For about 40 years, RTE's radio and television channels have played an enormous role in shaping Irish social and cultural life. As the national publicly owned and funded broadcaster, RTE is the biggest cinema, school, sports stadium, market square, performance stage, town crier and concert hall in Ireland. It sets the agenda for the national conversation that drives modern Ireland. This work is a study of the structural transformations now taking place in Irish broadcasting. The book will ...

Whatever happened to good government? What are the signs of bad government? And can Malcolm Turnbull apply the lessons of the past in a very different world?In this crisp, profound and witty essay, Laura Tingle seeks answers to these questions. She ranges from ancient Rome to the demoralised state of the once-great Australian public service, from the jingoism of the past to the tabloid scandals of the internet age. Drawing on new interviews with key figures, she sh...

The acclaimed account of post-Brexit British politics: a must-read for understanding how we've got to where we are today.'Richly argued and brilliantly written... a deeply thoughtful analysis that should be mandatory reading for anyone seeking to understand where we have gone wrong.' - FINANCIAL TIMESIn WTF? Robert Peston draws on his years of experience as a political, economics and business journalist to show us what has gone bad...

News and journalism are in the midst of upheaval: shifts such as declining print subscriptions and rising website visitor numbers are forcing assumptions and practices to be rethought from first principles. The internet is not simply allowing faster, wider distribution of material: digital technology is demanding transformative change. Out of Print analyzes the role and influence of newspapers in the digital age and explains how current theory and practice have to...

Jim Sillars argues convincingly that the referendum gives the Scottish people the power to create a better country, helps renew our belief in socialism as the answer to the economic and social crisis facing the country, and challenges the idea in the Yes campaign that independence means “change but no change” and that a Yes voter endorses Alex Salmond and the SNP. There is a far more radical road, with better policies than those Salmond is offering in the first independence elections in 20...

A collection of stimulating essays exploring the wide-ranging debates surrounding the relationship between business and society in 21st century Ireland.Wide-ranging, diverse and thought-provoking contributions from leading business researchers, economists, sociologists and political scientists from Ireland and abroad probe five central themes: the making and unmaking of the Celtic Tiger; governance, regulation and justice; partnership and participation; the nature of Irish borders ...

Will the 2015 general election herald the return of a Labour-dominated government? Could another coalition be on the cards with a rival party, or will the Labour Party be doomed to remain in opposition for another term? In this concise and authoritative guide, Dan Jarvis MP brings together a cast of Labour's brightest and best to explain how the Labour Party proposes to address the problems facing the nation today if they win power in 2015. Exploring the party's key policies, agendas and t...

Every year the British government spends £80 billion outsourcing public services. Today, private companies are responsible for fulfilling some of the most sensitive and important roles of the state – running prisons and providing healthcare, transport, legal aid, even child protection. These organizations have been handed enormous amounts of power and yet for the most part they operate with no transparency or accountability.From deportations to NHS cutbacks, Alan White exposes what...

Adult social care in Britain has been at the centre of much media and public attention in recent years. Revelations of horrific abuse in learning disability settings, the collapse of major private care home providers, abject failures of inspection and regulation, and uncertainty over how long-term care of older people should be funded have all given rise to serious public concern. In this short form book, part of the Critical and Radical Debates in Social Work series, Iain Ferguson and Mic...

This “sobering tale of the real consequences of gender bias” explores how Britain lost its early dominance in computing by systematically discriminating against its most qualified workers: women (Harvard Magazine)In 1944, Britain led the world in electronic computing. By 1974, the British computer industry was all but extinct. What happened in the intervening thirty years holds lessons for all postindustrial superpowers. As Britain struggled to use technol...

In the 1970s, as the country's post-war love affair with socialism began to sour, a new type of think tank opened its doors in Britain. Spearheading a rejection of state planning and controls, the Adam Smith Institute helped to put incentives and enterprise firmly back into the political mainstream. Its influence was extraordinary, even revolutionary. Britain's new passwords became opportunity, aspiration and the free market. With no backing and no resources save their own conviction, a ha...

Once regarded as a system in decline, public service broadcasters have acquired renewed legitimacy in the digital environment, as drivers of digital take-up, innovators and trusted brands. Exploring this remarkable transformation, Reinventing Public Service Television for the Digital Future engages with the new opportunities and challenges facing public service media, outlining the ways in which interactive technologies are now expanding the delivery of diverse goals and enhancing...