This volume has drawn together a wide range of insights into the press over a period of just over a hundred years; a long twentieth century. It is generally acknowledged that if we had been looking for convenient dates to begin the discussion then the launch of Harmsworth's Daily Mail in 1896 could well be taken as the starting point of this modern era. However, the launch of the Daily Express in 1900, eventually to rise to prominence as the bestselling mid-century daily newspaper in the UK, is perhaps an even better indication of the dawn of a new era in its clear motivation to extend the experiment in mass daily newspaper production begun by the Daily Mail. This convenient starting point for our discussions may have been driven by the editorial requirement to section volumes along the lines of the centuries but beyond this what we witness throughout the volume is the fluidity with which themes, technologies, anxieties about the influence of the press which emerged in the nineteenth century, and even earlier, permeate the twentieth and even encroach upon this present century. Bringing the volume to a close as near to the present day as possible in a historical account has allowed us to take a considered look at how the contemporary press is coping with a fresh configuration of opportunities and threats.

The long twentieth century saw both the rise of a mass, commercial press and the most significant challenges to the dominance of the medium ever witnessed. This mass circulation press, it has often been observed, brought little of great originality and in many respects was a combination of longer gestations in the commercial exploitation of the press. What it did achieve was the optimal deployment of a range of technologies of production and distribution matched to more sophisticated identification of audience and the incorporation of the powerful force of advertising.