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Media scholars have primarily assessed journalistic role perceptions through the survey method. We propose conceptual and operational definitions for four role enactments observable through content analysis: dissemination, interpretative, adversarial, and mobilization. We also examined how journalistic role enactments in stories related to organization type (nonprofit and for-profit) and reporter workload. Results show that nonprofit journalists were more likely to include interpretation in stories, whereas for-profit journalists were more likely to enact the dissemination and mobilization roles. In addition, as reporter story number increases, it significantly predicted enacting the dissemination role, while suppressing the interpretative role, and especially the adversarial role enactment.

This study examines the extent to which professional journalism adopts and uses citizen journalism, such as user-generated content (UGC) and user-submitted stories (USS), at the individual, organizational, and community levels. In doing so, the study adopts a web-based survey of top U.S. news editors ( n = 142) coupled with U.S. Census Data. The study reveals that experience as online journalists and online staff size play roles in the adoption and use of UGC. The study also finds that community structural pluralism is related to the adoption and use of news stories written together by professional and citizen journalists.

Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation. Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis, eds. New York: Routledge, 2015. 233 pp. $46.95 pbk.With no Oxford comma in its title, Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation indicates that it will reach beyond academic audiences. By choosing the plural-"boundaries" instead of "the boundary"-editors Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis also suggest that the complexities surfacing at this field's borders will lead readers into many different territory-exploring adventures. In those respects, this book delivers a mind-opening survey of a multitude of issues around the evolution of journalism in the digital age.As a package of a dozen chapters, written by different authors-sandwiched between an introduction from Carlson (an associate professor at Saint Louis University) and an epilogue from Lewis (an associate professor at the University of Oregon)-the view of "journalism" here only gets more gray and hazy as this book progresses. Is citizen journalism really journalism at all? Is the wall between editorial content and business interests made of stone or air? When is "soft" news so soft it loses its journalism label? Are reader comments a part of the story or something separate? Can nonprofit groups, engaged in a societal issue, also create legitimate journalism about that issue? The questions raised here blow down deteriorated fences in the field all over the place, leaving one to wonder what exactly journalism is anymore. To be a plumber, Carlson notes, requires a license; to be a journalist, though, a person simply has to have an Internet connection. But there must be more to it than that.Instead of reverting, as Carlson described it, to a "functionalist accounting" of who qualifies as a journalist and what qualifies as journalism, this book probes deeply into the field as a "cultural practice embedded within a complicated social landscape." From this perspective, journalism is not a solid form, accessible via checklists, but a constantly shifting ideological spirit that drifts in and out of ephemeral shapes, depending on the context. Yet it needs to be established as something, so it is not confused or absorbed into something else.Carlson melds into this inquiry the work of sociologist Thomas Gieryn and his ideas about boundary work, as distinguishing some intellectual activities from others. Gieryn established three primary components of such a pursuit, as a way to identify insiders and outsiders through identification of "players and stakeholders," "goals and interests," and "arenas." Carlson and Lewis combine these ideas with others, such as actor-network theory; they then separate the book into two general categories: "professionalism, norms and boundaries" and "encountering non-journalistic actors in newsmaking." In this boundary-defining work, they focus their resources primarily on expansion (bringing in new participants, such as bloggers) expulsion (rejecting deviant behaviors, such as Jayson Blair's fabrications in the New York Times), and protection of the autonomy of journalists (from undue influences by public relations agents, advertising departments, politicians, etc. …

Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives. Vol. 2. Einar Thorsen and Stuart Allan, eds. New York, New York: Peter Lang, 2014. 406 pp. $44.60 pbk.In this new edition of the series Global Crises and the Media, Einar Thorsen and Stuart Allan allow the reader more than ever to travel around the world to explore different forms of what is mostly, conveniently, and superficially called "citizen journalism" in the coverage of all types of crises. In doing this, the contributors highlight the limits and the controversial use of the term citizen journalism to represent the different forms of citizen communication. Furthermore, they contextualize the impact of global crises reporting on both "new" and "old" media, clarifying the relationship between online and offline communication. Finally, they analyze the disruptive capability of citizen journalism on the flow of communication power.The major strength of this book resides in the different perspectives taken from many different countries, political systems, and levels of freedom of expression. Indeed, this diversity of case studies allows examining both the positive and negative repercussions that citizen participation in news coverage may have.In their introduction, Thorsen, a senior lecturer at the Media School, Bournemouth University, UK, and Allan, a professor in the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, UK, state that online and mobile technologies enable people affected by conflicts and repressive regimes to speak their truths. The dynamism that these channels allow opens new possibilities for fast news disseminations, pluralized voices in reportage, and extended audience reach.Through her case study on the Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008, Yasmin Ibrahim demonstrates that social media becomes places for both bearing witness and engaging with events (Chapter 1). In particular, during natural disasters such as the Christchurch earthquakes (Chapter 7), Hurricane Sandy (Chapter 8), or acts of terrorism such as in Norway (Chapter 9), citizen communication becomes vital for delivering practical information and documenting events as they unfold. This close view on events from direct witnesses has the potential to increase solidarity between distant others. To prove this point, Lilie Chouliaraki takes the examples of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the Arab Spring (Chapter 4). And through a case study on the Russians' use of social media, Chapter 18 shows that these channels engender a novel sense of civic society, responsibility, and consciousness.Similarly, Clemencia Rodriguez's analysis of armed conflicts in Colombia (Chapter 14) illustrates how citizen journalism is "a practice of resistance that emerges as social movements; activists and other social justice collectives" do not accept that only professional news organizations can practice journalism and provide information to support democratic processes. …

With the increase in citizen-generated news, the need to understand how individual predispositions interact with news sources to influence perceptions of news credibility becomes increasingly important. Using a web-based experiment, this study examines the influences individual predispositions toward the media and politics have on perceived credibility of mainstream and citizen journalism. Analyzing data drawn from a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, results indicate that media skepticism and political cynicism interact, such that cynics and skeptics perceive citizen journalism as more credible, while non-cynics and non-skeptics think mainstream journalism is more credible.

What do citizens in the Netherlands expect from journalism? A large-scale survey shows that many audience expectations align fairly well with what experts and journalists consider important democratic functions of the press. We refer to these expectations as Civic Demands. In addition, more at odds with the profession’s view, the audience wants journalism to take Citizen Demands into account: the complaints and wishes of citizens. We explore how these demands relate to audience characteristics and news media use. Findings suggest that journalists and citizens could very well cooperate in securing a future for high-quality journalism.

The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender. Cynthia Carter, Linda Steiner, and Lisa McLaughlin, eds. New York: Routledge, 2014. 668 pp. $225 hbk.Wherever the cliche "everything but the kitchen sink" may have originated, it accurately describes the fifty-nine chapters that make up The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender. Dedicated to an "extensive examination of a wide array of contemporary critical perspectives and diverse contexts," the collection is essential for libraries and for those who study children, popular culture, psychology, sexual orientation, sociology, women and gender issues, and other areas of inquiry.Part of the Taylor & Francis Group, Routledge describes the newest addition to its twenty-four-volume series accurately, touting the book for its exhaustive coverage of media and future trends. The ambitious collection is part of the Routledge Companion list, which includes informative and lengthy studies of children's literature, Christian history, critical and cultural theory, English language studies, feminism, film history, global economics, the Gothic, music and visual culture, postmodernism, race and ethnicity, Russian literature, semiotics, social theory, theater and performance, and other topics.In addition, the publisher's website celebrates the book for research that will engage readers in a "broad array of global and transnational issues and intersectional perspectives"; its emphasis on issues including cosmetic surgery, digital policy, masculinity, pornography, postfeminism, sexual violence, queer identities, social media, sports, telenovelas, video games, and other topics; and its interdisciplinary contribution to a discussion of issues as varied as audience engagement, gender in media, production and policymaking, and representation.Founding editors of Feminist Media Studies, Cynthia Carter and Lisa McLaughlin collaborated with Linda Steiner, professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, to produce the massive study. Steiner studies alternative media, citizen journalism, ethics, gendered media employment, and women and technology. Carter, a senior lecturer in media and cultural studies at the Cardiff School of Journalism, emphasizes news about children and women. McLaughlin, an associate professor in media, journalism, and film at Miami University Ohio, focuses upon the political economy, the public sphere, transnational feminism, and women, work, and information technologies around the world. The three contribute a strong knowledge base, a longtime commitment to scholarship, and a personal investment in women's issues. Carter and Steiner submitted essays to the collection as well.Part I, "Her/histories," includes essays by Margaret Gallagher ("Media and the Representations of Gender"), Lisa M. Cuklanz ("Mass Media Representation of Gendered Violence"), Tim Edwards ("Lone Wolves: Masculinity, Cinema, and the Man Alone"), Vicki Mayer ("To Communicate Is Human; to Chat Is Female: The Feminization of US Media Work"), Joke Hermes ("Rediscovering Twentieth-Century Feminist Audience Research"), Isabel Molina-Guzman and Lisa Marie Cacho ("Historically Mapping Contemporary Intersectional Feminist Media Studies"), Audrey Yue ("Sexualities/Queer Identities"), and Radha S. Hegde ("Gender, Media, and Trans/National Spaces."Part II, "Media Industries, Labor, and Policy," includes "Women and Media Control: Feminist Interrogations at the Macro-Level" (Carolyn M. Byerly), "Risk, Innovation, and Gender in Media Conglomerates" (Ben Aslinger), "Putting Gender in the Mix: Employment, Participation, and Role Expectations in the Music Industries" (Marion Leonard), "Gender Inequality in Culture Industries" (Denise D. Bielby), "Shifting Boundaries: Gender, Labor, and New Information and Communication Technology" (Ursula Huws), "Gendering the Commodity Audience in Social Media" (Tamara Shepherd), and "Youthful White Male Industry Seeks 'Fun'-Loving MiddleAged Women for Video Games-No Strings Attached" (Shira Chess). …

