Prime Ministers and the Media Issues of Poer and Control [Paperback]

This book looks at the ways in which prime ministers manage and fail to manage their public communication.

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• A timely examination of the ways in which prime ministers manage and fail to manage their public communication.
  
• Original in scope, covering political rumours, political cartoons and capital cities, in addition to more familiar topics.
  
• Sets contemporary analysis of Downing Street press secretaries, media barons and press conferences in fuller historical context than usual.
  
• Draws on public records, private papers and interviews by the author dating back to the 1960s.

List of Figures.

List of Maps.

List of Tables.

Preface.

Introduction: Prime Minister, Communication, Power, Control.

1. Public Communication and the Prime Minister’s Tasks.

2. Public Communication as a Prime Ministerial Resource.

3. Public Communication: Turning Authority into Power.

4. The Capital City as News Environment.

5. Harlots Revisited: Media Barons, Politics and Prime Ministers.

6. The Rise of the Downing Street Press Secretary.

7. The Downing Street Press Secretary: Getting into a Spin?.

8. Prime Ministers and Press Conferences.

9. Grapevine Politics: Political Rumours.

10. Drawing Blood? Prime Ministers and Political Cartoons.

Index.

This is a fascinating, authoritative and eminently readable history of the changing relationship between prime ministers and the media. As one of the country’s leading historians of politics and the press, Colin Seymour-Ure offers some highly origlCÔ