The Known World Of Broadcast News

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Radio and television news are expanding everywhere, often at the expense of print media. Developments in global communications, in theory at least, have made the world smaller. An event anywhere can theoretically be reported anywhere else on radio within minutes; on television within hours. But theory and practice are often far apart. Broadcast News has become a global business, almost like the music industry, with its own 'Top 10' and an inevitable streamlining of taste. A few major organisations control the newsflow. Syndicators guarantee that more and more of us get to see or hear the same stories. This is typified by the growth of independent or local news stations, and cable suppliers, competing mercilessly with the traditional giants of the news airwaves (the US Networks, the BBC and other Public Service Broadcasters, etc.). But does this development satisfy the democratic demands of enlightened society and of informed citizens? This book presents a catalogue of worries, but also some rays of hope. It looks in detail at news broadcasters on both sides of the Atlantic. It also covers the international broadcasting scene as well as third world countries and recent developments in Glasnost's USSR. A major empirical study of what we get from broadcast news (taking the case of the USA, Britain and Sweden) is also presented. Models useful for understanding both the present and the future are suggested.

Harrison's work is timely given the assaults on public broadcasting and the challenges confronting terrestrial television news production and output in the late 20th century.

Television and Common Knowledge considers how television is and can be a vehicle for well-informed citizenship in a fragmented modern society. Grouped into thematic sections, contributors first examine how common knowledge is assumed and produced across the huge social, cultural and geographical gulfs that characterise modern society, and investigate the role of television as the primary medium for the production and dissemination of knowledge. Later contributions concentrate on specific tv genres such as news, documentary, political discussions, and popular science programmes, considering the changing ways in which they attempt to inform audiences, and how they are actually made meaningful by viewers.

This reference book is designed as a road map for researchers who need to find specific information about American mass communication as expeditiously as possible. Taking a topical approach, it integrates publications and organizations into subject-focused chapters for easy user reference. The editors define mass communication to include print journalism and electronic media and the processes by which they communicate messages to their audiences. Included are newspaper, magazine, radio, television, cable, and newer electronic media industries. Within that definition, this volume offers an indexed inventory of more than 1,400 resources on most aspects of American mass communication history, technology, economics, content, audience research, policy, and regulation. The material featured represents the carefully considered judgment of three experts -- two of them librarians -- plus four contributors from different industry venues. The primary focus is on the domestic American print and electronic media industries. Although there is no claim to a complete census of all materials on print journalism and electronic media -- what is available is now too vast for any single guide -- the most important and useful items are here. The emphasis is on material published since 1980, though useful older resources are included as well. Each chapter is designed to stand alone, providing the most important and useful resources of a primary nature -- organizations and documents as well as secondary books and reports. In addition, online resources and internet citations are included where possible.

Using material dating from up to 5,000 years ago, but concentrating on the past 200 years, this book studies messengers and newsmen, focusing on news agency journalists. Informed by North American and European scholarship, and considering the interplay between British English and American English and the products of wordsmiths since the 16th century, the book will appeal to historians, social scientists, linguists, globalization specialists, media professionals and “news addicts”.

Using the enormous number of available examples and a range of theoretical perspectives, the author demonstrates the ways in which the news media are able to manipulate an individual's perception of the world.

Written in a clear and lively style, with examples across a range of media including print, radio, television and the internet, Jackie Harrison explains the different theoretical approaches that have been used to study news.