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Foundations of Community Journalism
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Foundations of Community Journalism

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August 2011 | 304 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
Foundations of Community Journalism is the first and only book to focus on how to understand and conduct research in this ever-increasing field. With chapters written by established journalism scholars and teachers, this book provides students and researchers with an understanding of the multiple methods applied to the study of community journalism, such as historical, social-scientific, cultural/critical, and interdisciplinary approaches. It explains what community journalism is as a research concept and offers a range of different methods and theories that can be applied to community journalism research. Although there are numerous "how-to" community journalism manuals for students and newspaper editors, none focuses on how to conduct research into community journalism. The body of knowledge in Foundations of Community Journalism would take readers months, perhaps years, of independent work to gather, making this book a "must-have" volume and reference tool for anybody who is interested in the relationships between journalism and communities.

Jock Lauterer
Foreword. Community Journalism Research: Rooted in the Groove
 
PART I: BACKGROUND AND EXPLICATION
Bill Reader
1. Community Journalism: A Concept of Connectedness (with an essay, "Community Journalism's Challenge to do Journalism," by Linda Steiner)
Jack Rosenberry
2. Key Works: Some Connections Between Journalism and Community (with an essay, "Bringing Scholars and Professionals Together," by Gloria Freela)
Eileen Gilligan
3. The ?Minnesota Team?: Key Studies of Institutional Power and Community Media (with an essay, "Profile of a Research Team," by Eileen Gilligan)
 
PART II: THEORIES AND METHODS
Janice Hume
4. Community Journalism and Community History (with an essay, "Re-examine the History of Big-city Community Journalism," by G. Michael Killenberg)
Wilson Lowrey
5. The Challenge of Measuring Community Journalism (with an essay, "Methodological Choices Offered from the Study of the Norwegian Press," by Sigurd Host)
Bill Reader
6. Drawing from the Critical Cultural Well (with an essay, "Asian and American Perspectives on Community Journalism," by Crispin C. Maslog)
John Hatcher
7. A View From Outside: What Other Social Science Disciplines Can Teach Us About Community Journalism (with an essay, "Community Journalism as Metropolitan Ecology," by Lewis Friedland)
 
PART III: MULTIMEDIA AND GLOBAL CONSIDERATIONS
Diana Knott Martinelli
8. Considering Community Journalism from the Perspective of Public Relations and Advertising (with an essay, "The Economics of Community Newspapers" by Stephen Lacy)
George L. Daniels
9. Broadcasting and Community Journalism (with an essay, "The Developing World: Considering Community Radio in Africa," by Guy Berger)
Hans K. Meyer and George L. Daniels
10: Community Journalism in an Online World (with an essay, "Citizens, Journalists, and User-Generated Content," by Nicholas W. Jankowski)
Cary Roberts Frith
11: Magazines and Community (with an essay, "Making the Mundane Matter," by Carolyn Kitch)
John Hatcher
12: Community Journalism as an International Phenomenon (with an essay, "Studying the Global Community of Community Journalists," by Chad Stebbins)
 
APPENDIX: Resources for Community Journalism Researchers

This book has been needed for so long [and will make] a tremendous contribution. Community journalism and journalism’s relation to communities and community formation, maintenance and destruction has never been as relevant as now, yet there is not one source that provides an adequate overview of research and a synthesis of the most relevant content in the area. [This book] promises to be a widely cited foundation work in the area…I’ve waited years for a book like this.

Doug Fisher
University of South Carolina

Clearly, the best book in the field.

Professor Steven Knowlton
School of Communications, Dublin City University (DCU)
March 22, 2013
Key features

Key Features

  • Literature Reviews provide rich summaries of existing research connected to the topic of "community journalism." Those summaries are written specifically to help researchers save time and effort in developing new studies, and incorporate important lines of research related to community journalism that often are overlooked.
  • Expert Advice from short essays by highly accomplished scholars help expand the conversation about what community journalism is and why it is an important area of research. Essayists include Carolyn Kitch, Stephen Lacy, Lewis Friedland, and Linda Steiner.
  • Methods and Theory chapters are devoted to research methods and applicable theories. They provide overviews of how community journalism has been studied before, and discuss approaches that provide wide-open possibilities for new and groundbreaking research projects. Future Research opens the concept of "community journalism" beyond studying small-town newspaper by exploring the role of "community journalism" in broadcasting, online media, magazines, and advertising and public relations, The book also is written from an international perspective.

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