ABSTRACT
The work from which this chapter comes was originally written in 1981. In it we examined some of the key factors which shaped the development of media in our society. We suggested that the historical division between capital and labour was important in understanding the ideological struggles which informed media content. This division was also important in explaining the growth of particular types of media such as the early radical press. Other divisions such as that between competing sections of capital were also significant. This competition had produced the search for new markets, sources of labour and raw materials. The establishment press had developed largely to provide ‘news’ about these. Such foreign news was especially important for information such as the price of commodities or the dates of shipments. There are other crucial social divisions such as those of gender and ethnicity. The inequalities in these areas had radical effects, both on the staffing of media institutions and on the relative access of different groups to the media.
