Bad News on the Cost of Living Crisis

In this brilliant book, the GUMG offers a sharp critique of a flawed news and information system that's largely disconnected from the needs of audiences who have increasingly complex media diets. Wonderfully accessible and succinct, the book suggests a range of measures to narrow this gap and secure a media that's relevant and accountable to the lives of ordinary people. --Des Freedman, Professor of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London The GUMG's latest foray into the world of 'bad' news offers a typically triangulated exploration of Britain's 'cost of living crisis'. Its biggest contribution is to reimagine its own seminal concept - the circuit of mass communication - for a disrupted digital age, in which growing numbers of 'news' consumers are tuning out to invest their trust in an unregulated band of online influencers, content-creators and AI algorithms. --James Morrison, Associate Professor in Journalism Studies, University of Stirling In this book, the Glasgow University Meda Group bring their innovative and forensic three-dimensional methodological approach to understanding the role of media in shaping Britain's cost of living crisis. In the context of neoliberal austerity, welfare cuts and the corporate capture of media platforms, it provides evidence of an increasing disconnect between the narratives promoted by the mainstream media and the interests, priorities and lived experiences of audiences - whilst charting the parallel emergence of new models of trust which leave them vulnerable to bad faith actors promoting disinformation online. Catherine Happer is Director of the Glasgow University Media Group and author of The Construction of Public Opinion in a Digital Age , (Manchester University Press). Paul Reilly is Senior Lecturer in Communications, Media and Democracy at the University of Glasgow and author of Digital Contention in a divided society: social media, parades and protest in Northern Ireland (Manchester University Press). Alison Eldridge is Lecturer in the Media, Culture and Society subject group at the University of Glasgow and co-editor of Revisiting Culture and Society: Towards a Politics of Social Transformation .