THE RETURN OF THE PUBLIC – DAN HIND BOOK LAUNCH
NEW BOOK AND LAUNCH EVENT: THE RETURN OF THE PUBLIC
By Dan Hind
Published October 11th, 2010
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“A book marked by a sombre and scathing rhetoric that recalls the Frankfurt School critique of thinkers such as Adorno and Marcuse… Pointed, eloquent and forceful.” Boyd Tonkin, INDEPENDENT
“If there is a future to look forward to, it will come from the invigorated public domain pictured by Dan Hind … This is a handbook for a very modern liberation struggle. Buy it and help set yourself free.“ — Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation and author of Tescopoly
“A brilliant, provocative and sweeping assessment of our current predicament … this is a book that deserves widespread attention and debate.” — Robert W. McChesney, Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and author of Communication Revolution
“Dan Hind provides us with the strategies we will need to reinvigorate the public debate and, in so doing, re-empower the people. Go to Mapquest and ask for directions to the next and better society; the response will be Dan Hind’s The Return of the Public.” — John Nichols, political correspondent of the Nation and author of The Genius of Impeachment
“As the official culture of politics limps from scandal to corruption, Hind turns to the only thing that can save democracy: the people. Dan Hind has produced one of those rare books that transcend the world of “discourse” and become essential levers of historical change.“ — David Miller, co-author of A Century of Spin and professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde
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AUTHOR EVENTS
Monday 25 October, 7pm at Kings Place, London:
The Return of the Public: Journalism and Democracy in the 21st Century:
Dan Hind in conversation with Professor Natalie Fenton, chaired by Tony Curzon Price, editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy
For decades, the public has been told to leave democracy to the experts. But is it not apparent that our politicians have ever-decreasing legitimacy? Even as they amass ever more riches our financiers are now morally and intellectually bankrupt. In their different ways politicians and those who control the private economy system claim to be acting in the public interest.
Yet we, the public, have little say in decision-making and almost no power to change the terms of a series of increasingly absurd debates about economic and foreign policy. How have we been excluded from so many discussions about the public interest?
Dan Hind is in conversation with Professor Natalie Fenton about public commissioning: a controversial way forwards for a new participatory politics and a regenerated public sphere, one based on the wholesale reform of the media.
For more information and to book: http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/spoken-word/words-on-monday/the-return-of-the-public-journalism-and-democracy-dan-hind-in-conversati
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Eloquent exploration of the public’s exclusion from political participation
Our politicians have ever-decreasing legitimacy. Even as they amass ever more riches our financiers are now morally and intellectually bankrupt. In their different ways politicians and those who control the private economy system claim to be acting in the public interest. Yet we, the public, have little say in decision-making and almost no power to change the terms of a series of increasingly absurd debates about economic and foreign policy. How have we been excluded from so many discussions about the public interest?
Dan Hind traces how, historically, political and intellectual elites constructed deeply ambiguous ideas of the public, designed to serve their own ends and preserve the status quo. After the Second World War, as women, ethnic minorities, the young, and the working majority became more assertive and self-confident, the propertied and their allies in the state made fresh attempts to deny most of us a public identity. The financial crisis, and the ability of those who caused it to preside over policy-making in its aftermath, have made it impossible to ignore what has long been obvious: the institutions on which most of us rely for our knowledge of the wider world have become radically and demonstrably unaccountable and unsafe.
For decades, the public has been told to leave democracy to the experts. Now, Hind outlines a way forwards for a new participatory politics, one based on the wholesale reform of the media. After the failure of the private, now is the time for the return of the public.
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DAN HIND was a publisher for ten years. In 2009 he left the industry to develop a program of media reform centred around public commissioning. His journalism has appeared in the Guardian, New Scientist, Lobster and the Times Literary Supplement. His first book, The Threat to Reason, was published by Verso in 2007.
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ISBN: 978 1 84467 594 4 / £14.99 / $24.95
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For more information and to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/478-the-return-of-the-public
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