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The Return of the Public by Dan Hind
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The Return of the Public

Democracy, Power and the Case for Media Reform

Democracy, Power and the Case for Media Reform

By Dan Hind

By Dan Hind

By Dan Hind

By Dan Hind

By Dan Hind

By Dan Hind

Best Seller
Paperback $19.95

May 22, 2012 | ISBN 9781844678631

Hardcover $24.95

Apr 01, 2011 | ISBN 9781844675944

Ebook $9.99

May 22, 2012 | ISBN 9781844679102

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    The Return of the Public by Dan Hind
    Paperback $19.95
    May 22, 2012 | ISBN 9781844678631

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    • $19.95

      May 22, 2012 | ISBN 9781844678631

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • $24.95

      Apr 01, 2011 | ISBN 9781844675944

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • May 22, 2012 | ISBN 9781844679102

      Buy from Other Retailers:

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    About The Return of the Public

    Under the incurious gaze of the major media, the political establishment and the financial sector have become increasingly deceitful and dangerous in recent years. At the same time, journalists at Rupert Murdoch’s News International and elsewhere have been breaking the law on an industrial scale. Now we are expected to stay quiet while those who presided over the shambles judge their own conduct.

    In The Return of the Public, Dan Hind argues for reform of the media as a necessary prelude to wider social transformation. A former commissioning editor, Hind urges us to focus on the powers of the media to instigate investigations and to publicize the results, powers that editors and owners are desperate to keep from general deliberation.

    Hind describes a programme of reform that is modest, simple and informed by years of experience. It is a programme that much of the media cannot bring themselves even to acknowledge, precisely because it threatens their private power. It is time the public had their say.

    About The Return of the Public

    Our politicians have ever-decreasing legitimacy. Even as they amass ever more riches our financiers are now morally and intellectually bankrupt. In their different ways politicians and those who control the private economy system claim to be acting in the public interest. Yet we, the public, have little say in decision-making and almost no power to change the terms of a series of increasingly absurd debates about economic and foreign policy. How have we been excluded from so many discussions about the public interest?

    Dan Hind traces how, historically, political and intellectual elites constructed deeply ambiguous ideas of the public, designed to serve their own ends and preserve the status quo. After the Second World War, as women, ethnic minorities, the young, and the working majority became more assertive and self-confident, the propertied and their allies in the state made fresh attempts to deny most of us a public identity. The financial crisis, and the ability of those who caused it to preside over policy-making in its aftermath, have made it impossible to ignore what has long been obvious: the institutions on which most of us rely for our knowledge of the wider world have become radically and demonstrably unaccountable and unsafe.

    For decades, the public has been told to leave democracy to the experts. Now, Hind outlines a way forward for a new participatory politics, one based on the wholesale reform of the media. After the failure of the private, now is the time for the return of the public.

    About The Return of the Public

    Under the incurious gaze of the major media, the political establishment and the financial sector have become increasingly deceitful and dangerous in recent years. At the same time, journalists at Rupert Murdoch’s News International and elsewhere have been breaking the law on an industrial scale. Now we are expected to stay quiet while those who presided over the shambles judge their own conduct.

    In The Return of the Public, Dan Hind argues for reform of the media as a necessary prelude to wider social transformation. A former commissioning editor, Hind urges us to focus on the powers of the media to instigate investigations and to publicize the results, powers that editors and owners are desperate to keep from general deliberation.

    Hind describes a programme of reform that is modest, simple and informed by years of experience. It is a programme that much of the media cannot bring themselves even to acknowledge, precisely because it threatens their private power. It is time the public had their say.

    Also by Dan Hind

    The Threat to Reason
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    Also by Dan Hind

    The Threat to Reason
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    Also by Dan Hind

    The Threat to Reason
    See all books by Dan Hind

    Product Details

    Category: Domestic Politics

    Paperback | $19.95
    Published by Verso
    May 22, 2012 | 256 Pages | 5-1/10 x 7-4/5 | ISBN 9781844678631

    Category: Domestic Politics

    Hardcover | $24.95
    Published by Verso
    Apr 01, 2011 | 252 Pages | 5-4/5 x 8-3/5 | ISBN 9781844675944

    Category: Domestic Politics

    Ebook | $9.99
    Published by Verso
    May 22, 2012 | 256 Pages | ISBN 9781844679102

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    Praise

    “A superb analysis of the way in which citizens have lost power in a political and economic system built around the free market.”—Roy Greenslade, Guardian

    “A book marked by a somber and scathing rhetoric that recalls the Frankfurt School critique of thinkers such as Adorno and Marcuse.”—Boyd Tonkin, Independent

    “In his ingenious and quietly passionate argument, Dan Hind shows how we could take democracy into the media so that it becomes something regular people can shape—a part of how we rule ourselves instead of stealing democracy from us.”—Anthony Barnett, founder, openDemocracy

    “Drawing on history and democratic theory, this book offers a powerful indictment of public exclusion. It is also original, breaking with standard corporatist approaches to reform. Well written, eloquent and very well worth reading.”—James Curran, co-author of Power Without Responsibility

    “A persuasive and vital analysis.”—David Cromwell, co-editor of Media Lens, Times Higher Education Supplement

    “Winner, 2011 Best Book of Ideas”—Bristol Festival of Ideas

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