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On The Evolution Of The U.s. News Reports

Posted on:2009-06-20Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:P Q ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:1118360272959262Subject:Journalism
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The dissertation aims at studying the evolution of news production in the United States by using sociological approaches. Sociology of news holds that news is the product of the society. Journalism is under the influences of politics, economy, culture, and technology in a certain society. To study news, it is important to put news in its broad social background in which news is produced.Five approaches are often used in the study of sociology of news: political, economic, sociological, cultural and technical approaches. Using these approaches to study news is to put the environment in which news is produced under consideration, while the determinants exerting influences in media environment could be media system, economy, social organization, culture and techniques.News paradigm varies in different time and different societies, determined by different political, economic, organizational, cultural and technical factors. In different historical periods, different factors exert different influences, sometimes certain factors become major influences, but other times their influences may be very small.Before the commercial model of newspapers was found, early press, being heavily influenced by politics, was the tool of propaganda of parties. With the commercialization and professionalism of news, economy has been playing a more important role in the evolution of news reporting. In the late half of 20th century, while cold war propaganda brought about interpretative reporting, the upheavals of the 60s caused a flourishing of new journalism and precision journalism and Watergate scandal in the early 70s made investigative reporting a popular form of reporting. After the 80s, technology has shown more influences towards the way in which news is produced. The development of television live show, the increasingly vague line between news and entertainment and online news are all closely related with the possibilities technology has given.Four determinants in media environment will be carefully studied in the dissertation: politics, economy, big events and technology, while timeline and major impetus in the evolution are considered in categorization of the dissertation.The outline of the dissertation is as follows:After the introduction, the second chapter focuses on the political determinant in media environment, analyzing how parties influenced the early party newspapers. In the meantime, the chapter will also study how newspapers gave up propaganda as the media environment changed.The third chapter focuses on a study of the economic determinant by exploring how commercialization of news contributed to the emergence of objective reporting.The fourth chapter focuses on the influences of big social events through a study of the relationship between the flourishing of new journalism, precision journalism and investigative journalism and the social events, such as cold war, social upheavals of the 60s and the Watergate scandal.The fifth chapter discusses how technology influences news, focusing on the dramatic changes of news reporting brought by new technology and the increasing vague dividing line between news and entertainment. Since public journalism came into being in the 1990s, almost at the same time when the trend of news moving towards entertainment intensifies, this chapter will also study public journalism.The sixth chapter is conclusion. It concludes that in the United States in the evolution of news particular determinants are crucial in a certain period of time. To understand the main determinants in the evolution of American news reporting, it could be very helpful for us to know the future trend of news reporting in China.It should be noted that in the study of the evolution of news reporting in the United States, different forms of reporting do not replace each other. On the contrary, in the course of evolution, new form of reporting often enriches the existing forms instead of replacing them.
Keywords/Search Tags:News Paradigm, News Reporting, Sociology of News, News Production
PDF Full Text Request
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