2 options
Why democracies need an unlovable press / Michael Schudson.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Schudson, Michael.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Mass media--Political aspects.
- Mass media.
- Press and politics.
- Journalism--Political aspects.
- Journalism.
- Democracy.
- Representative government and representation.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (vii, 146 pages)
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity, 2008.
- System Details:
- text file
- Summary:
- Journalism does not create democracy and democracy does not invent journalism, but what is the relationship between them? This question is at the heart of this book by world-renowned sociologist and media scholar Michael Schudson. Focusing on the US media but seeing them in a comparative context, Schudson brings his understanding of news as at once a story-telling and fact-centered practice to bear on a variety of controversies about what public knowledge today is and what it should be. Should experts have a role in governing democracies? Is news melodramatic or is it ironic - or is it both at different times? In the title essay, Schudson even suggests that journalism serves the interests of free expression and democracy best when it least lives up to the demands of media critics for deep thought and analysis; passion for the sensational event may be news at its democratically most powerful. Lively, provocative, unconventional, and deeply informed by a rich understanding of journalism's history, this work collects the best of Schudson's recent writings, including several pieces published here for the first time.
- Contents:
- Introduction: facts and democracy
- Six or seven things news can do for democracy
- The US model of journalism: exception or exemplar?
- The invention of the American newspaper as popular art, 1890-1930
- Why democracies need an unlovable press
- The concept of politics in contemporary US journalism
- What's unusual about covering politics as usual
- The anarchy of events and the anxiety of story telling
- Why conversation is not the soul of democracy
- The trouble with experts, and why democracies need them.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI Available via World Wide Web.
- Description based on print version record.
- ISBN:
- 9780745658810
- 0745658814
- Publisher Number:
- 99984034639
- 99821246468
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.