Media Localism: The Policies of Place (The History of Media and Communication)

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. We live in a boosterish era that exhorts us to play local and buy local. But what does it mean to support local media? How should we define local media in the first place? Christopher Ali delves into our ideas about localism and their far-reaching repercussions for the discourse of federal media policy and regulation. His critique focuses on the new interest in localism among regulators in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. As he shows, the many different and often contradictory meanings of localism complicate efforts to study local voices. At the same time, market factors and regulators' unwillingness to critically examine local media blunt challenges to the status quo. Ali argues that reconciling the places where we live with the spaces we inhabit will point regulators toward effective policies that strengthens local media. That new approach will again elevate local media to its rightful place as a vital part of the public good.| Cover Title Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Part I: Introducing Localism Introduction: Where Is Here? 1. Mapping the Local Part II: Regulating Localism 2. The Policies of Localism: Debates, Dilemmas, and Decisions in Local Television Regulation 3. The Communities of Localism: Community Television in the Digital Age 4. The Ecosystems of Localism: A Holistic Approach to Local News and Information 5. The Solutions of Localism: Regulatory Approaches to the Crisis of Local Television Part III: Fixing Localism 6. The Political Economy of Localism: Critical Regionalism and the Policies of Place 7. Interventions in Localism: From Public Goods to Merit Goods Conclusion: The Right to Be Local? Appendix: An Essay on Method Notes References Index |"Energetically written. . . . Crucial topics for understanding what is actually going on behind the scenes of your local nightly news."— Sante Fe New Mexican "Shines a needed light on the threats that local broadcasters are currently facing. . . . The conversation about media localism is an important one, and this book raises critical questions and posits thought-provoking ideas for a path forward."— Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly "The book is well researched. . . . The conversation about media localism is an important one, and this book raises critical questions and posits thought-provoking ideas for a new path forward."— American Journalism | Christopher Ali is an assistant professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. He is a coauthor of E choes of Gabriel Tarde: What We Know Better or Different 100 Years Later.