Barnett, Steven
Professor of Communications
Email: s.barnett@wmin.ac.uk
Steven Barnett is Professor of Communications and a prominent writer and broadcaster on media issues. He specialises in media policy, regulation, journalism, political communication, press ethics, and televised sport. His immersion in media policy analysis goes back 25 years, during which time he has advised a number of government and opposition spokespeople, given evidence to parliamentary committees and the European Parliament, and has directed numerous research projects on the structure, funding, and regulation of broadcasting in the UK and other countries.
In July 2007 he was appointed special adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications for its enquiry into News and Media Ownership, whose report The Ownership of the News was published in June 2008 .
He is currently advising the same committee for its inquiry into the UK Film and Television industries, to be published by the end of 2009.
His current research interests include public policy initiatives in media ownership, public service broadcasting, and the future of journalism. Recent research projects include a study of public attitudes to privacy and self-regulation in the press for the Media Standards Trust, another on declining trust in journalism, and an analysis of changing attitudes to newspaper readership. He also directed studies on television coverage of international issues for the Third World and Environment Broadcasting Project (3WE), and on long-term trends in television news content. He is currently writing a book on Television Journalism, to be published in 2010. A selection of his other books, book chapters, research reports and articles is given below.
He was for many years an Observer columnist and writes frequently on broadcasting for the national and specialist press (including, bizarrely, three consecutive editions of Wisden Cricketers Almanack 2005-7). He is a frequent commentator on radio and TV programmes in the UK and abroad on media issues, and presented an authored film as part of BBC 4s TV on Trial in 2005. He is an editorial board member of the British Journalism Review and in 2009 initiated the BJRs annual Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism. The inaugural Charles Wheeler lecture took place in the Universitys Old Cinema in May 2009, and was given by BBC Director General Mark Thompson.
Before joining the University of Westminster in 1994, he was founder and director of the Henley Centre's Media Futures research programme (1990-94), Research Fellow and then Assistant Director at the Broadcasting Research Unit (1985-90) and a senior researcher at Consumers Association (1980-85). He graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge in Social and Political Science followed by an MSc at the London School of Economics.
He has successfully supervised several doctoral students to completion on a variety of topics from media education initiatives in Greek schools to the impact of EU policy on public service broadcasting. He is interested in supervising PhDs on all areas of national and international media policy, regulation, public service broadcasting, journalism practice and theory, the future of journalism, and the relationship between media and sport.
Published books include: Westminster Tales: The 21st Century Crisis in British Political Journalism. Continuum, 2001 (with Ivor Gaber). The Battle for the BBC. Aurum Press, 1994 (with Andrew Curry). Funding the BBC's Future (editor). British Film Institute, 1993. Games and Sets: the changing face of sport on television. British Film Institute, 1990.
Recent book chapters
Can the Public Service Broadcaster survive? A case study of renewal and compromise in the new BBC charter in Jo Bardoel and Greg Lowe (editors) From Public Service Broadcasting To Public Service Media, Nordicom, 2008.
Can the BBC invigorate our political culture in John Lloyd and Jean Seaton (editors), What Can Be Done? Making the media and politics better, Wiley, 2006.
Opportunity or threat? The BBC, investigative journalism and the Hutton Report in Stuart Allen (editor) Journalism: Critical Issues, McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Which end of the telescope? From market failure to cultural value in Damian Tambini and Jamie Cowling (editors) From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Communications, Institute for Public Polcy Research, 2004.
"Distorting Democracy: Public Opinion, Polls, and the Press" in Slavko Splichal (editor), Public Opinion & Democracy: Vox Populi - Vox Dei?, 2001.
Recent articles
TV news and the echo of Murrow in British Journalism Review, Vol 19. No. 4, 2008.
The Dogs of Journalism in Political Quarterly, Vol 79, No 4, 2008.
Media ownership policies: Pressure for change and implications in Pacific Journalism Review, Vol 10 (2), 2004, pp.8-19.
"Will a crisis in journalism provoke a crisis in democracy?" in Political Quarterly, 2002, Vol 73 No 4, pp 400-408.
Research reports
Bringing the World to the UK: Factual international programming on UK public service TV, 2005. Commissioned by 3WE, 2006.
The World on the Box: International Issues in News and Factual Programmes on UK Television 1975-2003. Commissioned by 3WE, 2004.
From Callaghan to Kosovo: Changing Trends in British Television News 1975-1999. Commissioned by the BBC/ITC, 2000
"A Shrinking Iceberg Travelling South" Changing trends in British television: A case study of drama and current affairs". Commissioned by Campaign for Quality Television, 1999