DOCSLIB.ORG

Museums, Discourse, and Visitors : the Case of Lon- Don's Tate Modern

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Museums, Discourse, and Visitors : the Case of Lon- Don's Tate Modern ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Museums, discourse, and visitors : the case of Lon- don’s Tate Modern https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40165/ Version: Full Version Citation: Rodney, Seph (2015) Museums, discourse, and visitors : the case of London’s Tate Modern. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Museums, Discourse, and Visitors: The Case of London's Tate Modern Seph Rodney Thesis submitted for A PhD degree in Humanities and Cultural Studies to Birkbeck College The London Consortium Programme June 2015 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the conceptualization of the visitor within the discursive construction of the contemporary public art museum. It takes the rhetorical formulation of the interaction between the theorized visitor figure and the discursively rendered museum to constitute the ‘visit’. This work argues that the position of the visitor within museum discourse has radically shifted in the past generation; the primary claim being that the visit is reconceived as a personally customizable experience less oriented toward the transfer of information from the curator (regarded as expert and educator) to the visitor figure (regarded as ignorant pupil), and more oriented toward meeting the particular needs and preferences of the visitor. This conception currently appears in museum discourse and in the minds of influential actors who shape this discourse. To analyze this claim, this thesis draws on the institutionalization of the visit via a case study of the Tate Modern museum, which provides the primary empirical evidence demonstrating the above claim. The resulting study relates the questions, structure, and findings of a systematic investigation into the historical, social, and museological conditions necessary to an institutionally manifested personalized, visitor-centered visit. The conceptual development of the visitor figure is traced through implicit accounts of the visit within academic studies of the museum, institutional records, marketing reports, advertisements, and the public discourse convened around Tate Modern’s opening thematic displays that served as an extension of Tate’s marketing and audience development programs. This visitor figure is now coextensive with and conditioned by a neoliberal participatory agenda that trades on the notion of personal agency and enlightened cultural consumption, which is, in turn, undergirded and conditioned by the intertwined forces of consumerism, marketing, and branding. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS____________________________________________________ Chapter 1 Introduction 7 Subsection Creating Your Own Collection 7 Subsection An Emergent Phenomenon 12 Subsection Surveying the Discourse 15 Subsection Research Strategies 17 Subsection Organizing the Inquiry 20 Subsection The Case Study 25 Subsection Research Design 30 Subsection Evidentiary Sources 32 Subsection Analytical methods 35 Subsection Order of the Argument 36 Subsection All Change 39 Chapter 2 The Changing Nature of the Visit 41 Subsection Introduction: Museum Literature and the Enlightenment 41 Subsection The Private and the Public 47 Subsection In the Museum’s Shadow 52 Subsection The Birth of Visitor-derived Meaning 58 Subsection A New Museology 64 Subsection Implicit Views of the Visit 68 Subsection The Humiliating/Validating Visit 70 Subsection The Civilizing Visit 75 Subsection The Ritual Visit 79 Subsection The Personalized Visit 83 Chapter 3 An Interpretive Museum 90 Subsection Introduction 90 Subsection Prologue to the Reports 94 Subsection Tate Reports 96 Subsection Chronology 98 Subsection The Tate Gallery in the 1960s 99 Subsection The Tate Gallery in the 1970s 102 Subsection Best Practice for Public Service 106 Subsection Inclusion and Interpretation 112 Chapter 4 Marketized Visitors 117 Subsection Audience Research and Audience Development 117 Subsection Audience Research Documents 120 Subsection Analysis of Tate Through Visitors’ Eyes 125 Subsection Analysis of Tate Online 134 Subsection The Marketized Museum and Relevant Economies 144 Subsection Losses and Gains 151 Chapter 5 Branding, Advertisements and Partnerships 155 Subsection The Visitor in Branding and Advertizing 155 Subsection Tate’s Brand Formulation 155 Subsection Brands’ Relation to Advertisements 161 Subsection The UBS Advertisements 164 Subsection Tate Etc. Magazine 167 Subsection Couple in the Turbine Hall 167 Subsection Interior and Exterior View with Couple 172 Subsection Couple Facing a Screening Room 178 Subsection The Campaign 181 Chapter 6 Tate Modern Displays 185 Subsection The Thematic Displays 185 Subsection Curatorial Intention 189 Subsection The Fraudulent Visit 193 Subsection The Pleasurable Visit 202 Subsection The Democratic Visit 205 Subsection A Promise 212 Subsection Marketing 215 Chapter 7 Conclusion 219 Subsection Aims and Findings 219 Subsection Future Study 229 REFERENCES_________________________________________________________231 APPENDICES__________________________________________________________254 Appendix A The ‘I’m Hungover’ Collection Poster Appendix B The ‘I’ve Just Split Up’ Collection Poster Appendix C Tate Collections Marketing Society PowerPoint Presentation Appendix D UBS Advertisement: Couple in Turbine Hall Appendix E UBS Advertisement: Couple with a View of the Thames Appendix F UBS Advertisement: Couple