The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered
Democratic Culture, Professional Codes, Digital Future

This collection of original essays interrogates the 'crisis of journalism' narrative from a dramatically different perspective.

Jeffrey C. Alexander (Edited by), Elizabeth Butler Breese (Edited by), Marîa Luengo (Edited by)

9781107448513, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 June 2016

328 pages, 5 b/w illus. 4 tables
22.6 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.46 kg

'… hats off to the editors and the contributors for this fine attempt at contextualizing the shrinking, information-rich world. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.' CHOICE

This collection of original essays brings a dramatically different perspective to bear on the contemporary 'crisis of journalism'. Rather than seeing technological and economic change as the primary causes of current anxieties, The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered draws attention to the role played by the cultural commitments of journalism itself. Linking these professional ethics to the democratic aspirations of the broader societies in which journalists ply their craft, it examines how the new technologies are being shaped to sustain value commitments rather than undermining them. Recent technological change and the economic upheaval it has produced are coded by social meanings. It is this cultural framework that actually transforms these 'objective' changes into a crisis. The book argues that cultural codes not only trigger sharp anxiety about technological and economic changes, but provide pathways to control them, so that the democratic practices of independent journalism can be sustained in new forms.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Journalism, democratic culture, and creative reconstruction Jeffrey C. Alexander
Part II. The Crisis Narrative: 2. The perpetual crisis of journalism: cable and digital revolutions Elizabeth Butler Breese
3. The crisis of public service broadcasting reconsidered: privatization and digitalization in Scandinavia Hakon Larsen
4. Beyond administrative journalism: civic skepticism and the crisis in journalism Daniel Kreiss
5. The many crises of Western journalism: a comparative analysis of economic crises, professional crises, and crises of confidence Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
6. The crisis in news: can you whistle a happy tune? Michael Schudson
Part III. Fears of Digital News Media: The Symbolic Struggle: 7. When codes collide: journalists push back against digital desecration María Luengo
8. Telling the crisis story of journalism: narratives of normative reassurance in Page One Matt Carlson
9. Assembling publics, assembling routines, assembling values: journalistic self-conception and the crisis in journalism C. W. Anderson
10. The constancy of immediacy: from printing press to digital age Nikki Usher
11. News on new platforms: Norwegian journalists and entrepreneurs face the digital age Kari Steen-Johnsen, Karoline Andreas Ihlebaek and Bernard Enjolras
Part IV. Professional Journalism, Civil Codes, and Digital Culture: 12. Journalism in American regional online news systems David Ryfe
13. Digital media and the diversification of professionalism: a US-German comparison of journalism cultures Matthias Revers
14. Professional and citizen journalism: tensions and complements Peter Dahlgren
15. Expressions of right and wrong: the emergence of a cultural structure of journalism Stephen F. Ostertag
Part V. Conclusion: 16. News innovations and enduring commitments Elizabeth Butler Breese and Mara Luengo.

Subject Areas: Press & journalism [KNTJ], Sociology [JHB]