Find Experts & Sources
Sources Home

Bookshelf

Title Index Author Index Subject Index
    Home     News Releases Calendar     Contact        

Sources Bookshelf



Journalism: A Very Short Introduction

Hargreaves, Ian
Publisher:  Oxford University Press, New York, USA
Year Published:  2005   First Published:  2003
Pages:  164pp   Price:  $9.95   ISBN:  0-19-280656-4

Please see our media profile in Sources:
  Sources Select Resources

This book was first published in 2003 as Journalism; Truth or Dare, and it has been reintroduced into the Very Short Introductions series. Hargreaves is a professor of journalism at Cardiff University. Before that he had extensive senior experience in both print and broadcast journalism. This title is all about gatekeeping in journalism, yet he doesn't even mention that word (nor "Mr. Gates"). His material covers accountability, ethics, regulation, trust, commercialization, advertising, corporate ownerships, branding, PR, dumbing down, celebrities, readership and audience, conscience, free expression and censorship, electronic publishing, and cultural identity. He believes that journalism has now moved from being the "first draft of history" to "cultural dumbing down".

Although he uses examples from everywhere, the book is British-based.

Convergence is not discussed; maybe it didn't hit the UK?

* Audience or interest level: communication students.

* Some interesting facts: Star journalists earn as much as celebrities.

* What I don't like about this resource: seems too slick, but maybe that's what the "Very Short Introductions" are all about.

* What I do like about this resource: touches all the bases, much to think about without the answers being given, a swift account.

Quality-to-Price Ratio: 81

[Review by Dean Tudor]

Subject Headings




© Sources 2023. The information provided is copyright and may not be reproduced in any form or by any means (whether electronic, mechanical or photographic), or stored in an electronic retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.