Goldsmiths - University of London

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 reviews editor of '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 and is a member of the National Council of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

Areas of supervision

Current Research Students

Yachi Chen is exploring regulatory discourses in relation to the National Communications Commission in Taiwan
Laurence Pawley is assessing different models of citizenship in relation to the policies, programmes and performance of the BBC.
Vana Goblot is evaluating notions of 'quality' in relation to BBC4 and the idea of 'think television'.

Completed Students

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

• ‘The Political Economy of the “New” News Environment’ in N. Fenton (ed.), American University, 2008, 24 pp
• '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)
• ‘Broadcasting – Television’ in J. Petley and G. Williams (eds), 'The Media in Contemporary Britain, Palgrave, forthcoming (with P. Goodwin)
• ‘”Smooth Operator”? The Propaganda Model and Moments of Crisis’, 'Westminster Papers in Culture and Communication', forthcoming 2009
• ‘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' [pdf], Report for the Centre for Social Media,
• '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

• 'A New Expression of the Public Interest? The Case of the Public Service Publisher', ICA conference, Montreal, May 2008
• 'The Privatisation of the Public Interest', Meccsa, Cardiff, January 2008
• 'Vultures or educators? A political economy of lobbyists', Communication and Conflict conference, Glasgow, September 2007
• 'Neo-liberalism and media policy: the "problem" of the public', International Communications Association conference, San Francisco, May 2007
• 'The UK variety of neo-liberalism and its impact on media policies', Media Change and Social Theory conference, CRESC, University of Oxford, September 2006
• 'Media Policymaking in the US and UK: Does Academia Matter', China-UK Media Policy Symposium, University of Shanghai, May 2006
• ‘Neoliberalism and the making of UK media policy’, MECCSA conference, Leeds Metropolitan University, January 2006
• ‘The impact of the internet on media pluralism policy’, European Communications Conference, Amsterdam, November 2005
• ‘Is anyone listening? Academics and the media policy-making process’, PSA Media and Politics Group Conference, University of East Anglia, November 2005
• ‘Perspectives on media policy-making’, symposium on Media Policy-Making and Power, Goldsmiths, September 2005
• 'Globalizing the media reform movement', National Conference for Media Reform, St. Louis, USA, May 2005
• 'Dynamics of power in contemporary media policy-making', Political Studies Association conference, University of Leeds, April 2005
• 'Is there a place for theory in the media policy-making process?', Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Institute of Education, March 2005
• 'What do media policymakers understand by diversity and pluralism? An evaluation of contemporary debates in communications regulation', MECCSA conference, University of Lincoln, January 2005
• 'Diversity and pluralism in contemporary communications policies', Communication and Cultural Diversity conference, Forum Barcelona 2004, 24-27 May 2004
• 'Dumbing Up? The Mirror and the War on Iraq', MECCSA Annual Conference, University of Sussex, December 2003