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Media is now central to how youth form their identities. Media also shapes the cultural background of much of young people's action and decision making and the institutional framework of social interaction. This article explores this mediated "lifeworld" of young people by examining rates of current media use and the infiltration of media into conventional forms of socialization such as schools, family, and peers. The authors argue that increasing media use coincides with a larger structural shift to an information-based society wherein social relationships are constituted and reinforced through a cycle of "networked individualism" and growing "risk" among youth. The authors illustrate the cycle of media use, individualization, and risk by briefly examining (a) rising economic insecurity among all Americans and American youth in particular, and (b) the contradictions minority youth face in navigating structural barriers to achievement. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of their work and suggesting policy directions for youth in a media-saturated society. (Contains 1 figure and 3 notes.)

For the Habermasian theory of the "public sphere" to make sense in the 2020s, it must be able to address the modern tendency toward global systemic crises. To examine the relevance of the Habermasian public sphere to today's deeply interconnected digital world, this article provides a selective reading of Habermas' writings on the public sphere, examining how he developed the concept from its conceptual core (1962) through his Legitimation Crisis (LC ; 1973) and The Theory of Communicative Action (TCA ; vol. 1 [1981] 1984, vol. 2 [1981] 1987). Working from the perspective of the "differentiated lifeworld," we show here that the theory's background assumptions about reality (truth), solidarity (justice), personality (authenticity) are now being exposed and destabilized by current crisis tendencies and imaginaries. Here, we examine three exemplary (and interconnected) global disruptions that expose these assumptions: the climate crisis, the intensification of financial inequality in the Global North, and the rapid push toward datafication. Through our examination of whether the public sphere as Habermas conceived of it can exist in today's world, we provide a more expansive form of criticism of the public sphere (which is usually critiqued on the narrow grounds of the rational bias of communicative rationality). Here, we underscore the fundamental importance of addressing the complex system-lifeworld dynamics that are today re-conceptualizing and re-contextualizing the "public sphere" in this era of contemporary global crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As consumer culture pervades the social life of citizens in America and Europe, it becomes increasingly important to clarify the relationship between consumption and citizenship. With this in mind, faculty and students at the University of Wisconsin organized a conference titled ''The Politics of Consumption/The Consumption of Politics.' Held in October 2006, the meeting provided a forum for leading scholars to discuss the interplay of markets, media, politics, and the citizen-consumer. Revised and expanded versions of the papers they presented are collected in this volume with the goal of advancing this emerging area of inquiry. It is our hope that the essays and research papers we have collected here help define the next wave of theory building and research inquiry on file intersections of consumer culture, civic culture, and mass culture. Keywords: citizen-consumers; competitive consumption; civic engagement; lifestyle politics; materialism; political branding; socially conscious consumption; taste cultures

This article is excerpted from Public Journalism: Past and Present (Dayton, Ohio: Kettering Foundation Press, 2003). Public journalism is at a crossroads. Even though at least 320 newspapers have tried [...]

News institutions depend on a vibrant public and civic life for their own survival. For this reason they cannot remain neutral on whether public life should go well, even though public journalism institutions retain a neutral stance on what particular solutions to public problems work best in any given community. The newspaper or television station that practices civic/public journalism offers a forum for public debate over what issues are most important and how they might be addressed. Civic/public journalism is inclusive. At least in theory, it requires that all voices of the community be heard when public debates are joined., Communities are facing an increasingly complex set of challenges, not the least of which is the move toward devolution of responsibility to the local and regional levels. For some, this [...]

The differences in the coverage of Beijing Spring, the 1989 student movement in China, by different television networks reflect that the ideological frames used by news agencies conform to the fundamental news norms of specific nations. The coverage of the movement by CNN, CBS, Taiwan Television, and Chinese Central Television differed significantly. The reflection of national values in the presentation of important international events hampers the democratizing effect of the media in a globalized news system. This suggests the formulation of normative standards of framing devices for fair and objective coverage.

Electronic communication and information technology have a chance to radically affect how citizens practice democracy. The questions for the modern media researcher should center upon how the electronic model of communications and traditional media forms will counteract and reinforce each other. From the early evidence on computer networks, people are constructing new areas of political discussion over these networks, and are using them as an alternative to traditional news broadcasting and print journalism.

This article analyzes five main groupings of world television news organizations: national broadcast networks, international TV news agencies, regional news exchanges, global satellite networks, and regional satellite vernacular networks. Key news organizations and the relations among them are analyzed to demonstrate an emerging web of global television that is both vertically and horizontally structured.

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00359_3.x Byline: Lewis A. Friedland (1) Author Affiliation: (1)University of Wisconsin-Madison

Kathryn Montgomery This past January I flew out to Los Angeles to attend the information superhighway summit, where Vice-President Gore addressed the television industry at UCLA. It was kind of [...]

This article asks whether the concept of community is of continuing relevance in a postindustrial society that is rapidly advancing to a networked form of social organization. The author argues that community is necessary for democratic life to function, and asks what new forms of integration might emerge to create the boundaries necessary for community reproduction. Turning to Habermas's theory of communicative action, the author shows the relevance of the two-level concept of society, system, and lifeworld for addressing this question, and proposes the concept of the communicatively integrated community as a framework for understanding the central role of communication in producing community. Finally, the article offers a mid-range analytic theory of community communication ecology as a frame for connecting this larger theory to the specific analysis of communication and community.