Kevin Williams is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Swansea University.

'Anyone wanting to gain an understanding of what the media are like today, and how they came to be like this, should read this book' Colin Sparks, University of Westminster, UK

• History of mass communication in Britain - timeline; Preface to the Second Edition; Acknowledgements; Readers, rioters and rick burners: an introduction to the history of mass communication in Britain. PART 1 The age of print: The 'naughty and lewd world': the birth of mass communication in Britain; Right against might: the rise and fall of the radical press; Get me a murder a day: the Northcliffe Revolution and the rise of the popular press. PART 2 Sound and vision: Rescued by Rover: British cinema before the Second World War; The golden age of the wireless: the early years of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); Sing as we go: representing British society in the 1930s; Their finest hour: the Second World War and the British way of censorship. PART 3 The television era: The cosy duopoly: the development of television; Crisis? What crisis? The demise of British broadcasting in the 1980s and 1990s; Carrying on: The British film industry since 1945; Goodbye to Fleet Street: the slow decline of the British press since the he Second World War. PART 4 The digital world: Dumbing down? Declining standards and structural change in the contemporary media; Living in a digital world: experiencing mass communication in the twenty-first century; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Kevin Williams is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Swansea University.

'Anyone wanting to gain an understanding of what the media are like today, and how they came to be like this, should read this book' Colin Sparks, University of Westminster, UK

• History of mass communication in Britain - timeline; Preface to the Second Edition; Acknowledgements; Readers, rioters and rick burners: an introduction to the history of mass communication in Britain. PART 1 The age of print: The 'naughty and lewd world': the birth of mass communication in Britain; Right against might: the rise and fall of the radical press; Get me a murder a day: the Northcliffe Revolution and the rise of the popular press. PART 2 Sound and vision: Rescued by Rover: British cinema before the Second World War; The golden age of the wireless: the early years of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); Sing as we go: representing British society in the 1930s; Their finest hour: the Second World War and the British way of censorship. PART 3 The television era: The cosy duopoly: the development of television; Crisis? What crisis? The demise of British broadcasting in the 1980s and 1990s; Carrying on: The British film industry since 1945; Goodbye to Fleet Street: the slow decline of the British press since the he Second World War. PART 4 The digital world: Dumbing down? Declining standards and structural change in the contemporary media; Living in a digital world: experiencing mass communication in the twenty-first century; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Kevin Williams is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Swansea University.

'Anyone wanting to gain an understanding of what the media are like today, and how they came to be like this, should read this book' Colin Sparks, University of Westminster, UK

• History of mass communication in Britain - timeline; Preface to the Second Edition; Acknowledgements; Readers, rioters and rick burners: an introduction to the history of mass communication in Britain. PART 1 The age of print: The 'naughty and lewd world': the birth of mass communication in Britain; Right against might: the rise and fall of the radical press; Get me a murder a day: the Northcliffe Revolution and the rise of the popular press. PART 2 Sound and vision: Rescued by Rover: British cinema before the Second World War; The golden age of the wireless: the early years of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); Sing as we go: representing British society in the 1930s; Their finest hour: the Second World War and the British way of censorship. PART 3 The television era: The cosy duopoly: the development of television; Crisis? What crisis? The demise of British broadcasting in the 1980s and 1990s; Carrying on: The British film industry since 1945; Goodbye to Fleet Street: the slow decline of the British press since the he Second World War. PART 4 The digital world: Dumbing down? Declining standards and structural change in the contemporary media; Living in a digital world: experiencing mass communication in the twenty-first century; Notes; Bibliography; Index.