Dan Hind
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The NHS Debate by Dan Hind
The Week in Westminster this morning ran a feature on the Coalition’s plans for the National Health Service. The presenter Peter Riddell interviewed the Lords Fowler and Warner, Conservative and Labour respectively. These ‘veteran peers’ shared a good deal of ground in their discussion with Peter Riddell. Indeed an incautious listener might have come away… Continue reading
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Saving the Liberal Party, at a price By Dan Hind
Anyone concerned about the growing social and economic crisis in this country must seek, as a priority, the end of the Coalition. Continue reading
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Family Values and One Last Act of Magic By Dan Hind
Osama bin Laden had once been a central figure in America’s political narrative. By the beginning of the year he was in danger of disappearing altogether from the public mind. His death has given new salience to the notion of a War on Terror just as it has invigorated the Obama presidency. Continue reading
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March for the Alternative By Dan Hind
The 26th March demonstration in London was billed by its organizers, the TUC, as a ‘march for the alternative’. The march did, as the unions hoped, ‘give a voice’ to those affected by the cuts and it showed that ‘people reject the argument that there is no alternative’. Perhaps 500,000 people showed that, in time-honoured… Continue reading
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Book Marks Talk, March 15, 2011 By Dan Hind
Media coverage does not conform to a rationally defensible order of priorities – it focuses neurotically on the inconsequential and ignores matters of pressing common concern. Furthermore what coverage there is of important matters is disastrously inadequate Continue reading
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Books: The Return of the Public (space) By Dan Hind
With the destruction of our traditional forms of political expression, we have no collective voice, no public space that we can call our own. Instead, at best we have ‘single issues’ but no sense of the collective. ‘The Return of the Public’ explains how this came to be and offers a way out. Important and… Continue reading
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Public Communications vs. Mass Communications By Dan Hind
The archetype of mass communication is a broadcast that delivers one unanswerable voice to millions of listeners. There is little or no scope for individuals to answer back to the messages they receive. Indeed in a mass society perfectly realized even private dissent carries penalties and open disagreement is forbidden. Continue reading
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What the Sky Decision Tells Us About Media Reform By Dan Hind
The purchase by Murdoch of the shares in Sky currently owned by Pearson and others won’t mean that a viable media system will become the plaything of unaccountable interests. The media system won’t suddenly turn into a conduit for commercial propaganda, an instrument of state manipulation. It won’t become a fatally unreliable source of information… Continue reading
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Creating a Public Sphere By Dan Hind interviewed by Samuel Grove
At present the content of public opinion largely derives from the products of state-owned and commercial institutions. Our knowledge of the world, and our knowledge of others’ opinions – our knowledge of ourselves, even – all comes from institutions that have been demonstrably unreliable in recent years. And this unreliability stems from their structure; it… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 