Des Freedman
Biographic Data
| ID | 3683223 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Des Freedman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Des |
| FAMILY NAME | Freedman |
| SIGNATURE | DES FREEDMAN |
| AFFILIATIONS | Goldsmiths University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6293-2917 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Arm’s length or joined at the hip? Public service media’s coverage of Gaza
Critiquing normative articulations of a public versus commercial media binary, we explore the contradictory juxtaposition of democratic expectations assigned to public service media (PSM) broadly, alongside actual PSM reporting. We examine US and UK PSM coverage of two major events related to the bombardment of Gaza and subsequent humanitarian crisis in the months following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Contextualized within the UK, US an…
Neither private property nor public service: Critical reflections on the conceptual framework of public service media
Public service media (PSM) have long been seen as the necessary counterweight to the failures of a market model. Given the rise of private corporate power over communications systems, PSM have long been claimed to the be the ‘heart of a heartless world’ – spaces dominated not by the relentless logic of capital but by broader ambitions that involve citizen participation, social improvement and knowledge acquisition. This article offers a different…
Critiquing the Vocabularies of the Marketized University
Critique is in crisis. Spaces in the university, where critique once flourished under the banner of academic freedom, have been appropriated and hollowed out of meaning. External pressures from the failed project of privatisation of higher education in the UK result in internal pressures from a marketized model of university management that sees critical thinking as branding content to influence market share, rather than relevance for (social) sc…
Capitalism's Conscience: 200 Years of the Guardian
Capitalism's Conscience: 200 Years of the Guardian
Strategies for Media Reform: International Perspectives
Media reform plays an increasingly important role in the struggle for social justice. As battles are fought over the future of investigative journalism, media ownership, spectrum management, speech rights, broadband access, network neutrality, the surveillance apparatus, and digital literacy, what effective strategies can be used in the pursuit of effective media reform?Prepared by thirty-three scholars and activists from more than twenty-five co…
Opening the gates: Plurality regulation and the public interest
This article sets out the emergent challenges and opportunities for developing effective and ‘future proof’ policy for regulating media plurality. This analysis is carried out against the backdrop of UK authorities’ 2018 public interest test of the proposed merger between 21st Century Fox and Sky, and the latest data on the UK media ownership landscape. The article goes on to critically examine the existing regulatory approach to considerations o…
Media Manifesto
A Future for Public Service Television
"An edited collection that brings together some of the key documents from Goldsmiths' 2015 major inquiry into the nature, purpose and place of public service television. It includes the final report; a selection of submissions from academics, regulators, broadcasters and civil society groups; transcripts of key events and an evaluation of the inquiry itself"
Populism and media policy failure
Far right populist politicians and movements have secured high levels of visibility thanks to often compliant media outlets and unregulated digital platforms. The pursuit of media coverage and the communication of rage are no longer incidental but essential to the growth of reactionary populisms. Yet, while prominent liberal media outlets are ‘aghast’ at events such as the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote, little attention has been pa…
Public Service” and the Journalism Crisis: Is the BBC the Answer
Professional journalism is under extraordinary pressure: not only are its traditional business models under enormous strain but it is also regularly accused by the Right of peddling ‘fake news’ and criticized by the Left for failing to play a robust monitorial role. In this situation, there is a temptation to see public service media, and the BBC in particular, as beacons of light in an otherwise gloomy picture. This article attempts to provide a…
Democracia fake, más notícias
A mídia e a democracia, assim como Cagney e Lacey ou Starsky e Hutch, são inseparáveis. Não se pode ter um sem ter o outro. A livre troca de ideias, informações e símbolos que alimentam os cidadãos e reconstitui o sistema como um todo tem sido há muito vista como uma das bases de sociedades democráticas. De fato, uma parafernália normativa complexa emergiu para descrever as principais responsabilidades dadas à mídia no surgimento e manutenção da …
After Charlie Hebdo: Terror, Racism and Free Speech
