Messages Free Expression, Media and the West from Gutenberg to Google

Free expression is in trouble.It can no longer be certain of its best protection--"the general will of the people" -- as Alexander Hamilton put it over two centuries ago. Today, the public, faced with the excesses of tabloid journalism and explicitness of all kinds in other media, appears no longer to be convinced that free expression is a crucial foundation of civil society. Yet, for all its faults, free expression under the law has, as Churchill once said of democracy, to be better than any alternative system.
"Messages" is a search for the origins of media forms, from print and stage to photography, film and broadcasting. With a wealth of illuminating anecdotes and quotations, Brian Winston clearly and forcefully argues, in jargon-free language, that the development of mass media has been an essential engine underpinning all human rights and driving the Western concept of the individual.

Easy to read, and highly topical, Messages writes a history of mass communication in Europe and its outreaches, as a search for the origins of media forms from print and stage, to photography, film and broadcasting. Arguing that the development of the mass media has been an essential engine driving the western concept of an individual, Brian Winston examines how the right of free expression is under attack, and how the roots of media expression need to be recalled to make a case for the media’s importance for the protection of individual liberty. Relating to the US constitution, and key laws in the UK which form the foundation of our society, this is a highly useful book for students of media, communication, history, and journalism.

Part 1 Print; prologue1 ‘The Liberty to Know’: Print From 1455; Chapter 1 ‘Taking off Vizards and Vailes And Disguises’: Newspapers From 1566; Chapter 2 ‘Congress Shall Make No Law’: Journalism From 1702; Chapter 3 ‘Here's The Papers, Here's The Papers!’: Journalism From 1836; Part 2 Images, Spectacle And Sound; prologue2 ‘Leal Sovvenir ’: Imaging From 1413; Chapter 4 ‘Who Knows Not Her Name’: Theatre From 1513; Chapter 5 ‘So Much For Stage Feeling’: Stage and Screen From 1737; Chapter 6 ‘Give the Public What We Think They Need’: Radio From 1906; Chapter 7 ‘American Shots’: Cinema From 1925; Chapter 8 ‘See It Now’: Television From 1954; Part 3 Convergence; epilogue ‘Free Expression is in Very Deep Trouble’: Media To 1991 And Beyond;

Brian Winston, currently a Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Lincoln, worked in the 1960s on Granada TV's World in Action; then for the BBC and WNET (New York) where he won an Emmy for documentary script writing in 1985, as a columnist on Ink, The Soho (New York)Weekly News and The Listener, as a co-producer of a Canadian feature film and a governor of the BFI. He has taught at Universities on both sides of the Atlantic and at Britain's National Film School. Messages is his thirteenth book.