THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM

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1) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?

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2) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?

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3) Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?

4) Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?

5) Why does Shirky argue against paywalls? 

-  The effect of that would be to make the kind of value that the public got from the Geoghan article illegal — not illegal, uncontractural. 

6) What is a 'social good'? In what way might journalism be a 'social good'?

7) Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?

8) Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?



Media, Publics, Protest and Power

1) What are the three overlapping fields that have an influence on the relationship between media and democracy?

- The political field, The economic field and The journalistic field.

2) What is ‘churnalism’ and what issues are there currently in journalism?

- The cut-and-paste practice. 
- Once you combine the faster and shallower corporate journalism of the digital age with the
need to pull in readers for commercial rather than journalistic reasons, it is not difficult to see how the traditional rigour of professional journalism is quickly cast aside.

3) What statistics are provided by Fenton to demonstrate the corporate dominance of a small number of conglomerates? 

- Just three companies control 71% of UK national newspaper circulation while only five groups control more than 80% of combined online and offline news.

4) What is the 'climate of fear' that Fenton writes about in terms of politics and the media?

- Politicians are fearful of career-wrecking and life - ruining negative publicity, along with damage to their parties’ chances of re-election.

- They also avoid certain areas of public policy, for fear either of hostile reporting or media owner conflict, creating an environment where politicians are more likely to discuss populist policies. Journalists

5) Fenton finishes her article by discussing pluralism, the internet and power. What is your opinion on this crucial debate - has the internet empowered audiences and encouraged democracy or is power even more concentrated in the hands of a few corporate giants?

- It does empower audiences when it states that "We need to understand who holds power and how it is wielded to understand how those who have it influence the decisions that structure and organise the distribution of knowledge resources throughout societies. Only then can we set about changing it.




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