News, Public Affairs, and the Public Sphere in a Digital Nation

Missing from the ongoing conversation about the titanic forces reshaping national journalism is the meaning of the contraction of daily professional journalism for the communities where the majority of Americans live. Edgar Simpson spent a year intimately engaged with all the news streams available in two Midwest counties-one where a daily newspaper had closed and one where a daily newspaper continues to operate-to better understand and illuminate national news trends and translate them to specific communities. During the course of the year, all the issues routinely discussed at a hazy national level were on stark display. These included the audience creating their own narrative in the wake of a school shooting, a small town's "Spring Egg Hunt," and the battle for readers between a website and the local weekly newspaper. News, Public Affairs, and the Public Sphere in a Digital Nation: Rise of the Audience outlines the clear implications for representative democracy in the face of a daily professional journalism in retreat. If the U.S. system is to thrive, more resources at the community level must be marshaled to support journalism. Further, citizens will have to become increasingly sophisticated in understanding the type of content they are consuming and, more importantly, what information they are not consuming. This book not only puts the problems in stark terms but offers unique, community-based solutions.