMG still offers us useful and relevant ways of approaching media culture ways which have, in fact, brought scholars and journalists closer together.

The focus of this article is on the cinema as a city-space. It is demonstrated that throughout the twentieth century, different social and political groups constituted themselves around cinemas and handled them euphorically as spaces which seem, more than other city-spaces, suited to making ideological interventions, to educating the people and deconstructing dominant myths. By using the cinema these groups were transforming it into a space that became connected with the abolition of injustice and the establishment of equality between the sexes and classes; a space where one could redefine and celebrate one's own identity, or where one could deconstruct dominant stereotypes. Here, enlightenment and the collective awakening to consciousness should happen, and the beginning of a new and more democratic life can start. But besides this we can also find disseminations of the myth of the good cave, that is the cave as a space for corporality, safety, equality, justice, refuge. Here, the cinema is transformed by emphasizing desires for security, equality, a better world, sensuous gratification and the erotic: and making them narratable. All these groups differentiate their own cinema-space from mainstream cinemas which are connected with ideological manipulation and untruth. This article thus investigates the tactics of these different groups and relates them to other developments in urban social spaces. Cinema movements are examined in relation to a history of perception and of the direction of belief, to changes in the public and private spheres and to a history of self-presentation.

Deliberative democratic public sphere theory has become increasingly popular in Internet-democracy research and commentary. In terms of informal civic practices, advocates of this theory see the Internet as a means for the expansion of citizen deliberation leading to the formation of rational public opinion through which official decision makers can be held accountable. In this paper I question this public sphere conception as a democratic norm of Internet practice given that there have been sustained critiques of the deliberative conception for failing to account fully for power, and thus for supporting status quo social and political systems. I examine these claims and argue that while the deliberative conception actually pays more attention to power than some critics argue, it fails to adequately theorize the power relations involved in defining what counts as legitimate deliberation. Drawing upon post-Marxist discourse theory, I highlight two inter-related factors that are largely ignored in this boundary setting: discursive radicalism and inter-discursive conflict. I argue that to fully account for these two factors we can refer to an agonistic public sphere position that is also being drawn upon in Internet-democracy research and commentary. In particular, the concept counter-publics, which is deployed in such work, helps us take into account the democratic role of radical exclusion and associated counter-discursive struggles over the limits of legitimate deliberation. The result is the radicalization of the public sphere conception.

This paper investigates the challenges that Public Television (PTV) broadcasters in small Western European countries encounter in a competitive digital broadcasting environment, and looks at the policies and strategies that these broadcasters are adapting in order to remain accountable, competitive and efficient. The paper starts by charting the privileges that PTV broadcasters have enjoyed, notably political support, relatively secure funding and longevity. Then it moves on to analyzing the enormous technological, economic, political and wider social changes that have occurred in the European broadcasting ecology in the past two decades and the competitive and financial challenges these shifts have brought about for the public corporations. The third and final part of the paper focuses on the factors affecting PTV broadcasters operating in the smaller territories of Europe and analyzes the organizational, scheduling and programming strategies adapted by these broadcasters. The paper concludes that PTV in Europe has shown resilience but has largely adapted a more populist tone.

Modern media practices encourage invocation of serious social issues and problems for dramatic effect, but thwart any substantive discussion of the same. This is unfair to journalists who risk their lives in reporting the news, and leads to detrimental social consequences. Journalism must re-examine its traditions or risk becoming meaningless in the global society, or worse, an impediment to it.

Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual, Lisa Parks (2005) Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 241 pp., ISBN 0822334976 (pbk), 22.95

Media and the Restyling of Politics, John Corner and Dick Pels (eds.) (2003) London and New York: Sage, 210 pp., ISBN 0761949208 (hbk), 84.95 (60.00), ISBN 0761949206 (pbk), 32.95 (18.99)

Gandhi Meets Primetime: Globalization and Nationalism in Indian Television, Shanti Kumar (2005) Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 284 pp., ISBN 025203001X (hbk), 45.00, ISBN 0252072448 (pbk), 25.00

The Political Mapping of Cyberspace, Jeremy Crampton (2003) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 256 pp., ISBN 0748614125 (hbk), 62.00 (55.00), ISBN 0748614133 (pbk), 25.00 (18.99)