Journalism for Democracy. Geraldine Muhlmann. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010. 270 pp. $24.95 pbk.Media, Markets & Public Spheres: European Media at the Crossroads. Jostein Gripsrud and Lennart Weibull, eds. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2010. 327 pp. $35.00 pbk.How Media Inform Democracy: A Comparative Approach. Toril Aalberg and James Curran, eds. New York, NY: Routledge, 2011. 230 pp. $125.00 hbk.It's high time for the study of journalism everywhere to be less U.S.-centric and, in the United States, for it to be less mechanistic and more philosophical. These three books provide a Eurocentric view and a philosophical analysis that would enrich our understanding of our own journalism in whatever country we happen to be.In the journalism school of my own education, I was taught only "American" journalism, with the implication that it was the only authentic form of journalism. I was fortunate to be able to travel abroad-both before and after school-and saw that journalism was practiced differently in each country. I realized it was more of a cultural construct than a fixed idea.Later, when two colleagues and I authored a comprehensive text on mass communication- in the early 1970s-we wrote from a U.S. perspective, but we included a chapter on comparative media and formulated a "media systems paradigm" that attempted to account for differences in media and journalism from one country to the next. Each country's system was conditioned by that country's laws, technological proficiencies and availabilities, economic conditions, available resources, level of literacy, and so on. No two countries in the world are exactly alike in all these particulars, so we reasoned that each will be compelled to have its own system of journalism.Although these three books are European, they don't take only a "Continental" view; rather, they often discuss the differences between and among nations. Even with a common European economy now, these countries still have different languages, customs, local laws, and traditions, and all these and more are reflected in their differences in journalism and media practices.All three of these books are premised on the notion that journalism exists in a "public sphere" owned by all in a society. The concept of the public sphere was popularized among European thinkers by Jurgen Habermas in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989), and other works. American journalism rarely is based on the public sphere, but rather more often on the "private sphere" of property and First Amendment rights.The one commonality between the U.S. media and all the media discussed here is that the free flow of information is regarded as essential to democracy. Countries that are fascist or communist or authoritarian for economic or religious reasons could be expected to have a completely different rationale and purpose for their media. Europeans have traditionally viewed journalism as a political act; its economic consequences have been secondary. Americans have made journalism primarily a privately owned business, so economics has always been the driver. Increasingly this has meant reaching the largest audience for the advertiser, encouraging a journalism that's often more entertaining than informative.We start with Geraldine Muhlmann, a professor of political science and political philosophy at the University of Paris, because her book, "a theoretical essay on the practice of journalism," is the most philosophical and thus perhaps most European of the three. Her point of view is that of the elite, educated, and sophisticated French academic. Muhlmann is concerned with the low regard in which journalists are held in France by this group. She doesn't say it, but she implies that journalism in France is becoming more American-that is, not only increasingly aimed at the lowest common denominator but also increasingly objective.She uses a Baudelairean concept of flanerie-which Muhlmann defines as the disinterested gaze-to describe objective journalism. …

