How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society (Book Review)

Reviewed Title: How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society, by C. John Sommerville (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1999) ISBN 0830822038, 155 pp

Border Crossings: Christian Trespasses on Popular Culture and Public Affairs (Book Review)

Reviewed Title: Border Crossings: Christian Trespasses on Popular Culture and Public Affairs, by Rodney Clapp (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2000). 224 pages. ISBN: 1-58743-003-7

Amending Equal Time: Explaining Institutional Change in American Communication Policy

This study explains the history of a 1959 amendment to the 1934 Communications Act through the lens of historical institutionalism. The amendment created broad exemptions for newscasts, documentaries, interviews, and news events, triggering the equal time provision for candidates for public office. While this study offers a variety of new empirical details, the chief goal is explanation based on an examination of historical mechanisms—path dependence, critical junctures, agglomeration, asymmetries of power, reinforcement of expectations, and temporal sequencing—that shaped the policy options leading up to the amendment

Journalism beyond democracy

Journalism researchers have tended to study journalistic roles from within a Western framework oriented toward the media’s contribution to democracy and citizenship. In so doing, journalism scholarship often failed to account for the realities in non-democratic and non-Western contexts, as well as for forms of journalism beyond political news. Based on the framework of discursive institutionalism, we conceptualize journalistic roles as discursive constructions of journalism’s identity and place in society. These roles have sedimented in journalism’s institutional norms and practices and are subject to discursive (re)creation, (re)interpretation, appropriation, and contestation. We argue that journalists exercise important roles in two domains: political life and everyday life. For the domain of political life, we identify 18 roles addressing six essential needs of political life: informational-instructive, analytical-deliberative, critical-monitorial, advocative-radical, developmental-educative, and collaborative-facilitative. In the domain of everyday life, journalists carry out roles that map onto three areas: consumption, identity, and emotion.</jats:p

New Media, Old Criticism: Bloggers\u27 Press Criticism and the Journalistic Field

Bourdieu\u27s field theory suggests that the rise of the Internet and blogs could generate a shift in the journalistic field – the realm where actors struggle for autonomy – as new agents gain access. This textual analysis of 282 items of media criticism appearing on highly-trafficked blogs reveals an emphasis on traditional journalistic norms, suggesting a stable field. Occasional criticisms of the practicability of traditional norms and calls for greater transparency, however, may suggest an emerging paradigm shift

Reformed gatekeeping

This essay explores the state of gatekeeping theory at present. We discuss whether gatekeeping theory has a future, how gatekeeping - as it has evolved - still offers theoretical and explanatory value, and how gatekeeping must be reformed to maintain its worth and relevance. The notion is approached from its purpose, nature, temporality, agents and context. The article argues that gatekeeping theory will remain relevant pending a process of reform that must accompany that of journalism and news media

Reformed gatekeeping

This essay explores the state of gatekeeping theory at present. We discuss whether gatekeeping theory has a future, how gatekeeping - as it has evolved - still offers theoretical and explanatory value, and how gatekeeping must be reformed to maintain its worth and relevance. The notion is approached from its purpose, nature, temporality, agents and context. The article argues that gatekeeping theory will remain relevant pending a process of reform that must accompany that of journalism and news media