Social Meanings of News : A Text-Reader

by Daniel A. Berkowitz

• ISBN13: 9780761900764
• ISBN10: 0761900764
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-03-05
• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc

Summary

What is news and why does it turn out the way it does? These questions are addressed in this Reader. Classic news studies representing several methodologies and approaches are presented to guide students in their initial exploration into the topics. Berkowitz provides an orientation for a social approach to studying news, departing from the premise that news is a human construction that gains its characteristics through the social world from which it emerges. The first section of readings introduces a theoretical background for analyzing the sections that follow. Each of the eight sections are clearly and concisely introduced by Berkowitz, enabling students to interpret the salient points from and implications of representative articles in the field.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Overview: Why a ``Social Meanings of News'' Perspective?	xi
Part I: Introduction
A Framework for Thinking About News	3	(50)
The Sociology of News Production	7	(16)
Michael Schudson
Has Communication Explained Journalism?	23	(8)
Barbie Zelizer
Professional Mass Communicators	31	(22)
James S. Ettema
D. Charles Whitney
Daniel B. Wackman
Part II: News as Social Production
Selecting News: The Individual Gatekeeper	53	(52)
A New Gatekeeping Model	57	(6)
Pamela J. Shoemaker
The ``Gate Keeper'': A Case Study in the Selection of News	63	(9)
David Manning White
Ms. Gates Takes Over: An Updated Version of a 1949 Case Study	72	(9)
Glen L. Bleske
Refining the Gatekeeping Metaphor for Local Television News	81	(14)
Dan Berkowitz
Structure and Constraints on Community Newspaper Gatekeepers	95	(10)
G. A. Donohue
C. N. Olien
P. J. Tichenor
Organizing News: News as a Workplace Product	105	(64)
Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis	107	(16)
Warren Breed
News Organizations: Conflict as a Crafted Cultural Norm	123	(15)
Charles R. Bantz
News Reporting and Professionalism: Some Constraints on the Reporting of the News	138	(17)
John Soloski
Science Writers at Work	155	(14)
Sharon Dunwoody
Professionalizing News: News as Journalists' Norms and Routines	169	(86)
Making News by Doing Work: Routinizing the Unexpected	173	(20)
Gaye Tuchman
News as Purposive Behaviour: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents and Scandals	193	(17)
Harvey Molotch
Marilyn Lester
News and Nonevents: Making the Visible Invisible	210	(20)
Mark Fishman
Routines and the Making of Oppositional News	230	(25)
Nina Eliasoph
Selling News: News as Economic Entity	255	(66)
Boundaries of Journalistic Autonomy	259	(10)
J. Herbert Altschull
The News Factory	269	(17)
Charles R. Bantz
Suzanne McCorkle
Roberta C. Baade
The First Stage of News Production: Learning What's Happening	286	(15)
John H. McManus
The Competitive Ethos in Television Newswork	301	(20)
Matthew C. Ehrlich
Part III: News as Text
Telling News: News as Familiar Story	321	(76)
Mythic Elements in Television News	325	(8)
Robert Rutherford Smith
Myth, Chronicle and Story: Exploring the Narrative Qualities of News	333	(18)
S. Elizabeth Bird
Robert W. Dardenne
When Technology Fails: The Drama of Airline Crashes in Network Television News	351	(11)
Richard C. Vincent
Bryan K. Crow
Dennis K. Davis
Non-Routine News and Newswork: Exploring a What-a-Story	362	(14)
Dan Berkowitz
The Rape of Mike Tyson: Race, the Press and Symbolic Types	376	(21)
Jack Lule
Ideology and News: News as Social Power	397	(100)
Journalists as Interpretive Communities	401	(19)
Barbie Zelizer
The News Paradigm and the Ideology of Objectivity: A Socialist at the Wall Street Journal	420	(21)
Stephen D. Reese
News of Battering	441	(16)
Marian Meyers
Press Rites and Race Relations: A Study of Mass-Mediated Ritual	457	(26)
James Stewart Ettema
Science, Technology and Risk Coverage of a Community Conflict	483	(14)
Cynthia-Lou Coleman
Epilogue: Applying the Tools to Study News	497	(6)
Name Index	503	(10)
Subject Index	513	(18)
About the Editor	531	(2)
List of Authors	533