before a Screening Room ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I thank my mother, Sarah Rodney, who has been a source of emotional and financial support longer than she could reasonably be expected to have been. She has never given up, and partly because of this, neither could I. I do acknowledge the generosity of both of my supervisors. My primary supervisor Marko Daniel gave an attentive eye to my work. My second supervisor, Gordon Fyfe was indispensable. He is as rigorous a scholar as I could have wanted and I deeply appreciate his hard work at helping me to pull clarity and coherence out of my uncertainty. Dr. Fyfe in particular has influenced me to say what I mean. I partly owe my knowledge of the museum field to his guidance. I thank John Tu, for a generous grant he made so that I could begin my studies in London. He renewed his support one year later, and I am very grateful for his support. Without these funds I would have likely not been able to complete my work. I also thank my friend Lawrence Harding, who let me sleep on his couch for more than a year and a half while I worked on the previous iteration of this thesis. Finally, this study was aided by a grant from the Central Research Fund. The grant was made in 2009 to support my travel to New York to conduct research on MoMA, and I am grateful to have received it. S. Rodney Museums, Discourse, and Visitors: The Case of 7 London's Tate Modern ! Chapter One: Introduction Creating Your Own Collection In September of 2005 Tate Britain launched a marketing campaign that invited visitors to ‘Create your own Collection’.1 This campaign presented the results of a competition in which participants figuratively assembled their own ‘collection’ of up to six works of art in Tate’s permanent collection and on display in Tate Britain.2 The chosen ‘collections’ were published in leaflets for other visitors to use and consider while visiting the museum. At the competition’s conclusion the campaign had generated twenty new ways of seeing and navigating the items. According to Tate’s own estimates, increases in visitors’ numbers directly resulted from the campaign, with a twenty-two percent increase in the first month, and a fifty percent increase within six months (Tate, 2008). These visitor-devised selections promoted by the museum in outdoor posters, including the ‘I’m Hungover’, and the ‘I’ve Just Split Up’ compilations, adopted works in the permanent collection to explore, elaborate, or illustrate a psychic state or corporeal experience of the visitor now standing in as curator of its own visit. The campaign came to this author’s attention, because, more than being a commercial success it gestured toward a categorically different way to experience the museum than the conventional tracking of an art historical narrative developed by the curator. This campaign, essentially an innovative marketing ploy, indicates the institutional development of a visitor- centered experience that represents a rethinking of a visit to an art museum, and by extension, the roles the curator and visitor can play in defining and shaping this experience. Tate Britain’s campaign brings to light a particular configuration of the visit, institutionally generated by Tate’s marketing department and produced through an essentially creative act of textual and dialogic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Descriptions of two collections: the ‘I’m Hungover’ collection, and the ‘I’ve Just Split Up’ collection are included in the first appendix along with copies of slides 1-3 and 14-18 of 18, of a 2008 PowerPoint presentation made to the Marketing Society that relates the plans, intentions, and results of this campaign. 2 Visitors were invited to create a list of their favored artworks drawn from the permanent collection, a list that constituted the visitor’s own ‘collection’ arranged according to preferences, situations, or feelings. The list constituted a guide; the permanent collection
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Corpus Christi Playroom Reopens with Latin! – Theatre Page 26
    Issue: 553 www.varsity.cam.ac.uk 01 February 2002 THE CAMBRIDGE STUDENT NEWSPAPER 20p where sold FASHION FILM SPORT Varsity talks to A look at the life A round-up of photographer and works of collegiate Rugby: Mario Testino Wes Anderson results and tables PAGE 12 PAGE 23 PAGE 30 There is no understated minimalism here; it’s high-octane, high-gloss fashion and passion all the way and it’s quite brilliant – Page 12 HOMERTON ON TRIAL Rob Sharp Katy Long Roving reporter Katy Long infiltrates Homerton Bar Franc Meechan, the Homerton Bar sonal mobile phone. This was confis- Magistrates commented that it was Manager, was acquitted yesterday cated, and she then appealed to “hard to believe that the Prosecution’s of assaulting a student at the Meechan to intervene on her behalf. evidence refers to the same incident as Homerton May Ball last June. A confrontation between Akhtar that of the Defence”, arguing that the en- However, concerns have been and Meechan followed, in which tire case had “cost the taxpayer a lot of raised about the way in which the Meechan admitted becoming angry, money” and could have been avoided prosecution of the case was con- telling Akhtar: “I’m going to knock your by mediation. ducted. fucking block off.” It was then alleged However, Akhtar and Wright have Corpus Christi Meechan stood accused of assault- that a second confrontation had oc- raised questions about the handling of ing Colette Wright, a Homerton student curred, in which Ms Wright had been the case by the prosecution service.
