Uncovers the surprising cause behind the recent rise of fake news In an ideal world, journalists act selflessly and in the public interest regardless of the financial consequences. However, in reality, news outlets no longer provide the most important and consequential stories to audiences; instead, news producers adjust news content in response to ratings, audience demographics, and opinion polls. While such criticisms of the news media are widely shared, few can agree on the causes of poor news quality. The People's News argues that the incentives in the American free market drive news outlets to report news that meets audience demands, rather than democratic ideals. In short, audiences' opinions drive the content that so often passes off as "the news." The People's News looks at news not as a type of media but instead as a commodity bought and sold on the market, comparing unique measures of news content to survey data from a wide variety of sources. Joseph Uscinski's rigorous analysis shows news firms report certain issues over others-not because audiences need to know them, but rather, because of market demands. Uscinski also demonstrates that the influence of market demands also affects the business of news, prohibiting journalists from exercising independent judgment and determining the structure of entire news markets as well as firm branding. Ultimately, the results of this book indicate profit-motives often trump journalistic and democratic values. The findings also suggest that the media actively responds to audiences, thus giving the public control over their own information environment. Uniting the study of media effects and media content, The People's News presents a powerful challenge to our ideas of how free market media outlets meet our standards for impartiality and public service.

In the summer of 1999, Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft) became the subject of concerted attacks aimed at unseating him as Treasurer of the Conservative Party. His attackers were The Times newspaper and the New Labour Government of Tony Blair. The ultimate target was William Hague, whose leadership would be destabilised and the finances of his party undermined had his Treasurer been forced from office. This book is the personal account of Lord Ashcroft's six-year fight, first to resist a succession of wholly unjustified attacks, then to clear his damaged name and, finally, to expose the dirty tricks used against him - some of them even exploiting the fruits of criminal acts.Wapping and New Labour were to discover that they had taken on a formidable, resourceful and determined opponent, one who would go on to reveal unacceptable aspects of both national newspaper journalism and British politics.

Of the 192 Union military hospitals during the Civil War, 19 circulated self-published newspapers. Editorial policies ranged from defanging copperhead Democrats to providing a record of soldiers' experiences. The horrors of wound infection and amputation were reported in the words of surgeons, medical students, nurses and patients. Those who experienced the war wrote about it in simple narrative, providing insight into wartime health care and a broader understanding of their sacrifices. Convalescent life was painful and terrifying. Surviving fever or bed-ridden for months with festering wounds, disabled veterans wondered who would respond to their needs. Who would hire them? Who would marry them? Relationships with sweethearts, wives and mothers, blacks, Irish and Confederates were frequent subjects. This book covers the founding and development of nine hospital newspapers, each explored by subject matter: patriotism, politics, religion, satire, romance and marriage, battlefield experience and treatment of prisoners of war.

"Every serious student of journalism should read this book... Denis McQuail has succeeded in producing a work of scholarship that shows what journalists do and what they should do." - Stephen Coleman, University of Leeds "For a half century we have spoken earnestly of journalism's responsibility to society instead of to business and government. Now this concept is given sophistication unmatched, by the best scholar of media theory of his generation." - Clifford Christians, University of Illinois "The grand old man of communication theory presents an overarching social theory of journalism that goes beyond the usual Anglo-American focus." - Jo Bardoel, University of Amsterdam (ASCoR) and Nijmegen "This book deals with the eternal question of how journalism is linked to society... I cannot think of a better staple food for students of journalism at all levels." - Kaarle Nordenstreng, University of Tampere This is a major new statement on the role of journalism in democracy from one of media and communication's leading thinkers. Denis McQuail leads the reader through a systematic exploration of how and why journalism and society have become so inextricably entwined and - as importantly - what this relationship should be like. It is a strong re-statement of the fundamental values that journalism aspires to. Written for students, this book: Makes the theory accessible and relevant Teaches the importance of journalism to power and politics Explores the status and future of journalism as a profession Outlines the impact and consequences of the digital Reveals journalism as it is, but also as it should be Takes each chapter further with guided reading list and free online journal articles. This textbook is the perfect answer to the how and why of journalism. It is crucial reading for any student of media studies, communication studies and journalism.

