ABSTRACT
Modern communication is defined by its fragmented nature. Blogs, tweets, Facebook postings, YouTube videos and literally billions of Web pages cover the media landscape. Content created and distributed by “the people formerly known as the audience” (to use Jay Rosen’s particularly apt term) dwarfs information available from the one-time giants of mass communication such as daily newspapers, weekly magazines and network television. A.J. Liebling’s sardonic quip that “freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” has been turned on its head as anyone with an Internet connection and some easyto-use software can publish to the world. But where does journalism fit in a landscape where people can – and frequently do – publish anything, all the way down to Twitter reports on the contents of their breakfast? What does such an environment mean for journalism’s most important functions of supporting democracy and improving public life? As Kovach and Rosenstiel put it, “Civilization has produced one idea more powerful than any other – the notion that people can govern themselves. And it has created a largely unarticulated theory of information to sustain that idea, called journalism” (2001, p. 193). The traditional view of this process held that journalists would report, citizens would read the reports, and some form of public opinion would develop that helped to connect the will of the people with public action. Election coverage helps citizens decide who should represent them, from City Hall to the floors of Congress and the county courthouse to the corridors of the White House. News reports about government activities or proposals, from local public works projects to national programs and policies, can translate into public support or opposition that affects policy outcomes. Reporting on scandal, abuse and incompetence can lead to reforms as journalists provide a crucial “watchdog” function. Thomas Jefferson’s famous observation about preferring newspapers over government was rooted in these ideas of journalism as supporting democracy.
