ABSTRACT
Cultural studies and journalism overlap in important respects. They are both interested in the mediation of meanings through technology in complex societies. Both investigate ordinary everyday life: journalism from the point of view of reportable events, cultural studies from that of ordinary lived experience. They both display emancipationist tendencies: journalism as part of the modern tradition of liberal freedoms, cultural studies as part of a critical discourse developed around struggles over identity, power and representation. This chapter describes a cultural approach to journalism. It opens with an account of how ‘cultural studies’ has approached journalism as an object of study. The chapter expresses that journalism should not be seen as a professional practice at all but as a human right. The UN Declaration of journalism as a human right is aspirational, a challenge to action rather than a description of facts. It represents an ideal type of liberal democratic polities. For the consumer is transformed into the producer.
