The Media in Question Popular Cultures and Public Interests

by Kees Brants; Joke Hermes; Liesbet van Zoonen

• ISBN13: 9780761957232
• ISBN10: 0761957235
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-01-23
• Publisher: Sage Publications

Summary

This collection of innovative essays sets the agenda for a revitalized debate on the hybrid communicative practices that constitute the (post)modern media landscape and which cross the boundaries between fact and fiction, information and entertainment, public knowledge and popular culture.In this challenging and provocative collection, the contributors rethink key issues - the meaning of the public interest, the quality of media performance and (de)regulation. In the process they raise topics rarely addressed in normative media theories, for example, the ethics of sports reporting, the moral reasoning in popular culture and the required professional standards for infotainment genres such as reality television and gossip journalism.

Table of Contents

Introduction - Liesbet van Zoonen, Joke Hermes and Kees Brants

Of Public and Popular Interests

THE CLASSIC DEBATE ABOUT MEDIA REGULATION

New Technologies and Old Problems - Peter Golding

Evaluating and Regulating Media Performance in the `Information Age'

Is Broadcasting Policy Becoming Redundant? - Karen Siune

Television Programming - Els de Bens

More Diversity, More Convergence?

Diversity Revisited - Jan van Cuilenburg

Towards a Critical Rational Model of Media Diversity

IN SEARCH OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Wrestling with the Public Interest in Organized Communications - Jay Blumler

World Communication - Cees J Hamelink

Conflicting Aspirations for the 21st Century

The Performance of the Sponge - Ien Ang

Mass Communication Theory enters the Postmodern World

THE ETHICS OF POPULAR JOURNALISM

Enhancing the Civic Ideal in Television Journalism - Peter Dahlgren

Reality Television and Social Responsibility Theory - Jan Wieten

The Ethics of Making Private Life Public - Liesbet van Zoonen

Professional Ethics - Kaarle Nordenstreng

Between Fortress Journalism and Cosmopolitan Democracy

THE POLITICS OF POPULAR CULTURE

Stories of Violence and the Public Interest - George Gerbner

Sports Reporting - Andrew Tudor

Race, Difference and Identity

Cultural Citizenship and Popular Fiction - Joke Hermes

BACK TO THE FUTURE

With the Benefit of Hindsight - Kees Brants

Old Nightmares and New Dreams