This edited volume contributes to a burgeoning field of critical scholarship on the news media and education. This scholarship is based on an understanding that the news media has increasingly applied a neoliberal template that mediates knowledge and action about education. This book calls into question what the public knows about education, how the public is informed, and whose interests are represented and ultimately served through the production and distribution of information by the news media about education. The chapters comprising this volume serve to enlighten and call to action parents, students, educators, academics and scholars, activists, and policymakers for social, political, and economic transformation. Moreover, as the neoliberal agenda in North America intensifies, the chapters in this book help to deepen our understanding of the logics and processes of the neoliberal privatization of education and the accompanying social discourses that facilitate the reduction of social relations to a transaction in the marketplace. The chapters examine the news media and the reproduction of neoliberal educational reforms (A Nation at Risk, Teach For America, charter schools, think tanks, and PISA) and resistance to neoliberal educational reforms (online activism and radical Black press) while also broadening our conceptual understanding of the marketization and mediatization of educational discourses. Overall, the book provides an in-depth understanding of the neoliberal privatization of education by extending critical examinations to this underrepresented field of cultural production: the news media coverage of education. The contribution of this edited volume, therefore, helps to build an understanding of the contemporary dynamics of capital accumulation to inform public resistance for social transformation.

The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Journalism provides a thorough understanding of environmental journalism around the world. An increasing number of media platforms - from newspapers and television to Internet social media networks - are the major providers of indispensable information about the natural world and environmental risk. Despite the dramatic changes in the news industry that have tended to reduce the number of full-time newspaper reporters, environmental journalists remain key to bringing stories to light across the globe. With contributions from around the world broken down into five key regions - the United States of America, Europe and Russia, Asia and Australia, Africa and the Middle East, and South America - this book provides support for today's environment reporters, the providers of essential news in the 21st century. As a scholarly and journalistic work written by academics and the environmental reporters themselves, this volume is an essential text for students and scholars of environmental communication, journalism, and global environmental issues more generally, as well as professionals working in this vital area.

This book is an authoritative discussion of user comments and moderation in digital journalism, examining how user comments have disrupted the field of journalism and how a growing number of news organizations have abandoned commenting features altogether. Making a broad argument concerning user commentary as a manifestation of user engagement and public deliberation, User Comments and Moderation in Digital Journalism: Disruptive Engagement conceptualizes the act of commenting as interactive engagement and participation in a virtual public sphere. The book also explores the organizational policies that have the potential to disrupt - as well as improve - the quality of user discussions. Ultimately, strategies are proposed for managing and improving user comments and encouraging more productive public deliberation in digital journalism. This engaging discussion of a key development in digital journalism is a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the areas of journalism, media and communication studies.

This fully updated second edition of the popular handbook provides an exploration of thinking on media ethics, bringing together the intellectual history of global mass media ethics over the past 40 years, summarising existing research and setting future agenda grounded in philosophy and social science. This second edition offers up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of media ethics, including the ethics of sources, social media, the roots of law in ethics, and documentary film. The wide range of contributors include scholars and former professionals who worked as journalists, public relations professionals, and advertising practitioners. They lay out both a good grounding from which to begin more in-depth and individualized explorations, and extensive bibliographies for each chapter to aid that process. For students and professionals who seek to understand and do the best work possible, this book will provide both insight and direction. Standing apart in its comprehensive coverage, The Routledge Handbook of Mass Media Ethics is required reading for scholars, graduate students, and researchers in media, mass communication, journalism, ethics, and related areas.

