The Origins Of Modern Spin

Virtually every government communication in a modern democracy is formulated and evaluated in the context of spin. Based on original, archival research, this book explodes the notion that information management is a recent phenomenon.

Virtually every government communication in a modern democracy is formulated and evaluated in the context of spin. Based on original, archival research, this book explodes the notion that information management is a recent phenomenon.

The two centuries after 1800 witnessed a series of sweeping changes in the way in which Britain was governed, the duties of the state, and its role in the wider world. Powerful processes - from the development of democracy, the changing nature of the social contract, war, and economic dislocation - have challenged, and at times threatened to overwhelm, both governors and governed. Such shifts have also presented challenges to the historians who have researched and written about Britain's past politics. This Handbook shows the ways in which political historians have responded to these challenges, providing a snapshot of a field which has long been at the forefront of conceptual and methodological innovation within historical studies. It comprises thirty-three thematic essays by leading and emerging scholars in the field. Collectively, these essays assess and rethink the nature of modern British political history itself and suggest avenues and questions for future research. The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History thus provides a unique resource for those who wish to understand Britain's political past and a thought-provoking 'long view' for those interested in current political challenges.

This book was written to try and answer the question: ‘where and when did political spin originate?’ It deals with the techniques of news management developed and used in those advanced democracies who have laws to protect a free press. such as the United States of America, and to a lesser extent its first cousin, several times removed, the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, or to be more precise, England, who in 1695 became the first country in the world to enshrine a free press into their constitutional law. This joint history of legal protections of press freedom; governmental toleration of free speech; progressive legislation to widen the franchise; vigorous growth in political parties; pluralism and its consequence, the peaceful coexistence of different interests, convictions and lifestyles; a healthy adherence to Burkean ‘little platoons’ of volunteers; and, most of all, sophisticated developments in mass media technologies and consumer marketing techniques; all of which means that the Anglo-Saxon cousins are, and have always been, in the vanguard of news management. Government and media have been at war from the very beginning. Au fond this is a struggle for allegiance. The media want the allegiance of their readers and viewers, because this brings them the profits they need to remain in business. As Patrick Le Lay, then CEO of the main French private channel TF1 put it: "There are many ways to speak about TV, but in a business perspective, let's be realistic: TF1's job is to help Coca-Cola sell its product. What we sell to Coca-Cola is available human brain time." Government on the other hand wants the allegiance of the voter, to acquire or retain power. The famous Victorian editor of 'The Times', Thomas Barnes, once said that the "newspaper is not an organ through which Government can influence people, but through which people can influence the Government." Politicians would reverse the dictum. And therein lies the causus belli. The politician's strategy for winning this war was stated most succinctly by that arch media manipulator, David Lloyd George: "what you can't square, you squash; and what you can't squash, you square." The media for their part, are determined to be neither squashed nor squared. From 1800 in the US and 1832 in Britain (when Germany and Italy were just a glint in the eye of some petty princes; and France was recovering from yet another pointless 'revolution' leaving behind yet another example of Kafka's bureaucratic slime); competitive, party based elections produced extraordinary outbursts of creativity. Politicians learned that the art of politics is about making and then winning arguments. As each successive cutting edge novelty arrived, the spin doctors quickly adapted and improved their techniques by adroitly exploiting the new medium’s benefits. For two centuries (and even before) the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ have led the world in spin: this is the history of that journey.

--Uncovers the secret history of the PR industry-- This book charts the relentless rise of the public relations industry and how it has transformed our society. Revealing the roots of the PR movement in the years leading up to the First World War, it sh

The British vote to leave the European Union stunned everyone 2016, but was it really a surprise? In this revised and updated edition of A History of Britain: 1945 Through Brexit, award-winning historian Jeremy Black expands his reexamination of modern British history to include the Brexit process, the tumultuous administrations of Theresa May and Boris Johnson, the spectacular failure of Liz Truss, and the early days of Rishi Sunak's premiership. This sweeping and engaging book traces Britain's path through the destruction left behind by World War II, Thatcherism, the threats of the IRA, the Scottish referendum, and on to the impact of waves of immigration from the European Union. A History of Britain: 1945 Through Brexit overturns many conventional interpretations of significant historical events, provides context for current developments, and encourages the reader to question why we think the way we do about Britain's past.

This Text-book traces the evolution of the newspaper, documenting its changing form, style and content as well as identifying the different roles ascribed to it by audiences, government and other social institutions. Starting with the early 17th century, when the first prototype newspapers emerged, through Dr Johnson, the growth of the radical press in the early 19th century, the Lord Northcliffe revolution in the early 20th century, the newspapers wars of the 1930s and the rise of the tabloid in the 1970s, right up to Rupert Murdoch and the online revolution, the book explores the impact of the newspapers on our lives and its role in British society. Using lively and entertaining examples, Kevin Williams illustrates the changing form of the newspaper in its social, political, economic and cultural context. As well as telling the story of the newspaper, he explores key topics in detail, making this an ideal text for students of journalism and the British newspaper. Issues include: newspapers and social change the changing face of regional newspapers the impact of new technology development of reporting techniques forms of press regulation

This book explores the role of television in the 1950s and early 1960s, with a focus on the relationship between Tories and TV. The early 1950s were characterized by recovery from war and high politics. Television was a new medium that eventually came to dominate mass media and political culture. But what impact did this transition have on political organization and elite power structures? Winston Churchill avoided it; Anthony Eden wanted to control it; Harold Macmillan tried to master it; and Alec Douglas-Home was not Prime Minister long enough to fully utilize it. The Conservative Party’s relationship with the new medium of television is a topic rich with scholarly questions and interesting quirks that were characteristic of the period. This exploration examines the changing dynamics between politics and the media, at grassroots and elite levels. Through analysing rich and diverse source materials from the Conservative Party Archive, Anthony Ridge-Newman takes a case study approach to comparing the impact of television at different points in the party’s history. In mapping changes across a thirteen year period of continual Conservative governance, this book argues that the advent of television contributed to the party’s transition from a membership-focused party to a television-centric professionalized elite.