Selected titles by the Media Group and its members, 1976 -2011
More Bad News from Israel (Greg Philo and Mike Berry, Pluto Press, 2011)
A new edition of the seminal Bad News from Israel (Pluto Press, 2004), this examines media coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East and the impact it has on public opinion. In the largest study ever undertaken in this area, the authors illustrate major differences in the way Israelis and Palestinians are represented, including how casualties are shown and the presentation of the motives and rationales of both sides.
This new edition includes studies of how television covered the Israeli attack on Gaza in December 2008 and on the Gaza flotilla in 2010. It shows the very sophisticated level of public relations now offered by Israel and how news has often reproduced this without offering an alternative perspective from the Palestinians. The impact on public opinion is explored through new audience research which greatly extends that of the first edition. It includes new findings on how the impact of even the most terrible images of war can be reduced by controlling audience beliefs about the origins of violence.
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Israel & Palestine: Competing Histories (Greg Philo and Mike Berry, Pluto Press, 2006)
As in any war, there are different histories that compete for our attention. Philo and Berry present an overview of the contending viewpoints and indicate those that are based on the most considered historical evidence. Covering events in chronological order, they present the beliefs of key thinkers across the ideological spectrum, from Edward Said to Binyamin Netanyahu. Starting with the emergence of the Zionist movement and the figures who shaped it, the authors go on to cover the founding of Israel and subsequent events, up to and including the 'roadmap for peace', the construction of the wall, the death of Arafat and the withdrawal from Gaza.
This is a study of TV new coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of how this coverage relates to the understanding, beliefs and attitudes of the television audience. The work was undertaken with support from the Economic and Social Research Council whose help we would like to acknowledge. In producing this study our intention was not to ‘monitor’ the media or to criticise individual journalists. Our intention was to discuss the pressures and structures within which they work to show the effects of those on new content and to examine the role of the media in the construction of public knowledge. It is a very extensive study with an audience sample of over 800 people and a detailed analysis of TV news over a two-year period. This work also raises a series of important theoretical issues in mass communications. The main focus of the book is on giving a clear exposition of our methods and results, but the theoretical concerns are latent and there is a more detailed discussion of them in other work by the Media Group.
Market Killing (eds. Greg Philo and David Miller, Longman, 2000)
This book shows how the release of the free market in the last part of the twentieth century produced a rise in inequality and violence, the development of a huge criminal economy and the degradation of social and cultural life. It questions the silence of academics in the face of these changes and asks how much they have been incorporated into the priorities of commerce and governments. Many academics in the social sciences, and media and cultural studies have avoided critical issues and become occupied in obscure theoretical debates such as post-modernism. The effect was to draw intellectuals and students away from the engaged and empirical work needed to identify key social problems and possibilities for change debate.
The authors of this book point to the need for independent research which can criticise political policies and reveal their effects. They show, for example, why contemporary policies on drugs and education are creating more problems then they solve. The book features contributions from a wide range of academic disciplines including mass communication, sociology, politics, geography, philosophy and economics, and points to new directions for radical science. It also examines the possibilities for a free and democratic media and calls for the development of critical and open public debate.
With additional essays by Noam Chomsky, Hilary Rose, Derek Bouse, Angela McRobbie, John Corner, Chris Hamnett, Andrew Gamble, Philip Schlesinger, Barbara Epstein, Jean Shaol, James Curran, Danny Schechter and Hilary Wainright.
This brings together the results of research by the Media Group from 1994-98 in the areas of 'race' and media, migration, development, mental illness, health and food scares, risk, children and violence, debates on media effects and audiences.
This book examines the promotional strategies of interest groups, the production of media coverage, meanings promoted by the media and their impact on policy culture and society. Using detailed analysis of the struggle over representation during the AIDS crisis, the authors reveal the power of the media to influence public opinion, and the complex interaction between media coverage and audience response.
In this introduction to the role of the mass media in modern Britain, the authors examine the development, issues of ownership, and roots of media power in the public and political spheres. They also consider the question of media effects and introduce new research into audience reception.
This volume examines the content of media images of mental conditions (such as schizophrenia), showing how these are routinely depicted and stigmatised. The study also considers the impact of these images on public beliefs and attitudes, as well as on carers and users of mental health services.
Glasgow Media Group Reader Volume 1: News Content, Language and Visuals (Glasgow Media Group ed. John Eldrige, Routledge,1995)
The Glasgow Media Group Readers bring together key articles and new writings by members of the Group from the early 1970s onwards, making material newly available from the Group's classic books Bad News, More Bad News, Really Bad News, and War and Peace News.Focusing on content, language, and the role of visual images in news reporting, Volume 1 includes case studies such as media coverage of the Greenham Common and 'the Church and the Bomb' controversies, and also includes two introductory articles in which John Eldridge surveys the Group's work over the past decades and responds to its critics.
The second volume of the Glasgow Media Group Reader reprints classic articles on the reporting and audience reception of industrial and economic news, including coverage of the 1984-85 Miners' Strike. It also includes material on media coverage of conflicts in Northern Ireland, the Falklands and the Persian Gulf. A new essay by Greg Philo examines the media strategies of political parties in the 1980s and considers the effects of changes in the legal and commercial structure of broadcasting.
A collection of essays by Group members focusing on production processes, media context, and the reception of messages by audiences. Contributors discuss themes such as the relationship between the media and public opinion, the emergence of TV news formats and styles, and the relations between theory and method in media research. Recent work by the Group on on the media's role in reporting on AIDS, Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Ethiopa and the Gulf War is also represented.
A study of audiences, looking at what they believe, and the power of television when used for public relations and political propaganda. It also illustrates the focus group methodologies for audience research that would go on to be used by the Glasgow Media Group in later studies.
This book deals with television coverage of the Falklands War in 1982, including defence and disarmament issues. It also includes an analysis of the images of women in the media at the time of the war.
More Bad News (Glasgow Media Group, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980)
Really Bad News (Glasgow Media Group, Writers and Readers Co-operative, 1982)
The first major publication by the Glasgow Media Group, Bad News pioneered the study of television journalism, expressing critical concern with the 'common sense' acceptance of the neutrality of television news.
"Contrary to the claims, conventions and culture of television journalism, the news is not a neutral product. For television news is a cultural artefact; it is a sequence of socially manufactured messages, which carry many of the culturally dominant assumptions of our society. From the accents of the newscasters to the vocabulary of camera angles; from who gets on and what questions they are asked, via selection of news stories to presentation of bulletins, the news is a highly mediated product." (Glasogw Media Group 1976: 1)
It was followed by More Bad News in 1980 and Really Bad News in 1982.