This new and highly readable textbook by Richard M. Perloff introduces students to the complex world of contemporary news and its theoretical underpinnings, engaging with debates and ethical quandaries. The book takes readers on a concept-guided tour of the contours, continuities, and changing features of news. It covers a huge breadth of topics including: the classic theories of what news should do, its colorful history in America and popular myths of news, the overarching forces involved in contemporary news gathering, critical economic determinants of news and social system influences, and innovative trends in the future of journalism. Drawing on scholarship in the fields of journalism studies and sociology of news, Perloff offers readers a critical, in-depth exploration of news filled with relevant examples from newspapers, newscasts, and social media. Students of journalism, communication, sociology, politics, and related courses, as well as inquisitive scholars, will find this book’s intellectual focus enriching, the writing and examples engaging, and the thoroughness of its search of the contemporary media scene invigorating. Boxes summarizing theory and key concepts help students to deepen their understanding of both what news is now and its future.

"This book is an exceptional introduction into the world of journalistic writing and editing. The author turns the material into a discussion, allowing students to better grasp the concepts at hand." —Dante Mozie, South Carolina State University Journalists in today’s media environment require a skill set that can be adapted to a variety of media. Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing: Foundational Skills for a Digital Age teaches students the foundational skills they need to successfully report and write the news in an evolving digital landscape. Author Vince F. Filak offers guidance on the essential skills of the industry while weaving in the "how-to’s" of writing digital news. Recognizing that well-crafted stories are founded on sharp prose, this new text covers the foundational elements of newswriting, such as lead writing, structure, and storytelling while also teaching students how to think critically and determine what matters most to their readers. Visit the author’s blog at www.dynamicsofwriting.com to get tips for teaching the course, industry related news, sample exercises & assignments, & more! Free Poster: How To Spot Fake News Also available with... Dynamics of Writing: An Exercise —Bundle this text with a student workbook and save! Your students save when you bundle this text with a corresponding student workbook. Order using bundle ISBN 978-1-5443-2155-4. Learn more. SAGE edge—FREE online resources for students that make learning easier. See how your students benefit.

Newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals reached a peak of cultural influence and financial success in Britain in the 1850s and 1860s, out-publishing and out-selling books as much as one hundred to one. But although scholars have long known that writing for the vast periodical marketplace provided many Victorian authors with needed income—and sometimes even with full second careers as editors and journalists—little has been done to trace how the midcentury ascendancy of periodical discourses might have influenced Victorian literary discourse. In The Dynamics of Genre, Dallas Liddle innovatively combines Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogic approach to genre with methodological tools from periodicals studies, literary criticism, and the history of the book to offer the first rigorous study of the relationship between mid-Victorian journalistic genres and contemporary poetry, the novel, and serious expository prose. Liddle shows that periodical genres competed both ideologically and economically with literary genres, and he studies how this competition influenced the midcentury writings and careers of authors including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Harriet Martineau, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and the sensation novelists of the 1860s. Some Victorian writers directly adopted the successful genre forms and worldview of journalism, but others such as Eliot strongly rejected them, while Trollope launched his successful career partly by using fiction to analyze journalism’s growing influence in British society. Liddle argues that successful interpretation of the works of these and many other authors will be fully possible only when scholars learn to understand the journalistic genre forms with which mid-Victorian literary forms interacted and competed.

Dynamics of Writing: An Exercise Guide gives you multiple opportunities to practice your writing skills in-class or as take-home assignments. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the newswriting process and offers short-answer, multiple-choice, and writing-prompt activities to help you master the concepts and skills presented in Vincent F. Filak’s comprehensive book. Additional exercises built around the unique demands of online newswriting will prepare you to meet the demands of a changing media landscape. Key Features: “Writing Exercises” enable you to recall & demonstrate your understanding of various elements found in each chapter in Dynamics of News Writing and Reporting. “Practice Writing” exercises empower you to apply their knowledge in a safe, in-class environment. “Live-Action Exercises” encourage you to expand their knowledge and experience through out-of-class reporting and writing opportunities.

What impact do news and political advertising have on us? How do candidates use media to persuade us as voters? Are we informed adequately about political issues? Do 21st-century political communications measure up to democratic ideals? The Dynamics of Political Communication: Media and Politics in a Digital Age explores these issues and guides us through current political communication theories and beliefs. Author Richard M. Perloff details the fluid landscape of political communication and offers us an engaging introduction to the field and a thorough tour of the d.

Dynamics of Media Writing Third Edition gives students transferable skills that can be applied across all media platforms—from traditional mass media formats like news, public relations, and advertising to emerging digital media platforms. Whether issuing a press release or tweeting about a new app, today’s media writers need to adapt their message for each specific media format in order to successfully connect with their audience. Throughout this text, award-winning teacher and college media adviser Vincent F. Filak introduces fundamental writing skills that apply to all media, while also highlighting which writing tools and techniques are most effective for specific media formats and why. User-friendly and loaded with practical examples and tips from professionals across mass media, this is the perfect guide for any student wanting to launch a professional media writing career.

The emergence of giant media corporations has created a new era in mass communications. The world of media giants--with a focus on the bottom line--makes awareness of business and financial issues critical for everyone in the industry. This timely new edition of a popular and successful textbook introduces basic business concepts, terminology, history, and management theories in the context of contemporary events. It includes up-to-date information on technology and addresses the major problem facing media companies today: How can the news regain profitability in the digital age? Focusing on newspaper, television, and radio companies, Herrick fills his book with real-life examples, interviews with media managers, and case studies. In a time when all the rules are changing because of digital technology, conglomeration, and shifting consumer habits, this text is a vital tool for students and working journalists.

This book focuses on the social process of conflict news production and the emergence of public discourse on war and armed conflict. Its contributions combine qualitative and quantitative approaches through interview studies and computer-assisted content analysis and apply a unique comparative and holistic approach over time, across different cycles of six conflicts in three regions of the world, and across different types of domestic, international and transnational media. In so doing, it explores the roles of public communication through traditional media, social media, strategic communication, and public relations in informing and involving national and international actors in conflict prevention, resolution and peace-keeping. It provides a key point of reference for creative, innovative, and state-of-the-art empirical research on media and armed conflict.

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.

"Despite intense concern among academics and advocates, there remains an absence of scholarship on the way media reporting exacerbates, rather than resolves, policy problems. To fill part of this gap, this book offers rich insights into the news media's role in the development of policy in Australia, and explores the complex and interactive relationship between news media and Australian Indigenous affairs. Kerry McCallum and Lisa Waller critically examine how Indigenous health, bilingual education, and controversial legislation were portrayed through public media, and they look closely at how Indigenous people were both being excluded from policy and media discussion, as well as using the media to their advantage. To that end, the book poses important questions about the power of news media to shape the national conversation, and the complex and dynamic relationships between news media and politics."--Page [4] of cover.