    [Show full text]
  • On Newspapers in UK the British Press, Traditionally Dominated By
    On newspapers in UK The British press, traditionally dominated by male editors-in-chief, in recent years has undertaken a path towards gender balance, although it is still incomplete. The most paradigmatic example is that of Ms. Victoria Newton, who —since February 2020— has been the editor-in-chief of the UK’s most widely read newspaper: “The Sun”. However, she is not the first female editor of such newspaper; indeed, it was Ms. Rebekah Brooks the first woman who held that position, between 2003 and 2009. Another relevant case is that of Ms. Alison Phillips, who runs the “Daily Mirror” since 2018, becoming the newspaper's second female editor-in-chief since its first editor-in-chief in 1903, Ms. Mary Howarth. These recent appointments join the one made in 2015 by “The Guardian”, which ended up with Ms. Katharine Viner becoming its first female editor-in-chief. Among the Sunday editions of the UK newspapers, "The Sunday Times" stands out, being edited by Ms. Emma Tucker since January 2020. As for the others, Ms. Roula Khalaf became the first editor- in-chief of the business and economic newspaper “Financial Times”, following the departure of its historic editor Mr. Lionel Barber, while the “Evening Standard”, currently the most widely read free newspaper in the UK, has been edited by Ms. Emily Sheffield since June 2020. The genders of the chief editors among the seven largest UK daily national newspapers by circulation in June 20201 are shown in Table 1 below2: TABLE 1 Circulation Political Publishing Gender editor- Newspaper3 (June 2020) alignment group in-chief (name) (ABC) Male (Geordie Daily Mail 999,976 Conservative dmg media Creig) Female (Alison Daily Mirror 383,397 Labour Reach plc Phillips) Right-wing, Daily Express 246,884 conservative, Reach plc Male (Gary Jones) populist Left-wing, Daily Star 235,609 Reach plc Male (John Clark) populist Liberalism, i 140,154 dmg media Male (Oliver Duff) centrist 1 The data comes from the monthly data published by Audit Bureau of Circulations (“ABC”) relating to June 2020.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cold War on British Muslims: an Examination of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion September 2011
    Tom Mills Tom Griffin David Miller 1 1 THE COLD WAR ON 20 SEPTEMBER BRITISH MUSLIMS: AN EXAMINATION OF POLICY EXCHANGE AND THE CENTRE FOR SOCIAL COHESION Sponsored by AUTHOR PROFILES Tom Mills is freelance investigative researcher based in London and a doctoral candidate at the University of Strathclyde. He is a co-editor of the New Left Project and Portal Editor for Powerbase’s Terrorism Spin. Tom Griffin is a freelance writer and researcher. He is a contributing editor of openDemocracy’s OurKingdom blog and writes for Spinwatch. He is a former executive editor and political correspondent of the Irish World. Dr David Miller is Professor of Sociology in the School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Strathclyde. He has written widely on propaganda, spin and lobbying and is a director of Spinwatch. His recent publications include: A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power (Pluto Press, 2008), Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy (Pluto Press, 2007). The Cold War on British Muslims: An examination of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion September 2011 British Cataloguing-in-Publications Data. A catalogue record for this report is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-9570274-0-4 Design: RedAspect Printed and bound in the UK COPYRIGHT Public Interest Investigations © 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form of by any means without the prior permission from the copyright holder. Spinwatch is a project of Public Interest Investigations and DISCLAIMER independent non-profit making Views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the individual contributors and do not organisation which monitors the necessarily reflect those of Spinwatch.
