Sociology of News (2ND 11 Edition)

The Sociology of News reviews and synthesizes not only what is happening to journalism but also what is happening to the scholarly understanding of journalism. In the Second Edition, each chapter of the book has been updated to account for the radical changes that have reshaped the news industry over the last decade. With a new chapter on the sharp contraction of the news business in the United States since 2007, The Sociology of News examines journalism as a social institution and analyzes the variety of forces and factors--economic, technological, political, cultural, organizational--that shape the news media today.

Schudson (journalism, Columbia U.) offers a second edition of his book on the state of journalism and the scholarly understanding of it to reflect the drastic changes in both the practice and the field itself over the past decade. It also includes a new chapter on the downturn of the news business that began in 2007. He provides a history of journalism as well as discussions on its current status, media bias, the political culture of news, news sources, the audience, and news as literature and narrative. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

A personal, trenchant, and comprehensive account of the contemporary news media.

Michael Schudson, a Professor of Journalism at Columbia, is the author of seven books and editor of three others on the history and sociology of the American news media, the history of U.S. citizenship and political participation, and related topics. His most recent book is Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press (2008). He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award.