Study On American Public Journalism Movement

Public journalism (civic journalism) movement was a kind of journalism reform which began in the 1980s in the United States. The main purpose of this movement is to reconnect the relationship between the public and the media, reconstruct the public consciousness and renew the confidence of the public to the news media. It also wants to reconnect people to their communities, encourage them to participate in the politics and civic affairs and improve the public deliberation or discussion through the efforts of the press.Public journalism have not only obtained certain positive results in its practices , but also have put forward some new ideas to the journalism. The emergence of public journalism has offered a challenge to some traditional news principles, it has also caused many discussions and controversies among journalists and professors. They research public journalism from many aspects, such as public sphere, objectivity, social responsibility theories, and the agenda setting theory and so on.Through the explicit description of the concept, background, and development of public journalism, this dissertation concretely introduces the practices, fundamental theories and the criticism and contestation of this movement, then makes an analysis and evaluation of public journalism.