"Chapter 1 argues that, nevertheless, for most people, most of the time, their immediate locality is very important. Here social change and political decisions become real; it is in actual localities that people function as citizens. A local public sphere is therefore vital to democracy, however far short of the conditions for Habermas’s ‘ideal speech’ it falls. From this follows the thread that runs through the rest of the book: to what extent can the local media in the contemporary UK contribute to this ‘space’? Chapter 2 explains the organizational and financial architecture of the regional press. Still profitable, still popular, how is the industry dealing with the proliferation of competing media platforms and convergence of technologies? The editorial strategies developed to accommodate these pressures in the context of wider social and economic change is considered in Chapter 3, which concludes with a case study of Birmingham and its newspapers. Faced with an increasing diversity, what techniques are used to ‘imagine’ the community? Does attempting to address everyone push human interest topics into the foreground at the expense of information and debate? Chapter 4 reviews the rapidly changing regulatory framework for regional broadcasting. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is being cast as the main player, but it is questionable whether it can devote extensive additional resources to news-gathering, given that its status and funding is legitimated by its nationwide responsibilities. Regional news on television is very popular with audiences, but they are not wholly satisfied with it. Chapter 5 argues that current analogue television regions and a ‘family audience’ together produce an interpretive frame in which the affective and subjective is bound to edge out content useful to the public as citizens. Only the BBC provides an adequate local radio news service, but its potential is limited by the target audience. The nations of the UK, the subject of Chapter 6, vividly demonstrate that every aspect of media, ownership, regulation and content is highly politicized. A case study of S4C illustrates both the importance of, and difficulties in sustaining, public service broadcasting. Chapter 7 opens with a review of the vital place that local media still occupy in journalism’s mythology. Many regional journalists take special pride in their work, despite deteriorated conditions, inadequate pay levels, and increasing concerns about whether the work-force, whether in print or broadcast, is properly diverse in all its meanings. Finally, Chapter 8 considers the future of both publicly funded and commercial regional media as new communications technologies drive potentially dramatic changes in audience behaviour and sources of revenue. It concludes that, if inclusive citizenship is to be sustained, blogs, citizen journalism and community media are, as yet, no substitute for conventional media forms." (introduction, p.2-3)