Edited by Dan Hind

The major media are facing profound disruption. Their business models are in disarray. A series of reporting failures and scandals has undermined their authority, while voices from outside the mainstream are gaining strength through new technology and challenging the old order.

OurKingdom will be hosting a debate about power and the media. How is information currently organized, and how should it be organized? What are the existing media good at, and what do they fail to deliver? What reforms are necessary if we are to have the information we need for democratic citizenship?

It is time to ask what we want from our media - and how to get it.

Leveson is not an Establishment stich up

Horatio Mortimer 24 March 2013

Leading left-of-centre columnists are wrong to denounce the Leveson proposals as being designed to protect the priviliged. There is a real need to regulate the corporate press and the way it abuses of its power.

The end of the Murdoch Archipelago

Bruce Page 22 April 2012

This week, the media mogul once unquestioningly known as 'the kingmaker' appears before the UK state inquiry into the British press - a day after his son and would-be heir. To mark this moment, we publish the new introduction to the defining account of the 113-year-old Murdoch dynasty, asking the question: how did we come to this?

Fallout of News Corp. Scandal in the US?

James Hamilton 11 March 2012

In the US, the deleterious effect of rampant commercialization is the real scandal. 

How do we reform Britain's media? Proposals and your responses

Co-ordinating Committee for Media Reform 19 December 2011
A new committee has drawn up media reform proposals in the light of the Leveson Inquiry. We publish the CCMR's proposals, alongside responses from media experts and practitioners, and invite our readers to join in the debate.

Mutualising the media: the answer to UK press ownership?

Dave Boyle 28 November 2011
What would employee-owned or co-operative media models look like? Could they allow for genuine public interest journalism?

Great Britain in the Greek looking glass

Julien Etienne 26 November 2011
Rather than offering any illumination into the causes of the Greek crisis, Channel 4's 'Go Greek for a Week' held the mirror up to British society's image of itself - but our delusions of fair play and national propriety are just that.

Still hacked off with the media? Come join the campaign for UK media reform

Des Freedman 15 November 2011
The hacking scandal exposed corruption, illegality and immorality at the heart of the British media. A new committee, formed to push for wide-ranging media reform in the wake of the scandal, holds its first public meeting this week.

Radical media, stop fighting the mainstream - instead, let's build the future

James Hamilton 25 October 2011
Radical media are wasting too much energy competing with the mainstream. They should return to their great strength: discovering new ways of 'doing' media in the service of progressive change.

Intellectuals against the public sphere: how to do debate better than Evgeny Morozov's tear-down

Jeff Jarvis 25 October 2011
Evgeny Morozov, an engaging thinker whom we have enjoyed publishing on openDemocracy, produced an intemperate review of a peer's book. Here, that peer responds in an exemplary way. An attempt to shut down conversation has, in the best sort of Streisand effect, back-fired and opened it up.

Rebellious Media Conference: leading the way in the information age

Niki Seth-Smith 10 October 2011
Radical media are far behind the mainstream in terms of readership and revenue. But when it comes to understanding media's future, the 'alternative' press are ahead of the curve.

Cross-media power regulation could return Britain to the 17th century

Brian Winston 6 October 2011
How do we regulate for news plurality in the UK? Beginning with audience share is a farce, and would undermine our democracy. Ownership must be our starting point.

The BBC is, and always has been, part of the problem

Tom Mills 3 October 2011
The News International hacking scandal has led the UK to re-assess her media. While private corporations are in the spotlight, there is also a pressing need to probe whether the BBC is fulfilling its duty to the British public.

Press regulation: issues, ethics, options

David Elstein 3 October 2011
What is the future of press regulation in the UK? A group of distinguished editors and parliamentarians met last week to discuss this most crucial of questions. David Elstein reports, and offers his own map for change.

Murdoch and Berlusconi: the fall of two media empires and the network multitudes

Giorgio Griziotti 30 September 2011
The simultaneous fall of the Murdoch and Berlusconi media empires – symbolic of an epoch – is not a coincidence but part of a deep global change in which the exponential growth of horizontal communication networks plays a central role. In this global epoch, despite the thin line between new democratic opportunities and the old threats of control, unforeseen democratic movements are demanding a new kind of democracy.

The BBC is not part of the problem raised by Hackgate

Des Freedman 20 September 2011
A strong, constructive response to Dan Hind's call yesterday for a democratic media policy and not a defense of the BBC - as the debate over Britain's inquiry into the future of its media get's hotter.

Restating Scotland

Restating Scotland

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OurNHS

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Democratic Wealth

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G4S: securing whose world?

G4S - securing whose world? Image of security camera focused on G4S

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Re-birth of the nation?

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Devalue or Else!

Roj, Flickr

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Can Europe Make It?

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