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Local Journalism investigates the range of meanings associated with the 'local newspaper' and considers how digital technology has disrupted the fabric of the local news industry.
Divided into two parts, this book first provides a theoretical account of how normative meanings associated with the local newspaper have been challenged by the impact of digital technology and then goes on to explore these questions via case studies drawn from a variety of contexts including the US, Ireland, Denmark, the UK and Spain. It suggests three thematic ways of understanding the role of the legacy local newspaper in a post-digital environment, namely as an information provider, commercial entity and community champion. While much scholarship talks of their demise, this book argues for a more nuanced understanding of the local newspaper and its continued significance to people, places and commercial interests.
Local Journalism will benefit students, academics and researchers in the areas of journalism, media studies and sociology.
List of contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Preface
Introduction: Perspectives on the local newspaper.
Rachel Matthews
Section 1. Local newspapers as information provider
Chapter 1: Processes, Platforms, and Pay Models: How Local News Organisations in Five European Countries Are Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities of Digitalisation
Joy Jenkins
Chapter 2: Unravelling the discourses of hyperlocal journalism
Dave Harte
Chapter 3: Closing the democratic deficit? Hyperlocal news sites need help to come to the rescue of socially deprived communities
Dave Toomer
Chapter 4: Local media and territory in Denmark
Flemming Svith
Section 2. Making money from local newspapers
Chapter 5: The many incarnations of the local newspaper in India.
Priya Rajasekar and Shriram Venkatraman
Chapter 6: Community, the public good and the market: media merger regulation and the crisis in Ireland's local newspaper industry
Anthony Cawley
Chapter 7: Navigating turbulent times: organisational culture and its impact on local newspapers.
Sarah O'Hara
Chapter 8: Shaping the new local: the future of local journalism in the public discourse of collective actors in the USA.
Joaquin Cestino
Section 3. Local newspapers and community
Chapter 9: 'I see myself as Batman: I'm doing it in the name of the local community.' Addressing the complexity of the relationship between the local, the local audience and local journalists
Lenka Waschkova
Chapter 10: The Basque identity through the territorial representation of the Basque media
Eneko Bidegain, Ainhoa Larranga and Igor Agirre.
Chapter 11: Rise and fall, rise and fall: The long life and final demise of UK regional newspapers
Tor Clark
Chapter 12: Britain's local papers: Can they switch from commodifying community to doing community?
David Baines
Index
About the author
Rachel Matthews is Associate Director in the Institute of Creative Cultures at Coventry University, England. She researches the past, present and future of the provincial newspaper industry. Her academic interest builds on her career working across editorial departments in weekly and daily titles in the UK.
Guy Hodgson is a lecturer for the Open University, UK, and, on a sessional basis, Liverpool John Moores University, England. His research interest is the reporting of historical events by local and national newspapers. He has worked as a journalist and lecturer for 50 years.
Summary
Local Journalism investigates the range of meanings associated with the ‘local newspaper’ and considers how digital technology has disrupted the fabric of the local news industry.
