News production, distribution and consumption are in rapidly changing due to the rise of new media. This book examines how these processes become more and more interrelated through logics of dissemination, sharing and co-production. These changes have the potential to affect the criteria of newsworthiness as well as existing power structures and relations within the fields of journalism and agenda setting. The book discusses changing logics of production, from citizens’ as well as journalists’ perspectives, examines distribution and sharing as a link between but also an intrinsic part of production and consumption, and addresses the changing logics of consumption. Contributors place such changes in a historical perspective and outline challenges and future research agendas.

News production, distribution and consumption are in rapidly changing due to the rise of new media. This book examines how these processes become more and more interrelated through logics of dissemination, sharing and co-production. These changes have the potential to affect the criteria of newsworthiness as well as existing power structures and relations within the fields of journalism and agenda setting. The book discusses changing logics of production, from citizens’ as well as journalists’ perspectives, examines distribution and sharing as a link between but also an intrinsic part of production and consumption, and addresses the changing logics of consumption. Contributors place such changes in a historical perspective and outline challenges and future research agendas.

Media attention can play a profound role in whether or not officials act on a policy issue, but how policy issues make the news in the first place has remained a puzzle. Why do some issues go viral and then just as quickly fall off the radar? How is it that the media can sustain public interest for months in a complex story like negotiations over Obamacare while ignoring other important issues in favor of stories on “balloon boy?” With Making the News, Amber Boydstun offers an eye-opening look at the explosive patterns of media attention that determine which issues are brought before the public. At the heart of her argument is the observation that the media have two modes: an “alarm mode” for breaking stories and a “patrol mode” for covering them in greater depth. While institutional incentives often initiate alarm mode around a story, they also propel news outlets into the watchdog-like patrol mode around its policy implications until the next big news item breaks. What results from this pattern of fixation followed by rapid change is skewed coverage of policy issues, with a few receiving the majority of media attention while others receive none at all. Boydstun documents this systemic explosiveness and skew through analysis of media coverage across policy issues, including in-depth looks at the waxing and waning of coverage around two issues: capital punishment and the “war on terror.” Making the News shows how the seemingly unpredictable day-to-day decisions of the newsroom produce distinct patterns of operation with implications—good and bad—for national politics.

This report presents a quantitative assessment of how the presentation of news has changed over the past 30 years and how it varies across platforms. Over time, and as society moved from “old” to “new” media, news content has generally shifted from more-objective event- and context-based reporting to reporting that is more subjective, relies more heavily on argumentation and advocacy, and includes more emotional appeals.

In the face of the continuously changing challenges of the digital age, it is difficult for quality news journalism to survive on any significant scale if a means for adequately funding it is not available. This new study, a follow-up to 2007’s The Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies, includes a comparative analysis of possible alternative business models that may save the future of the quality news business across the developed, intermediate, and developing worlds. Its detailed evaluation encompasses also the different ways in which wider key issues are affecting the prospects for quality news as a core ingredient of effectively working democracies. It focuses on the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, Kenya, and selected parts of the Arab World, providing a comprehensive cross-cultural survey of different approaches to addressing these various issues. To keep the study firmly rooted in the "real world" the contributors include distinguished practitioners as well as experienced academics.

That market forces drive the news is not news. Whether a story appears in print, on television, or on the Internet depends on who is interested, its value to advertisers, the costs of assembling the details, and competitors' products. But in All the News That's Fit to Sell, economist James Hamilton shows just how this happens. Furthermore, many complaints about journalism--media bias, soft news, and pundits as celebrities--arise from the impact of this economic logic on news judgments. This is the first book to develop an economic theory of news, analyze evidence across a wide range of media markets on how incentives affect news content, and offer policy conclusions. Media bias, for instance, was long a staple of the news. Hamilton's analysis of newspapers from 1870 to 1900 reveals how nonpartisan reporting became the norm. A hundred years later, some partisan elements reemerged as, for example, evening news broadcasts tried to retain young female viewers with stories aimed at their (Democratic) political interests. Examination of story selection on the network evening news programs from 1969 to 1998 shows how cable competition, deregulation, and ownership changes encouraged a shift from hard news about politics toward more soft news about entertainers. Hamilton concludes by calling for lower costs of access to government information, a greater role for nonprofits in funding journalism, the development of norms that stress hard news reporting, and the defining of digital and Internet property rights to encourage the flow of news. Ultimately, this book shows that by more fully understanding the economics behind the news, we will be better positioned to ensure that the news serves the public good.