As the world looked on in horror at the Paris terror attacks of January and November 2015, France found itself at the centre of a war that has split across nations and continents. The attacks set in motion a steady creep towards ever more repressive state surveillance, and have fuelled the resurgence of the far right across Europe and beyond, while leaving the left dangerously divided. These developments raise profound questions about a number of…
Liberalism in Neoliberal Times: Dimensions, Contradictions, Limits
An exploration of the theories, histories, practices, and contradictions of liberalism today. \n \nWhat does it mean to be a liberal in neoliberal times? This collection of short essays attempts to show how liberals and the wider concept of liberalism remain relevant in what many perceive to be a highly illiberal age. Liberalism in the broader sense revolves around tolerance, progress, humanitarianism, objectivity, reason, democracy, and human ri…
Smooth Operator?’ The Propaganda Model and Moments of Crisis
The propaganda model is a powerful tool for explaining systematic flaws in media coverage. But does it explain the cracks and tensions within the commercial media that are capable of arising at moments of political crisis and elite disagreement? To what extent does the model privilege a flawless structuralist account of media power at the expense of focusing on contradictory dynamics inside the capitalist media? This article looks at a key moment…
Misunderstanding the Internet
Media Policy Fetishism
Recent studies have demonstrated that media policy is not a clean, administrative, depoliticized, and unproblematically evidence-based space but instead, an ideological power field in which certain preferences are confirmed and others marginalized. In this context, this article proposes that we focus on the fetishistic character of the media policy process, understood in relation to the loss of control over the decision-making arena and the outso…
Media Policy Fetishism
Why do ordinary users have so little input into or interest in the formal decisionmaking processes that shape our media systems? This presentation suggests that we focus on the fetishism of the media policy process, understood as the loss of control over the decisionmaking arena and as the outsourcing of political agency to external forces. It focuses on both the dimensions of ‘everyday fetishism’ (its capacity to naturalize commodification proce…
Media Policy Research and the Media Industries
This essay highlights the need for a critical approach to policy as a key feature of media industries research. All too often media policy is understood and investigated as an administrative procedure that appears to be remote from the more dazzling world of media production and consumption, and of texts and audiences. This essay argues that issues of creativity and practice should not be insulated from analysis of the structural contexts of medi…
Paradigms of Media Power
Media power is a crucial, although often taken-for-granted concept. Does it express the economic impact of the industry, the political influence of particular “media moguls,” or the media's capacity to modify attitudes and beliefs? Does it refer to the ability of media to provide state or corporate actors with a valuable tool to assert their own dominance or to the diffusion of symbolic resources? Are we to believe that the media are increasingly…
Misunderstanding the Internet
Media and Terrorism: Global Perspectives
Media and Terrorism brings together leading scholars to explore how the world's media have influenced, and in turn, been influenced by terrorism and the war on terror in the aftermath of 9/11. Accessible and user-friendly with lively and current case studies, it is a perfect student text and is an essential handbook on the dynamics of war and the media in a global context
The Phone Hacking Scandal: Implications for Regulation
On Monday, 4 July 2011, the Guardian first revealed that an investigator working for Britain’s (then) top-selling Sunday newspaper, the News of the World (NOTW), had hacked into the cell phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler. There was immediate public outrage and a huge amount of media coverage. Two days later, corporate lobbyists, public affairs directors, broadcasters, producers and politicians came together in an exclusive Westminster M…
Metrics, models and the meaning of media ownership
Concentrated media ownership has become an increasingly salient issue in the context of global demands for social justice and democracy. This article calls for cultural policy analysts to highlight issues of media ownership and maps out three approaches to ownership that are designed to provide a more holistic account of the problems and potential solutions. Attention is first paid to ‘metrics’ and the gathering of quantitative data; next, to the…
The Political Economy of the ‘New’ News Environment
Public Service” and the Journalism Crisis: Is the BBC the Answer
Professional journalism is under extraordinary pressure: not only are its traditional business models under enormous strain but it is also regularly accused by the Right of peddling ‘fake news’ and criticized by the Left for failing to play a robust monitorial role. In this situation, there is a temptation to see public service media, and the BBC in particular, as beacons of light in an otherwise gloomy picture. This article attempts to provide a…
