Writings on Media

“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.”

~Herman Gray, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz

“Stuart Hall revolutionized the critical study of media, positioning them—newspapers, photographs, television—as key sites of struggle over cultural meaning and power, and thus as central to the project of cultural studies. Above all, however, Hall did not just write about media but used them prolifically as outlets for critical intervention in the world. This superb set of essays testifies to the uniquely powerful voice of one of the most important public intellectuals in postimperial Britain.”

~Ien Ang, Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies, Western Sydney University