Data Journalism: Mapping the Future. Edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble. Bury St Edmunds, UK: Abramis Academic Publishing, 2013. 187 pp. $26.50 pbk. £15.95 pbk.With vast amounts of data now openly accessible online, and the new infographic technologies available to visualize data, news media are increasingly making use of these valuable mines of data to source and produce their stories. Data journalism-the use of numerical data in the production and distribution of news-is an emerging subarea in our field but so far little has been written about it. Scholarly narratives on data journalism are still rare, not to mention published books devoted to this subject. The January 2014 release of Data Journalism: Mapping the future is a welcome addition to this nascent body of literature, after the seminal Data Journalism Handbook (2012).Defining "data journalism" is not an easy task, given its confusion, or overlap at least, with "online journalism," "digital journalism," "computer-assisted-reporting (CAR)," "investigative journalism," and so on. The book sets out with its first section, "What precisely is data journalism," to track the philosophical and conceptual foundation for data journalism as a stand-alone subject area. This collection of essays from four academics and industry experts certainly answers more questions than it raises. One may walk away with a "bio-like" understanding of the data journalism identity: data journalism evolved from "precision journalism (which Phil Meyer has advocated since 1970s)," and is a development of CAR in the online context; it combines reporting with programming of data; its features may include interactivity, statistics, a multimodular approach, and audience participation. Despite this wealth of information, the book asks questions that remain unanswered-Is it realistic to expect journalists to be programmers? Should all reporters be required to be data literate? Is data journalism good for the general public audience or for the elite audience only?As mentioned in the book, the notion of journo-coder, programmer-journalist, hacker-journalist, or journo-programmer is still novel and the terminology is as yet undecided. When reporting meets programming, the many myths this marriage has generated are always debatable, but that does not stop data journalism from growing. Section 2 of the book is particularly informative (and most valuable of all, in my opinion) with the tips on developing and updating data journalism skills given by mediaindustry specialists such as Jacqui Taylor, Daniel Ionescu, and Pupul Chatterjee. From here, one gets a big picture of the state of data journalism in practice-how data are accessed, obtained; how they are processed and presented using ever-updating tools such as Excel, Tabula, Tableau, Import.io, Google Charts, D3, infogr.am, Datawrapper, Many Eyes, Easel.ly, and so on.A great strength of this book is its recency. Not only does it introduce the most updated technologies needed for data journalism (like the aforementioned), but it also includes some very recent news events as examples to illustrate their implications for data journalism, such as the Snowden leaks, and the offshore banking leaks involving the secret British Virgin Islands-based businesses of the rich and famous around the world. …

Citizen Journalism: Valuable, Useless or Dangerous? Melissa Wall, ed. New York: International Debate Education Association, 2012. 180 pp. $24.95 pbk.Recently, many newspapers and other media institutions have lost credibility and dis- appeared or downsized, reducing the number of journalists on traditional payrolls. At the same time, social media, blogs, and other Internet-related entities have multiplied and have sought to fill the resulting news vacuum. "Amateur" or citizen journalists have found many new outlets for their photos and stories.This thin volume provides an overview of how and why citizen journalism has devel- oped and has covered particular events and issues in at least ten nations and regions. Seventeen scholars from around the world authored or co-authored chapters. Melissa Wall, a professor of journalism at California State University, Northridge, served as editor.The overall picture is very mixed. Citizen journalists have provided real-time descriptions of events and subcultures seldom if ever covered adequately by tradi- tional media. However, the absence of journalistic background, editing, and quality control have often led to biased, inaccurate, low-quality pieces.Positive contributions to the public sphere include the following:* Reports of ruthless seizure of land by a local government in northern Taiwan. Traditional media had ignored the seizure, but reporting on a television service inviting citizen input called PeoPo triggered mass protests and eventually led to changes in the relevant law. PeoPo was a creation of Taiwan's Public Television Service established to challenge and enhance the basically free but sensational- istic and often irresponsible commercial media on the island.* Coverage of the 2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza with citizen input encouraged by Al Jazeera, one of the few media institutions with access to the area. Investigative pieces revealed what life was like in Gaza in ways not really consistent with much western emphasis on objectivity and brevity.* Blogs by U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan during the war in that country. These bloggers revealed a great deal about military life and its subculture. Some critics felt citizen journalists would be free to question official reports that the U.S. troops were contributing in a positive way to democratization, to winning hearts and minds. However, intensive study of forty-eight soldier blogs indicated they served more of a guard-dog function, supporting the official line, than a watchdog role challenging it.* Cell-phone transmissions by young people in a poor South African community, Grahamstown, showed what life was like among the poor and mostly unem- ployed young people there. Under a program established in part by the Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies, many of these reports appeared in newspapers and on television. Students received training in telling stories and other activities, yielding a better understanding of journalism overall.* Training camps for young journalists in Taiwan under auspices of the Public Television Service there. Students from twelve different schools of journalism participated, contributing many stories that appeared in traditional media.* Social-media portrayal of a young Iranian woman, Neda Agha Soltan, being shot and killed during a crackdown on protests against the allegedly rigged 2009 re- election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The image of Neda lying in a pool of blood soon went viral on the Internet, helping to make her an iconic martyr. CNN and other traditional media quickly circulated the story. …

A survey found the public does not strongly endorse traditional journalism norms of watchdog and rapid reporting. Furthermore, when opinions of survey respondents and journalists were compared, survey respondents were significantly more likely to say providing a community forum, a public journalism principle, was extremely important. African Americans, Hispanics, women, and adults with less education and income strongly endorsed the public journalism principle of offering solutions to problems. A factor analysis of thirteen public and traditional journalism roles and characteristics revealed four dimensions of journalism as perceived by the public: good neighbor, watchdog, unbiased and accurate, and fast.

Amateur Images and Global News. Kari Anden-Papadopoulos and Mervi Pantti, eds. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2011. 213 pp. $40 pbk.It is easy to get caught up in the idea that the Internet has changed everything. Despite regularly assigning my History of Journalism students Michael Schudson's 1997 JMCQ article, "Toward a Troubleshooting Manual for Journalism History," I still occasionally find myself unconsciously arguing for the technological determinism of the Internet and, increasingly, smartphones.But I think I've turned the corner after reading the engaging Amateur Images and Global News, edited by Kari Anden-Papadopoulos and Mervi Pantti. Anden- Papadopoulos is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication at Stockholm University, and Pantti is an associate professor in the Department of Social Research, Media and Communication Studies at the University of Helsinki. Their carefully selected chapters historicize and contextualize the use and circulation of amateur photographs in a nuanced way that ultimately leads to more provocative questions not about how the Internet has supported amateur photographers, but about how the web has changed and will continue to change the distribution and meaning of amateur and professional photographers alike.The book begins with three chapters exploring the historical use of amateur photographs in the pre-Internet, pre-video era. For example, in chapter 1, Karin Becker describes how private family photos of Titanic victims were incorporated into mainstream newspapers. Then Stuart Allan describes the early history of war reporting in a chapter that will become required reading the next time I teach journalism history. Allan's contribution, paired with Liam Kennedy's later chapter on the distribution of personal photos by soldiers in the war in Iraq, highlights that although pocket cameras have been marketed to soldiers since World War I, authorship is now more transparent and mechanisms of distribution and publication are more diverse.Part II of the book, which includes a chapter by the editors on the incorporation of citizen footage of Iran's Green Movement in the international press, presents a series of case studies on how various news organizations organize and describe amateur photographs and videos. Here the establishment of journalistic authority is expressed vis-a-vis the contributions of eyewitness amateurs, whose pictures may lack the aesthetic quality of professional journalists.Finally, part III includes contributions on the dissemination of citizen media and their interpretation by audiences. We learn that, in general, audiences are more supportive of citizen journalists than the mainstream media. Liina Puustinen and Janne Seppanen conclude in chapter 10 that audience reading of user-generated content as more authentic "reflects a more profound cultural condition in which authenticity works as a part of late modern life politics. …

