The 1970s witnessed a renaissance in women’s print culture, as feminist presses and bookshops sprang up in the wake of the second-wave women’s movement. At four decades’ remove from that heady era, however, the landscape looks dramatically different, with only one press from the period still active in contemporary publishing: Virago. This engaging history explains how, from modest beginnings, Virago managed to weather epochal transformations in gender politics, literary culture, and the book publishing business. Drawing on original interviews with many of the press's principal figures, it gives a compelling account of Virago’s place in recent women's history while also reflecting on the fraught relationship between activism and commerce.

This is a comprehensive guide to radio broadcasting in Britain. It examines the various components that make radio, from music selection to news presentation, and from phone-ins to sports programmes.

This popular introductory book provides a clear introduction to the key ideas within media studies. The friendly writing style and everyday examples, which made the first edition a favourite with students and lecturers alike, has been retained and updated in this new edition. This comprehensive text provides a wide-ranging perspective on the media and: Uses examples and case studies from the real world Shows how key concepts can help us understand the relationship between the Media and society Provides a clear explanation of how critical perspectives on the Media construct thinking about media businesses, texts and audiences The fully updated new edition features new boxed summaries of critical approaches and key thinkers. Chapters cover the main topics that students are likely to encounter in their studies, including: Advertising, media and violence, news, politics, young audiences, globalization, sport, popular music and new technology. This book is essential reading for students in media studies, cultural studies and courses with a media interest, such as sociology and English.

`Nixon′s study is a major contribution to the cultural sociology of the new service sector professionals and their gendered identities.It′s importance lies in it′s skilful synthesis of detailed ethnographic research and social theory. This is a genuinely innovative book which reopens cultural debate about advertising and society′ - Frank Mort, Professor of Cultural History, University of East London `Advertising Cultures is a lucid, thorough and highly engaging account of advertising creatives that unlocks two crucial issues for understanding the culture industries: creativity and gender. It marks a major new contribution to the cultural study of economic life′ - Don Slater, London School of Economics The economic and cultural role of the `creative industries′ has gained a new prominence and centrality in recent years. This new salience is explored here through the most emblematic creative industry: advertising. Advertising Cultures also marks a significant contribution to the study of gender and of commercial cultures through its detailing of the way gender is written into the creative cultures of advertising and into the subjective identities of its key practitioners.

Combining classic work on radio with innovative research, journalism and biography, Women and Radio offers a variety of approaches to understanding the position of women as producers, presenters and consumers as well as offering guidelines, advice and helpful information for women wanting to work in radio. Women and Radio examines the relationship between radio audiences, technologies and programming and reveals and explains the inequalities experienced by women working in the industry.

Routledge English Language Introductions cover core areas of language study and are one-stop resources for students. Assuming no prior knowledge, books in the series offer an accessible overview of the subject, with activities, study questions, sample analyses, commentaries and key readings – all in the same volume. The innovative and flexible ‘two-dimensional’ structure is built around four sections – introduction, development, exploration and extension – which offer self-contained stages for study. Each topic can also be read across these sections, enabling the reader to build gradually on the knowledge gained. Language and Power: offers a comprehensive survey of the ways in which language intersects and connects with the social, cultural and political aspects of power, provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of the field, and covers all the major approaches, theoretical concepts and methods of analysis in this important and developing area of academic study; covers all the ‘traditional’ topics, such as race, gender and institutional power, but also incorporates newer material from forensic discourse analysis, the discourse of new capitalism and the study of humour as power; includes readings from works by seminal figures in the field, such as Roger Fowler, Deborah Cameron and Teun van Dijk; uses real texts and examples throughout, including advertisements from cosmetics companies; newspaper articles and headlines; websites and internet media; and spoken dialogues such as a transcription from the Obama and McCain presidential debate; is accompanied by a supporting website that aims to challenge students at a more advanced level and features a complete four-unit chapter which includes activities, a reading and suggestions for further work. Language and Power will be essential reading for students studying English language and linguistics. Paul Simpson is Professor of English Language in the School of English at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, where he teaches and researches in stylistics, critical linguistics and related fields of study. Andrea Mayr is Lecturer in Modern English Language and Linguistics at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, where she teaches and researches in media discourse and in multimodal critical discourse analysis.

Gender and discourse interface in many more epistemological sites than can be represented in one collection. Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis therefore focuses on a principled diversity of key sites within four broad areas: the media, sexuality, education and parenthood. The different chapters together illustrate how taking a discourse perspective facilitates understanding of the complex and subtle ways in which gender is represented, constructed and contested through language. The book engages critically with long-running and on-going debates, but also reflects and develops current understandings of gender, identity and discourse, particularly the shift from 'gender differences' to the discoursal shaping of gender. Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis thus offers not only insights and methodologies of new empirical studies but also careful theorisations, in particular of discourse, text, identity and gender. The collection is a valuable resource for researchers, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates working in the area of gender and discourse.

Investigative Journalism is a critical and reflective introduction to the traditions and practices of investigative journalism. Beginning with a historical survey, the authors explain how investigative journalism should be understood within the framework of the mass media. They discuss how it relates to the legal system, the place of ethics in investigations and the influence of new technologies on journalistic practices.

This book shows how the release of the free market in the last part of the twentieth century produced a rise in inequality and violence, the development of a huge criminal economy and the degradation of social and cultural life. It questions the silence of academics in the face of these changes and asks how much they have been incorporated into the priorities of commerce and governments. Many academics in the social sciences, media and cultural studies have avoided critical issues and become occupied in obscure theoretical debates such as post-modernism. The effect was to draw inellectuals and students away from the engaged and empirical work needed to identify key social problems and possibilities for change. The authors of this book point to the need for independent research which can criticise political policies and reveal their effects. They show, for example, why contemporary policies on drugs and education are creating more problems than they solve. The book features contributions from a wide range of academic disciplines including mass communications, sociology, politics, geography, philosophy and economics, and points to new directions for radical science. It also examines the possibilities for a free and democratic media and calls for the development of critical and open debate.