How The Media Creates the World We Live In

In this edited extract from a new pamphlet, Pressing Issues, on the state of the media by the Fabian Society, Hardeep Matharu examines the ways in which the traditional press and social media-based news shape the ideas we think with

What is journalism for?

It is a question the industry, and the society it serves, rarely asks itself. And yet, in many ways, it has to be the starting point for any discussion about the position of the ‘fourth estate’ in our modern democracy.

Traditionally, the job of journalists has been seen as holding the powerful to account. But a nexus of structural issues means that all too often journalism in Britain operates as an extension of power rather than a check on it.

There are a number of areas in which the observation can be made that the way in which journalists have presented issues has affected how these issues have taken hold in the public’s imagination. In many cases, newspapers and journalists have taken their cues from politicians – advancing their narratives, rather than challenging them.