Media Policy Silences: The Hidden Face of Communications Decision Making
The analysis of media policy usually, and understandably, focuses on visible instances of policy action : of government intervention, regulatory activity, civil society engagement, and corporate initiatives. Less frequently considered is the process by which certain issues, frames, and proposals are neglected inside decision-making structures. This article reflects on the relationship between “industrial activism” and policy silences in relation …
Populism and media policy failure
Far right populist politicians and movements have secured high levels of visibility thanks to often compliant media outlets and unregulated digital platforms. The pursuit of media coverage and the communication of rage are no longer incidental but essential to the growth of reactionary populisms. Yet, while prominent liberal media outlets are ‘aghast’ at events such as the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote, little attention has been pa…
Paradigms of Media Power
Media power is a crucial, although often taken-for-granted concept. Does it express the economic impact of the industry, the political influence of particular “media moguls,” or the media's capacity to modify attitudes and beliefs? Does it refer to the ability of media to provide state or corporate actors with a valuable tool to assert their own dominance or to the diffusion of symbolic resources? Are we to believe that the media are increasingly…
Smooth Operator?’ The Propaganda Model and Moments of Crisis
The propaganda model is a powerful tool for explaining systematic flaws in media coverage. But does it explain the cracks and tensions within the commercial media that are capable of arising at moments of political crisis and elite disagreement? To what extent does the model privilege a flawless structuralist account of media power at the expense of focusing on contradictory dynamics inside the capitalist media? This article looks at a key moment…
Dynamics of power in contemporary media policy-making
Despite the growing interest in the organization and regulation of media industries, there is relatively little public discussion of the material processes through which media policy is developed. At a time of considerable change in the global media environment, new actors and new paradigms are emerging that are set to shift the balance of power between public and private interests in the policy-making process. This article focuses on some core c…
Metrics, models and the meaning of media ownership
Concentrated media ownership has become an increasingly salient issue in the context of global demands for social justice and democracy. This article calls for cultural policy analysts to highlight issues of media ownership and maps out three approaches to ownership that are designed to provide a more holistic account of the problems and potential solutions. Attention is first paid to ‘metrics’ and the gathering of quantitative data; next, to the…
Arm’s length or joined at the hip? Public service media’s coverage of Gaza
Critiquing normative articulations of a public versus commercial media binary, we explore the contradictory juxtaposition of democratic expectations assigned to public service media (PSM) broadly, alongside actual PSM reporting. We examine US and UK PSM coverage of two major events related to the bombardment of Gaza and subsequent humanitarian crisis in the months following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Contextualized within the UK, US an…
Neither private property nor public service: Critical reflections on the conceptual framework of public service media
Public service media (PSM) have long been seen as the necessary counterweight to the failures of a market model. Given the rise of private corporate power over communications systems, PSM have long been claimed to the be the ‘heart of a heartless world’ – spaces dominated not by the relentless logic of capital but by broader ambitions that involve citizen participation, social improvement and knowledge acquisition. This article offers a different…
Opening the gates: Plurality regulation and the public interest
This article sets out the emergent challenges and opportunities for developing effective and ‘future proof’ policy for regulating media plurality. This analysis is carried out against the backdrop of UK authorities’ 2018 public interest test of the proposed merger between 21st Century Fox and Sky, and the latest data on the UK media ownership landscape. The article goes on to critically examine the existing regulatory approach to considerations o…
Cultural policy‐making in the free trade era: An evaluation of the impact of current world trade organisation negotiations on audio‐visual industries
The delicate compromise concerning the regulation of world trade in audio‐visual materials is about to be upset. Ongoing negotiations under the World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) are seeking to establish, in the words of US negotiators, “clear, dependable and predictable trade rules” for transnational media exchanges. This article evaluates the impact of the GATS on audio‐visual industries and considers the e…
