Dr. Des Freedman

Des Freedman is interested in the relationship between media and power together with the political and economic contexts of media policymaking and regulation. He is an editor of the Sage journal 'Global Media and Communication' and was previously on the management committee of the COST programme A20, 'The Impact of the Internet on the Mass Media in Europe'. He was awarded an ESRC grant in 2005 to examine the dynamics of media policy-making in the UK and US. See coverage in the Guardian and a copy of the report [pdf]. Des received an AHRC research leave award in 2006 to complete The Politics of Media Policy for Polity Press. He was a participant in the 'Spaces of the News' project in the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre, co-editor of the 'Unversities and Capitalism' section of openDemocracy, a member of the National Council of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom and a founder member of the Coordinating Committee for Media Reform. He is currently writing a book on The Contradictions of Media Power for Bloomsbury (due 2013).

SELECTED ARTICLES ON THE PHONE HACKING SCANDAL, THE LEVESON INQUIRY AND THE COMMUNICATIONS REVIEW

'Leveson and the Prospects for Media Reform' (co-writen with Deborah Grayson), Soundings, issue 53, Spring 2013, pp.69-81.

Leveson: Does the Sentence Fit the Crime? Huffington Post, 30 November 2012.

Leveson and the Left, New Left Project, 5 December 2012

The BBC: Is this  the Corporation's Hacking Crisis? Huffington Post, 12 November 2012.

Communications White Paper: The Deregulation Bandwagon is on the Road, LSE Media Policy Project, 22 August 2012

Measuring media plurality isn’t enough, LSE Media Policy Project, 25 June 2012. 

It’s Not Just about Murdoch – The Whole System Needs Fixing, Huffington Post, 8 May 2012. 

Murdoch and the UK culture secretary: we shouldn’t be surprised, we should be angry, openDemocracy, 25 April 2012. 

Did UK Minister work for government  - or Murdoch? CNN Online, 25 April 2012. 

If the Sun hates attacks on press freedom, how must it hate itself! openDemocracy, 13 February 2012. 

The Phone Hacking Scandal: Implications for Regulation, Television and New Media 13 (1), January 2012, pp. 17-20.

Rehabilitating Britain’s news media (with James Curran and Angela Phillips), Guardian, Comment is Free, 16 November 2011.

Still hacked off with the media: Come and join the campaign for UK media reform, openDemocracy, 15 November 2011.

The BBC is not part of the problem raised by Hackgate, openDemocracy, 20 September 2011. 

The Leveson Inquiry – Should We Care? New Left Project, 2 September 2011. 

What does it mean to ‘break up’ media power? Guardian, Comment is Free, 31 July 2011.

Is hacking scandal the UK’s Watergate? CNN Online, 19 July 2011.

Hackgate and the Communications Review: two separate planets? openDemocracy, 11 July 2011.

Murdoch: The End of the Affair? LSE Media Policy Project, 7 July 2011.  

Areas of supervision

Current Research Students

Alejandro Rodriguez is looking at Mexican media policies in relation to Habermasian concepts of ideal speech and the public sphere

Vana Goblot is evaluating notions of 'quality' in relation to BBC4 and the idea of 'think television'

Noemie Oxley is researching soldiers' videos of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Completed Students

Yachi Chen explored regulatory discourses in relation to the National Communications Commission in Taiwan

Laurence Pawley assessed different models of citizenship in relation to the policies, programmes and performance of the BBC.

Kate Coyer looked at the democratic implications of local and community radio with case studies of radio stations in Los Angeles and London.

Eugene Gorny, an experienced web producer, researched the history of creativity in Russian cyberculture.

Sen-Yin Li looked at press narratives in relation to debates on GM food.

Selected publications

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

The Asssault on Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance, co-edited with Michael Bailey, Pluto Press, 2011  

Media and Terrorism: Global Perspectives, co-edited with Daya Thussu, Sage Publications, 2011

Misunderstanding the Internet, co-written with James Curran and Natalie Fenton, Routledge, 2012

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

• 'Leveson and the Prospects for Media Reform' (co-writen with Deborah Grayson), Soundings, issue 53, Spring 2013, pp.69-81.
  
