David Deacon
Biographic Data
| ID | 3975989 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Deacon |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Deacon |
| SIGNATURE | DEACON D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Loughborough University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4166-4861 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 209 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Tax, trip-ups, and transgressions: Reporting the 2024 UK General Election
This contribution examines British mainstream news reporting of the 2024 UK General Election. The analysis shows the two main parties' share of coverage exceeded their actual vote share by some margin, the first time this has occurred in the last seven campaigns. Levels of policy content was also low compared with previous elections and the substantive agenda was disconnected from voter priorities. Analysis of GB News, a new television channel th…
‘Another Version of the Truth’: The politics of affect and the externalization of threat in Trent Reznor’s Year Zero
This article explores Nine Inch Nails’ album Year Zero (2007) with reference to what Brian Massumi calls the ‘politics of affect’ in the post 9/11 era. The sociopolitical discourse of managed threat both contextualizes and shapes the album’s conceptual basis, but also its lyricism, live manifestation and marketing. I propose a trajectory in Trent Reznor’s lyricism from an early introspective and confessional style to defensive and anxious tropes,…
Researching Communications: A Practical Guide to Methods in Media and Cultural Analysis
The new edition of the highly respected Researching Communications is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to researching media and communication. Researching Communications, Third Edition is an invaluable guide to performing and analysing research tasks, introducing the major research methods, giving detailed examples of research analysis and practical step-by-step guidance in clear language. Written by highly regarded experts in the field, t…
The present in retrospect: Press reporting of UK General Elections, 1918–2015
This article provides a unique content analysis of 100 years of national press coverage of UK General Elections and tests four claims about historical trends in election news reporting in democratic systems: (1) that coverage is becoming more focussed on political leaders at the expense of other political sources; (2) that reporting of the personalities and personal lives of politicians has expanded; (3) that editorial treatment of politicians ha…
The Media Campaign: The Issues and Personalities Who Defined the Election
Some Unholy Alloy: Neoliberalism, Digital Modernity, and the Mechanics of Globalized Capital in Cormac McCarthy’s The Counselor
This article proposes a reading of The Counselor (2013) as an extrapolation of the frontier ethic animating much of Cormac McCarthy’s earlier writing. I will propose that echoes of Blood Meridian (1985), which presented the duality of barbarism and capital, are audible and perpetuated under digital capitalism, a condition encompassing the expansion of increasingly impersonal and anonymized capital under neoliberal socio-economics, empowered by di…
Still Life in the Old Attack Dogs: The Press
During the 2015 campaign there was considerable negativity and partiality in much press reporting; it was not difficult to find examples of where robust political partisanship descended into personal vilification. Some of this was the kind of journalism that had been repeatedly highlighted and criticized only a few years before, most notably in the House of Commons following the 2011 hacking scandal and subsequently during the ensuing year-long L…
Mediatization and ’ or ‘Mediatization of ’? A response to Hepp et al
This item was submitted for publication in the journal, Media, Culture and Society [SAGE Publications Ltd / © The Author(s)]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443715580761
Hello to All That
Mediatization: Key Concept or Conceptual Bandwagon
Mediatization is emerging as an influential new concept that places the media at the centre of all kinds of important cultural, political and social developments. However, it has so far attracted little critical evaluation. In this article the authors identify three areas of concern, namely, how causal processes are thought about, how historical change is understood, and how concepts are designed. It is hoped this article will generate critical d…
Hello to All That: ‘Credit Crunches’, ‘Great Depressions’ and Journalistic Retrojection
One of the standout tracks of Bob Dylan’s 2006 album ‘Modern Times’ is ‘Working Man’s Blues #2’. 1 On first listening, the elegiac melody and lyrics describing the desperation and hunger of an unemployed man facing an itinerant future and the loss of his family evoke powerful associations with the Great Depression of the 1930s. This historical connection is partly conjured by references in the lyrics to humming rails, lost dimes, burned barns and…
Quantitative Audience Research: Embracing the Poor Relation
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Twin Pillars The Early Years of Quantitative Audience Research The Partial Death of the Dominant Paradigm A Strange Twist ... Conclusion: The Compatibility Thesis References
Reporting the 2010 General Election: Old Media, New Media — Old Politics, New Politics
To say that the media are central to modern election campaigning may be axiomatic, but there are specific reasons why the media are particularly significant in British general elections. Britain still has a very unitary political system, only partially tempered by political devolution. It also has centralised and nationally orientated news media whose dominance is arguably increasing, as pressures on regional news broadcasting intensify and cost-…
Patterns of press partisanship in the 2010 General Election
Why Counting Counts
The contemporary field of cultural studies has little interest in, or engagement with, quantitative analysis.If you don't believe me, here are some numbers.
