Writings on Media collects Stuart Hall's most important work on the media, reaffirming his stature as an innovative media theorist while demonstrating the continuing relevance of his methods of analysis.

Editor's Note on the Text  vii Acknowledgments  ix Introduction: A History of the Present / Charlotte Brunsdon  1 Part I. The Photograph in Context Introduction to Part I  15 1. Preface to Black Britain: A Photographic History  23 2. Media and Message: The Life and Death of Picture Post  26 3. The Social Eye of Picture Post  34 4. The Determinations of New Photographs  54 5. Reconstruction Work: Images of Post-war Black Settlement  78 6. Vanley Burke and the "Desire for Blackness"  95 Part II. Media Studies and Cultural Studies Introduction to Part II  101 7. Film Teaching: Liberal Studies  111 8. The World of the Gossip Column  122 9.  A World at One with Itself  131 10. Introduction to Paper Voices  141 11. Down with the Little Woman  155 12. Mugging: A Case Study in the Media  162 13. Introduction to Media Studies at the Centre  169 14. The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media  177 Part III. Television Introduction to Part III  201 15. Television as a Medium and Its Relation to Culture  209 16. Watching the Box  237 17. Gogglebox Gigolos  242 18. TV Types  245 19. Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse  247 20. Media Power: The Double Bind 267 21. Will Annan Open the Box?  276 22. Which Public, Whose Service?  281 23. Black and White in Television  297 Coda  315 24. Stuart Hall's Desert Island Discs  317 Index  331 Place of First Publication  343

“How refreshing and urgent to revisit Stuart Hall’s formative ideas about racism, identity, ideology, and media at the very moment that media has become such a contested site and source of ideological work. Hall’s searing and critical insights about what media does, how it works, and why it matters have never been as pressing as they are today. In our global and national media ecologies where disputes over facts, epistemological turmoil, fake news, and ideological rigidities are routine, Charlotte Brunsdon’s curated collection of Hall’s essays on the media is a remarkable and indispensable gift.”