How her majesty's opposition grew to like commercial television: The Labour Party and the origins of ITV
Bringing together the most important writings on television in theoretical, historical, empirical and political terms, from the USA and Europe, with significant coverage of other international works, this collection demonstrates television's global significance, as a field of study, to disciplines across both the humanities and social sciences
Social democracy and communication technology: The case of the information superhighway
1996). Social democracy and communication technology: The case of the information superhighway. Contemporary Politics: Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 21-38
Globalization and local consumption: The Labour Party's attempts to sell British media
How her majesty's opposition grew to like commercial television: The Labour Party and the origins of ITV
Bringing together the most important writings on television in theoretical, historical, empirical and political terms, from the USA and Europe, with significant coverage of other international works, this collection demonstrates television's global significance, as a field of study, to disciplines across both the humanities and social sciences
What use is a public inquiry? Labour and the 1977 Annan Committee on the Future of Broadcasting
In the light of increasing concern today about the uncertain future of British television, this article investigates the effectiveness of the public inquiry as a means of broadcasting reform. In particular, it focuses on the 1977 Annan Committee on the Future of Broadcasting and assesses the extent to which the committee was a victory for those who wished to open up broadcasting structures. Pressure for a full-scale review of British broadcasting…
A 'Technological Idiot'? Raymond Williams and Communications Technology
Raymond Williams was a prolific cultural commentator and historian and his writing on communications technology provides a particularly relevant framework for understanding contemporary information-society innovations. Williams sought to distinguish questions of technique and technical invention from their realization in the fundamentally social organization of technologies themselves and emphasized the importance of agency and intention in struc…
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The politics of television exports
Globalization developments are presenting television programme-makers with the possibility of expanding programme sales on the international market. This article focuses on the various initiatives of the UK government to support an export-led strategy, and evaluates the consequences of such a strategy on domestic programming. Highlighting the current trend towards the sale of programme formats, the article further considers whether the increased …
War and the Media: Reporting Conflict 24/7
With what new tools do governments manage the news in order to prepare us for conflict? Are the media responsible for turning conflict into infotainment? Is reporting gender specific? How do journalists view their role in covering distant wars? This book critically examines the changing contours of media coverage of war and considers the complexity of the relationship between mass media and governments in wartime. Assessing how far the political,…
Cultural policy‐making in the free trade era: An evaluation of the impact of current world trade organisation negotiations on audio‐visual industries
The delicate compromise concerning the regulation of world trade in audio‐visual materials is about to be upset. Ongoing negotiations under the World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) are seeking to establish, in the words of US negotiators, “clear, dependable and predictable trade rules” for transnational media exchanges. This article evaluates the impact of the GATS on audio‐visual industries and considers the e…
Introduction to Commentaries
Dynamics of power in contemporary media policy-making
Despite the growing interest in the organization and regulation of media industries, there is relatively little public discussion of the material processes through which media policy is developed. At a time of considerable change in the global media environment, new actors and new paradigms are emerging that are set to shift the balance of power between public and private interests in the policy-making process. This article focuses on some core c…
The Political Economy of the ‘New’ News Environment
An Ethical Deficit? Accountability, Norms, and the Material Conditions of Contemporary Journalism
Media Policy Silences: The Hidden Face of Communications Decision Making
The analysis of media policy usually, and understandably, focuses on visible instances of policy action : of government intervention, regulatory activity, civil society engagement, and corporate initiatives. Less frequently considered is the process by which certain issues, frames, and proposals are neglected inside decision-making structures. This article reflects on the relationship between “industrial activism” and policy silences in relation …
Misunderstanding the Internet