    [Show full text]
  • Still Life in the Old Attack Dogs: the Press
    Loughborough University Institutional Repository Still life in the old attack dogs: the press This item was submitted to Loughborough University's Institutional Repository by the/an author. Citation: DEACON, D. and WRING, D., 2015. Still life in the old attack dogs: the press. IN: Cowley, P. and Kavanagh, D. (eds.). The British general election of 2015. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.302-336. Additional Information: • This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137366115. It has been reproduced with with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. Metadata Record: https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/21439 Version: Accepted for publication Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (individual chapters c respective authors) Rights: This work is made available according to the conditions of the Cre- ative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Please cite the published version. Still Life in the Old Attack Dogs: The Press David Deacon and Dominic Wring Introduction During the 2015 campaign there was considerable negativity and partiality in much press reporting; it was not difficult to find examples of where robust political partisanship descended into personal vilification. Some of this was the kind of journalism that had been repeatedly highlighted and criticized only a few years before, most notably in the House of Commons following the 2011 hacking scandal and subsequently during the ensuing year-long Leveson Inquiry.
    [Show full text]
  • Letter to the Prime Minister
    From the Executive Director The Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP Prime Minister 10 Downing Street London SW1A 2AA President Alison Gow 13 January 2020 Chair Ian MacGregor Dear Prime Minister Executive Director Ian Murray Board of Directors As you will be aware, changes have been introduced to the way in which journalists Kamal Ahmed Martin Breen attending parliament as part of the lobby system are briefed. The changes which began Paul Clarkson Peter Clifton this week have caused some consternation among members of the Society of Editors Polly Curtis Oliver Duff who are concerned the new system will create barriers to covering democracy and Charles Garside impede the vital work of a free press. Ceri Gould Alison Gow Jonathan Grun Donald Martin As a mark of their concern, several editors of national and regional newspapers and Eleanor Mills Ian Murray news outlets have agreed to add their names to this letter to you requesting that the Sue Ryan Moira Sleight new lobby system be looked at again. Caroline Waterston Sarah Whitehead Doug Wills Joy Yates In particular, editors are concerned at the lack of consultation before the changes were Past Presidents introduced and the new requirement that lobby correspondents must now leave the Nick Turner Houses of Parliament and travel to Downing Street to attend the daily lobby briefings. Doug Wills Ian Murray Jonathan Grun Fran Unsworth It is felt the changes are likely to prove extremely difficult, particularly in the Robin Esser Donald Martin afternoon when correspondents are also required to be in Parliament to report on Nigel Pickover Simon Bucks proceedings.
    [Show full text]
  • Museums, Discourse, and Visitors: the Case of London's Tate Modern
    Museums, Discourse, and Visitors: The Case of London's Tate Modern Seph Rodney Thesis submitted for A PhD degree in Humanities and Cultural Studies to Birkbeck College The London Consortium Programme June 2015 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the conceptualization of the visitor within the discursive construction of the contemporary public art museum. It takes the rhetorical formulation of the interaction between the theorized visitor figure and the discursively rendered museum to constitute the ‘visit’. This work argues that the position of the visitor within museum discourse has radically shifted in the past generation; the primary claim being that the visit is reconceived as a personally customizable experience less oriented toward the transfer of information from the curator (regarded as expert and educator) to the visitor figure (regarded as ignorant pupil), and more oriented toward meeting the particular needs and preferences of the visitor. This conception currently appears in museum discourse and in the minds of influential actors who shape this discourse. To analyze this claim, this thesis draws on the institutionalization of the visit via a case study of the Tate Modern museum, which provides the primary empirical evidence demonstrating the above claim. The resulting study relates the questions, structure, and findings of a systematic investigation into the historical, social, and museological conditions necessary to an institutionally manifested personalized, visitor-centered visit. The conceptual development of the visitor figure is traced through implicit accounts of the visit within academic studies of the museum, institutional records, marketing reports, advertisements, and the public discourse convened around Tate Modern’s opening thematic displays that served as an extension of Tate’s marketing and audience development programs.