• 'Metrics, models and the meaning of media ownership', International Journal of Cultural Policy, December 2012
• 'Media Regulation', Oxford Bibliographies, May 2012, Oxford University Press
• 'The Phone Hacking Scandal: Implications for Regulation', Television and New Media 13 (1), January 2012, pp. 17-20
• 'Mapping Digital Media: UK case study', commissioned by Open Society Foundations, 2011 (co-written with Justin Schlosberg)
• 'Media Policy Silences: The Hidden Face of Communications Decision-making', International Journal of Press/Politics, 15(3), July 2010, 344-361
• 'Meeting the News Needs of Local Communities;, a report for the Media Trust, 2010 (co-written with Natalie Fenton, Monika Metykova and Justin Schlosberg). Available at: www.mediatrust.org/uploads/128255497549240/original.pdf
• 'Protecting the News: Civil Society and the Media', Carnegie UK, a report of the 'Making Good Society' project, 2010 (co-written with T. Witschge and N. Fenton). Available at: http://democracy.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/files/Protecting%20the%20news.pdf
• 'The Political Economy of the "New" News Environment' in N. Fenton (ed.), New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age, Sage, 2009
• 'An Ethical Deficit? Accountability, Norms, and the Material Conditions of Contemporary Journalism' in N. Fenton (ed.), 'New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age', Sage, 2009 (with N. Couldry and A. Phillips)
• 'Smooth Operator? The Propaganda Model and Moments of Crisis', 'Westminster Papers in Culture and Communication', Vol 6(2) 2009, 59-72
• 'The Lure of the Public Service Publisher', 'Journal of British Film and Television', Vol 6(1), May 2009, pp. 103-121
• 'The Rise and Fall of the Public Service Publisher', Report for the Centre for Social Media, American University, 2008, 24 pp
• 'The Politics of Media Policy', Polity Press, 2008     
• 'Policy and regulation' in R. Picard, R. Towse and L. Kung (eds), 'The Impact of the Internet on the Mass Media', Sage 2008 (with R. Towse and R. Wallis)
• 'The Mirror and the war on Iraq' in A. Biressi and H. Nunn (eds) 'The Tabloid Culture Reader', Open University Press, 2007
• 'Dynamics of power in contemporary media policy-making', Media, Culture and Society 28(6), 2006, pp. 907-928
• 'Do scholars matter? Some reasons for the declining influence of academics on the media policy-making process', International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics 2(1), 2006
• 'Media policy-making in the free trade era: the impact of the GATS negotiations on audiovisual industries' in S. Harvey (ed.) 'Trading Culture: Exploring the 'Indigenous' and the 'Exportable' in Film and Television Culture', John Libbey Press, 2006, pp. 21-32
• ‘Internet Transformations: “old” media resilience in the “new media” revolution’ in J. Curran and D. Morley (eds) Media and Cultural Theory, Routledge, 2006, pp. 275-290
• 'Promoting diversity and pluralism in contemporary communications policies in the US and UK', International Journal on Media Management, 6(3/4), 2005
• 'GATS and the audiovisual sector: An update', Global Media and Communication 1(1), 2005, pp. 124-128
• 'The Mirror and the War on Iraq: Profits, Politics and Product Differentiation', Mediactive, 3, April 2004
• 'Misreporting war has a long history' in D. Miller (ed, Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq, Pluto, 2004, pp. 63-69
• 'Cultural policy-making in the free trade era: an evaluation of the impact of current World Trade Organisation negotiations on audio-visual industries', International Journal of Cultural Policy, 9:3, 2003, pp. 305-318
• 'Managing pirate culture: corporate responses to peer-to-peer networking', International Journal on Media Management, 5:3, 2003, pp. 173-179
• War and the Media: Reporting Conflict 24/7 (edited with Daya Thussu), Sage, 2003
• Television Policies of the Labour Party, Frank Cass, 2003
• 'A "Technological Idiot"?: Raymond Williams and Communications Technology', Information, Communication and Society, 5: 3, 2002, 1-18
• 'Witnessing whose truth?', Open Democracy, 26 February 2003, (www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-8-92-1007.jsp)
• 'Raymond Williams', in C. May (ed.), Key Thinkers for the Information Society Routledge, 2003, 173-190
• 'How Her Majesty's Opposition Grew to Like Commercial TV: The Labour Party and the Origins of ITV', in T. Miller (ed.), Television: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, Routledge, 2003