Images are the core of television news, particularly in the coverage of terror events and war, where pictures often overwhelm the verbal commentary. A Violent World analyzes images on global CNN, Israeli IBA, and Palestinian PATV that contribute heavily to how the current violence in the Middle East is framed. Nitzan Ben-Shaul draws from critical media theory, and from qualitative and aesthetic approaches out of cinema studies, to examine how dominant ideologies are embedded in mainstream TV news. Specifically, he focuses on the American elites' global ideology and the conflicting dominant national-peripheral ideologies of Israeli-Palestinian elites. His in-depth study, of particular interest to scholars of Middle East studies and international communication, further offers a new model of analysis for contemporary television news.

Increasingly governments around the world are experimenting with initiatives in transparency or 'open government'. These involve a variety of measures including the announcement of more user-friendly government websites, greater access to government data, the extension of freedom of information legislation and broader attempts to involve the public in government decision making. However, the role of the media in these initiatives has not hitherto been examined. This volume analyses the challenges and opportunities presented to journalists as they attempt to hold governments accountable in an era of professed transparency. In examining how transparency and open government initiatives have affected the accountability role of the press in the US and the UK, it also explores how policies in these two countries could change in the future to help journalists hold governments more accountable. This volume will be essential reading for all practising journalists, for students of journalism or politics, and for policymakers.

'The Left Behind' is a defining motif of contemporary British political discourse. It is the thread that knits together the 2016 Brexit referendum, the crumbling of the fabled 'Red Wall' in the North, and the pernicious culture war being waged today. But who are the Left Behind? James Morrison goes in search of the reality behind the rhetoric, offering the first comprehensive, historical analysis of the origins, uses and meanings of the term. He interrogates the popular archetype of the Left Behind - as a working class, leave-voting white male from a former industrial heartland - and situates the concept in the context of longstanding, demonising discourses aimed at communities seen as backward and 'undeserving'. Analysing national newspaper coverage and parliamentary discussions, and drawing on interviews with MPs, community leaders, charities and people with direct lived experiences of poverty and precarity, The Left Behind grapples with the real human cost of austerity for neglected post-industrial communities and other marginalised groups across the world, and the stigmatising discourse that does little to serve them.

Using journalists' own standards as the measure, an exhaustive analysis of nearly 3000 network news reports from the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations reveals that the networks may do more to misinform than inform on a whole range of complex issues related to national defense. This study paints a disturbing picture of the inadequate coverage ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News provide to millions of viewers each night. Aubin concludes that network coverage of defense issues was too often tainted by preconceived attitudes and lapses in journalistic standards. While as much as twenty-five cents of every dollar went to the defense budget during some of the periods reviewed, the networks hardly covered the key issues surrounding the Reagan defense buildup or the dramatic cuts that followed the end of the Cold War. In addition to their inadequate coverage, the networks also deprived Americans of balanced coverage of the investments made in high-tech weapons that ultimately prevailed in the Gulf War. Though the networks receive good marks for foreign policy coverage, they need to improve the quality of defense reports. This book provides them with the lessons and prescriptions for doing so, and it serves as a primer for all Americans who want to know just what it was that the networks failed to tell them.

This book shows how surveillance society shapes and interacts with journalistic practices and discourses. It illustrates not only how surveillance debates play out in and through mediated discourses, but also how practices of surveillance inform the stories, everyday work and the ethics of journalists. The increasing entrenchment of data collection and surveillance in all kinds of social processes raises important questions around new threats to journalistic freedom and political dissent; the responsibilities of media organizations and state actors; the nature of journalists' relationship to the state; journalists' ability to protect their sources and data; and the ways in which media coverage shape public perceptions of surveillance, to mention just a few areas of concern. Against this backdrop, the contributions gathered in this book examine areas including media coverage of surveillance, encryption and privacy; journalists' views on surveillance and security; public debate around the power of intelligence agencies, and the strategies of privacy rights activists. The book raises fundamental questions around the role of journalism in creating the conditions for digital citizenship. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of the journal, Digital Journalism.

