Media Localism

Abstract

Local media is at a turning point. Legacy outlets – television and newspapers – are declining while emerging platforms are failing to take their place. When it comes to the policies and regulations governing local television, regulators are struggling to address audience gravitation and fragmentation, the declining commercial viability of broadcasting, and the ongoing crisis of journalism. In an era of digital platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, regulators are also grappling with a question they had never anticipated: What does it mean to be local in the digital age? The lack of an answer has left them unsure of how to define a locality, what counts as local news, if the information needs of communities are being met, and the larger role of local media in a democracy. Through comparative analysis, Media Localism explains, assesses, and critiques these issues and asks how communication regulators in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom defined, mobilized and regulated “the local” in broadcasting from 2000 to 2012. Using critical theories of space and place, critical regionalism and critical political economy, and based on document analysis and interviews, Ali offers a fresh approach to localism in media policy. Through policy critique and intervention Ali argues that it is only through redefining the scope of localism that regulators can properly understand and encourage local media in the 21 st century.

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