Excellence in Online Journalism: Exploring Current Practices in an Evolving Environment. David A. Craig. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011. 180 pp. $39.95 pbk.For journalists, the Internet offers limitless space, multiple media forms, and constant deadlines. David Craig's Excellence in Online Journalism moves beyond asking "How do we do journalism online?" to focus on a related but perhaps more significant question: "What will online journalism look like when we do it really, really well?"Craig, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, acknowledges that at some level excellence in online journalism has much in common with excellence in traditional journalism. The goals are the same: helping citizens "know well" in the public sphere, and fostering community. But, he notes, the Internet presents both challenges and opportunities for those pursuing journalistic excellence.This well-organized and highly readable book suggests four general standards of excellence for journalists in the digital age:* Speed and accuracy with depth in breaking news* Comprehensiveness in content* Open-endedness in story development* The centrality of conversationCraig follows best practices for today's journalism by using a variety of story forms to put forth his case. Sidebars, lists, Q&As, personality profiles and much more help break up the book and keep the reader engaged. In doing the research for this book, Craig interviewed more than thirty award-winning online journalists, editors, and producers from a variety of media outlets, ranging from the New York Times and MSNBC to neighborhood bloggers. Their war stories add both authenticity and accessibility to the book. Also, Craig provides tables throughout, with at-a-glance summaries of various topics, including the news cycle for breaking stories at various media outlets, and standards of excellence in online journalism. A companion website, www.excellenceinonlinejournalism. com, contains links to examples cited in the text, and Craig has continued to add fresh examples of top-quality online journalism to the site as he comes across them.A great strength of this book is the frequency with which the author refers to concrete illustrations of his points, giving the reader a behind-the-scenes look at online journalists covering such stories as the landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River and the "balloon boy" hoax. …

Literary Journalism Across the Globe: Journalistic Traditions and Transnational Influences. John S. Bak and Bill Reynolds, eds. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011. 320 pp. $28.95 pbk.Journalism training in Western education systems has long focused on skills such as fact finding and objective writing. Moreover, scant space in newspapers has forced journalists to be economical with the number of words they use, so much so that Jenny McKay, writing about reportage in the United Kingdom in Literary Journalism Across the Globe: Journalistic Traditions and Transnational Influences, edited by John S. Bak and Bill Reynolds, comments that none of her journalism professors ever mentioned a connection between journalism and literature. This is probably true of most journalism instructors in general, unless they were teaching a course in literary journalism. Hence, it is not surprising that literary journalism is more of a specialized area of study rather than a part of a regular reporting class.This book-"essays that place literary journalism in an international context"- provides rich information about the history, traditions, and practices of literary journalism around the world. Yet the picture that emerges at the end is that the intersection of journalism and literature remains unclear, and becomes foggier in an international context. Take a few of the bewildering variety of definitions of literary journalism: creative nonfiction, literary reportage, narra-descriptive journalism, narrative journalism, and New Journalism-where fact intersects with fictional styles, and where the objective and subjective get blurry.Given that the origin and purpose of literary journalism vary from country to country, based on contextual factors such as the social, political, and economic climate, it is not surprising that this genre has taken different shapes and forms. For example, Bill Reynolds, who teaches at Ryerson University in Toronto, writes that in Canada, seven young literary journalists have formed a group known as FCC (earlier the initials stood for False Creek Coalition, later the Foreign Correspondents Club, and now the acronym itself). These journalists travel the world and narrate their experiences in a subjective manner in the larger context of the world. For their part, Clazina Dingemanse and Rutger De Graaf trace the roots of Dutch literary journalism to literary pamphleteering that used innovative and imaginative ways of conveying information such as dialogues and dream stories and explain how the newspapers took on some of their literary tones.The book is divided into three parts: toward a theory of international literary journalism, journalistic traditions, and transnational influences. In the introduction, Bak-who teaches American literature at Nancy Universite in France-traces the origin of literary journalism to the end of the nineteenth century. This genre of journalism survived even though after World War I it was believed that journalism had to be "objective" or "polemical," he writes. …

Research studies consistently demonstrate a disproportionate use of elites, males, and non-minorities as sources. Previous research demonstrated that only enterprise reporting altered journalistic routines and therefore improved source diversity. Civic journalism is a decade-old, foundation-driven effort to encourage journalism organizations to alter their coverage routines to better reflect communities and the public dialogue on issues. Civic journalism encourages greater depth of knowledge of communities, alternative framing for stories, and developing sources within layers of civic life (from officials to private individuals). This study of 1,071 sources in 184 television entries to the James K. Batten Civic Journalism Awards found that civic journalism improved traditional source diversity for women and minorities.

