The Tradition of free press: The History of the press in the 19th century Britain:

The 19th century Britain was a prosperous country with the technological progress in industry,
agriculture, trade and commerce.
There were 4 major factors that radically transformed news papers in the 19th century:

The government of the 1830s ended the very high taxes and lifted the severe legal
restraints.
The invention of new machines allowed the printing of thousands of copies daily and
at low cost.
News papers reached a larger audience through multiple ways (features/ illustrations
and advertisement.
As the franchise was expanded the newspapers became the primary means of political
education.
The emergence of new upper middle class (Educated, entrepreneurs, bankers
merchants) who want to engage in political discussions.
There were daily newspapers in the 19th century the most influential The London
times and then new titles joined: Manchester guardian/ Yorkshire post/ morning post /
the new daily telegraph.
A boom in journalism and newspapers the golden age for the British press
The 20th century:
The turn of the century saw the rise of tabloid journalism.
News paper editors incorporated some changes: sensationalist headlines, illustrations,
stories, diagrams and maps.
It was an era of new journalism.
As the century progressed it became clear that the press could be very profitable
especially with the growth of consumerism. Advertizing became important revenue for
news papers This development helped to increase the importance of high
circulation.
Journals such as the daily mail and daily express offered insurance to subscribers
throughout the 1920s, later to be joined by Daily herald. They employed door to
door canvassers to entice subscribers with gifts. This method of advertizing reflects
the growing importance of advertizing as a revenue source.
The press witnessed an increasingly commercial environment. The substantial
political coverage disappeared from the popular press during the second half of the
20th century instead a sort of sensationalism in the press took place. The tabloids of
70s and 80s demonstrate a qualitively lower brand.

The Birmingham centre for contemporary cultural studies:

The roots of British media studies are traceable in the inquiries about the relationship between
media and culture. The early attempts to this direction started during the 1920s following the

rise of British mass media forms like radio networks, newspapers and magazines of mass
circulation, and after mid 1930s with the advent of television media
. The period was marked by widespread British hegemony in media production and
circulation with news agencies like Reuters and BBC, which projected the image of "media as
powerful and influential, media as vehicles of nation-state or class propaganda, media as
exemplars of modern technologically sophisticated professionalism.
Cultural Studies addresses contemporary media and culture in more theoretical and analytical
ways, seeing them in a broader global and historical context and evaluating their impact on
the ways we experience our lives and organize and govern our societies.
The Frankfurt school: The Frankfurt school is a social and political philosophical movement
of thought and the original source of what is known as critical theory.
The prominent figures were Max Horkheimer( 1895-1973) Theodor w Adorno (1903-1969)
Walter Benjamin ( 1892-1940) Friedrich Pollock( 1894-1970)
The Frankfurt school contributed greatly to the development and application of critical theory
in media studies. These theorists have tried to understand how mass audience are both
effected by and can affect the massive corporatized media establishments.
The Frankfurt school witnessed the rise of media culture involving film, popular music, radio
television and other forms of mass culture. Hence they focused on technology and culture
indicating how technology was becoming both a major force of production and a mode of
social organization.
The 2 key theorists Max Horkheimer and Adorno developed an account of culture industry to
call attention to the industrialization and commercialization of culture under capitalist
relations of production.
The theory of culture industry was born in the era of highly controlled network radio and
television pop music, Hollywood films, national magazines and other mass produced cultural
artifacts.
In their Dialectic of Enlightment ( 1948) they argued that the system of cultural production,
news, magazines was controlled by advertizing and commercial imperatives.
The concept of culture industry explains how culture is transformed from a process to a
product
Mass culture is the product of culture industry it is manufactured and it comes from above.

Industry implies the meaning of standardization and commodization (The act by which
culture is transformed into an object; it refers to the fact of production and techniques of
distributions)

 Systematic mobilization of masses through cultural commodities , a mission fulfilled

by media
By the flux of images, fashions , styles and ideals , the masses will be adapted to
subordination.
They understand the political nature of media (films, radios, magazines, news papers)
which alter into a true business made into an ideology and a means of monopoly of
mass culture. Mass culture equally is transformed into a business related to the
strategies of power and domination.
Structuralism and post structuralism:
Roland Grard Barthes: A French literary theorist and critic who was interested in
semiotics
His semiotic theory focuses on how signs represent different cultures and ideologies
with his work on modern myths (The study of intersection of myth language and
ideology)
Barthes started by trying to dissect the signs of system in western cultures.
Structuralism claims that human culture itself is fundamentally a language, a complex
system of signifieds (concepts) and signifiers (sense)
Structuralism studies the underlying structures inherent in cultural products such as
texts and it utilizes analytical concepts from linguistics, psychology and anthropology
to understand and interpret those structures.

Post structuralism: Michel Foucault and The discursive practices and the relationship
between the forms of power and knowledge.

Stuart Hall in carrying out his inquiries in media studies he created a hybrid analysis
reaching Gramscis concept of hegemony to structuralism to post structuralism.
His most famous works while at Birmingham centre include an analysis of how meanings
are transmitted and received in the media encoding decoding.

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/media/mass-media-in-britain-media-essay.php
http://www.iep.utm.edu/frankfur/

Hall, Stuart The emergence of cultural studies and the crisis of humanities. The
Humanities as Social Technology. Vol.53, 1990, pp. 11-23
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Herder
and Herder, 1972. Print.