Greg Philo


Greg Philo was an English sociologist, communications researcher, activist and author who was the Professor of Communications and Social Change in Sociology at The University of Glasgow and director and founding member of The Glasgow Media Group.

Early life and education

Philo was born in Bexleyheath to Irene who was a telephone operator and Thomas Philo a shipyard manager. He attended St Mary's Roman Catholic grammar school in Sidcup. Philo then went on to study sociology at Bradford University. There he co-founded the General Will theatre group. He went to study at the University of Glasgow. In 1980 he became the GUMG research director and in 1990 was appointed professor and stayed there until his retirement in 2021.

Career

The original goal of the GUMG project was to "record and analyse the daily news bulletins across the three main channels, empirically demonstrating the extent of bias and distortion in the reporting of economic and industrial news." Philo later became the leading spokesperson for the group in 1990 and started to develop the groups content analysis methods, further assisting in the sociological media research of subjects such as: The Falklands War and Media Power in The UK.
After the group received funding from the Social Science Research Council, the group started analysing TV news reporting using new video recording technology. The research was published as Bad News which stated that TV in the UK was not politically neutral, but rather reflected powerful groups in society. The book was badly received by large news organisations such as The BBC, with many groups condemning it as a purely Marxist work. This was later overturned though with the BBC's John Wilson stating "it was necessary to be honest and admit that there was something in what the GUMG was saying" at which point the BBC attempted to institute some changes that came from the study.
In 2010, Philo proposed a wealth tax based on a poll of UK population which showed "very strong support, with 74% of the population approving" of the proposal to address inequality, making the case in The Guardian.

Books

Authored

  • Edited

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