What S News

This volume explores contemporary understandings of "news values" and the "fake news" phenomena and collects together important new theory-building research that sheds light on implications of compromised news products and the ways it shapes perceptions. News does not happen in a vacuum and journalism is a practice with a definable milieu which manufactures a product shaped by a complex and subjective collection, organization, and dissemination of information. The social import of revisiting Herbert Gans’ "what is news" ethnographic query in 1979 played out in earnest in 2020. Americans watched news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic offer politicized health information complete with conflicting reports of disagreeing experts, conspiracy theories, vaccination resistance, and racist language targeting China and people of Asian descent. This collection expands on mass communication theory frameworks built since the 1970s, to enable us to better operationalize and understand mass media’s role in defining, shaping, and amplifying news. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Mass Communication and Society.

"Yesterday's News is about how Canada's daily newspapers are failing us and how we need to win them back. The book documents the takeover of Canadian daily newspapers by profit-oriented corporations, the rise of Conrad Black, and the danger that these trends pose to the long-term survival of the daily press. Miller takes us on a fascinating journey from the editorial office of the big daily newspapers, where he once worked, to a small town, Shawville, Quebec, where he went to try and re-capture the essence of how journalism should serve society." -- Back cover

Canada’s media companies are melting faster than the polar ice caps, and in No News Is Bad News, Ian Gill chronicles their decline in a biting, in-depth analysis. He travels to an international journalism festival in Italy, visits the Guardian in London, and speaks to editors, reporters, entrepreneurs, investors, non-profit leaders, and news consumers from around the world to find out what’s gone wrong. Along the way he discovers that corporate concentration and clumsy adaptations to the digital age have left Canadians with a gaping hole in our public square. And yet, from the smoking ruins of Canada’s news industry, Gill sees glimmers of hope, and brings them to life with sharp prose and trenchant insights.

As cash-strapped metropolitan newspapers struggle to maintain their traditional influence and quality reporting, large national and international outlets have pivoted to serving readers who can and will choose to pay for news, skewing coverage toward a wealthy, white, and liberal audience. Amid rampant inequality and distrust, media outlets have become more out of touch with the democracy they purport to serve. How did journalism end up in such a predicament, and what are the prospects for achieving a more equitable future? In News for the Rich, White, and Blue, Nikki Usher recasts the challenges facing journalism in terms of place, power, and inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of field research, she illuminates how journalists decide what becomes news and how news organizations strategize about the future. Usher shows how newsrooms remain places of power, largely white institutions growing more elite as journalists confront a shrinking job market. She details how Google, Facebook, and the digital-advertising ecosystem have wreaked havoc on the economic model for quality journalism, leaving local news to suffer. Usher also highlights how the handful of likely survivors—well-funded media outlets such as the New York Times—increasingly appeal to a global, “placeless” reader. News for the Rich, White, and Blue concludes with a series of provocative recommendations to reimagine journalism to ensure its resiliency and its ability to speak to a diverse set of issues and readers.

First there was the spoken word, the long-distance runner, and later the wall posters of ancient Rome and China. Here is an investigation of the human need to gather and spread news, proving that the hunger for news and sensationalism wasn't born with modern technology.

TRUSTING THE NEWS in a Digital Age How to use critical thinking to discern real news from fake news Trusting the News in a Digital Age provides an ethical framework and the much-needed tools for assessing information produced in our digital age. With the tsunami of information on social media and other venues, many have come to distrust all forms of communication, including the news. This practical text offers guidance on how to use critical thinking, appropriate skepticism, and journalistic curiosity to handle this flow of undifferentiated information. Designed to encourage critical thinking, each chapter introduces specific content, followed at the end of each section with an ethical dilemma. The ideas presented are based on the author’s experiences as a teacher and public editor/ombudsman at NPR News. Trusting the News in a Digital Age prepares readers to deal with changes to news and information in the digital environment. It brings to light the fact that journalism is about treating the public as citizens first, and consumers of information second. This important text: Reveals how to use critical thinking to handle the never-ending flow of information Contains ethical dilemmas to help sharpen critical thinking skills Explains how to verify sources and spot frauds Looks at the economic and technological conditions that facilitated changes in communication Written for students of journalism and media studies, Trusting the News in the Digital Age offers guidance on how to hone critical thinking skills needed to discern fact from fiction.

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.