Emeritus Professor (Media and Film)
Subject area: Media & Cultural Studies
Research
David is a media historian who researches and writes on the role of sound, images, and communication in human cultures across time. He's especially interested in the role of modern 'mass' media - radio, cinema, television, the internet - in shaping popular life and thought in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
In recent years his special interest has been in the history, policies, and practices of broadcasting: David recently published The BBC: A People's History, an authorised one-volume history of the BBC, and helped curate a series of websites for the BBC, called 100 Voices that Made the BBC.
He's currently working on his next book, an account of the secret wartime origins of fake news, which will be published by Profile Books in 2026.
For any enquiries concerning literary or creative work, please contact Caroline Dawnay at United Agents: