Week9. What makes news in local media...
In the course of this class, we have been talking about the media functioning as a kind of cement that bonds community together. This week's reading deals with 'how', and what kinds of real-life challenges take place in its application: the instituiton of news-making. By looking into how news is produced in the local media and what such can do to the community in return, we take a glimpse into the overall dynamics of media and society.
While previous week's readings have been largely focusing on a society where the public were brought together into a bigger and bigger 'mass', Janovitz talks about an era when the cities have moved into the next phase: suburbanization. He talks about people "not living in a mass society in which they are directly linked to the major agencies of concentrated social and political power". Which means that while the symbolic life and the larger contexts of societal relationships are in the larger mass-level such as the metropolis, the private life has moved to a smaller community level, causing a gap between and coexistence of those levels.
The five norms of journalism that the Hutchinson committee has put forward which emphasizes truthful, discussional, representative, goal-presenting, and full-fledged information, in turn means that such values are all in jeopardy when such gap is great. In such context, Kaniss explores what the elements are that make the local news that cover urban policies. Those are economic imperative, professional values of the journalist, the role of local officials as sources; and also adds on the potential influences that the 'other' local media than the news papers have. Because of the ambivalence between the mass society of the city and the suburban life, such result in news coverage that do not fully correspond to their actual needs.
The problem that has been bugging me is, how the media can manage to communicate useful news in such a context of such multiple levels. HOW can local media sustain itself to stay true to its local community? It is the objective of papers to become influential. People select news that sound impacting one's life more profoundly. Though it may be of importance in everyday life that Mrs Jones next door has a new daughter, one cannot but think that the statewide tax policy is 'more important'. It is a problem which Ohmynews.com is encountering now, that it tends to lay more focus on the upper levels of the 'umbrella' focusing more and more on the nationwide level news. What economic or other priviledges are possible that can motivate the local media to stay local? Janovitz talks about the residents having the need for lacal news, but are those needs materialized enough to function as the motivation?
While previous week's readings have been largely focusing on a society where the public were brought together into a bigger and bigger 'mass', Janovitz talks about an era when the cities have moved into the next phase: suburbanization. He talks about people "not living in a mass society in which they are directly linked to the major agencies of concentrated social and political power". Which means that while the symbolic life and the larger contexts of societal relationships are in the larger mass-level such as the metropolis, the private life has moved to a smaller community level, causing a gap between and coexistence of those levels.
The five norms of journalism that the Hutchinson committee has put forward which emphasizes truthful, discussional, representative, goal-presenting, and full-fledged information, in turn means that such values are all in jeopardy when such gap is great. In such context, Kaniss explores what the elements are that make the local news that cover urban policies. Those are economic imperative, professional values of the journalist, the role of local officials as sources; and also adds on the potential influences that the 'other' local media than the news papers have. Because of the ambivalence between the mass society of the city and the suburban life, such result in news coverage that do not fully correspond to their actual needs.
The problem that has been bugging me is, how the media can manage to communicate useful news in such a context of such multiple levels. HOW can local media sustain itself to stay true to its local community? It is the objective of papers to become influential. People select news that sound impacting one's life more profoundly. Though it may be of importance in everyday life that Mrs Jones next door has a new daughter, one cannot but think that the statewide tax policy is 'more important'. It is a problem which Ohmynews.com is encountering now, that it tends to lay more focus on the upper levels of the 'umbrella' focusing more and more on the nationwide level news. What economic or other priviledges are possible that can motivate the local media to stay local? Janovitz talks about the residents having the need for lacal news, but are those needs materialized enough to function as the motivation?
posted by KimNakho at
5:50 PM
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