Rachel Matthews – författare

Drawing on expert contributions from around the UK, this collection brings together a series of insights into the contemporary local and community news media landscape in the UK. Offering an analysis of the ongoing ‘crisis’ in the provision of local news, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the book provides a critical space for practitioners and scholars to reflect on emerging models for economically sustainable, participatory local news services. It showcases new scholarly analyses of local news provision and community news practices, giving voice to the experiences of practitioners from across the local news ecology. In a set of diverse contributing chapters, campaigners and practitioners map out the period of recent rapid change for local news, questioning contemporary government initiatives and highlighting the advent of diverse, entrepreneurial reactions to the spaces created by a decline in local mainstream news services. This book is a timely examination of what we can learn from the variety of approaches being taken across the local media landscape in the commercial, subsidised and non-profit sector, shining new light on how practices that place the engagement of citizens at their centre might be propagated within this policy and funding landscape.Reappraising Local and Community News in the UK is a valuable resource for students and scholars interested in local news and journalism, as well as for anyone interested in the evolving local media landscape in the UK.

Drawing on expert contributions from around the UK, this collection brings together a series of insights into the contemporary local and community news media landscape in the UK. Offering an analysis of the ongoing ‘crisis’ in the provision of local news, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the book provides a critical space for practitioners and scholars to reflect on emerging models for economically sustainable, participatory local news services. It showcases new scholarly analyses of local news provision and community news practices, giving voice to the experiences of practitioners from across the local news ecology. In a set of diverse contributing chapters, campaigners and practitioners map out the period of recent rapid change for local news, questioning contemporary government initiatives and highlighting the advent of diverse, entrepreneurial reactions to the spaces created by a decline in local mainstream news services. This book is a timely examination of what we can learn from the variety of approaches being taken across the local media landscape in the commercial, subsidised and non-profit sector, shining new light on how practices that place the engagement of citizens at their centre might be propagated within this policy and funding landscape.Reappraising Local and Community News in the UK is a valuable resource for students and scholars interested in local news and journalism, as well as for anyone interested in the evolving local media landscape in the UK.

Local Journalism investigates the range of meanings associated with the ‘local newspaper’ and considers how digital technology has disrupted the fabric of the local news industry.Divided into two parts, this book first provides a theoretical account of how normative meanings associated with the local newspaper have been challenged by the impact of digital technology and then goes on to explore these questions via case studies drawn from a variety of contexts including the US, Ireland, Denmark, the UK and Spain. It suggests three thematic ways of understanding the role of the legacy local newspaper in a post-digital environment, namely as an information provider, commercial entity and community champion. While much scholarship talks of their demise, this book argues for a more nuanced understanding of the local newspaper and its continued significance to people, places and commercial interests. Local Journalism will benefit students, academics and researchers in the areas of journalism, media studies and sociology.

Local Journalism investigates the range of meanings associated with the ‘local newspaper’ and considers how digital technology has disrupted the fabric of the local news industry.Divided into two parts, this book first provides a theoretical account of how normative meanings associated with the local newspaper have been challenged by the impact of digital technology and then goes on to explore these questions via case studies drawn from a variety of contexts including the US, Ireland, Denmark, the UK and Spain. It suggests three thematic ways of understanding the role of the legacy local newspaper in a post-digital environment, namely as an information provider, commercial entity and community champion. While much scholarship talks of their demise, this book argues for a more nuanced understanding of the local newspaper and its continued significance to people, places and commercial interests. Local Journalism will benefit students, academics and researchers in the areas of journalism, media studies and sociology.

Regional newspapers around the globe are fighting to survive in the face of challenges to their economic model, due to the constant influx of new technology. At the same time, while studies of the national press have created a continuous narrative on the newspaper, the history of the regional press has been subject to relatively little academic scrutiny, despite being a significant industry in terms of a readership, circulation and profit. By focusing on provincial English newspapers, Matthews makes the case for the larger issue of the future of local newspapers worldwide. She argues that a comprehensive approach to the history of the regional press can result in a conceptualization of the industry in terms of the shift in emphasis between the key elements of state control, ownership, social influence and production techniques. They can be categorized into six distinct stages: the local newspaper as opportunistic creation; the characterization of the local newspaper as fourth estate; the impact of New Journalism; the growth of chain control, the shock of the free paper and new technology and finally, the current picture, the search for a new business model.