American Journalism And Democracy

Michael Schudson is one of most notable scholars on sociology of media. His research on sociology of news combines intensely the development of American journalism and the transformation of American democracy. With the background of social development, he analyzes how American journalism changes consequently with the society, and also the characters and modes of news reporting.According with the characters of American social changes and journalism in various stages, Schudson divides the American democracy into two phrases, year of 1800~1865 and year of 1865~1920. Correspondingly, the democracy also goes with several segments, democracy of trust, democracy of partisanship, democracy of information, democracy of rights. Every stage of democracy brings much to journalism at the time, and also promotes its development inversely. Public journalism is taken place in 1990s, which emphasizes on the functions of public participation and conversation to American democracy. Up to 21st century, facing with the fading traditional journalism in America and challenge brought by new media, Schudson brought about a report of Reconstruction of American Journalism, an analysis and summary of American journalism, and advanced with a series of improvement, a framework for the American current journalism development.Schudson is a mild reformer, he not only points out the disadvantages of journalism but also believes in its positive effect on democracy, not only admits the dilemma of journalism but also accepts that the traditional journalism will coordinates with new age perfectly. Based on the above, his research gives much suggestion to Chinese journalism development nowadays.