TV News, Urban Conflict and the Inner City (Studies in Communication and Society)

The problems and issues of the inner city, particularly crime and serious disorder, are a constant feature of TV news and current affairs programmes in Britain and overseas. This is a study of journalists, programme makers, and senior corporate managers in a major TV company, the programmes they make and the way in which they present to the public an account of the meaning of inner city conflict. The central concern of the book is the creation of meaning: the construction of beliefs about events, problems, crises and places. The author points out how and why the television media have sustained or undermined opposing political viewpoints on the facts, meanings and, hence, appropriate causes of action relating to inner city disorder. His analysis and conclusions will be of interest to broadcasting and print journalists, students of mass media and communication, sociology and urban policy. Dr Simon Cottle lectures on mass communication at Bath College. He has published on the Rushdie affair, TV news and race and TV audience research.