In today's global digital world, journalists are required to be cognizant of ethical and cultural issues beyond usual national boundaries. Drawing on global examples, this text examines international journalism through the authors' wide variety of cultural, educational, teaching and learning backgrounds, including their professional and practical experiences. While existing books tend to be more focused on specific regions or specific aspects of journalism, this book addresses in a comprehensive way journalism across cultures from a truly global (and holistic) perspective. It analyzes media systems in Africa, Latin America, the Arab world and the Middle East, China, as well as North America and Western Europe. This text is truly interdisciplinary in theoretical and practical approaches because it draws on other fields such as media and cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, as well as politics and international relations. It will provide an introduction to cross-cultural journalism and equip students with the skills and understanding they need today.

Few topics in the news are more hotly contested than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict-and news coverage itself is always a subject of debate. But rarely do these debates incorporate an on-the-ground perspective of what and who newsmaking entails. Studying how journalists work in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Nablus, and on the tense roads that connect these cities, Amahl Bishara demonstrates how the production of U.S. news about Palestinians depends on multifaceted collaborations, typically invisible to Western readers. She focuses on the work that Palestinian journalists do behind the scenes and below the bylines-as fixers, photojournalists, camerapeople, reporters, and producers-to provide the news that Americans read, see, and hear every day. Ultimately, this book demonstrates how Palestinians play integral roles in producing U.S. news and how U.S. journalism in turn shapes Palestinian politics. U.S. objectivity is in Palestinian journalists' hands, and Palestinian self-determination cannot be fully understood without attention to the journalist standing off to the side, quietly taking notes. Back Stories examines news stories big and small-Yassir Arafat's funeral, female suicide bombers, protests against the separation barrier, an all-but-unnoticed killing of a mentally disabled man-to investigate urgent questions about objectivity, violence, the state, and the production of knowledge in today's news. This book reaches beyond the headlines into the lives of Palestinians during the second intifada to give readers a new vantage point on both Palestinians and journalism.

Hacking Gender and Technology in Journalism addresses the question of whether journalism's new digital spaces suffer from the same gendered structures as traditional media organisations, or whether they go beyond such bias. This book offers insights into the challenges that women journalists face in relation to technological innovation, as well as the potential for developing strategies for empowerment that it offers. More specifically, there is a focus on the gendering of digital skills, the construction of gender in new digital spheres of journalism, and how these changes can lead to the disruption of gender inequalities in journalism. This book will be of interest to scholars in multimedia journalism, media ethics, and gender studies.

What can century-old advice columns tell us about the Internet today? This book reveals the little-known history of advice columns in American newspapers and the virtual communities they created among their readers. Imagine a community of people who had never met writing into a media outlet, day after day, to reveal intimate details about their lives, anxieties, and hopes. The original "virtual communities" were born not on the Internet in chat rooms but a century earlier in one of America's most ubiquitous news features: the advice column. Newspaper Confessions is the first history of the newspaper advice column, a genre that has shaped Americans' relationships with media, their experiences with popular therapy, and their virtual interactions across generations. Emerging in the 1890s, advice columns became unprecedented virtual forums where readers could debate the most resonant cultural crises of the day with strangers in an anonymous, yet strikingly public, forum. Early advice columns are essential-and overlooked-precursors to today's digital culture: forums, social media groups, chat rooms, and other online communities that define how present-day American communicate with each other. By charting the economic and cultural motivations behind the rise of this influential genre, Julie Golia offers a nuanced analysis of the advice given by a diverse sample of columns across several decades, emphasizing the ways that advice columnists framed their counsel as modern, yet upheld the racial and gendered status quo of the day. She offers lively, surprising, and poignant case studies, demonstrating how columnists and everyday newspaper readers transformed advice columns into active and participatory virtual communities of confession, advice, debate, and empathy.

