Why Journalism? A Polemic

This new book from Toby Miller engages with journalism from within the cultural studies tradition, addressing fundamental claims for the profession and its biggest contemporary challenges: critiques, objectivity, and insecurity.

Why Journalism? A Polemic considers four key aspects of contemporary journalism in terms of theoretical relevance and historic tasks that are not usually considered in parallel:

• Citizenship: political, economic, and cultural
• Environment: the climate crisis and reporters’ material impact
• Sports: the importance of the popular; and
• Technology: its former, current, and future significance

With examples drawn from Latin America, Spain, and France as well as the US and Britain, the query animating these investigations returns again and again, implicitly and explicitly: why journalism? Miller argues for an answer to that dilemma that will involve a fundamental shift in how reporters, proprietors, professors, students, and states view the profession.

This is essential reading for scholars and students of media and cultural studies as well as journalism studies.