Amazon.com description: Product Description: This is a concise history of the press and broadcasting in Britain after World War II, from a time when the phrase "mass media" was barely used to the Maxwell and Murdoch era of international media conglomerates. The book traces changes in what was available and what people used - the size and ownership of the national and provincial press; the growth of television and the impact of ITV; the decline and revival of radio; the continuities and differences in what people read, looked at, listened to and liked. Beyond that, the analysis explores the often queasy relations of media and government. Television increasingly elbowed into politics, while politicians worked harder at news management. Governments became more active in media policy - on press mergers, new TV channels, traditional questions of freedom of information. Such development gave extra point to the issue of media accountability. How did the new baronies justify themselves to the public? Which was the greater threat by the end of the 1980s: abuse of power by the media or abuse of media by the government?