The British Press

This book provides fresh insights into how the British press affected both British perceptions of decolonisation in Africa and British policy towards it during the ‘wind of change’ period. It also reveals, for the first time, the extent to which British newspaper coverage was of relevance to African and white settler readerships. British newspapers informed the political strategies and civic cultures of African activists, nationalists, liberal whites in Africa, the staunchest of white settler communities, and the first governments of independent African states and their opponents. The British press, British public opinion and British journalists became etched into the lived experiences of the end of empire affecting Anglo-African and Anglo-settler relations to this day. Arguing that the press cast a transnational web of influence over the decolonisation process in Africa, the author explores the relationships between the British, African and settler public and political spheres, and highlights the mediating power of the British press during the late 1950s. The book draws from a range of British newspapers, official government documents, newspaper archives, interviews, memoirs, autobiographies and articles printed in African and white settler papers. It will be of interest to historians of decolonisation, Africa, the media and the British Empire.

The first book to compare and contrast the rise of mass circulation press in Britain and America. It provides insights into the origins of tabloid journalism and explores a range of cross-cultural and literary issues, tracing the history of key newspapers and the careers of influential journalists such as Bennett, Russell, Harmsworth and Pulitzer.

The Japan-British exhibition in London, 1910 was the most concerted and systematic attempt by Meiji Japan to explain its traditional society and arts, modern industry and empire, to its most important international ally, Great Britain. This is a facsimile edition of the original book compiled and edited for the exhibition by Count Hirokichi Mutsu (1869-1942) and published in London and Tokyo in four parts in 1910 and 1911 by the Imperial Japanese Commission. This compendium of newspaper and journal articles, starting in March 1909 and ending in December of 1910, covers the preparation, activities and immediate aftermath of the Exhibition. Making widely available a veritable treasure trove of information and insight, it will be of interest to students and scholars of Japan and Britain alike, providing authoritative insights into contemporary attitudes in each country towards the other.

This open access book provides a detailed exploration of the British media coverage of the press reform debate that arose from the News of the World phone hacking scandal and the Leveson Inquiry. Gathering data from a content analysis of 870 news articles, Ogbebor shows how journalists cover debates on media policy and illustrates the impact of their coverage on democracy. Through this analysis, the book contributes to knowledge of paradigm repair strategies; public sphere; gatekeeping theory; the concept of journalism as an interpretive community; political economy of the press; as well as the neoliberal and social democratic interpretations of press freedom. Providing insight into factors inhibiting and aiding the role of the news media as a democratic public sphere, it will be a valuable resource for the press, media reform activists, members of the public, and academics in the fields of journalism, politics and law.

The Rise and Fall of the British Press takes an artful look at the past, present and immediate future of the printed newspaper. Temple offers a thought-provoking account of the evolution of Britain’s news consumption across the centuries, situating it within significant social, cultural and political currents of the time. Chapters cover: The impact of key technological developments; from the birth of print and the introduction of television, to the rise of the internet and digital media; The ever-shifting power play between political parties and the press; The notion of the ‘public sphere’ and how newspapers have influenced it over the decades; The role of news media during some of Europe’s most significant historical events, such as the French Revolution, the First and Second World Wars and the Suez crisis; The aftermath of the Leveson inquiry and the question of increased media regulation; The successes and failures of important media players, including Baron Beaverbrook and Lord Northcliffe in the nineteenth century, and Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Throughout the book, parallels are drawn between current issues impacting on the press and society and those from previous decades, further illuminating the role, both historic and ongoing, of the news media in Britain. Temple concludes the book by looking to the future of print journalism, calling for a reassessment of its role in the twenty-first century, redefining what journalism should be and reasserting its value in society today. This far-reaching analysis will be an invaluable resource for both students and researchers of journalism and media studies.

Allegedly the only man capable of holding the Führer's intense gaze, Rothay Reynolds was a leading foreign correspondent between the wars and ran the Daily Mail's bureau in Berlin throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The enigmatic former clergyman was one of the first journalists to interview Adolf Hitler, meeting the future Führer days before the Munich Putsch. While the awful realities of the Third Reich were becoming apparent on the ground in Germany, in Britain the Daily Mail continued to support the Nazi regime. Reynolds's time as a foreign correspondent in Nazi Germany provides some startling insights into the muzzling of the international press prior to the Second World War, as journalists walked uneasy tightropes between their employers' politics and their own journalistic integrity. As war approached, the stakes - and the threats from the Gestapo - rose dramatically. Reporting on Hitler reveals the gripping story of Rothay Reynolds and the intrepid foreign correspondents who reported on some of the twentieth century's most momentous events in the face of sinister propaganda, brazen censorship and the threat of expulsion - or worse - if they didn't toe the Nazis' line. It uncovers the bravery of the forgotten heroes from a golden age of British journalism, who risked everything to tell the world the truth.

