News media in democratic societies are seen as free because they are mostly free from the dictates of the state, respect is given to journalistic independence and there is a plurality of ownership. However, that view is incomplete without an account of the policies and politics that media owners – both private and public – seek to further through their control of the media. Moreover, it is incomplete without an account of the preferences of the market(s) in which media and their owners operate, and the pressures that audience taste dictate to corporations – state and privately owned – which seek both mass and niche audiences. Simultaneously, another influence on journalism remains professional standards. Traditionally, in liberal democracies, these have been and indeed remain a crucial independent factor in defining the news menu and how it is organised. Now, however, these independent standards are under more sustained pressure in the past.

The aim of this project is to understand how plural media in a free society actually work: what opinions they espouse, what range of opinion they carry, what criteria inform their choice and treatment of the news, what balance of opinion there is within the media of a given state and how these influence politics.

As with other projects, this is seen as a comparative exercise – based on extensive interviews with media owners, editors and other journalists as well as commentators, media analysts, scholars and political figures. The project would operate initially in three countries: The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK – all of which have democratic politics and free media, but which differ widely in the traditions, ownership patterns and politics of their media.

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