A critical review of forty-seven evaluative studies on public journalism shows that its philosophy and newswork practices have had generally limited effects on the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of journalists and news audiences. These works tend to focus on a handful of showcase public-journalism news organizations and projects. Methodological shortcomings found in several of the studies are discussed. Suggestions for future research are offered.

In a national survey of 1, 037 newspaper journalists, this study found strong support for four practices associated with civic journalism. In order to minimize respondents' preconceptions, the terms “civic journalism” or “public journalism” did notappearin the survey instrument. The study also found that journalists at smaller-sized papers, who accord importance to neighborhood news, who approve of top editors' and staff members' joining community organizations, and who feel their own paper is improving, are more likely to approve of civic journalism practices. The study seems to confirm preliminary findings from earlier research that a new conception of journalism's role in society may be emerging.

Civic journalism advances discussion of news as a coherent narrative of the world, serving particular interests. But in practice, it limits its horizons to community news agendas and solutions. To define a truly public journalism, a story on the threat of environmental catastrophe is analyzed. The analysis suggests that journalism must in significant part be an active narrative initiative carried forward by journalists themselves. The difficulties lying in the way of realizing public journalism are also discussed.

It is argued that journalism historians would do well to avoid several kinds of troubles that have plagued the field in the past. Among these are (1) the assumption that the media always are central to a historical event or process; (2) the assumption that commercial forces always have a corrupting influence on journalism practice; (3) the tendency to reduce complex events to technological or economic explanations; (4) the acceptance of the view that journalism is in a constant state of decline; and, (5) the assumption that the news media came into existence because they served a popular need. Historians of journalism are urged to avoid these common mistakes by becoming less insulated from other domains of historical research.

In this first comprehensive national study of Australian journalists, the author surveyed 1,068 news people in all mainstream news media. Australian journalists are similar to their U.S. colleagues in distributions of age, sex, and socio-economic background, but have less formal education. Like U.S. journalists, Australians have mixed professional and ethical values and are committed both to investigative and to news-disseminating roles of the media.

The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment. Christine M. Tracy. New York: Peter Lang, 2012. 132 pp. $129.95 hbk. $34.95 pbk.In The Newsphere: Understanding the News and Information Environment, Christine M. Tracy seeks to position the citizen journalist movement, mainstream media industries, the growth in digital information sources, and the individual citizen within the frame- work of Neil Postman's media ecology theory and Teilhard de Chardin's cosmic conver- gence, human evolutionary theory. Tracy is an associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University.The term "newsphere" is an adaptation of Teilhard's term "noosphere," a word used to describe what the evolutionary philosopher saw as the "soul of the earth" that "rep- resents the total pattern of thinking organisms and their activity, including the patterns of their interrelations" (Teilhard, quoted, p. 112). Tracy argues that contemporary digi- tal news coverage reflects this interrelationship, which in turn has led to a breakdown of the hierarchy of production and delivery that previously created and controlled news. Thus, Teilhard's "noosphere" is apparent in what Tracy calls the "newsphere" of emerging digital information and news creation and change. In The Newsphere, news is "networked, participatory, relevant, and transparent" (p. 113), open to all citizens and professionals who care to create and share information and opinions. This new dynamic and dialogic interaction thereby creates a changing ecological system of exchanges among journalists and the public and changes our understanding of the meaning and credibility of public opinion, news, and information. "When viewed as an ecology, news is not a product to be consumed but a conscious act to engage with and produce shared information that has value in a community: This is how cultures and societies create their histories" (p. 21).Citing the work of James Carey and Michael Schudson, Tracy distinguishes media from journalism and journalism from news; in this new dynamic system, media are the forms in which news is disseminated, and journalism is the practice of and responsibil- ity for sharing that news. Understanding the flexibility and change in media forms and journalistic practice thereby becomes an essential component of studying media ecol- ogy. She includes a case study (written by Helen Nevius Adamopoulos) that offers an analysis of Baltimore, Maryland, media and content that was conducted by researchers from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism as an example of this type of media ecology research. Another case study of the widespread coverage of a 2009 Somali pirate capture of the Maersk Alabama and reactions to it in and across media and the blogosphere in the book provides an example of the specific narrative aspect of contemporary journalism storytelling across various media outlets and the ways in which mainstream media and bloggers can react to connect or correct such a story from various social, political, and economic contexts. …

