British Politics and the Media – Introduction
British Politics and the Press
British Politics and the Tabloid Press
British Politics and Media Ownership
British Politics and Media Self Regulation
The Leveson Inquiry and Regulation
British Politics and the Cinema Newsreel
British Politics and the Radio
British Politics and the Television
British Politics and the Internet
Media Effects Theory – Direct Effects
Media Effects Theory – Minimal Effects
Media Effects Theory – Long Term Effects
Constructivism, Media and Society
Structuralism and Critical Theory
Political Communication – Introduction
Political Communication – National and Direct
Political Communication – Local and Direct
Politicians and the Media – Their Relationship
The First Phase of Political Communication
The Second Phase of Political Communication
Political Communication – The Leader’s Debates 2010 and 2015
The British tabloid press with its sketchy coverage of politics and tendency to look for sensationalism in all stories is not found in countries such as the Netherlands.
Charlie Beckett, who runs an international media think tank, reports that the journalists he talks to in other countries tell him, ‘We have nothing like your filthy tabloids’.
It is not that tabloid journalism does not exist in other countries but it does not dominate the main newspapers and often appears in separate gossip magazines.
The explanation for their prevalence in Britain is difficult to pin down: perhaps the Education Act of 1870 which produced a population that could read much earlier than many other countries and so provided a market for a popular press; perhaps the British love of satire and poking fun at those above them in Britain’s stratified class structure; perhaps relief from the Protestant moral repression of the churches in the nineteenth century.