Learn how to deliver news in any and all media. This one volume teaches you how to master all of the skills needed to be a converged journalist. Don't think only broadcast or print. Think online, air waves, magazines, PDAs, cell phones and electronic paper. Convergent Journalism an Introduction explains what makes a news story effective today and how to recognize the best medium for a particular story. That medium may be the web, broadcast, radio, or a newspaper or magazine - or, more likely, all of the above. This text will explain how a single story can fulfil its potential through any media channel. Convergent Journalism an Introduction shows you, the news writer, editor, reporter, and producer how to tailor a story to meet the needs of various media, so your local news story can be written in a form appropriate for the web, print, PDA screen and broadcast.

Who controls the media today? There are many media systems across the globe that claim to be free yet whose independence has been eroded. As demagogues rise, independent voices have been squeezed out. Corporate-owned media companies that act in the service of power increasingly exercise soft censorship. Tech giants such as Facebook and Google have dramatically changed how people access information, with consequences that are only beginning to be felt. This book features pathbreaking analysis from journalists and academics of the changing nature and peril of media capture—how formerly independent institutions fall under the sway of governments, plutocrats, and corporations. Contributors including Emily Bell, Felix Salmon, Joshua Marshall, Joel Simon, and Nikki Usher analyze diverse cases of media capture worldwide—from the United Kingdom to Turkey to India and beyond—many drawn from firsthand experience. They examine the role played by new media companies and funders, showing how the confluence of the growth of big tech and falling revenues for legacy media has led to new forms of control. Contributions also shed light on how the rise of right-wing populists has catalyzed the crisis of global media. They also chart a way forward, exploring the growing need for a policy response and sustainable models for public-interest investigative journalism. Providing valuable insight into today’s urgent threats to media independence, Media Capture is essential reading for anyone concerned with defending press freedom in the digital age.

Offers fresh insights and empirical evidence on the producers, consumers, and content of News 2.0 The second generation of news—News 2.0—made, distributed, and consumed on the internet, particularly social media, has forever changed the news business. News 2.0: Journalists, Audiences and News on Social Media examines the ways in which news production is sometimes biased and how social networking sites (SNS) have become highly personalized news platforms that reflect users’ preferences and worldviews. Drawing from empirical evidence, this book provides a critical and analytical assessment of recent developments, major debates, and contemporary research on news, social media, and news organizations worldwide. Author Ahmed Al-Rawi highlights how, despite the proliferation of news on social media, consumers are often confined within filter “bubbles.” Emphasizing non-Western media outlets, the text explores the content, audiences, and producers of News 2.0, and addresses direct impacts on democracy, politics, and institutions. Topics include viral news on SNS, celebrity journalists and branding, “fake news” discourse, and the emergence of mobile news apps as ethnic mediascapes. Integrating computational journalism methods and cross-national comparative research, this unique volume: Examines different aspects of news bias such as news content and production, emphasizing news values theory Assesses how international media organizations including CNN, BBC, and RT address non-Western news audiences Discusses concepts such as audience fragmentation on social media, viral news, networked flak, clickbait, and internet bots Employs novel techniques in text mining such as topic modeling to provide a holistic overview of news selection News 2.0: Journalists, Audiences and News on Social Media is an innovative and illuminating resource for undergraduate and graduate students of media, communication, and journalism studies as well as media and communication scholars, media practitioners, journalists, and general readers with interest in the subject.