What is news? Why does news turn out like it does? What factors influence the creation, production, and dissemination of news? Cultural Meanings of News takes on these deceptively simple questions through an essential collection of seminal and contemporary studies by leaders in the fields of mass communication and media studies. Similar in format and purpose to editor Dan Berkowitz's award-winning Social Meanings of News, this new volume represents a conceptual update, a continuation of the discourse about the nature of news and how it comes to be, moving ideas ahead from the earlier tradition of sociological approaches to the more pervasive cultural perspectives that inform understandings about news. Cultural Meanings of News provides a carefully selected set of readings, organized into thematic areas that each probe a dimension of the literature: from sociological roots to cultural perspectives; news as narrative and cultural text; newswork as cultural ritual; news as cultural myth; news and its interpretive communities; news as a source and reflection of collective memory; toward the future of news research. This text-reader provides students and scholars with first-hand exposure to cultural approaches to the study of news, while also providing an organizing framework for understanding the commonalties and differences between threads in the research. The goals are to engage readers through guided immersion in the material.

This Reader presents classic news studies representing several methodologies and approaches to guide students in their initial exploration into the topics.

The Handbook of Media and Mass Communication Theory presents a comprehensive collection of original essays that focus on all aspects of current and classic theories and practices relating to media and mass communication. Focuses on all aspects of current and classic theories and practices relating to media and mass communication Includes essays from a variety of global contexts, from Asia and the Middle East to the Americas Gives niche theories new life in several essays that use them to illuminate their application in specific contexts Features coverage of a wide variety of theoretical perspectives Pays close attention to the use of theory in understanding new communication contexts, such as social media 2 Volumes

Modernity and Postmodern Culture is a critical introduction to claims concerning the postmodernization of culture and society. Contemporary culture may be 'postmodern' in the sense of fluidity of meaning, changing power relations and commodification in art, entertainment and everyday life, but modernity persists in the dynamics of capitalist civilization, albeit in an increasingly reflexive mode characterized by widespread uncertainty about social existence, progress and rationality. The theories of Baudrillard, Beck, Castells, Giddens, Habermas, Haraway, Jameson, Lyotard and others on the contemporary scene are discussed, and specific issues concerning architecture, theme parks, screen culture, science, technology and the environment are examined. Jim McGuigan argues that there have been tensions between instrumental and critical reason throughout the history of modernity that are still being played out.

Cultural Protest in Journalism, Documentary Films and the Arts: Between Protest and Professionalisation entails a comprehensive account of the history and trajectory of contemporary journalistic, (documentary) film, and arts and cultural actors rooted (partially or wholly) in radical, alternative, community, voluntary, participatory and independent movements primarily in Britain and Germany. It focuses particularly on the examination of production and organisational contexts of selected case studies, some of which date from the countercultural era. The book takes a transnational and interdisciplinary approach encompassing a range of theoretical perspectives – drawn from the political economy of communication tradition; alternative media scholarship; journalism studies; critical sociological and cultural studies of media industries; cultural industries research; and critical and social theory – in conjunction with extensive ethnographic fieldwork. It does so to reveal the obscure nature of media and cultural production and organisation at seventeen media and cultural actors based in Britain and Germany, including South Africa and Nigeria. A particular focus is placed on how such actors balance competing imperatives of a civic/socio-political, professional, artistic and commercial nature as well as various systemic pressures, and on how they navigate the resultant ambivalences, paradoxes and tensions in their day-to-day work. In essence, the book highlights key insights into a changing nature and quality of engagement with social and political realities in protest cultures.

A candid, often humorous look at how to find truth in music, movies, television, and other aspects of pop culture. Includes photos, artwork, and sidebars.

'News Culture' discusses the changing forms, practices and audiences of journalism. It provides an historical consideration of the rise of objective reporting in the media, and explores the presentation of the news and the cultural dynamics.