Chris Peters
Chris Peters is Professor of Audience Research at Roskilde University, Denmark. His research investigates the changing experiences, conceptions and spatiotemporal aspects of information in a digital era, and the sociocultural transformations associated with this in everyday life. His work is especially focused on news audiences and the meanings people make from journalism. In tandem, he weighs this against the shifting media landscape and how it forces information distributors - and the news industry specifically - to reconsider their expectations, approaches and impact. Peters publishes in the areas of journalism studies, audience studies, media sociology and related fields of communication research. His edited anthologies include Rethinking Journalism: Trust and participation in a transformed news landscape (Routledge, 2013) and Rethinking Journalism Again: Societal role and public relevance in a digital age (Routledge, 2016). He has edited special issues on ‘The Places and Spaces of News Audiences’ (Journalism Studies, 2015) and ‘The Unlovable Press: Conversations with Michael Schudson’ (Journalism Studies, 2018, with Marcel Broersma) and ‘Capturing Change in Journalism Studies’ (Journalism, 2019, with Matt Carlson). Peters sits on the editorial board of the international academic journals Journalism, Journalism Studies, and Digital Journalism as well as the International Communication Association’s Book of the Year Award committee, Journalism Studies Division.
Address: Chris Peters,
Associate Professor of Media and Communication,
Department of Communication and Psychology,
Aalborg University Copenhagen,
A.C. Meyers Vænge 15,
2450 Copenhagen SV,
Denmark
Address: Chris Peters,
Associate Professor of Media and Communication,
Department of Communication and Psychology,
Aalborg University Copenhagen,
A.C. Meyers Vænge 15,
2450 Copenhagen SV,
Denmark
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Books by Chris Peters
But does rehashing such familiar rationales bring journalism studies forward? Does it contribute to ongoing discussions surrounding journalism’s viability going forth? For all their seeming self-evidence, this book considers what bearing these old platitudes have in the new digital era. It asks whether such hopeful talk really reflects the concrete roles journalism now performs for people in their everyday lives. In essence, it poses questions that strike at the core of the idea of journalism itself. Is there a singular journalism that has one well-defined role in society? Is its public mandate as strong as we think?
The internationally renowned scholars comprising the collection address these recurring concerns that have long defined the profession and which journalism faces even more acutely today. By discussing what journalism was, is and (possibly) will be, this book highlights key contemporary areas of debate and tackles ongoing anxieties about journalism’s future.
But does rehashing such familiar rationales bring journalism studies forward? Does it contribute to ongoing discussions surrounding journalism’s viability going forth? For all their seeming self-evidence, this book considers what bearing these old platitudes have in the new digital era. It asks whether such hopeful talk really reflects the concrete roles journalism now performs for people in their everyday lives. In essence, it poses questions that strike at the core of the idea of journalism itself. Is there a singular journalism that has one well-defined role in society? Is its public mandate as strong as we think?
The internationally renowned scholars comprising the collection address these recurring concerns that have long defined the profession and which journalism faces even more acutely today. By discussing what journalism was, is and (possibly) will be, this book highlights key contemporary areas of debate and tackles ongoing anxieties about journalism’s future.
Rather than just focus on the symptoms of the ‘crisis of journalism’, this collection tries to understand the structural transformation journalism is undergoing. It explores how the news media attempts to combat decreasing levels of trust, how emerging forms of news affect the established journalistic field, and how participatory culture creates new dialogues between journalists and audiences. Crucially, it does not treat these developments as distinct transformations. Instead, it considers how their interrelation accounts for both the tribulations of the news media and the need for contemporary journalism to redefine itself. "
Contributors to this volume describe fresh conceptssuch as de-differentiation, circulation, news networks, and spatiality to explain journalism in a digital age, and provide concepts which further theorise technology as a fundamental part of journalism, such as actants and materiality. Several chapters discuss the latitude of user positionsin the digitalised domain of journalism, exploring maximal–minimal participation, routines–interpretation–agency, and mobility–cross-mediality–participation. Finally, the book provides theoretical tools with which to understand, in different social and cultural contexts, the evolving practices of journalism, including innovation, dispersed gatekeeping, and mediatized interdependency. The chapters in this book were originally published in special issues of Digital Journalism and Journalism Practice.
This chapter accordingly explores the possible disparities between journalism’s claim of being essential to democracy and the actual news and informational preferences of (digital) news consumers. Through the lens of the informational habits of citizens, we set out to critically investigate journalism’s democratic worth anew, something the industry and many observers leave largely unquestioned. This dogmatism, we argue, potentially stifles the reflexivity needed for transformations ranging from possible adaptation to disruptive change. In this regard, this chapter argues that a bottom-up approach to begin rethinking (digital) journalisms’ possible futures is more fruitful than to depart from grand normative theories; it is more constructive to start with, in Jay Rosen’s (2006) well-known phrase, ‘the people formerly known as the audience’.
Journalism’s normative claims rely heavily upon these established modernist discourses which serve to affirm its essential role within a democracy and assert its relevance to the public (see McNair, 2012; Schudson, 2008). However, the reality is that most journalism is not a public good, at least not in the traditional economic sense. Publishers in print and online as well as commercial broadcasters are typically companies with all the drawbacks and market susceptibilities this implies no matter how much journalists, journalism studies scholars, and audiences alike frequently place expectations of public service upon journalism tout court. Even public broadcasting, for that matter, is obliged by law to cater for and reach certain audiences. Given this context, it is intriguing to consider the possible disconnect between journalism’s normative assertions, its day-to-day activities, and its actual resonance.