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Part of
Participation, Engagement and Collaboration in Newsmaking: A postfoundational perspective
Edited by Jana Declercq, Geert Jacobs, Felicitas Macgilchrist and Astrid Vandendaele
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 94] 2021
► pp. 129–150

Chapter 6
Journalism now

Central and marginal aspects of news craft

| Queen Mary University of London
| University of California, Berkeley

The social dimension behind the (re-)production of news genre forms is examined in news reporting examples that present different discourse outcomes in the “postfoundational” social world for whom the prestige of news craft remains key (Cotter 2010). Stories in “legacy” journalism (New York Times) are compared with the San Quentin News, the oldest prison newspaper in the US (Drummond 2020). The SQN, while socially marginal, reflects central values of journalism in its story forms and demonstrates the direct link that media have with their audience. The NYT, while socially central, is itself becoming marginalized in the broader media context as traditional news stories assume less importance in everyday meaning-making. Together, they show how foundational discourse parameters shift or are reconfigured.

Keywords: genre, journalism, technology, news story, discourse recursivity, prison reform, reform, reporting, media form, news production, audience engagement
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Context, social consensus and communicative change
    • New news and tomorrow’s news today
  • Situating the San Quentin News in the US mediascape
    • Online variants
  • Impacts of media change and social awareness
    • Writing in context
    • A discursive and interactional balancing act
    • Social value and narrative change
  • Summary and conclusions
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.94.c6
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