British News Media and the Spanish Civil WarTomorrow May Be Too Late
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was reported by some of the most eminent journalists of the twentieth century and was the subject of reportage that still endures in public memory. However, this represents just a small fraction of the total news coverage of the war, raising the possibility that it provides a partial, even atypical, view of the international media's engagement with, and performance in, the conflict. This book provides the most ex…
Researching Communications: A Practical Guide to Methods in Media and Cultural Analysis
Researching Communications, Second Edition provides a practical, authoritative, step-by-step guide to media and communications studies students taking courses in communications research. The authors also examine the complementary nature of qualitative and quantitative research methods, and aim to show how these techniques hold up in practice. The new edition also incorporates new information on using archives and computers as well as the use of t…
Yesterday’s Papers and Today’s Technology: Digital Newspaper Archives and ‘Push Button’ Content Analysis
This article considers the methodological implications of using digital newspaper archives for analysis of media content. The discussion identifies arange of validity and reliability concerns about this increasingly prevalent mode of analysis, which have been under-appreciated to date. Although these questions do not deny a role for the use of proxy data in media analysis, they do highlight the need for caution when researchers rely on text-based…
Holism, Communion and Conversion: Integrating Media Consumption and Production Research
There has been a growth of interest in ‘holistic’ approaches to the study of media communication over the recent period, in which analyses of media consumption and production have become more closely integrated. In welcoming this trend, this article identifies the basis for this integration and considers the negative consequences of any continued dissociation of production and consumption debates. It is also noted that tensions still remain betwe…
From inception to reception: The Natural History of a News Item
This article compares the complex dynamics involved in the production and reception of a newspaper article. This case study is used as the basis for a broader discussion of the encoding and decoding of meaning via the news media. The article recommends that closer attention needs to be given to the linkages between these moments in the mass communication process, and the temporal contexts within which they occur
Mediating Social Science
Sod off and Find Us a Boffin: Journalists and the Social Science Conference
Social scientists perform a multi-functional role as researcher, teacher and expert. The academic conference provides an opportunity for all these roles to be engaged and as such is a political and social site where meaning is debated and new research born. The conference is also attractive to journalists as news fodder. This article considers the relationship between journalists and social scientific organizations in the context of a professiona…
The Voluntary Sector in a Changing Communication Environment: A Case Study of Non-Official News Sources
Debates about the sociology of news production have recently been influenced by two emerging research trends. The first has focused attention on the power of news sources to pre-structure news and current affairs, the second has addressed the influence of non-official institutions in the news creation process. Drawing on research into communication activity in the British voluntary sector, this article discusses these new trends and provides exte…
Communicating philanthropy: The media and the voluntary sector in Britain
Whether in looking for resources or doing their work, voluntary and charitable organisations have always needed to publicise their existence. However, major changes in the role and funding of the sector in Britain have meant that the issue of publicity has gained particular salience. This article discusses these changes and provides preliminary findings from a large-scale investigation into media and public attitudes towards voluntary and charita…
Barriers to centralism: Local government, local media and the charge on the community
Mediatization: Key Concept or Conceptual Bandwagon
Mediatization is emerging as an influential new concept that places the media at the centre of all kinds of important cultural, political and social developments. However, it has so far attracted little critical evaluation. In this article the authors identify three areas of concern, namely, how causal processes are thought about, how historical change is understood, and how concepts are designed. It is hoped this article will generate critical d…