Black journalists have vigorously exercised their First Amendment right since the founding of Freedom's Journal in 1827. World War II was no different in this regard, and Paul Alkebulan argues that it was the most important moment in the long history of that important institution. American historians have often postulated that WWII was a pivotal moment for the modern civil rights movement. This argument is partially based on the pressing need to convincingly appeal to the patriotism and self-interest of black citizens in the fight against fascism and its racial doctrines. This appeal would have to recognize long standing and well-known grievances of African Americans and offer some immediate resolution to these problems, such as increased access to better housing and improved job prospects. 230 African American newspapers were prime actors in this struggle. Black editors and journalists gave a coherent and organized voice to the legitimate aspirations and grievances of African Americans for decades prior to WWII. In addition, they presented an alternative and more inclusive vision of democracy. The African American Press in World War II: Toward Victory at Home and Abroad shows how they accomplished this goal, and is different from other works in this field because it interprets WWII at home and abroad through the eyes of a diverse black press. Alkebulan shows the wide ranging interest of the press prior to the war and during the conflict. Labor union struggles, equal funding for black education, the criminal justice system, and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia were some of subjects covered before and during the war. Historians tend to write as if the African American press was ideologically homogenous, but, according to Alkebulan, this is not the case. For example, prior to the war, African American journalists were both sympathetic and opposed to Japanese ambitions in the Pacific. A. Philip Randolph's socialist journal The Messenger accurately warned against Imperial Japan's activities in Asia during WWI. There are other instances that run counter to the common wisdom. During World War II the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association not only pursued equal rights at home but also lectured blacks (military and civilian) about the need to avoid any behavior that would have a negative impact on the public image of the civil rights movement. The African American Press in World War II explores press coverage of international affairs in more depth than similar works. The African American press tended to conflate the civil rights movement with the anti-colonial struggle taking place in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Alkebulan demonstrates how George Padmore and W.E.B. Du Bois were instrumental in this trend. While it heightened interest in anti-colonialism, it also failed to delineate crucial differences between fighting for national independence and demanding equal citizenship rights in one's native land.

Boyle's study is essential reading for all students, teachers and researchers of sports journalism. - Journalism "Very clear and accessible, addressing key and complex issues in a plain and clearcut way." -Alan Tomlinson, University of Brighton Across all media; print, broadcast as well as online, sports journalism has come to occupy an increasingly visible space. This book looks at the institutional, cultural and economic environment and provides an invaluable overview of contemporary sports journalism across all media forms. The book: Situates sports journalism within the broader historical, economic, technological and cultural contexts. Examines the commercialisation of sport and the impact this is having on sports journalism. Looks at the relationship between PR and journalism. Considers the gendered nature of the industry and the impact of digital technology on professional practice.

For thirty-three years Robert Curley worked as a reporter and photographer for newspapers in Rome, Oneida, and Syracuse, New York. In this colourful memoir he vividly recounts the many remarkable events and personal encounters of his long career and rich family life. Through a series of imaginary dialogues with his alter ego 'Win', Curley (aka Professor Quirky) examines the politics, history, and popular culture of the last two decades. There are opinions galore here, plus prognostications and some Irish blarney as well. One might assume that a newspaperman in central New York State would be confined to issues of only regional interest. But in fact Mr Curley had opportunities to meet and interview several world-class newsmakers, including Robert Kennedy; New York Governors W Averell Harriman, Nelson Rockefeller, and Hugh Carey; New York City Mayor John Lindsey; Henry Kissinger; Mikhail Gorbachev; and, author Alex Haley. Among the highlights of these meetings was a handshake and 'photo-op' with Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger predicting in an interview that the Soviet Union would collapse, and a gift from Alex Haley of an unpublished chapter from his soon-to-be released biography of Malcolm X Many more similar episodes of interest fill this work, along with political commentary and much appreciation for his wife of many years and family of six children and numerous grandchildren.

