1st Edition
Local Journalism Critical Perspectives on the Provincial Newspaper
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 Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Preface
Introduction: Perspectives on the local newspaper.
Rachel Matthews
Section 1. Local newspapers as information provider
Platforms and Pay Models: How local news organisations in five European countries are navigating the challenges and opportunities of digital disruption
Joy Jenkins
Unravelling the discourse of hyperlocal
Dave Harte
Exploring the links between newspaper closures, social deprivation and hyperlocal websites in the coverage of Parliamentary elections
Dave Toomer
Local media and territory in Denmark
Flemming Svith
Section 2. Making money from local newspapers
Who’s buying the news? The many incarnations of the local newspaper in India
Priya Rajasekar and Shriram Venkatraman
The economic crisis in Ireland’s local press.
Anthony Cawley
Organisational culture and its impact on local newspapers
Sarah O’Hara
Institutional pressures on the changing local news industry in the US
Joaquin Cestino
Section 3. Local newspapers and community
How close? Addressing the complexity of the relationship between local newspapers, local journalists and local audience
Lenka Waschkova
Basque identity and representation in Basque newspapers
Eneko Bidegain, Ainhoa Larranga and Igor Agirre.
A solutions approach to the current landscape for UK newspapers
Tor Clark
Local newspapers: can they view the community through a different lens?
David Baines
Index
Biography
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.
