This book is about how journalism can contribute to the recovery of democracy from the crisis exemplified by the Trump presidency, the Brexit referendum and the rise of populism across the Western world. It explores the ethical concepts that provide the foundation for journalism in modern democracies: pluralism, liberalism, tolerance, truth, free speech, and impartiality. History has shown that crisis brings opportunity for change on a scale that is unachievable under ordinary political conditions, and this book proposes fundamental ways in which journalism can help democratic societies seize the moment. It traces the development of traditional mass media and social media and explores how the two might work better together to benefit democratic life. The development of press theory is described, and enhanced by a proposed new theory, Democratic Revival.

Drawing from extensive archival research, the book uncovers the American media system's historical roots and normative foundations. It charts the rise and fall of a forgotten media-reform movement to recover alternatives and paths not taken.

An updated edition of the “penetrating study” examining how the current state of mass media puts our democracy at risk (Noam Chomsky). What happens when a few conglomerates dominate all major aspects of mass media, from newspapers and magazines to radio and broadcast television? After all the hype about the democratizing power of the internet, is this new technology living up to its promise? Since the publication of this prescient work, which won Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize and the Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award, the concentration of media power and the resultant “hypercommercialization of media” has only intensified. Robert McChesney lays out his vision for what a truly democratic society might look like, offering compelling suggestions for how the media can be reformed as part of a broader program of democratic renewal. Rich Media, Poor Democracy remains as vital and insightful as ever and continues to serve as an important resource for researchers, students, and anyone who has a stake in the transformation of our digital commons. This new edition includes a major new preface by McChesney, where he offers both a history of the transformation in media since the book first appeared; a sweeping account of the organized efforts to reform the media system; and the ongoing threats to our democracy as journalism has continued its sharp decline. “Those who want to know about the relationship of media and democracy must read this book.” —Neil Postman “If Thomas Paine were around, he would have written this book.” —Bill Moyers

With the explosive growth of the Internet and broadband, we now have the potential for a truly democratic media system offering a wide variety of independent sources of news and information, with control over content in the hands of the many rather than a few select media giants. But powerful communications companies have other plans: the big cable, TV and Internet providers are using their political clout to gain ever greater control over the Internet. How does this new media system function? What is at stake?- And what can we do to fight it?

A state-of-the-art account of what we know and do not know about the effects of digital technology on democracy.

This book examines youth media practices on social media, introducing the concept of connective journalism as a precursor to collective political action.

What do ordinary citizens really want from their governments? Democracy has long been considered an ideal state of governance. What if it’s not? Perhaps it is not the end goal but, rather, a transition stage to something better. Drawing on original interviews conducted with citizens of more than thirty countries, Zizi Papacharissi explores what democracy is, what it means to be a citizen, and what can be done to enhance governance. As she probes the ways governments can better serve their citizens and evolve in positive ways, Papacharissi gives a voice to everyday people, whose ideas and experiences of capitalism, media, and education can help shape future governing practices. This book expands on the well-known difficulties of realizing the intimacy of democracy in a global world—the “democratic paradox”—and presents a concrete vision of how communications technologies can be harnessed to implement representative equality, information equality, and civic literacy.

The business of journalism is widely held to be in a terminal crisis today, in particular because the rise of the internet has drained audience attention and advertising revenue away from existing media platforms. This book, the first systematic international overview of how the news industry is dealing with current changes, counters such simplistic predictions of the supposedly technologically determined death of the news industry. It offers instead nuanced scrutiny of the threats and opportunities facing legacy news organisations across the world in countries as diverse as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Finland, Brazil, and India as they transition to an increasingly convergent media landscape.

We need young people to be civically engaged in order to define and address public problems. Their participation is important for democracy, for institutions such as schools, and for young people themselves, who are more likely to succeed in life if they are engaged in their communities. In The Future of Democracy, Peter Levine, scholar and practitioner, sounds the alarm: in recent years, young Americans have become dangerously less engaged. They are tolerant, patriotic, and idealistic, and some have invented such novel and impressive forms of civic engagement, as blogs, "buycott" movements, and transnational youth networks. But most lack the skills and opportunities they need to participate in politics or address public problems. Levine's timely manifesto clearly explains the causes, symptoms, and repercussions of this damaging trend, and, most importantly, the means whereby America can confront and reverse it. Levine demonstrates how to change young people's civic attitudes, skills, and knowledge and, equally importantly, to reform our institutions so that civic engagement is rewarding and effective. We must both prepare citizens for politics and improve politics for citizens.

The public sphere is said to be in crisis. Dumbing down, tabloidisation, infotainment and spin are alleged to contaminate it, adversely affecting the quality of political journalism and of democracy itself. There is a pervasive pessimism about the relationship between the media and democracy, and widespread concern for the future of the political process. Journalism and Democracy challenges this orthodoxy, arguing instead for an alternative, more optimistic evaluation of the contemporary public sphere and its contribution to the political process. Brian McNair argues not only that the quantity of political information in mass circulation has expanded hugely in the late twentieth century, but that political journalism has become steadily more rigorous and effective in its criticism of elites, more accessible to the public, and more thorough in its coverage of the political process. Journalism and Democracy combines textual analysis and extensive in-depth interviews with political journalists, editors, presenters and documentary makers. In separate chapters devoted to the political news agenda, the political interview, punditry, public access media and spin doctoring, McNair considers whether dumbing down is a genuinely new trend in political journalism, or a kind of moral panic, provoked by suspicion of mass involvement in culture.