Public issue television: World in Action' 1963–98

Public issue television is a major contribution to understanding the relationship between television, politics, and society. Based on full access to the archives, it offers a fascinating historical account of how one television series--Granada's World in Action, celebrated for its tough journalism, visual directness, and public impact--functioned and developed over its run across 35 years between 1963 and 1998. This book gets deep inside the making of factual television and examines how a particular culture of production works within broader conditions of possibility and constraint. As well as discussing achievement and success, it examines the tensions, the debates and open conflicts that formed part of the context within which the series was made and transmitted across four decades.