    [Show full text]
  • Varsity Issue
    he Independent Student Newspaper est. 1947 Wenesday 19th June 2013 Issue No 769 | varsity.co.uk 7 News: 16 Feature: Have things changed? From sex polls to 18 Photo Feature: Summer days 22 Fashion: Tom Rasmussen attacks Round-up social stereotyes, Varsity’s archives suggest not this summer’s hottest trend HELEN CAHILL “You cannot and Wyverns should not expect Cambridge students, after garden party months of lectures, supervisions, classes, practicals, backlash presentations, revision and exams, to just stop The Wyverns Garden Party stirred opinions and relax” with its first garden party without wrestling by Varsity News Team invoked the symbol of the patriarchy to say that, no matter what we as feminist women do, they still have the power. I he Wyverns garnered more contro- would even go as far as to say it relies on versy this week as guests were invited a history of sexual violence and rape of to ride a large inlatable penis at their women - the physical manifestation of annual Garden Party. Various Cam- the power of the phallus- in that it sug- bridge feminist igures have criticised gests the violence that can be done to the decision. Nina de Paula Hanika, women who resist.’ who created the petition to ban jelly he reaction by the Women’s Cam- wrestling at the event, told Varsity: paign in Cambridge is not shared by all ‘hey’re free to deine themselves how- Cambridge students and attendees of ever they wish, I’m just unsure why they the garden party. One female partygoer, would choose, of all possible options, a who didn’t wish to be named, told Var- giant inlatable penis.’ Susy Langsdale, sity: ‘I really don’t know what the big Women’s Oicer for CUSU, called it an deal is.
    [Show full text]
  • Shadow Cabinet Meetings
    Shadow Cabinet Meetings 1st June 2014 – 31st May 2015 Shadow cabinet meetings with proprietors, editors and senior media executives. *The Leveson Report recommends that members of the shadow cabinet should consider publishing “the simple fact of long term relationships with media proprietors, newspaper editors or senior executives which might be thought to be relevant to their responsibilities”. If appropriate, please include in this column. 1 Harriet Harman MP, Interim Leader of the Labour Party (previously Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party) Shadow Secretary of State’s meetings with proprietors, editors and senior media executives Date Name Location Purpose Nature of relationship* 22.09.14 Lloyd Embley – Editor Manchester General Discussion Professional Peter Willis – Political Labour Editor Party Conference The Daily Mirror 23.09.14 Martin Ivens – Editor - Manchester General Discussion Professional Sunday Times Labour Party Conference 27.01.15 Lisa Markwell – House of General Discussion Professional Independent on Sunday Commons 09.02.15 Amol Rajan – Editor The House of General Discussion Professional Independent Commons Other interaction between Shadow Secretary of State and proprietors, editors and senior media executives Date Name Location Purpose Nature of relationship* 22.09.14 The Times & Sunday Manchester Drinks Reception Professional Times Labour Editors & Journalists Party Conference 22.09.14 Sky News Manchester Drinks Reception Professional Editors & journalists Labour
    [Show full text]
  • Admissions Director Gives Assurance to Home Students
    Panda Bear and his animal friends The Animal Collective migrates to the Portland Arms Music, Page 19 No. 612 The Independent Cambridge Student Newspaper since 1947 Friday January 28, 2005 Admissions The Varsity Talent List 2005 - 8 page pull-out in this issue director gives assurance to home students Kate Ward At present it costs up to £55,800 to put each home THE UNIVERSITY has undergraduate through their responded to Oxford’s plan to three-year degree, while over- reduce the number of home seas students will pay on aver- undergraduates by pledging its age £10,900 per year for tuition commitment to current admis- fees and living expenses – con- sions policy. siderably more than the income Director of University the university receives for each Admissions, Geoff Parks, told home student. Varsity that he and ‘other Many figures within both admissions tutors in general Oxford and Cambridge are dis- would be very disappointed if mayed that admissions could be financial necessity forced influenced by financial pres- Cambridge to contemplate sure. NUS president Kat reducing the number of home Fletcher warned against the students we admit’. Parks increasing tendency of univer- added that the University’s sities to ‘perceive their students treatment of home students as customers’, creating a ‘mar- would not change: ‘The reality ket’ for higher education. is that overseas students are In 2003/04 Oxford had a squeezed out by our commit- total of 11,086 undergraduates. ment to home students’. Out of these only 692 (6%) He said that ‘The University were overseas students, while of Cambridge is committed to 10,045 (91%) were from the admitting students of the UK.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cold War on British Muslims: an Examination of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion
    Citation for published version: Mills, T, Griffin, T & Miller, D 2011, The Cold War on British Muslims: An examination of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion. Public Interest Investigations, Glasgow. Publication date: 2011 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication Publisher Rights CC BY-NC-ND University of Bath Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 Tom Mills Tom Griffin David Miller 1 1 THE COLD WAR ON 20 SEPTEMBER BRITISH MUSLIMS: AN EXAMINATION OF POLICY EXCHANGE AND THE CENTRE FOR SOCIAL COHESION Sponsored by AUTHOR PROFILES Tom Mills is freelance investigative researcher based in London and a doctoral candidate at the University of Strathclyde. He is a co-editor of the New Left Project and Portal Editor for Powerbase’s Terrorism Spin. Tom Griffin is a freelance writer and researcher. He is a contributing editor of openDemocracy’s OurKingdom blog and writes for Spinwatch. He is a former executive editor and political correspondent of the Irish World. Dr David Miller is Professor of Sociology in the School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Strathclyde.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Interest Test on the Completed Acquisition by Daily Mail and General Trust Pie of Jpimedia Publications Limited and Thus the 'I' Newspaper
    O~om making communications work for everyone Public interest test on the completed acquisition by Daily Mail and General Trust pie of JPIMedia Publications Limited and thus the 'i' newspaper Ofcom's advice to the Secretary of State Submitted on: 10 March 2020 Contents Section 1. Overview 1 2. Introduction 3 3. The transaction 7 4. Market context 10 5. External plurality following the transaction 19 6. Internal plurality 24 Annex A1. Summary of responses to invitation to comment 31 A2. Methodology 32 Public Interest Test into DMGT' s acquisition of JPIMedia Publications Ltd 1. Overview This report comprises our advice to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as to whether the acquisition of JPIMedia Publications Limited ("JPIMedia Publications") by Daily Mail and General Trust pie ("DMGT") may be expected to operate against the public interest. On 29 November 2019, DMGT announced that DMG Media Limited, publisher through its subsidiary Associated Newspapers Ltd of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, MailOnline, Metro and metro.co.uk, had acquired JPIMedia Publications, and thus the 'i' newspaper and website. On 21 January 2020 the then Secretary ofState for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice ("PIIN") in relation to the acquisition. She asked Ofcom to look at the effect of the merger on the following public interest consideration: the need for, to the extent that it is reasonable and practicable, a sufficient plurality of views in newspapers in each market for newspapers in the United Kingdom or a part of the United Kingdom ("plurality ground").
    [Show full text]
  • Dear Prime Minister, Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications Data Code of Practice We, the Undersigned, Believe That the A
    Rt Hon David Cameron MP Prime Minister 10 Downing Street Westminster London SW1A 2AA 16 January 2015 President Doug Wills Executive Director Bob Satchwell Dear Prime Minister, Board of Directors Simon Bucks Paul Connolly Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications Data Code of Practice Graham Dudman Chris Elliott Robin Esser Alison Gow We, the undersigned, believe that the Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications Data Jonathan Grun Barrie Jones Code of Practice as drafted provides wholly inadequate protection for journalists’ sources. Donald Martin Ian Murray Sue Ryan Moira Sleight The revelation that the Metropolitan Police and other forces have used the Regulation of Nick Turner Investigatory Powers Act to view the phone records of The Sun and its political editor and Fran Unsworth Doug Wills other journalists in order to identify and punish lawful police sources has caused Joy Yates widespread alarm across the journalism industry. Past Presidents Ian Murray Jonathan Grun Fran Unsworth The new code appears to do very little which would stop a repeat of such abuse of RIPA. Robin Esser Donald Martin The Act was intended for tackling serious crime such as terrorism but it is clearly being Nigel Pickover Simon Bucks used by police in relation to relatively minor crimes. Paul Horrocks Charles McGhee Keith Sutton The new code states: “Communications data is not subject to any form of professional Neil Benson Jonathan Grun privilege – the fact a communication took place does not disclose what was discussed, Liz Page Edmund Curran considered or advised.” Neil Fowler Geoff Elliott Fellows The mere fact a public official has contacted a newspaper is highly privileged information.
    [Show full text]