Political Economy of Journalism

An IAMCR pre-conference

Description

As a profession, discipline and ethos of investigation, journalism is under attack. Enemies include authoritarian governments, media conglomerates, social media behemoths, vulture finance, neoliberal zealotry, climate denialism and anti-reason extremists. Journalism’s response and future prospects hinge upon education programmes, adequate funding initiatives and social media regulation, alongside struggles for reasoned debate, democratic rights, socioeconomic equality and ecological justice. In this context, the sub-themes are: capitalism, commercialism and news journalism; journalism and digital technologies; social media versus news media; public journalism futures, journalism versus disinformation; and political economies of alternative news journalism. Communication projects of decolonising, listening and engaging are woven through these sub-themes, many of which have come under threat internationally and locally in recent times.

Keynote: Professor Victor Pickard