The 2017 winner of the Robert and Vineta Colby Scholarly Book Prize Providing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of scholarship on nineteenth-century British periodicals, this volume surveys the current state of research and offers researchers an in-depth examination of contemporary methodologies. The impact of digital media and archives on the field informs all discussions of the print archive. Contributors illustrate their arguments with examples and contextualize their topics within broader areas of study, while also reflecting on how the study of periodicals may evolve in the future. The Handbook will serve as a valuable resource for scholars and students of nineteenth-century culture who are interested in issues of cultural formation, transformation, and transmission in a developing industrial and globalizing age, as well as those whose research focuses on the bibliographical and the micro case study. In addition to rendering a comprehensive review and critique of current research on nineteenth-century British periodicals, the Handbook suggests new avenues for research in the twenty-first century. "This volume's 30 chapters deal with practically every aspect of periodical research and with the specific topics and audiences the 19th-century periodical press addressed. It also covers matters such as digitization that did not exist or were in early development a generation ago. In addition to the essays, readers will find 50 illustrations, 54 pages of bibliography, and a chronology of the periodical press. This book gives seemingly endless insights into the ways periodicals and newspapers influenced and reflected 19th-century culture. It not only makes readers aware of problems involved in interpreting the history of the press but also offers suggestions for ways of untangling them and points the direction for future research. It will be a valuable resource for readers with interests in almost any aspect of 19th-century Britain. Summing Up: Highly recommended" - J. D. Vann, University of North Texas in CHOICE

This volume presents timely discussions on how digital technology is reshaping broadcasting and the media in the United States and around the world. It features contributions from distinguished scholars and young researchers, representing work that spans domestic and international issues of technological change and the implications for broadcasting and related media in a global context. Among the many issues covered are: The impact of digital technology on the structure of broadcasting organizations and regulation; The nature of broadcast content or media programming and how it is delivered at home and abroad; Engagement and interaction of the public with broadcasting and social and mobile media; and The reshaping of revenue models for broadcasters and media organizations globally. The first two parts of the volume, addressing research challenges, issues, and advances in global broadcasting, are competitively reviewed research papers which were presented at the BEA2014 Research Symposium. The third part focuses on international perspectives, with chapters from broadcasting scholars and paper discussants at the Research Symposium. This section provides reflection on the problems and prospects for research, education, and public policy that arise in this era of rapid and continuing change. As a benchmark of the remarkable changes taking place in today's media environment, the volume sets an agenda for future research on the implications of digital technology for broadcasting and broadcasting education.

This book advances a journalistic theory of empathy, challenging long-held notions about how best to do journalism. Because the institution of journalism has typically equated empathy and compassion with bias, it has been slow to give the intelligence of the emotions a legitimate place in the reporting and writing process. Blank-Libra's work locates the point at which the vast, multidisciplinary research on empathy intersects with the work of the journalist, revealing a reality that has always been so: journalists practice empathy as a way to connect but also as a form of inquiry, as sincere and legitimate in its goals and aspirations as is objectivity.

The media ecology within which conventional mainstream journalism currently operates has undergone major transformations since the advent of social media. These transformations arise from the disruption brought upon by the emergence of networked, interactive platforms and user-driven online applications including social media, blogs and alternative citizen news sites. This book analyses networked forms of journalistic production at traditional news organizations and their conventional news channels. Focusing on case studies from Malaysia, it examines current transformations to the norms, practices and values of conventional news production. Drawing upon a recent global-comparative turn in journalism studies and parallel efforts to de-Westernize communication theory, this book suggests an innovative 'glocal' comparative approach to analyse 'network newswork' among global, transnational, and local news organizations, including Al Jazeera and Bernama TV, located within the same geographical locality, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This author uses an empirically-grounded conceptual framework for exploring and understanding recent transformations that user-driven networked resources bring to professional journalists' daily work of producing news. Discussing the implications of network newswork on the wider global journalistic sphere, the book elucidates a tiered model of networked sources and expounds upon journalism's deepening of the digital divide in its inadvertent muting of the voices of non-networked communities that are switched off from the global news sphere and its network society. A fresh perspective on the analysis of globalization in the media and a useful guide for gaining access into media organizations and securing cooperation of organizational members for research, this book will be of interest to researchers in the field of Asian Media and Communication Studies, Journalism Studies, Political Communication and Sociology of Journalism.