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This landmark book is concerned with the civil power of the news. This power can be seen in the ways the news engages with public sentiment through a focus on three invariant civil concerns: identity, legitimacy and risk. The book analyses how news stories engage with these concerns to make civil and anti-civil judgements, which influence public sentiment and determine the boundaries we place and maintain around the society we live in. Through historical and contemporary examples of this boundary shaping and maintenance, The Civil Power of the News presents a bold and original account of the architecture of news, the influence it has on our conceptions of civility, and, ultimately, the power it wields.
List of contents
Chapter 1 Introduction to Part 1.- Chapter 2 The Civil Ideal of News.- Chapter 3 The Civil Ideal of News and Political and Commercial Reality.- Chapter 4 Newsrooms and the News Cycle.- Chapter 5 Introduction to Part 2: A Practical Demonstration of the Civil Power of the News Through an Analysis of the First British Railway Murder 1864.- Chapter 6 The Reporting of the Murder and the Invariant Civil Concern of Identity.- Chapter 7 The Reporting of the Murder and the Invariant Civil Concern of Legitimacy.- Chapter 8 The Reporting of the Murder and the Invariant Civil Concern of Risk.- Chapter 9 The Reporting of the Murder as Type 3 Civil Boundary Maintenance: the rejection of change and the endorsement of the status quo in civil society.- Chapter 10 Résumé.
About the author
Jackie Harrison is Professor of Public Communication and Chair of the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) at the University of Sheffield, UK. She also holds the UNESCO Chair on Media Freedom, Journalism Safety and the Issue of Impunity. She has published extensively in the areas of freedom of expression, media regulation and policy, the mediation of civil society and on issues of news media freedom and standards.
