This book provides an overview of the state of American journalism and news-gathering in the 21st century, with a special focus on the rise—and meaning—of "fake news." It examines beliefs, claims, and myths about American journalism and news media, includes contemporary issues and historical foundations, and places modern problems such as "fake news" and misinformation in the context of larger technological and economic forces.
The Encyclopedia of Fakery is a compendium of misinformation, deception, and self-delusion throughout history. The lens is wide—fakery is examined in the context of science and advertising, humor and law, sports and video games. Entries span eclectic topics: Artificial Intelligence, Auto-Tune, Chilean Sea Bass, Clickbait, Cognitive Dissonance, Cryptids, False Flag Operations, Gaslighting, Gerrymandering, Kayfabe, Laugh Tracks, Milli Vanilli, P.T. Barnum, Photoshopping, Potemkin Villages, Rachel Dolezal, Strategery, Truthiness, and the Uncanny Valley. From A to Z, this is the definitive guide to how we are tricked, and how we trick ourselves.
Although news outlets are meant to be impartial, they have never been perfectly unbiased. Another layer was added to the ongoing debate over the role of news media after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when allegations of fake news surfaced. How can people know which news sources to trust? This volume explores the fake news phenomenon and offers readers tips on how to be critical of what they see reported. Full-color photographs, engaging sidebars, and discussion questions enhance the compelling text as it explores this crucial aspect of a democratic society.
Journalism as a discipline is becoming increasingly important today. It has to contend with new challenges such as the explosion of social media, heightened commercial competition in the mainstream media and the emergence of the media as a powerful actor in public policy and governance. The confluence of these factors calls for fresh thinking about the teaching and practice of journalism. A Handbook of Journalism: Media in the Information Age not only helps readers to understand today’s media environment but also prepares them to face the existing challenges. Distinguished editors, experts, academics and journalists join to examine these challenges from various angles, including some of the major contemporary trends, issues and processes in governance, institutions, administration and development, among others. The book fairly and objectively discusses a critical discipline that is at the crossroads.
This volume sets out the state-of-the-art in the discipline of journalism at a time in which the practice and profession of journalism is in serious flux. While journalism is still anchored to its history, change is infecting the field. The profession, and the scholars who study it, are reconceptualizing what journalism is in a time when journalists no longer monopolize the means for spreading the news. Here, journalism is explored as a social practice, as an institution, and as memory. The roles, epistemologies, and ethics of the field are evolving. With this in mind, the volume revisits classic theories of journalism, such as gatekeeping and agenda-setting, but also opens up new avenues of theorizing by broadening the scope of inquiry into an expanded journalism ecology, which now includes citizen journalism, documentaries, and lifestyle journalism, and by tapping the insights of other disciplines, such as geography, economics, and psychology. The volume is a go-to map of the field for students and scholars--highlighting emerging issues, enduring themes, revitalized theories, and fresh conceptualizations of journalism.
This book provides readers with an overview of news and media in the United States, and discusses the economic state of the news industry, partisan news, misinformation and disinformation, issues of representation, and the impact of social media.
In this confusing age of misinformation, how do we make sense of media messages? Media literacy and education are essential tools; we need to be able to tell fact from fiction in news that is rapidly and pervasively generated by multiple sources via websites and digital platforms, including social media. This book is a timely guide aimed at teachers and students, featuring expert advice on how to promote the necessary skills to access, understand, question, critically analyse and evaluate digital media. If we are to be well-informed and entertained by online content, it is important that we understand the news media environment and our engagement with it, in all of its factual, social and ethical dimensions.
The book critically examines research from cognitive, social, developmental, biological, and evolutionary approaches to psychology and addresses the interplay between media consumption and viewer behavior in such realms as advertising, body image, sex, and violence. Distinguished by its examination of research from a scientifically objective position, the book offers students not only current knowledge of media psychology but also the tools to challenge commonly held assumptions from popular advocacy and ideology.