Changing The News

Changing the News examines the difficulties in changing news processes and practices in response to the evolving circumstances and struggles of the journalism industry. The editors have put together this volume to demonstrate why the prescriptions employed to salvage the journalism industry to date haven’t worked, and to explain how constraints and pressures have influenced the field’s responses to challenges in an uncertain, changing environment. If journalism is to adjust and thrive, the following questions need answers: Why do journalists and news organizations respond to uncertainties in the ways they do? What forces and structures constrain these responses? What social and cultural contexts should we take into account when we judge whether or not journalism successfully responds and adapts? The book tackles these questions from varying perspectives and levels of analysis, through chapters by scholars of news sociology and media management. Changing the News details the forces that shape and challenge journalism and journalistic culture, and explains why journalists and their organizations respond to troubles, challenges and uncertainties in the way they do.

Changing News Use pulls from empirical research to introduce and describe how changing news user patterns and journalism practices have been mutually disruptive, exploring what journalists and the news media can learn from these changes. Based on 15 years of audience research, the authors provide an in-depth description of what people do with news and how this has diversified over time, from reading, watching, and listening to a broader spectrum of user practices including checking, scrolling, tagging, and avoiding. By emphasizing people’s own experience of journalism, this book also investigates what two prominent audience measurements – clicking and spending time – mean from a user perspective. The book outlines ways to overcome the dilemma of providing what people apparently want (attentiongrabbing news features) and delivering what people apparently need (what journalists see as important information), suggesting alternative ways to investigate and become sensitive to the practices, preferences, and pleasures of audiences and discussing what these research findings might mean for everyday journalism practice. The book is a valuable and timely resource for academics and researchers interested in the fields of journalism studies, sociology, digital media, and communication.

If you think it's time for a change, then News for a Change is the book for you."--BOOK JACKET.

Francesco Franchi's perceptive book about the future of the news and media industries in our digital age.

As traditional news outlets’ international coverage has waned, several prominent nongovernmental organizations have taken on a growing number of seemingly journalistic functions. Groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Médecins Sans Frontières send reporters to gather information and provide analysis and assign photographers and videographers to boost the visibility of their work. Digital technologies and social media have increased the potential for NGOs to communicate directly with the public, bypassing traditional gatekeepers. But have these efforts changed and expanded traditional news practices and coverage—and are there consequences to blurring the lines between reporting and advocacy? In NGOs as Newsmakers, Matthew Powers analyzes the growing role NGOs play in shaping—and sometimes directly producing—international news. Drawing on interviews, observations, and content analysis, he charts the dramatic growth in NGO news-making efforts, examines whether these efforts increase the organizations' chances of garnering news coverage, and analyzes the effects of digital technologies on publicity strategies. Although the contemporary media environment offers NGOs greater opportunities to shape the news, Powers finds, it also subjects them to news-media norms. While advocacy groups can and do provide coverage of otherwise ignored places and topics, they are still dependent on traditional media and political elites and influenced by the expectations of donors, officials, journalists, and NGOs themselves. Through an unprecedented glimpse into NGOs’ newsmaking efforts, Powers portrays the possibilities and limits of NGOs as newsmakers amid the transformations of international news, with important implications for the intersections of journalism and advocacy.

Changing the News examines the difficulties in changing news processes and practices in response to the evolving circumstances and struggles of the journalism industry. It details the forces that shape and challenge journalism and journalistic culture, and explains why journalists and their organizations respond to troubles, challenges and uncertainties in the way they do.

"Examines how newspapers have changed over the past few years, becoming story papers. Comparing 850 stories, story approaches, and unofficial sourcing in twenty American newspapers from 2001 and 2004, Weldon reveals a shift toward features over hard news, along with an increase in anecdotal or humanistic approaches to all stories"--Provided by publisher.

We live in an age of media saturation, where with a few clicks of the remote—or mouse—we can tune in to programming where the facts fit our ideological predispositions. But what are the political consequences of this vast landscape of media choice? Partisan news has been roundly castigated for reinforcing prior beliefs and contributing to the highly polarized political environment we have today, but there is little evidence to support this claim, and much of what we know about the impact of news media come from studies that were conducted at a time when viewers chose from among six channels rather than scores. Through a series of innovative experiments, Kevin Arceneaux and Martin Johnson show that such criticism is unfounded. Americans who watch cable news are already polarized, and their exposure to partisan programming of their choice has little influence on their political positions. In fact, the opposite is true: viewers become more polarized when forced to watch programming that opposes their beliefs. A much more troubling consequence of the ever-expanding media environment, the authors show, is that it has allowed people to tune out the news: the four top-rated partisan news programs draw a mere three percent of the total number of people watching television. Overturning much of the conventional wisdom, Changing Minds or Changing Channels? demonstrate that the strong effects of media exposure found in past research are simply not applicable in today’s more saturated media landscape.