This study examines the relationship between fashion PR and fashion coverage in UK newspapers and suggests that such coverage is overwhelmingly generated by PR, to the extent that little if any independent fashion journalism actually exists. Despite the fact that existing research on news sources has pointed to the rising influence of PR on media content, the connection between fashion PR and journalism remains unstudied and overlooked. However, the amount of fashion content within UK newspapers has grown significantly over the past two decades, and now occupies a significant amount of space, extending well beyond fashion pages and supplements. This thesis uses empirical evidence to shed light upon the largely closed world of fashion PR and its relationship with fashion journalism. Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been used in order to explore the original hypothesis. They include content analysis of a cross section of UK newspapers during 2004; semi-structured interviews in 2005/06 with fashion PR professionals, fashion journalists and fashion industry insiders; as well as participant observation within a fashion PR agency in 2005. The author’s personal experience within fashion PR and fashion journalism has played a key role in developing insights into a trading relationship which both parties have traditionally had difficulty discussing. The research has found that fashion journalism recycles large amounts of PR material, usually with few checks or criticisms. Newspapers in general do not fund original, i.e. non-PR based, fashion research. Thus, supplying ready-made copy to the fashion press, PR acts as the main provider of access to the latest collections, sample clothes, interviews with designers, celebrities and ‘approved gossip’, hence exerting massive leverage over journalists. Fashion journalists on the other hand remain the gate-keepers as they decide which fashion company ultimately gets coverage. Therefore arguably their main responsibility lies within choosing amongst PR sources as well as when and how to use those. However it has to be noted that even then their power is circumscribed as they cannot ignore some fashion PR. As a result this thesis claims that, despite a limited role in selecting material, fashion journalism is journalism in name only and that it exhibits few if any of the other characteristics that are traditionally ascribed to the profession. This research has found that despite increased amounts of coverage fashion does not rank highly within the hierarchies of UK newspapers and is of limited importance in terms of traditional news values. Arguably this is why it is often overlooked in studies of journalism and print media. However it does attract large advertising budgets and is thus given pre-booked editorial space. This makes it an important area within UK newspapers, which with its lifestyle rather than news focus operates independently of the news desk. The fact that the largely female fashion department is not as closely overseen by the largely male editorial staff as other areas of newspapers allows room for maximum PR activity. One of this thesis's contributions to knowledge derives from its critical examination of this under-examined area within the news media. Fashion PR is also overlooked in the more limited scholarly research into the PR industry, which tends to privilege political or corporate communication. Consequently another contribution to knowledge arises from the way in which this thesis critically examines this important PR sector and explores the nature of its work. One aspect of this is the use of celebrities within fashion PR, demonstrating that this is ubiquitous and more prominent than in any other comparative sector. This study further claims that PR plays an important part in the manufacturing and maintenance of celebrities for the purpose of fashion promotion. However the principal contribution to knowledge derives from the examination of how these two disciplines - fashion journalism and PR - relate to each other. This often furtive relationship has hitherto eluded academic study, arguably due to an underlying conspiracy of silence as well as the informal nature of their relationship. The research has identified contemporary fashion PR as a multifaceted cultural phenomenon with vast economical power that forms the crucial connecting link between the fashion industry and fashion journalism – and hence the wider public, extending its authority into various directions. The overall aim of this study is to contribute to the restricted literature on the topic by providing a sound base towards the creation of a symbiotic relationship between the disciplines of fashion PR and fashion journalism.

This thesis brings together a portfolio of work published between 1981 and 2002, together with an accompanying critical commentary. The thesis provides a series of inter-related studies of the media-industries in the UK since the late 1970S, with an emphasis on policy-making and 'alternative' agendas. Taken as a whole, the work offers a set of contributions to the making of contemporary media policy in the UK, and does so from a position within the intellectual and political traditions ofthe 'New Left'. In particular, the thesis offers a set of reports, analyses and arguments which seek to provide 'alternative' policy perspectives to those on offer from the neoliberal 'New Right'. Deployng insights from a hybrid analytical framework which combines history, sociology and quantitative political economy, the works submitted have produced the following specific contributions to knowledge: . a) a distinctive interpretation ofthe origins of the 1980 Broadcasting Act and Channel Four Television, of the Channel's statutory remit, and of the role ofthe 'non profit' lobby represented by the Independent Film- Makers Association; b)a distinctive account of the structure of London's media economy in the early 1980s, and an analogous survey of the media economy of the West Midlands region; c) a distinctive analysis of the place of cinema exhibition within changing patterns offilm distribution and consumption, and of the dilemmas facing 'non profit' providers; d) an extended critical audit of the 1988 Broadcasting White Paper, and a related commentary on the prospects for a 5th TV service; e.) a critical assessment of the 2000 Communications White Paper; f) a distinctive survey of the emergence of a 'third tier' of local TV stations across the UK, the diverse ecologies of such stations, the scop~ for a Community Media Fund, and a related report on the operations of a pilot Fund in Yorkshire and Humber.

This thesis investigates the representation of Nigeria in the British news media. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, it examines the interplay of culture, race, ideology and geo-political power relations in the production of news. It interrogates the influence of sources, the impact of sources-media relations and their direct consequences on the construction as news of Nigeria’s socio-economic and human development indices, which further signpost the direction of representation of the world’s most populous black nation. By considering the coverage of Nigeria in the UK news media between 1997 and 2007, a period which marked a watershed in the democratic evolution of Nigeria, this thesis contributes to the on-going debates regarding cultural understanding in a globalized community. First, the research is based on a content analysis of the coverage of Nigeria in five UK quality newspapers at a period marking the end of the political logjam that engulfed the country following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections; the return to democratic rule and the early years of democracy, which witnessed the successful transfer of power from one civilian administration to another for the first time in Nigeria’s history. Second, a critical discourse analysis of a sample of the coverage of the most mentioned issues in the reportage, and third, on a small set of interviews with some of the journalists involved in the coverage. As a framework for its analysis, this thesis focuses on the theories of cultural politics, representation and news discourse. It finds that the coverage of Nigeria does not just follow the pattern of a distant and differentiated ‘Other,’ but is also significantly influenced by pre-colonial cum colonial history and geo-political power relations. Though news media outlets and individual journalists do try, within their own powers, to make a difference but the fact that the myths supporting these assumptions have been institutionalised over time presents a huge challenge. The issues in the coverage are discursively constructed from western point of view with greater access to shape the news clearly domiciled in the pouch of European or western sources rather than the Nigerians who should have a better appreciation of their local circumstance. This kind of coverage informs the idea of applying western solution to Africa’s problem, which further compounds the crisis. The fact that this manifest pattern of representation obfuscates the real issue behind Africa’s situation and presents imminent dangers to our common humanity are the core concerns contextualized within the thesis. It is negotiated with references to relevant dimensions of culture, politics, news discourse and interpreted in the light of geo-political power relations.