Natalie Fenton

New Media, Counter Publicity and the Public Sphere

New media have been widely used by radical groups of both Left and Right to advance their political projects. The aim of this article to provide a theoretical framework, through developing the concepts of public sphere and counter-public sphere, which allows us to understand the growing importance of alternative media in society and to indicate how this framework might generate questions for empirical research.

New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age

With massive changes in the media environment and its technologies, interrogating the nature of news journalism is one of the most urgent tasks we face in defining the public interest today. The implications are serious, not just for the future of the news, but also for the practice of democracy. In a thorough empirical investigation of journalistic practices in different news contexts, this book explores how technological, economic, and social changes have reconfigured news journalism, and the consequences of these transformations for a vibrant democracy in our digital age. The result is a piercing examination of why understanding news journalism matters now more than ever. It is essential reading for students and scholars of journalism and new media.

Alternative Media and Social Networking Sites: The Politics of Individuation and Political Participation

The rapid growth in usage of social networking sites begs a reconsideration of the meaning of mediated political participation in society. Castells (2009) contended that social networking sites offer a form of mass communication of the self wherein individuals can acquire a new creative autonomy. Stiegler (2009) and the Ars Industrialis collective believe that the processes of individuation, and of speaking out, hold the key to empowerment, agency, and resistance. In this article the authors offer a critical reflection on the logic of mediated participation promoted by social media through a consideration of the differences between individual and collective forms of mediated political participation. Drawing on ethnographic research on alternative media within the Trade Union Movement in Britain and recent research on the political culture of social networking sites, the authors argue that far from being empowering, the logic of self-centered participation promoted by social media can represent a threat for political groups rather than an opportunity.

From inception to reception: the natural history of a news item

This article compares the complex dynamics involved in the production and reception of a newspaper article. This case study is used as the basis for a broader discussion of the encoding and decoding of meaning via the news media. The article recommends that closer attention needs to be given to the linkages between these moments in the mass communication process, and the temporal contexts within which they occur.

Mediating social science

What is the interface between social scientists and the media? How does social science come over in news and current affairs in print and broadcasting media? This book examines issues in reception and production studies to build a holistic approach to the study of media representations. The authors give an accessible and authoritative guide to the mass communication process. They examine media production, the nature of media texts, the role of news sources, the general social and political context of mass communication and the ways in which media outputs are assimilated by audiences. The discussions are developed by an examination of the following areas: the interaction between journalists and social scientists; the publicity seeking activities of universities, research institutes and government departments; the attempts of individual social scientists to get noticed; the social policy environment surrounding social scientific research and its dissemination; pressure from funders; and the public understanding of social science in the news.

Counter Public Spheres and Global Modernity

Abstract This article explores the concept of counter public spheres and their relationship to the dominant public sphere. We argue that counter public spheres are increasingly relevant due to particular social and political configurations that mark out a distinct stage of modernity. We suggest that this stage is characterised in particular by the intensification of globalisation, the rise of neo-liberalism and a decline of trust and social democracy resulting in instability in the dominant public sphere. This, along with the ability to forge solidarity between disparate groups and the technological potential to link geographical distances, political causes and to organise translocal protests opens up the possibility of symbolic contest in the dominant public sphere, increased participation in civil society and as a consequence, the extension of democracy. However, this depends on two main factors: (1) the nature of participation – does it simply build on associations of interest that may have arisen out of the individualisation of lifestyles organised around consumption in the market place or is it based on something more than enlightened self-interest? (2) The relative power and ability of counter publicity to break through the increasingly privatised dominant public sphere monopolised by transnational corporations.

Mediating hope New media, politics and resistance

In an attempt to reimagine the concept of resistance in media studies this article argues for a reconsideration of the concept of political hope in non-mainstream mediated political mobilization that will take us beyond a focus on resistance to one of political project(s). The critical first step in such an endeavour is to reach beyond the confines of media and communication studies. This article draws on political science, sociology, social movement studies and cultural geography, among other subjects, to consider the ways in which new media may allow a reimagining of hope so that a collective consciousness can be developed and maintained. In doing so the article suggests that if, as scholars, we wish to enhance our political purchase then the notion of resistance in media and communication studies should be made to engage with the struggle of changing the terms of the polity.

Deregulation or democracy? New media, news, neoliberalism and the public interest

This article began from the premise that news media are in crisis. The crisis is being managed by closing papers or shedding staff. Drawing on extensive empirical research the paper argues that these cuts are having a devastating effect on the quality of the news. The cuts are being delivered to news so that shareholder profits remain in an increasingly deregulated news environment. This is having a particularly negative impact on local news. While new technology is opening up new spaces for the engagement of local communities and communities of interest, and new news spaces are emerging these are far from being adequate replacements for a quality, genuinely local, independent news service. The paper suggests that at the heart of this dilemma is a contradiction between the democratic potential of new technologies and the stifling constraints of the free market.

Social Media Is

A crap poem.

Mourning and longing: Media studies learning to let go of liberal democracy

In her essay ‘Neoliberalism and the end of liberal democracy’, Wendy Brown suggests that critical political theory needs to ‘mourn liberal democracy’ in order to develop a transformative vision of ‘the good’. The problem, as Brown outlines it, is not only that – to varying extents and in different scales across democratic states – market rationality has hollowed out representative structures and processes and organizes social life but also that ‘basic principles and institutions of democracy are becoming nothing other than ideological shells’ that nevertheless legitimate neoliberal governmentality. Brown’s concept of mourning has implications for Media Studies’ constitutive focus on publicness and political participation within the democratic nation-state. This article considers Brown’s critique in relation to the tendency in Media Studies to admit the unachievable idealism of certain ideas – particularly in relation to the public sphere and pluralism – while continuing to use them as guiding normative standards and values. The article questions how such normative ideals can provide guidance where not only the political and institutional imaginary that underpins them has changed, perhaps irrevocably, but where the continued flagging of these ideas may be implicated in the kind of ideological camouflage Brown identifies.