Yesterday’s Papers and Today’s Technology: Digital Newspaper Archives and ‘Push Button’ Content Analysis
This article considers the methodological implications of using digital newspaper archives for analysis of media content. The discussion identifies arange of validity and reliability concerns about this increasingly prevalent mode of analysis, which have been under-appreciated to date. Although these questions do not deny a role for the use of proxy data in media analysis, they do highlight the need for caution when researchers rely on text-based…
From inception to reception: The Natural History of a News Item
This article compares the complex dynamics involved in the production and reception of a newspaper article. This case study is used as the basis for a broader discussion of the encoding and decoding of meaning via the news media. The article recommends that closer attention needs to be given to the linkages between these moments in the mass communication process, and the temporal contexts within which they occur
Mediatization and ’ or ‘Mediatization of ’? A response to Hepp et al
This item was submitted for publication in the journal, Media, Culture and Society [SAGE Publications Ltd / © The Author(s)]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443715580761
The Voluntary Sector in a Changing Communication Environment: A Case Study of Non-Official News Sources
Debates about the sociology of news production have recently been influenced by two emerging research trends. The first has focused attention on the power of news sources to pre-structure news and current affairs, the second has addressed the influence of non-official institutions in the news creation process. Drawing on research into communication activity in the British voluntary sector, this article discusses these new trends and provides exte…
British News Media and the Spanish Civil WarTomorrow May Be Too Late
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was reported by some of the most eminent journalists of the twentieth century and was the subject of reportage that still endures in public memory. However, this represents just a small fraction of the total news coverage of the war, raising the possibility that it provides a partial, even atypical, view of the international media's engagement with, and performance in, the conflict. This book provides the most ex…
Mediating Social Science
The present in retrospect: Press reporting of UK General Elections, 1918–2015
This article provides a unique content analysis of 100 years of national press coverage of UK General Elections and tests four claims about historical trends in election news reporting in democratic systems: (1) that coverage is becoming more focussed on political leaders at the expense of other political sources; (2) that reporting of the personalities and personal lives of politicians has expanded; (3) that editorial treatment of politicians ha…
Competition policy in the Common Market: Its links with regional policy
Deacon D. (1982) Competition policy in the Common Market: its links with regional policy, Reg. Studies 16, 53–63. This paper examines the possible conflict between competition and regional policy in the Common Market. It suggests that competition policy towards regional aids can have a positive influence on the development of backward regions by limiting aids in less backward regions. The Community's competition policy towards regional aids is an…
Holism, Communion and Conversion: Integrating Media Consumption and Production Research
There has been a growth of interest in ‘holistic’ approaches to the study of media communication over the recent period, in which analyses of media consumption and production have become more closely integrated. In welcoming this trend, this article identifies the basis for this integration and considers the negative consequences of any continued dissociation of production and consumption debates. It is also noted that tensions still remain betwe…
Sod off and Find Us a Boffin: Journalists and the Social Science Conference
Social scientists perform a multi-functional role as researcher, teacher and expert. The academic conference provides an opportunity for all these roles to be engaged and as such is a political and social site where meaning is debated and new research born. The conference is also attractive to journalists as news fodder. This article considers the relationship between journalists and social scientific organizations in the context of a professiona…
Communicating philanthropy: The media and the voluntary sector in Britain
