Chapter 12: news and its futures

This chapter in the Media Student’s Book explores a fast changing, globally influential area of media studies through histories of its forms and institutions, and of critical approaches to the work of journalists, including, now, the related work of ‘citizen journalism’ and other uses of interactive media. Conceptual tools such as the idea of a ‘public sphere’ and of ‘public opinion’; the ideals of ‘objectivity’ and ‘impartiality’; of ‘framing’, news agendas, ‘sousveillance’, and ‘news values’ are critically handled, for current debates. All this is enlivened by discussion of specific examples, such as Jon Stewart, Rupert Murdoch, Al Jazeera, ‘churnalism’, the reporting of the Columbine massacre, the Trafigura case and uses of Twitter, local news, and ‘soundbites’ in their wider discursive contexts.

As for the other chapters, there is a list of links here as indicated in the book for reference and further study.

A Case Study on UGC, Social Media and the BBC is available on this website.