Media and Public Spheres

by Butsch, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780230007215
• ISBN10: 023000721X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Media and Public Spherespresents empirical studies of print, recorded music, movies, radio, television and the Internet that reveal how media studies structure the public sphere as well as how people use media to participate in the public sphere. They explore the nature of public spheres, how they are deliberative, egalitarian, exclusive or alternative, and the dilemmas each of these present. The studies include cases of media, present and past, in North America, Europe and Asia.

Author Biography

RICHARD BUTSCH is Professor of Sociology, American Studies and Film and Media Studies at Rider University. He is the author of The Making of American Audiences from Stage to Television, 1750-1900, and editor of For Fun and Profit: The Transformation of Leisure into Consumption.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	p. ix
Introduction: How Are Media Public Spheres?	p. 1
Can the Mass Media Deliberate?: Insights from Print Media and Political Talk Shows	p. 15
Connection or Disconnection?: Tracking the Mediated Public Sphere in Everyday Life	p. 28
The Local Public Sphere as a Networked Space	p. 43
Public Sphere and Publicness: Sport Audiences and Political Discourse	p. 58
A Necessary Profession for the Modern Age?: Nineteenth Century News, Journalism and the Public Sphere	p. 71
'They Just Make Sense': Tabloid Newspapers as an Alternative Public Sphere	p. 83
Rethinking Public Service Broadcasting: The Historical Limits to Publicness	p. 96
Digital Radio and the Diminution of the Public Sphere	p. 109
On Becoming the Media: Low Power FM and the Alternative Public Sphere	p. 122
Representing the Public of the Cinema's Public Sphere	p. 136
The Psychedelic Public and Its Problems: Rock Music Festivals and Civil Society in the Sixties Counterculture	p. 149
Popular Culture and the Public Sphere: Currents of Feeling and Social Control in Talk Shows and Reality TV	p. 162
The Revolution Will Be Televised: Free Speech TV, Democratic Communication and the Public Sphere	p. 175
Lost in Space: Television's Missing Publics	p. 185
From Public Sphere to Civic Culture: Young Citizen's Internet Use	p. 198
Blurring Boundaries in a 'Cyber-Greater China': Are Internet Bulletin Boards Constructing the Public Sphere in China?	p. 210
References	p. 223
Index	p. 245
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