A Study of Attitudes Toward Audience Interaction in Journalism: Citizen-Based Reporting (Mellen Studies in Journalism)

What emerges from this study is a greatly complicated and enriched picture of the roles journalists play in our ever more complex, media-saturated world. The first chapter shows that the terms "World Wide Web", "symbolic interaction", "social construction of meaning", and "convergence of meaning" name current American social, psychological, epistomological and political movements that revolve around the interactive construction process of knowledge rather than the one-way delivery that characterizes traditional journalism. The middle chapters discuss research where nearly 200 reporters and news consumers were surveyed. The final chapter presents conclusions about the attitudes of journalists and their audiences.