In June of 1878, the British Empire acquired the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus, after a secret agreement with the Ottoman Empire. The occupation of Cyprus was officially announced by the British government about a month later and what followed was an unprecedented mania with the island, which manifested itself through the publication of dozens of books and articles, the composition of poems, novels, and music pieces, the staging of operas and ballets, the appearance of dozens of advertisements in newspapers, the dispatch of special correspondents to the island, the announcement of forthcoming tours, etc. This book examines the “Cyprus Frenzy” of 1878 and the way it was expressed in both major and provincial newspapers in Victorian Britain. It follows the six main special correspondents who were commissioned to cover the occupation and who traveled to the island for that purpose: Archibald Forbes (The Daily News), St. Leger Algernon Herbert (The Times), John Augustus O’Shea (The London Evening Standard), Edward Henry Vizetelly (The Glasgow Herald), Samuel Pasfield Oliver (The Illustrated London News), and Hepworth Dixon (for several provincial newspapers). What is pertinent in the investigation of Victorian journalistic practices is the relationship between these correspondents and the military establishment, which was tasked with the duty of forming the first British government on the island. In this context, General Garnet Wolseley, who served as the island’s first High Commissioner, and his famous clique of associates are central characters in the story of Cyprus’ colonization. The book further considers the role of advertisements in propagating colonial discourse and it examines “Letters to the Editor,” published in major newspapers of the time, as a tool in the investigation of the Victorian readers’ reception and response to the occupation. By concentrating on the history of a very particular event—the British occupation of Cyprus in 1878—this book aspires to scrutinize colonial practices through a close examination of the mechanisms that they put in motion, the networks they utilize, and the fantasies they stir.

The Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum are unrivaled examples of classical Greek art, an inspiration to artists and writers since their creation in the fifth century bce. A superb visual introduction to these wonders of antiquity, this book offers a photographic tour of the most famous of the surviving sculptures from ancient Greece, viewed within their cultural and art-historical context. Ian Jenkins offers an account of the history of the Parthenon and its architectural refinements. He introduces the sculptures as architecture--pediments, metopes, Ionic frieze--and provides an overview of their subject matter and possible meaning for the people of ancient Athens. Accompanying photographs focus on the pediment sculptures that filled the triangular gables at each end of the temple; the metopes that crowned the architrave surmounting the outer columns; and the frieze that ran around the four sides of the building, inside the colonnade. Comparative images, showing the sculptures in full and fine detail, bring out particular features of design and help to contrast Greek ideas with those of other cultures. The book further reflects on how, over 2,500 years, the cultural identity of the Parthenon sculptures has changed. In particular, Jenkins expands on the irony of our intimate knowledge and appreciation of the sculptures--a relationship far more intense than that experienced by their ancient, intended spectators--as they have been transformed from architectural ornaments into objects of art.

The British National Daily Press and Popular Music c.1956–1975 constitutes a reappraisal of the reactions of the national daily press to forms of music popular with young people in Britain from the mid-1950s to the 1970s (including rock ‘n’ roll, skiffle, ‘beat group’ and rock music). Conventional histories of popular music in Britain frequently accuse the newspapers of generating ‘moral panic’ with regard to these musical genres and of helping to shape negative attitudes to the music within the wider society. This book questions such charges and considers whether alternative perspectives on press attitudes towards popular music may be discerned. In doing so, it also challenges the tendency to perceive evidence from newspapers straightforwardly as a mere illustration of wider social trends and considers the manner in which the post-war newspaper industry, as a sociocultural entity in its own right, responded to developments in youth culture as it faced distinctive challenges and pressures amid changing times.

Through an investigation of the reportage in nineteenth-century English metropolitan newspapers and illustrated journals, this book begins with the question 'Did anti-O'Connell sentiment in the British press lead to "killing remarks," rhetoric that helped the press, government and public opinion distance themselves from the Irish Famine?' The book explores the reportage of events and people in Ireland, focussing first on Daniel O'Connell, and then on debates about the seriousness of the Famine. Drawing upon such journals as The Times, The Observer, the Morning Chronicle, The Scotsman, the Manchester Guardian, the Illustrated London News, and Punch, Williams suggests how this reportage may have effected Britain's response to Ireland's tragedy. Continuing her survey of the press after the death of O'Connell, Leslie Williams demonstrates how the editors, writers and cartoonists who reported and commented on the growing crisis in peripheral Ireland drew upon a metropolitan mentality. In doing so, the press engaged in what Edward Said identifies as 'exteriority,' whereby reporters, cartoonists and illustrators, basing their viewpoints on their very status as outsiders, reflected the interests of metropolitan readers. Although this was overtly excused as an effort to reduce bias, stereotyping and historic enmity - much of unconscious - were deeply embedded in the language and images of the press. Williams argues that the biases in language and the presentation of information proved dangerous. She illustrates how David Spurr's categories or tropes of invalidation, debasement and negation are frequently exhibited in the reports, editorials and cartoons. However, drawing upon the communications theories of Gregory Bateson, Williams concludes that the real 'subject' of the British Press commentary on Ireland was Britain itself. Ireland was used as a negative mirror to reinforce Britain's own commitment to capitalist, industrial values at a time of great internal stress.