The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered

Jeffrey Alexander is a leading social theorist who helped create the contemporary field of cultural sociology. He has written and edited dozens of books, among them The Meanings of Social Life, Trauma: A Social Theory, Performance and Power, The Civil Sphere, The Dark Side of Modernity, and Obama Power (with Bernadette Jaworsky). His books and articles have won various national and international awards. Elizabeth Butler Breese is a sociologist who works with high-growth technology and education companies. She has published media, public sphere, and celebrity research in several sociology and communications journals and has been called on to comment on social media trends in The New York Times, Wired, and AdAge. She is currently Marketing Director at Panorama Education. María Luengo is a journalist and a lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Communication at Carlos III University, Madrid. She researches and writes about journalism, culture, and civil sphere. Her latest book, Periodismo social (Social Journalism), coauthored with Juana Gallego (2014), interprets developments at the nexus of social trends and movements, gender and migration, and journalistic culture and practice over the last two decades in Spain. She has published widely in the field of journalism studies, journalism ethics, media, and cultural studies.

• Part I. Introduction: 1. Journalism, democratic culture, and creative reconstruction Jeffrey C. Alexander; Part II. The Crisis Narrative: 2. The perpetual crisis of journalism: cable and digital revolutions Elizabeth Butler Breese; 3. The crisis of public service broadcasting reconsidered: privatization and digitalization in Scandinavia Hakon Larsen; 4. Beyond administrative journalism: civic skepticism and the crisis in journalism Daniel Kreiss; 5. The many crises of Western journalism: a comparative analysis of economic crises, professional crises, and crises of confidence Rasmus Kleis Nielsen; 6. The crisis in news: can you whistle a happy tune? Michael Schudson; Part III. Fears of Digital News Media: The Symbolic Struggle: 7. When codes collide: journalists push back against digital desecration María Luengo; 8. Telling the crisis story of journalism: narratives of normative reassurance in Page One Matt Carlson; 9. Assembling publics, assembling routines, assembling values: journalistic self-conception and the crisis in journalism C. W. Anderson; 10. The constancy of immediacy: from printing press to digital age Nikki Usher; 11. News on new platforms: Norwegian journalists and entrepreneurs face the digital age Kari Steen-Johnsen, Karoline Andreas Ihlebaek and Bernard Enjolras; Part IV. Professional Journalism, Civil Codes, and Digital Culture: 12. Journalism in American regional online news systems David Ryfe; 13. Digital media and the diversification of professionalism: a US-German comparison of journalism cultures Matthias Revers; 14. Professional and citizen journalism: tensions and complements Peter Dahlgren; 15. Expressions of right and wrong: the emergence of a cultural structure of journalism Stephen F. Ostertag; Part V. Conclusion: 16. News innovations and enduring commitments Elizabeth Butler Breese and Mara Luengo.

'This book offers an extraordinarily useful and significant contribution to scholarly debate about the future of journalism by reflecting on the too often missed cultural component in explanations of the current crisis facing news, democracy and journalism in an age of digital media. Reflective and enviably well written, it is essential reading for everyone interested in the ways in which the digital future is unravelling.' Bob Franklin, University of Cardiff