Week 10-Institution of News

There is a complex relationship between the community and the news media in which the locus of control shifts depending upon economic imperatives, the players – media owners, journalists and local officials -- and their respective skills and motivations. There is a delicate interplay between the face-to-face communication of community leaders with the community and media representatives and the communication product of news institutions. Just as Janowitz’s study found that local leaders used personal communication skills to try to forge common agreement and avoid conflict in a community, Kaniss illustrated how the news media also seek consensus by linking their audience in a “common bond of local identity.” Local leadership, which is primarily successful because it seeks to build consensus one-on-one, tries to maintain nonpartisanship, while the media tries to project the appearance of objectivity.

Metropolitan media content, according to Kaniss, is influenced by a complex web of factors which include the location and profile of the target market or audience; professional journalists’ values, physical constraints, abilities and motivations; and “available and suitable” sources, primarily public officials, and their media skills and agenda. Janowitz also identified the complex interaction between the community press and the “local elite.” As he explained,” the community press is but one institution that stands intermediate between the individual and the major institutions of the metropolis: and the publisher is but one of the members of the intermediate elite.” It is not simply the media’s economic or budgetary needs or a journalist’s professional values that color the coverage of new local policies, but also the actions of local officials as well.

Janowitz’s notion of a community of “limited liability” in which an individual 1) demands more from the community than is willing to invest and 2) when the community fails to serve his or her needs, withdraws by ceasing to be involved or leaves, suggests a reason for today’s “apathetic” or “disinterested” public. Many, such as the Hutchins Commission(1947), either directly blame or place the responsibility on the media for failing to provide the public with “current intelligence,” the forum, the means or the way to reach every member of society. In addition, Janowitz and Kaniss suggest that the location and profile of the community that the media serves, combined with the media skills, motivation and abilities of their primary sources, and the local leadership, come together to shape both news content and public deliberations.

Janowitz presented an interesting hypothesis that people who “display high local identifications” are more likely to not only display higher political competence, but were also associated with high community-newspaper readership. People with high political competence share a mutual goal with the community press to see that policies and programs that would benefit the community are implemented and as a result become “reliable sources.” As Kaniss points out, public officials and community leaders observe the media to learn how to use it effectively and to build upon that relationship, which raises the question, “Who influences whom?”

Communication technologies and urban areas have changed dramatically since Kaniss wrote Making Local News. As a result, the “local elite,” local identity or community, and the producers of local news are being redefined. Kaniss agreed with Durkheim that as the new urban and suburban centers continue to evolve, there is a need for new “intermediate associations,” which are smaller than the political entity of the state, but larger than the parochial village or community. Kaniss sees the local media’s efforts to create a region-wide identity as helping to create these intermediate associations. As new communication technologies and new “news institutions” emerge, will the nature of community change or does community shape communication institutions based upon these new information tools? Finally, what will these new communication institutions look like?