ABSTRACT
This chapter details the main theoretical framework outlined in the Introduction. Chapter 3 reframes chaos and control theories of the media to address the questions of why investigative journalism endures in the 21st century and why this should matter to democracies. It compares the positive appraisal of news media that largely belongs to the liberal democratic tradition with political economy media theorists’ more negative assessments of the role of mass media in democratic societies. While tensions exist between these two streams of thinking, this chapter explains why they are not mutually exclusive and that both perspectives are useful for explaining why the mainstream media persists with investigative reporting. It argues that although newsrooms have suffered significant setbacks in the 21st century, the assumption that investigative journalism is also in decline is a less straightforward proposition. The main argument is that investigative journalism endures in the digital age because of different news media outlets’ varied motivations for undertaking it. The chapter concludes by conceptualising an overlapping space between the ‘control’ and ‘chaos’ theories of mass media where investigative journalism’s economic viability and contribution to democratic accountability can co-exist.
