Journalism and Democracy

Journalism and Democracyexplores and challenges the commonly held view that the "dumbing down" of the public sphere, the "tabloidization" of news, and the proliferation of "infotainment" and "spin" are adversely affecting the quality of political journalism and of democracy itself. Combining textual analysis and extensive in-depth interviews with political journalists, editors, presenters and documentary makers, Brian McNair offers a more optimistic evaluation of the contemporary public sphere. He argues that the quantity of political information in mass circulation has expanded hugely in the late twentieth century, and that it has become steadily more rigorous and effective in its criticism of elites, more accessible to the public, and more thorough in its coverage of the political process.

Brian McNair is Reader in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Stirling University and a member of the Stirling Media Research Institute.