What is the future of the news in the era of instant communications? What is the future of journalists in general? Too much available information does not mean an informed public and highly professional journalists and books about media and its news industry are always welcomed, for their efforts to go beyond the daily informational shots.
Through a historical investigation into the domain, done by authors with journalistic experience themselves, The News Media - to be released this September - aims at offering a view into the future. With the fast forward development of communications in general, the curiosity is legitimate and especially for the journalists themselves, it requires at least some minimal forecasts.
With an almost exclusive focus on the US media history - although other countries are incidentally mentioned - it presents the struggle of the media to get recognition and access to information from the etablished authorities and a fair overview of the current state-of-arts of the digital information era, this book is a reliable source of information for political science and journalism students. It can interest as well anyone curious to get a short update about the history of journalism. the chapters are structured based on short snapshots of information, which make the lecture easy and focused.
When it comes to the future, the predictions, as expected, are careful. An interesting remark though: 'It is hard to be totally certain about anything related to the future of news. But if there's one thing we can say with same degree of confidence, it is that national (and even international) news organizations and brands will probably be more economically successful than local or regional media outlets'. However, I think that in fact media are getting more localized and focused on micro- rather than on global events, and the audiences tend to be more fragmented and thus setting their own local agendas.
The domain is vast and the selection is always problematic. This book gives interesting insights into the field, but fails elegantly to open too many perspectives.
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher via NetGalley.com
