Steven Barnett
Professor of Communications
Email: s.barnett@wmin.ac.uk
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Steven Barnett is Professor of Communications and a prominent
writer and broadcaster on media issues. He specialises in media
policy, regulation, journalism, political communication, press
ethics, and televised sport. His immersion in media policy analysis
goes back 25 years, during which time he has advised a number of
government and opposition spokespeople, given evidence to
parliamentary committees and the European Parliament, and has
directed numerous research projects on the structure, funding,
and
regulation of broadcasting in the UK and other countries. |
In July 2007 he was appointed special adviser to the
House of Lords Select Committee on Communications for its
enquiry into News and Media Ownership, whose report
The Ownership of the News was published in June 2008 .He is
currently advising the same committee for its inquiry into the UK
Film and Television industries, to be published by the end of
2009.
His current research interests include public policy initiatives
in media ownership, public service broadcasting, and the future of
journalism. In July 2009 he was awarded a Research Leave grant by
the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a study on media
ownership, journalism and diversity, to be completed by the summer
of 2010. In September 2009 his paper for Ofcom, Journalism,
Democracy and the Public Interest: rethinking media pluralism for
the Digital Age was published as a
Reuters Institute Working Paper, and has been used by Ofcom to
inform its review of
local and regional media in the UK.
Other recent research projects include
a study of public attitudes to privacy and self-regulation in the
press for the Media Standards Trust, another on declining trust in
journalism, and an analysis of changing attitudes to
newspaper readership. He also directed studies on television
coverage of international issues for the Third World and
Environment Broadcasting Project (3WE), and on long-term trends in
television news content. He is currently writing a book on
Television Journalism, to be published in 2010. A selection of his
other books, book chapters, research reports and articles is given
below.
He was for many years an Observer columnist and writes
frequently on broadcasting for the national and specialist press
(including, bizarrely, three consecutive editions of Wisden
Cricketers Almanack 2005-7). He is a frequent commentator on radio
and TV programmes in the UK and abroad on media issues, and
presented an authored film as part of BBC 4’s TV on Trial in 2005.
He is an editorial board member of the British
Journalism Review and in 2009 initiated the BJR’s annual
Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast
Journalism. The inaugural Charles Wheeler lecture took place in the
University’s Old Cinema in May 2009, and was given by
BBC Director General Mark Thompson.
Before joining the University of Westminster in 1994, he was
founder and director of the Henley Centre's Media Futures research
programme (1990-94), Research Fellow and then Assistant Director at
the Broadcasting Research Unit (1985-90) and a senior researcher at
Consumers Association (1980-85). He graduated from Pembroke
College, Cambridge in Social and Political Science followed by an
MSc at the London School of Economics.
He has successfully supervised several doctoral students to
completion on a variety of topics from media education initiatives
in Greek schools to the impact of EU policy on public service
broadcasting. He is interested in supervising PhDs on all areas of
national and international media policy, regulation, public service
broadcasting, journalism practice and theory, the future of
journalism, and the relationship between media and sport.
Published books include: Westminster Tales: The 21st Century
Crisis in British Political Journalism. Continuum, 2001 (with
Ivor Gaber). The Battle for the BBC. Aurum Press, 1994
(with Andrew Curry). Funding the BBC's Future (editor).
British Film Institute, 1993. Games and Sets: the changing face
of sport on television. British Film Institute, 1990.
Recent book chapters include:
“Can the Public Service Broadcaster survive? A case study of
renewal and compromise in the new BBC charter” in Jo Bardoel and
Greg Lowe (editors)
From Public Service Broadcasting To Public Service
Media, Nordicom, 2008.
“Can the BBC invigorate our political culture” in John Lloyd and
Jean Seaton (editors),
What Can Be Done? Making the media and politics better,
Wiley, 2006.
“Opportunity or threat? The BBC, investigative journalism and
the Hutton Report” in Stuart Allen (editor) Journalism:
Critical Issues, McGraw-Hill, 2005.
“Which end of the telescope? From market failure to cultural
value” in Damian Tambini and Jamie Cowling (editors) From
Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service
Communications, Institute for Public Polcy Research,
2004.
"Distorting Democracy: Public Opinion, Polls, and the Press" in
Slavko Splichal (editor), Public Opinion & Democracy: Vox
Populi - Vox Dei?, 2001.
Recent articles include:
“TV news and the echo
of Murrow” in British Journalism Review, Vol 19. No.
4, 2008.
“The Dogs of Journalism” in Political Quarterly, Vol
79, No 4, 2008.
“Media ownership policies: Pressure for change and implications”
in Pacific Journalism Review, Vol 10 (2), 2004,
pp.8-19.
"Will
a crisis in journalism provoke a crisis in democracy?" in
Political Quarterly, 2002, Vol 73 No 4, pp 400-408.
Research reports include:
Bringing the World to the UK: Factual international programming on
UK public service TV, 2005. Commissioned by 3WE, 2006.
The World on the Box: International Issues in News and Factual
Programmes on UK Television 1975-2003. Commissioned by
3WE, 2004.
From Callaghan to Kosovo: Changing Trends in British Television
News 1975-1999. Commissioned by the BBC/ITC, 2000
"A Shrinking Iceberg Travelling South…" Changing trends in
British television: A case study of drama and current
affairs". Commissioned by Campaign for Quality Television,
1999