Media Policy for an Informed Citizenry: Revisiting the Information Needs of Communities for Democracy in Crisis

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231219550
• Author: Nikki Usher,Joshua P. Darr,Philip M. Napoli,Michael L. Miller
• Date: 01 May 2023
• Subject Matter: Part I: Policy

8 ANNALS, AAPSS, 707, May 2023

DOI: 10.1177/00027162231219550

Media Policy

for an Informed

Citizenry:

Revisiting the

Information

Needs of

Communities

for Democracy

in Crisis

By

NIKKI USHER,

JOSHUA P. DARR,

PHILIP M. NAPOLI,

and

MICHAEL L. MILLER

1219550ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYMEDIA POLICY FOR AN INFORMED CITIZENRY

research-article2023

This volume of The ANNALS revisits and updates a

call made by scholars in the early 2010s for public

policy to respond to the market failure of local news.

Organized into four parts—policy, supply, demand,

and adaptation—this volume is committed to the

proposition that people need information about their

communities in order to navigate everyday life, and

that those information needs are inextricably inter-

twined with other basic necessities like sustenance,

transportation, housing, health, and safety. However,

local and regional newspapers face an existential threat

to their continued economic survival that undermines

their ability to do even basic, routine coverage of civic

institutions and communities. This volume demon-

strates that professional journalism is one of many ways

to support communities’ information needs. We con-

sider how new sources of news and information might

fill contemporary information needs and how media

policy, broadly understood, could help create a more

equitable, tolerant, and just multiracial democracy.

Keywords: critical information needs; media policy;

democracy; journalism; local news

Local newspapers have long played a critical

role in American public life, far beyond

their ability just to keep people informed about

Correspondence: nusher@sandiego.edu

Nikki Usher is an associate professor at the University

of San Diego. They have authored three books—

Making News at The New York Times (2014);

Interactive Journalism: Hackers, Data, and Code

(2016); and News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How

Place and Power Distort American Journalism (2021)—

and coedited Journalism Research That Matters (2021).

Joshua P. Darr is an associate professor in the Newhouse

School of Public Communications and the Maxwell

School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (by courtesy)

at Syracuse University. He is coauthor, with Matthew

Hitt and Johanna Dunaway, of Home Style Opinion:

How Local Newspapers Can Slow Polarization

(Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Philip M. Napoli is James R. Shepley Professor of

Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at