New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age

With massive changes in the media environment and its technologies, interrogating the nature of news journalism is one of the most urgent tasks we face in defining the public interest today. The implications are serious, not just for the future of the news, but also for the practice of democracy. In a thorough empirical investigation of journalistic practices in different news contexts, this book explores how technological, economic, and social changes have reconfigured news journalism, and the consequences of these transformations for a vibrant democracy in our digital age. The result is a piercing examination of why understanding news journalism matters now more than ever. It is essential reading for students and scholars of journalism and new media.


Review 'This important book brilliantly explores the contradiction between the transforming potential of new technologies and the stifling constraints of the free market and corporate power' - Greg Philo, Glasgow University Media Group
'In the great and significant debate about the future of news and information, Natalie Fenton has identified important new players and new ways in which society will be educated in the world in which they function. Few people have come so freshly and perceptively to describe the ethical and other challenges that occur when old reportorial modes are so substantially altered' - Monroe Price, Director, Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

'Everyone knows that the internet "changes everything." But hardly anyone has studied it systematically enough to say anything more specific about how exactly it changes things. Here's a collection that provides some real evidence about how the internet is and isn't changing journalism and political communication. The essays that make up this volume are rich with real-life data about the working lives of journalists, bloggers, politicians and more, and also with sophisticated insight about how technology interacts with political and economic change. The analysis it provides is broad and nuanced, giving a complex sense of the range of different forms of news and debate that exist online' - Dan Hallin, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, University of California, San Diego

'This is journalism scholarship at its very best. New Media, Old News offers a radical and provocative assessment of the complexities of news, news media and journalism in the age of digital media and global news. Authoritative, yet accessible, this collection will undoubtedly shape scholarly and public debate about journalism and new media. But it also articulates a passionate commitment to the view that - more than ever - "news matters". This book is nothing less than essential reading for everyone interested in the past, present and future of news and journalism' - Bob Franklin, Professor of Journalism Studies, Cardiff University

Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Part I Introduction: New Media and Democracy 1
Drowning or Waving? New Media, Journalism and Democracy 3
Natalie Fenton
Part II New Media and News In Context 17
1 Technology Foretold 19
James Curran
2 The Political Economy of the ‘New’ News Environment 35
Des Freedman
3 An Ethical Deficit? Accountability, Norms, and the Material
Conditions of Contemporary Journalism 51
Angela Phillips, Nick Couldry, Des Freedman
Part III New Media and News in Practice 69
4 Culture Shock: New Media and Organizational Change
in the BBC 71
Peter Lee-Wright
5 Old Sources: New Bottles 87
Angela Phillips
6 Liberal Dreams and the Internet 102
James Curran and Tamara Witschge
Part IV New Media, News Sources, New Journalism? 119
7 Politics, Journalism and New Media: Virtual Iron Cages
in the New Culture of Capitalism 121
Aeron Davis
vi NEW MEDIA, OLD NEWS
8 New Online News Sources and Writer-Gatherers 138
Nick Couldry
9 NGOs, New Media and the Mainstream News: News from
Everywhere 153
Natalie Fenton
Part V New Media, News Content and International Context 169
10 A New News Order? Online News Content Examined 171
Joanna Redden and Tamara Witschge
11 Futures of the News: International Considerations and
Further Reflections 187
Rodney Benson
References 201
Index 219