Director’s Blog

The news that Ken Livingstone has three more children by two more women has not really made big waves here and his campaign for London Mayor seems largely unaffected. He’s certainly not resigning. But Finland has just lost its Foreign Minister after a gossip magazine revealed that he had sent suggestive texts to an exotic dancer (not his wife…) It reminds us that cultural norms on sex and politics vary wildly over time and from place to place. (more…)

Why do liberals so often find themselves defendng pornography? Polis was discussing obscenity and the media today with the Iowa University Professor of Media John Durham Peters. Peters’ provocative lecture was, as he put it, about the pubic in the public sphere. (more…)

There are more women than ever before in the media, so has journalism about women changed? Polis gathered a group of 50 women journalists and academics for a debate led by Channel 4 News presenter Samira Ahmed. This is the report written by Polis intern Tamsyn Dent.

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Nuts TV launches tonight, it promises:

A page 3 girl reading book at bedtime, a hunt for Britain’s fittest barmaid and a nightly news bulletin called Rude News.

John Humphreys on the Today programme was suitably outraged at more evidence of media dumbing down, but do people realise how difficult it is to do crap on the telly? (more…)