Explaining News

The book challenges the idea that processes of globalization are leading to an increasing homogenization of news on a worldwide scale by focusing on two defining crises of our time - 9/11 and the War in Afghanistan. The empirical analysis combines process-tracing, as well as both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of governmental discourses and news coverage of eight elite newspapers across the US, France, Italy and Pakistan. It develops a new multidisciplinary framework to explain news that brings together previously distinct levels of analysis: the micro level of the individual decisions made by journalists, the organizational environment of the news organization, national social and political contexts, the macro level of international relations. The book is going to be of interest primarily to academics and researchers, postgraduate students across communications, media studies, journalism, politics and international relations, as well as journalists, media practitioners and officials involved in public communication.

"An ambitious and successful forensic study of international news thatrestores coherence to discrepant theories of news formation, debunks the notion of the media as a unified agency, and restores the particularity of politics, location, and journalistic independence to their rightful place. Altogether a very refreshing addition to our stock of ideas and a vindication of the comparative approach" - Denis McQuail, Professor Emeritus, University of Amsterdam, School of Communication Research

"In Explaining News, Cristina Archetti presents a multi-disciplinary investigation of how the elite press in America, France, Italy, and Pakistan covered 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan.Using a constructionist approach, Archetti challenges existing paradigms - including the assumption that globalization is generating the homogenization of news - by assessing the influence of national structures on newspaper content.The result is a penetrating analysis, full of stimulating insights drawn from a rich and detailed pool of empirical research.Without question, Explaining News is an ambitious and groundbreaking book - required reading for scholars and students interested in global news." - Edward A. Comor, University of Western Ontario

Auteur
Cristina Archetti is Lecturer in Politics and Media at the University of Salford, UK.

Contenu
The Construction of News: A Multidisciplinary Explanation Explaining News: Conflicting Perspectives Political Discourse After 9/11 Press Coverage After 9/11 Testing Different Approaches to News