What is the role of “trusted communicators” in disseminating knowledge to the public? The trigger for this question, which is the topic of this set of chapters, is the widely shared belief that one of the most notable, and noted, consequences of the spread of the internet and social media is the collapse of sources of information that are broadly trusted across society, because the internet has eliminated the power of the traditional gatekeepers1 who identified and created trusted communicators for the public. Many commentators argue this is a troubling development because trusted communicators are needed for our society to create and maintain a common base of facts, accepted by the broader public, that is essential to a system of democratic self-governance. Absent such a common base or factual consensus, democratic politics will tend to collapse into polarized camps that cannot accept the possibility of electoral defeat (as they arguably have in recent years in the United States). I aim here to examine recent proposals to resurrect a set of trusted communicators and the gatekeeper function, and to critique them from both practical and theoretical perspectives. But before we can discuss possible “solutions” to the lack of gatekeepers and trusted communicators in the modern era, it is important to understand how those functions arose in the pre-internet era.

Despite the sharp decline in the number of local newspapers, it’s important to understand that other legacy news-delivery platforms – particularly local TV news – have not been suffering the same degree of loss. Pew Research Center found that local TV news actually saw its audience increase across the evening and late-night timeslots in 2020, and that local TV companies earned more revenue than the previous year.1 In fact, local TV was deemed to be on par with or outpacing cable and network TV. Pew survey data show more Americans still prefer to get their local news from television than from any other medium, including online. Even with an increasing preference for digital delivery, “local television stations have retained a strong hold in the local news ecosystem.”2

The chapter examines Vaughan Williams’s relationship with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It focusses on the policy pressures and dynamics shaping BBC music broadcasting, and interrelationships between those and the creation, promotion, dissemination, consumption, and reception of Vaughan Williams’s music, reflecting on the ways in which a range of public and quasi-public bodies dedicated to the production and promotion of ‘national’ culture created a distinct political dynamic to the ‘field of cultural production’ in Britain in the period from the foundation of the BBC in 1922 through the interwar, war, and postwar years. It argues that this context and relationship is foundational for understanding his work, style, and reception, and invites (re)consideration of the role of authorial agency and authorial voice in reception history.

In 1962, Sikota Wina wrote a report on the United National Independence Party (UNIP) International Publicity Bureau, which had just opened an office in Dar es Salaam, capital of newly independent Tanganyika and liberation hub in the making. Chapter 6 asks how the anticolonial culture of this cohort fell away over the course of the staggered independence dates of Tanganyika, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia. Accra, having just begun to host liberation movements from around 1960, appeared unable to provide a platform for activists after Munu Sipalo’s stint on the editorial board of Voice of Africa. Cairo lost much of the appeal it held in John Kale’s heyday, as conflict over the legitimacy of political parties paralleled a crisis in office resources. Lobbying groups on the Western European Left grew irrelevant in a new funding landscape that came with the timetabling of statehood, while PAFMECA soon dissolved. The acceleration of independence negotiations in the region was ambivalent: this chapter closes by arriving in Dar es Salaam by way of radio broadcasting and technical training for Zambian secretaries – whose experience was not only one of anticolonial regional solidarity.

Chapter 5 describes differences in activists’ collective interventions for rebellion and relief. Moss demonstrates how diaspora movements adopted a common transnational repretoire of (1) broadcasting their allies’ plight to the outside world, (2) representing the cause to the media and policymakers, (3) brokering between allies, (4) remitting tangible and intangible resources homeward, and (5) volunteering in person on the front lines and along border zones. However, not all diaspora movements played a congruent role in the uprisings. While Libyans in the United States and Britain played what the author calls a "full-spectrum" role in the revolution for its duration, Syrians and Yemenis did not. The chapters to follow explain how and why.

Chapter 5 describes differences in activists’ collective interventions for rebellion and relief. Moss demonstrates how diaspora movements adopted a common transnational repretoire of (1) broadcasting their allies’ plight to the outside world, (2) representing the cause to the media and policymakers, (3) brokering between allies, (4) remitting tangible and intangible resources homeward, and (5) volunteering in person on the front lines and along border zones. However, not all diaspora movements played a congruent role in the uprisings. While Libyans in the United States and Britain played what the author calls a "full-spectrum" role in the revolution for its duration, Syrians and Yemenis did not. The chapters to follow explain how and why.

Once populist forces win elections, they follow a similar blueprint to transform the constitutional structure. The populist forces obtain control over the institutions that are central to constitutional power. The steps typically include filling the public administration and apex courts with loyalists, control over the media and autonomous organizations, and increased executive power in the hands of the populist leader. Populist forces promise authenticity and a government (state) that will cater to the people. These are political projects; the constitutional aspects are secondary, and where constitution-making is possible, it has been used to enable the new state, serving the interests of the new elite formed around the Caesaristic leader. The trajectories and exercise of power depend on the availability of a new constitution.

In current debates over the Internet’s impact on global democracy, the prospect of state regulation of social media has been proffered as a solution to problems like fake news, hate speech, conspiracy-mongering, and similar ills. For example, Mark Warner, a senator in the US Congress, has proposed a bill that would enhance privacy protections required of internet platforms, create rules for labeling bot accounts, and change the legal terms of the platforms’ legal relationship with their users. In Europe, regulation has already been enacted in the form of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and new laws like the Network Enforcement Law (NetzDG). This chapter will survey this rapidly developing field, putting current efforts of liberal democracies to regulate internet content in the broader perspective of legacy media regulation. As we will see, there are very different national approaches to this issue among contemporary liberal democracies, and in many respects the new internet regulations, actual and proposed, are extensions of existing practices.

The Public Morality Council (PMC), formed in 1899 by the Anglican Bishop of London, was between 1945 and 1965 the most powerful moral vigilante organisation in Britain. This chapter provides the first detailed study of its modus operandi, exploring its ecumenical governance, the role of Christian and Jewish leaders in diverting morality complaints to it for investigation and the manner of its surveillance (both overt and covert) of theatre plays, variety shows, films, radio and television programmes. The chapter explains the influential function of its long-time secretary, Methodist preacher George Tomlinson, the most important vigilante in the nation. It shows how its operations peaked in the 1950s, and reveals its sense of high influence with, on the one hand, regulators (such as the Lord Chamberlain, the British Board of Film Censors, the Home Office and London County Council) and with on the other hand industry bodies (such as theatre owners, film makers, importers and distributors). Its day-to-day operations and the intensity of its power in London and with government agencies are described.