Summary
Democracy and the News - Book Review
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Extract
Journalism's identity crisis: what is the news for?
Democracy and the News, by Herbert F. Gans, New rork: Oxford University Press, 240 pages, $26
WHAT KIND OF news do we need for democracy to flourish? This question bedeviled journalists and scholars throughout the 20th century, and now it animates the latest book from sociologist Herbert J. Gans. His answer, however, is oddly contradictory. In Democracy and the News, Gans argues that we need a different kind of news, along with differently trained journalists, while simultaneously suggesting that journalism itself "can do little to reduce the political imbalance between citizens and the economic, political and other organizations that dominate America." His final chapter suggests economic, political, and social reforms to redress this imbalance of power, but only after telling us how little the news can really "do." So which is it? Can the right kind of news...See the full content of this document
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