This research theme has two parallel tracks. The first track examines different legal and policy regimes, different forms of regulation and codes of conduct and the concomitant risks of direct (and indirect) censorship; the failures and abuses of news media freedom and declining news standards; the difference between journalism and partisan journalism; investigative news journalism and attack journalism; the blurring of the distinctions between factual reporting and unsubstantiated opinion; the use of user generated content and the wider development of interactivity between news media and audiences or readers and more recently the significance of post-integrated news journalism.
The second track assesses our invariant civil concerns and how the news is framed by these concerns; the variant ways the news expresses these concerns; the way the news interacts with public reason; the institutional setting the news occupies in civil society and in democratic culture and how the news reflects and influences the civil choices we wish to make about ourselves and others.
Combined this research theme analyses how the civil power of the news media actually works and what delimits that power.
This research is currently led by Professor Jackie Harrison.
Relevant Publications
Amos, M., Harrison, J. and Woods, L (eds.) (2012) Freedom of expression and the media: the application of legal standards to journalistic practice Nijhoff Law Specials Vol. 79 Leiden. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff pp256
Harrison, J. (2010) ‘The Development of a European Civil Society through EU Public Service Communication’ in Papathanassopoulos, S. and Negrine, R. (eds.) Towards a Theory of Communication Policy, London: Palgrave Macmillan pp 81-94.
Harrison, J. (2010) ‘European Social Purpose and Public Service Communication’ in Bee, C. and Bozzini, E. (eds.) Mapping the European Public Sphere: institutions, media and civil society, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing pp 99-116.
Harrison J. (2008) ‘Exploring News Values: The Ideal and the Real’ in Chapman, J. and Kinsey, M. (eds.) Broadcast Journalism: A Critical Introduction, London: Routledge, pp60-68.
Harrison, J. and Woods, L. (2007) European Broadcasting Law and Policy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp387.
Harrison, J. and Woods, L. ‘Defining European Public Service Broadcasting’
European Journal of Communications, (2001) 16(4): 477-504.
Harrison, J. and Woods, L. ‘European Citizenship: Can European Audiovisual Policy make a difference?’ Journal of Common Market Studies, (2000) 38(3): 471-94.
