You have already read the following chapter of your textbook and taken notes. 

Carah, N. & Louw, E. (2015). Making news.  In N. Carah & E. Louw, Media and society: production, content and participation. Sage publications, Ltd. (pp.124-145)

Now your task is to go a little more in depth into the topic. The chapter takes a rather jaundiced view of journalism. Their argument that journalism is part of constructing hegemonic dominance, is fair…to some extent. However, hegemonies are always complicated – in order for a hegemonic group to lead, Gramsci tells us, it must mix in a little of what ‘we the people’ want, with their own elite desires. Foucault and Stuart Hall in different ways highlight the ambivalence, then, at the heart of many hegemonic practices: Part of the reason that hegemony can be so effective, is that we are invited to see ourselves in the values that are deployed by it, and, in fact, hegemony often makes use of our own cultural practices, and.or values to make its legitimacy appealing.  Recognize, then, that hegemony is NOT a simple brute force control; nor is it duping us into accepting things that are totally alien to us. It is a persuasive struggle over meaning in which we can often recognize ourselves and our desires.

Thus, a critical examination of their argument must also take consideration of the possibilities of journalism. What has journalism done well? When? Under what circumstances? How might we take full account of both the positives and negatives? The chapter begins, under the heading, Routinizing News Making by identifying the claims that journalists make about their work.  Let us begin by understanding those claims fully.

We begin by reading Journalists’ codes of Ethics referenced in your reading; Go to the following websites read the code of ethics of The Society of Professional Journalists below and choose ONE code of ethics from The Accountability Journalism website (don’t all choose the first one you come to, look through the list and choose something with intention). Take notes on the Codes of Ethics. What role do the codes ethics see journalists as playing in society? How do they expect journalists to achieve these goals? Why do they think these goals are important?

The Society of Professional Journalists (Links to an external site.)

Accountability Journalism website (Links to an external site.) 

I AM UNABLE TO GET A GOOD PDF OF THIS ARTICLE IN TIME FOR YOU TO DO THIS PART EFFECTIVELY. SO DO NOT DO THIS PART: Then go to the extract from Robert McChesney and John Nichols’ book The Death and Life of American Journalism. Take notes. According to this chapter, what are the roles and responsibilities of journalists and the government in American society?