Uncertain Guardians

The news media are often seen as a fourth branch of government, serving as a check on the other three. This text argues that this is a mistaken notion: the media's decisions affect the government's policy making, as well as the processes and outcomes of the political system.

For Cochran, the sense of deja vu is overwhelming - and alarming."--BOOK JACKET.

Pull out your cell phone and look closely. You cant see it, but its there: a tiny sprite known as a net elf, generated by the man-made magic of the Internet, whose fate is irretrievably tied to your ownor, at least, your phones. So eighteen-year old Max discovers when a stupid bet leads to a horrific car crash, leaving him in a coma. His body remains on Earth, but his soul is taken to the mysterious realm of Networld. In Networld, wooden ships soar through the air on high-tech anti-gravity thrusters. Round-eared elves are never born and never die, yet only live for three years. Baby dragons are as cute as kittens but as intelligent as people. The mysterious hooded katari, who never show their faces, forbid Max to speak of his human origins. Yet this fascinating dimension is also a doomed one. The net elves tenuous existence is threatened by a mysterious pirate invasion from the North, and hordes of monsters arising from the depths of the Networld. Whole elven settlements have been wiped off the map; others are stranded with few defenders and supplies. Soon, even the capital will fall. Max is certain hes been sent to save Networld. Problem is, he has no idea how. He cant wield a sword, fly a ship, fire a cannon, battle dragons, or do any of the other tasks his new friends take for granted. He can barely string two words together in front of Leneyla, his attractive tutor. But Max must learn fast before its too late, or the net elves will vanish, and their entire world will fall into darkness.

The police force is one of the most distrusted institutions in Pakistan, notorious for its corruption and brutality. In both colonial and postcolonial contexts, directives to confront security threats have empowered law enforcement agents, while the lack of adequate reform has upheld institutional weaknesses. This exploration of policing in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and financial capital, reveals many colonial continuities. Both civilian and military regimes continue to ensure the suppression of the policed via this institution, itself established to militarily subjugate and exploit in the interests of the ruling class. However, contemporary policing practice is not a simple product of its colonial heritage: it has also evolved to confront new challenges and political realities. Based on extensive fieldwork and almost 150 interviews, this ethnographic study reveals a distinctly "postcolonial condition of policing." Mutually reinforcing phenomena of militarisation and informality have been exacerbated by an insecure state that routinely conflates combatting crime, maintaining public order and ensuring national security. This is evident not only in spectacular displays of violence and malpractice, but also in police officers' routine work. Caught in the middle of the country's armed conflicts, their encounters with both state and society are a story of insecurity and uncertainty.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

There is no doubt, journalism faces challenging times. Since the turn of the millennium, the financial health of the news industry is failing, mainstream audiences are on the decline, and professional authority, credibility and autonomy are eroding. The outlook is bleak and it’s understandable that many are pessimistic. But this book argues that we have to rethink journalism fundamentally. Rather than just focus on the symptoms of the ‘crisis of journalism’, this collection tries to understand the structural transformation journalism is undergoing. It explores how the news media attempts to combat decreasing levels of trust, how emerging forms of news affect the established journalistic field, and how participatory culture creates new dialogues between journalists and audiences. Crucially, it does not treat these developments as distinct transformations. Instead, it considers how their interrelation accounts for both the tribulations of the news media and the need for contemporary journalism to redefine itself.

Online Journalism from the Periphery looks at how a range of new media actors, communicating online, have challenged us to think differently about the journalistic field. Emerging from the disruption of digital technology, these new actors have been met with resistance by an existing core of journalism, who perceive them as part of a ‘digital threat’ and dismiss their claims of journalistic belonging. As a result, cracks are appearing in the conceptual foundations of what journalism is and should be. Applying field theory as a conceptual lens, Scott Eldridge guides the reader through the intricacies of these tensions at both the core and periphery. By first unpacking definitions of journalism as a social and cultural construction, this book explores how these are dominated by narratives which have reinforced a limited set of expectations about its purpose and reach. The book goes on to examine how these narratives have been significantly undermined by the output of major new media players, including Gawker, reddit, Breitbart, and WikiLeaks. Online Journalism from the Periphery argues for a broadening of ideas around what constitutes journalism in the modern world, concluding with alternative approaches to evaluating the contributions of emerging media heavy-weights to society and to journalism.