Rezensiert von Kenneth Starck

This is a compact review of the legacy of newspapers in the United States culminating in an attempt to bridge the fading presence of print with the explosive nature of the Internet. The book is intended as a textbook for an introductory news or journalism course. The book achieves this goal admirably. Another goal is to argue for the enduring presence of newspapers but to point to a news environment that is increasingly mediated electronically. In this regard, the authors are less successful. First, the broad contours of the book. There are 11 chapters. The first nine concentrate on newspapers with occasional references to the Internet. The tenth chapter (The Newspaper Meets the Internet) unveils the power and impact of the new technology and, as noted in the text, is written by a colleague of the authors, Deborah S. Chung. She does a good job. Mainly she focuses on the three facets of media convergence — technology, economics and regulation. Chung notes how the new technology makes it easier for citizens to participate in civic discourse and points out challenges facing journalism educators in devising a curriculum appropriate to the rapidly changing media environment. Mehr