Media and Terrorism: Global Perspectives
Media and Terrorism brings together leading scholars to explore how the world's media have influenced, and in turn, been influenced by terrorism and the war on terror in the aftermath of 9/11. Accessible and user-friendly with lively and current case studies, it is a perfect student text and is an essential handbook on the dynamics of war and the media in a global context
The Phone Hacking Scandal: Implications for Regulation
On Monday, 4 July 2011, the Guardian first revealed that an investigator working for Britain’s (then) top-selling Sunday newspaper, the News of the World (NOTW), had hacked into the cell phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler. There was immediate public outrage and a huge amount of media coverage. Two days later, corporate lobbyists, public affairs directors, broadcasters, producers and politicians came together in an exclusive Westminster M…
Metrics, models and the meaning of media ownership
Concentrated media ownership has become an increasingly salient issue in the context of global demands for social justice and democracy. This article calls for cultural policy analysts to highlight issues of media ownership and maps out three approaches to ownership that are designed to provide a more holistic account of the problems and potential solutions. Attention is first paid to ‘metrics’ and the gathering of quantitative data; next, to the…
Media Policy Research and the Media Industries
This essay highlights the need for a critical approach to policy as a key feature of media industries research. All too often media policy is understood and investigated as an administrative procedure that appears to be remote from the more dazzling world of media production and consumption, and of texts and audiences. This essay argues that issues of creativity and practice should not be insulated from analysis of the structural contexts of medi…
Paradigms of Media Power
Media power is a crucial, although often taken-for-granted concept. Does it express the economic impact of the industry, the political influence of particular “media moguls,” or the media's capacity to modify attitudes and beliefs? Does it refer to the ability of media to provide state or corporate actors with a valuable tool to assert their own dominance or to the diffusion of symbolic resources? Are we to believe that the media are increasingly…
Media Policy Fetishism
Recent studies have demonstrated that media policy is not a clean, administrative, depoliticized, and unproblematically evidence-based space but instead, an ideological power field in which certain preferences are confirmed and others marginalized. In this context, this article proposes that we focus on the fetishistic character of the media policy process, understood in relation to the loss of control over the decision-making arena and the outso…
Media Policy Fetishism
Why do ordinary users have so little input into or interest in the formal decisionmaking processes that shape our media systems? This presentation suggests that we focus on the fetishism of the media policy process, understood as the loss of control over the decisionmaking arena and as the outsourcing of political agency to external forces. It focuses on both the dimensions of ‘everyday fetishism’ (its capacity to naturalize commodification proce…
Misunderstanding the Internet
After Charlie Hebdo: Terror, Racism and Free Speech
As the world looked on in horror at the Paris terror attacks of January and November 2015, France found itself at the centre of a war that has split across nations and continents. The attacks set in motion a steady creep towards ever more repressive state surveillance, and have fuelled the resurgence of the far right across Europe and beyond, while leaving the left dangerously divided. These developments raise profound questions about a number of…
Liberalism in Neoliberal Times: Dimensions, Contradictions, Limits
An exploration of the theories, histories, practices, and contradictions of liberalism today. \n \nWhat does it mean to be a liberal in neoliberal times? This collection of short essays attempts to show how liberals and the wider concept of liberalism remain relevant in what many perceive to be a highly illiberal age. Liberalism in the broader sense revolves around tolerance, progress, humanitarianism, objectivity, reason, democracy, and human ri…
Smooth Operator?’ The Propaganda Model and Moments of Crisis
The propaganda model is a powerful tool for explaining systematic flaws in media coverage. But does it explain the cracks and tensions within the commercial media that are capable of arising at moments of political crisis and elite disagreement? To what extent does the model privilege a flawless structuralist account of media power at the expense of focusing on contradictory dynamics inside the capitalist media? This article looks at a key moment…
Political science (32 works) · Law (23 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Politics (21 works) · Law (14 works) · Public relations (13 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Media Studies and Communication (12 works) · Business (11 works) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (10 works)