Journalism Studies: The Basics. Martin Conboy. New York: Routledge, 2013. 196 pp. $22.16 pbk.In the second decade of The War on Terror, the sands of journalism are shifting from both the American and the global perspective, and from European and other regional perspectives. All the while, there is still much for journalism to explain and clarify between the Americans on one hand, and the Europeans and the other regions on the other. Worldwide, at the time of writing this review, explanations are being sought about the Boston marathon bombing. Also, in world-ranked universities, English has been accepted as the language par excellence of journalism studies programs. Interestingly, U.S.- and U.K.-based media outlets set record levels of international audience involvement. Importantly, two-way cross-border journalism patterns appear as more and more corporations from emerging economies acquire businesses in the global West and vice versa. For instance CNN International now broadcasts live from its studios in Abu Dhabi, while Qatar-based Al Jazeera International benefits from cross-border journalism studies programs offered by U.S.-based international univer- sities' branch campuses in Doha. That is why recently public policy and diplomacy, and the public nature, purposes, processes, and roles of journalism studies have been the topics of extended debate and analysis.Martin Conboy, a professor of journalism history at Sheffield University, United Kingdom, undertakes the daunting task of accurately providing a "springboard" to newcomers for engagement with the main aspects of journalism. After a brief intro- duction explaining what this well-organized book will do and how to use it, the author divides the broad subject range into seven chapters, plus a bibliography and an index. The first three chapters deal with journalism studies' beginnings, the British response to the Americans taking charge, education and training "between a hack and a hard place," and research approaches and the rise of peer reviews. The next two chapters concentrate on the processes and the end products in news gathering, war reporting, influence of owners, public relations, and outside the mainstream. The penultimate chapter looks into the international perspective; while in his final chapter of most con- temporary relevance, Conboy offers-through the lens of forms of practice-how journalism engages with and negotiates the introduction of new technology and indus- trial change.It is possible to query content and balance for a subject as broad as journalism stud- ies. Perhaps overlapping between chapters and dwelling on the history of journalism at the expense of explaining what twenty-first-century journalism is all about might be mentioned as weaknesses of the book. Also, one might add the layers that follow to Conboy's (p. 24) layers of journalists as publicist, populist, editor, essayist, reporter. …

Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen-Engaged Press. Jack Rosenberry and Burton St. John III, Eds. New York: Routledge, 2010. 199 pp. $45.95 pbk.Digital technology has changed journalism dramatically. Through a collection of research studies, essays, case studies, and interviews, Public Journalism 2.0 takes a detailed look at evolving public journalism and where audience-generated stories fit into that evolution. The editors divide the book into three sections: the history of civic and citizen journalism, current practices, and future possibilities. They conclude with their views of where professionals fit in to a citizen-engaged press.The book's strength is its diverse content from different authors, whose chapters give the book a rich mix of examples and perspectives. Although this also means different styles from chapter to chapter, the collection is tied together well. Summaries at the end of each chapter include bulleted lists of theoretical implications, practical implications, and reflection questions. Each major section also includes an interview offering insight from scholars on public journalism.A common theme holds the book's diverse content together. The editors-Rosenberry teaches at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, and St. John teaches at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia-detail how public journalism can build a citizenengaged press and improve public discourse. The book showcases many different roles for both amateur and professional journalists. Different approaches define news differently and include many views on journalists' gatekeeping functions. The picture Public Journalism 2.0 paints is not all rosy, but it is realistic. In many cases, examples reinforce the difficulty in keeping people engaged in citizen journalism efforts. Many times, it is a struggle to keep volunteers involved or to obtain citizen contributions.The book traces citizen journalism to the early 1990s. Although that may seem like recent history, it's a lifetime in terms of the changes that have taken place in journalism's digital age. The editors begin with a 1990 talk by James Batten, then-CEO of Knight-Ridder, at the University of Kansas. Batten's theme: "Newspapers that immerse themselves in the lives of their communities, large or small, have the best prospects for success in the years ahead." Just a decade later, the Internet had upended everything, as Davis "Buzz" Merritt, former editor of the Wichita Eagle and one of the pioneers of civic journalism, notes. "By the end of the century, few journalism organizations could indulge in the expense and risk of the experimentation that public journalism required," he says, concluding, "At some point, traditional newspapers will disappear. …