Journalism in a Fractured World

Journalism in a Fractured World revisits theories of journalism and politics to make sense of peripheral journalistic actors and the animosity that has become a feature of their content. It studies alternative media in the US, UK, and Netherlands to make sense of these actors, the challenges they pose, and their place in a fractured world.

Journalism in a Fractured World addresses the fractured nature of journalism as it has developed online. Engaging with theories from journalism studies and politics, it bases its findings on the study of peripheral journalistic media from the US, UK, and Netherlands. It addresses the pronounced animosity that has become a feature of peripheral, political, digital news. Focusing on the metajournalistic discourses produced by peripheral actors, it develops a framework to distinguish between peripheral antagonists and agonists. Antagonists blur lines between news and politics and foment societal divisions through narratives of backlash, fragmentation, and grievance. Journalistic agonists, on the other hand, are also political and critical, but offer a constructive vision of what journalism and society can become. Journalism in a Fractured World presents theories and frameworks for engaging with these actors with a clear-eyed message about the challenges journalism faces and how we might find our way forward, even in our fractured societies. "This timely work is essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of where society and journalism is heading." Matt Carlson, Professor of Journalism, University of Minnesota "Eldridge provides an analytical framework that I am convinced will be of use to everybody concerned with the plurality of news actors and what they mean in our fractured societies." Karoline Andrea Ihlebæk, Professor in Journalism, OsloMet University

Autorentext

Scott A. Eldridge II (PhD) is an Associate Professor with the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen. His research explores the journalistic field, its boundaries, and peripheral journalistic actors. He is the author of Online Journalism From the Periphery (2018), and is editor of the Frontiers in Journalism Studies book series.

Klappentext

Talking about Journalism focuses on the relationship between journalism and the public and engages with this as a specific boundary-pushing relationship, where the ways we think about journalism are constantly being defined and re-defined through the ways we publicly discuss what journalism is, and what it does. It focuses, conceptually, on journalistic metadiscourse. These discourses of 'journalists talking about journalism' within news content serve as a way of publicly constructing meaning about journalism in our societies, what it should do, and how it corrects itself when it goes astray. The statement of purpose for this book will outline how thinking about metadiscourses allows us to see journalism being defined 'in the open', through the ways journalists and members of the public talk about journalism, and how this has developed over time. However, it does so in a way that reconsiders the parameters of this conversation. Where previously this was a discourse found in newspaper media columns, trade magazines, and similar spaces, it is now pervasive online, within digital alternative media, and in (hyper)active audience forums and comment sections. These expand our opportunities for understanding how journalism is being defined in the spaces where it is talked about, and for seeing the relationship between journalism, the public, and various counter-publics play out. This title explores new frontiers in terms of where and how journalism is being defined and redefined, not only by journalists but by the public as well. It does so while bringing forward theories of publics and counterpublics for our digital age.

Inhalt

Preface - Acknowledgments - Acknowledged contributions - Our fractured worlds - Liberal, deliberative, and agonistic: Theories for a pluralist democracy - Agonistic journalism: Making sense of a fractured field - News of our fractured worlds: Journalism as societal discourse - Metajournalistic discourses: Expanding the aperture - Unheard, in a noisy world - Affirm, affect, affront, aggrieve: Counterpublic narratives - Agonism and antagonism: Journalism in a fractured world - Appendix: Methods & data sampling - Bibliography - Index.