Whether in looking for resources or doing their work, voluntary and charitable organisations have always needed to publicise their existence. However, major changes in the role and funding of the sector in Britain have meant that the issue of publicity has gained particular salience. This article discusses these changes and provides preliminary findings from a large-scale investigation into media and public attitudes towards voluntary and charita…
Competition policy in the Common Market: Its links with regional policy
Deacon D. (1982) Competition policy in the Common Market: its links with regional policy, Reg. Studies 16, 53–63. This paper examines the possible conflict between competition and regional policy in the Common Market. It suggests that competition policy towards regional aids can have a positive influence on the development of backward regions by limiting aids in less backward regions. The Community's competition policy towards regional aids is an…
Barriers to centralism: Local government, local media and the charge on the community
Communicating philanthropy: The media and the voluntary sector in Britain
Whether in looking for resources or doing their work, voluntary and charitable organisations have always needed to publicise their existence. However, major changes in the role and funding of the sector in Britain have meant that the issue of publicity has gained particular salience. This article discusses these changes and provides preliminary findings from a large-scale investigation into media and public attitudes towards voluntary and charita…
The Voluntary Sector in a Changing Communication Environment: A Case Study of Non-Official News Sources
Debates about the sociology of news production have recently been influenced by two emerging research trends. The first has focused attention on the power of news sources to pre-structure news and current affairs, the second has addressed the influence of non-official institutions in the news creation process. Drawing on research into communication activity in the British voluntary sector, this article discusses these new trends and provides exte…
Sod off and Find Us a Boffin: Journalists and the Social Science Conference
Social scientists perform a multi-functional role as researcher, teacher and expert. The academic conference provides an opportunity for all these roles to be engaged and as such is a political and social site where meaning is debated and new research born. The conference is also attractive to journalists as news fodder. This article considers the relationship between journalists and social scientific organizations in the context of a professiona…
From inception to reception: The Natural History of a News Item
This article compares the complex dynamics involved in the production and reception of a newspaper article. This case study is used as the basis for a broader discussion of the encoding and decoding of meaning via the news media. The article recommends that closer attention needs to be given to the linkages between these moments in the mass communication process, and the temporal contexts within which they occur
Mediating Social Science
Holism, Communion and Conversion: Integrating Media Consumption and Production Research
There has been a growth of interest in ‘holistic’ approaches to the study of media communication over the recent period, in which analyses of media consumption and production have become more closely integrated. In welcoming this trend, this article identifies the basis for this integration and considers the negative consequences of any continued dissociation of production and consumption debates. It is also noted that tensions still remain betwe…
Researching Communications: A Practical Guide to Methods in Media and Cultural Analysis
Researching Communications, Second Edition provides a practical, authoritative, step-by-step guide to media and communications studies students taking courses in communications research. The authors also examine the complementary nature of qualitative and quantitative research methods, and aim to show how these techniques hold up in practice. The new edition also incorporates new information on using archives and computers as well as the use of t…
Yesterday’s Papers and Today’s Technology: Digital Newspaper Archives and ‘Push Button’ Content Analysis
This article considers the methodological implications of using digital newspaper archives for analysis of media content. The discussion identifies arange of validity and reliability concerns about this increasingly prevalent mode of analysis, which have been under-appreciated to date. Although these questions do not deny a role for the use of proxy data in media analysis, they do highlight the need for caution when researchers rely on text-based…
Why Counting Counts
The contemporary field of cultural studies has little interest in, or engagement with, quantitative analysis.If you don't believe me, here are some numbers.
