Journalism Studies - A Critical Introduction (Hardcover, New)

As the world of politics and public affairs has gradually changed beyond recognition over the past two decades, journalism too has been transformed... yet the study of news and journalism often seems stuck with ideas and debates which have lost much of their critical purchase. Journalism is at a crossroads: it needs to reaffirm core values and rediscover key activities, almost certainly in new forms, or it risks losing its distinctive character as well as its commercial basis. Journalism Studies is a polemical textbook that rethinks the field of journalism studies for the contemporary era. It is the politics, philosophy and economics of journalism, presented as a logical reconstruction of its historical development. This book offers a critical reassessment of conventional themes in the academic analysis of journalism, and sets out a positive proposal for what we should be studying. Organised around three central themes -- ownership, objectivity and the public -- Journalism Studies addresses the contexts in which journalism is produced, practised and disseminated. It outlines key issues and debates, reviewing established lines of critique in relation to the state of contemporary journalism, then offering alternative ways of approaching these issues, seeking to reconceptualise them in order to suggest an agenda for change and development in both journalism studies and journalism itself. Journalism Studies advocates a mutually reinforcing approach to both the practice and the study of journalism, exploring the current sense that journalism is in crisis, and offering a cool appraisal of the love-hate relationship between journalism and the scholarship which it frequently disowns. This is a concise and accessible introduction to contemporary journalism studies, and will be highly useful to undergraduate and postgraduate students on a range of Journalism, Media and Communications courses.