ABSTRACT
Until recently, news was a product created by professional journalists employed by media companies. Creating news required expensive technology (e.g., a printing press or production studio) and a means of distribution that was not available to the public. News judgments were generally determined by the norms and values of journalism. The public was seldom an active participant. The mass media model that endured throughout the twentieth century positioned journalism as an influential institution. News media reported to citizens the events and actions of other powerful institutions (e.g., government, business), linking these institutions to journalism and journalism to the public. The democratic rationale for journalism is derived from these dissemination, agenda setting, and watchdog functions, and individual journalists have long found that their social and political influence emerges from exclusive access to the powerful and elite (Schudson, 2002; Weaver, Beam, Brownlee, Voakes, & Wilhoit, 2007). This mass media model largely assumed a one-way flow of information from media to audience.