British News Media and the Spanish Civil WarTomorrow May Be Too Late
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was reported by some of the most eminent journalists of the twentieth century and was the subject of reportage that still endures in public memory. However, this represents just a small fraction of the total news coverage of the war, raising the possibility that it provides a partial, even atypical, view of the international media's engagement with, and performance in, the conflict. This book provides the most ex…
Patterns of press partisanship in the 2010 General Election
Quantitative Audience Research: Embracing the Poor Relation
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Twin Pillars The Early Years of Quantitative Audience Research The Partial Death of the Dominant Paradigm A Strange Twist ... Conclusion: The Compatibility Thesis References
Reporting the 2010 General Election: Old Media, New Media — Old Politics, New Politics
To say that the media are central to modern election campaigning may be axiomatic, but there are specific reasons why the media are particularly significant in British general elections. Britain still has a very unitary political system, only partially tempered by political devolution. It also has centralised and nationally orientated news media whose dominance is arguably increasing, as pressures on regional news broadcasting intensify and cost-…
Hello to All That: ‘Credit Crunches’, ‘Great Depressions’ and Journalistic Retrojection
One of the standout tracks of Bob Dylan’s 2006 album ‘Modern Times’ is ‘Working Man’s Blues #2’. 1 On first listening, the elegiac melody and lyrics describing the desperation and hunger of an unemployed man facing an itinerant future and the loss of his family evoke powerful associations with the Great Depression of the 1930s. This historical connection is partly conjured by references in the lyrics to humming rails, lost dimes, burned barns and…
Hello to All That
Mediatization: Key Concept or Conceptual Bandwagon
Mediatization is emerging as an influential new concept that places the media at the centre of all kinds of important cultural, political and social developments. However, it has so far attracted little critical evaluation. In this article the authors identify three areas of concern, namely, how causal processes are thought about, how historical change is understood, and how concepts are designed. It is hoped this article will generate critical d…
Mediatization and ’ or ‘Mediatization of ’? A response to Hepp et al
This item was submitted for publication in the journal, Media, Culture and Society [SAGE Publications Ltd / © The Author(s)]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443715580761
Still Life in the Old Attack Dogs: The Press
During the 2015 campaign there was considerable negativity and partiality in much press reporting; it was not difficult to find examples of where robust political partisanship descended into personal vilification. Some of this was the kind of journalism that had been repeatedly highlighted and criticized only a few years before, most notably in the House of Commons following the 2011 hacking scandal and subsequently during the ensuing year-long L…
The Media Campaign: The Issues and Personalities Who Defined the Election
Some Unholy Alloy: Neoliberalism, Digital Modernity, and the Mechanics of Globalized Capital in Cormac McCarthy’s The Counselor
This article proposes a reading of The Counselor (2013) as an extrapolation of the frontier ethic animating much of Cormac McCarthy’s earlier writing. I will propose that echoes of Blood Meridian (1985), which presented the duality of barbarism and capital, are audible and perpetuated under digital capitalism, a condition encompassing the expansion of increasingly impersonal and anonymized capital under neoliberal socio-economics, empowered by di…
The present in retrospect: Press reporting of UK General Elections, 1918–2015
This article provides a unique content analysis of 100 years of national press coverage of UK General Elections and tests four claims about historical trends in election news reporting in democratic systems: (1) that coverage is becoming more focussed on political leaders at the expense of other political sources; (2) that reporting of the personalities and personal lives of politicians has expanded; (3) that editorial treatment of politicians ha…
‘Another Version of the Truth’: The politics of affect and the externalization of threat in Trent Reznor’s Year Zero
This article explores Nine Inch Nails’ album Year Zero (2007) with reference to what Brian Massumi calls the ‘politics of affect’ in the post 9/11 era. The sociopolitical discourse of managed threat both contextualizes and shapes the album’s conceptual basis, but also its lyricism, live manifestation and marketing. I propose a trajectory in Trent Reznor’s lyricism from an early introspective and confessional style to defensive and anxious tropes,…
Researching Communications: A Practical Guide to Methods in Media and Cultural Analysis
The new edition of the highly respected Researching Communications is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to researching media and communication. Researching Communications, Third Edition is an invaluable guide to performing and analysing research tasks, introducing the major research methods, giving detailed examples of research analysis and practical step-by-step guidance in clear language. Written by highly regarded experts in the field, t…
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (16 works) · Media Studies and Communication (13 works) · Law (9 works) · Media studies (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Social Media and Politics (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works)