"This handbook reviews extant research and offers critical summaries of key topics and issues in the field, enriched by authoritative analyses of specific cases and examples. It displays pluralism across a number of axes: epistemological, theoretical, geographical, cultural, and thematic. The first
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part offers historical routes through the international development of the field and explores the epistemological grounds of multiple strands of environmental communication studies. In aiming to map the field broadly, as well as stimulating new thinking, the second part is organized along three core perspectives: arenas, voice, and place. It comprises chapters on various public spaces that are critical to the symbolic constitution of the environment, and sheds light on a range of aspects and social agents that have received insufficient attention, including research about – and carried out in – non-Western countries." (Publisher description)
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"Sustainable journalism addresses two intertwined challenges of our time: * The sustainability crisis of society, e.g. environmental crises, democratic crises, poverty, financial crises, armed conflicts, etc. Obviously, journalism has a crucial role to play here since it contributes greatly to the p
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ublic agenda, as well as people’s understanding – and hence the handling – of such challenges. * The sustainability crisis of journalism itself, which stems from lower advertising, decreasing subsidies for public service media, falling consumption, lack of trust in media among citizens, and fierce competition from online information brokers and advertising. The complex reality of today requires this kind of integrated journalistic approach in order to uphold the democratic function and not least the legitimacy of professional journalism. Consequently, journalism’s response to the sustainability challenges can be seen as a prerequisite for the future sustainability of journalism itself, ranging from high-quality, in-depth coverage to robust business models, but also extending into considerations of media systems and relations with governments and business interests. In this way, sustainable journalism attempts to counter the obvious risk that the efforts to maintain economic sustainability of the journalistic enterprise take place at the expense of professional journalism’s social/democratic mission – to hold power to account and to inform citizens, and to spur public engagement about current and future economic, social, and environmental challenges." (Executive summary)
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"Over the past years, a range of different databases have been constructed, and research efforts have been made to find the key to making digital news ventures successful. Many of them have searched for best practices, or a secret recipe for a business model that would make the news business economi
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cally sustainable in a digital era. James Breiner has taken on the tedious task of analyzing 20 media startup databases in search of patterns and major lessons learned." (Page xxxii)
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"Entrepreneurship and innovation are currently high on the media industry agenda, but focus has so far been mostly on the economic sustainability of new ventures. Considering the repressive political climate in Egypt, Naomi Sakr explores the tension between economic growth and the ethical, democrati
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c practices of Egyptian startups. The study highlights, among other things, the temporal dimensions of sustainability, where focus on social sustainability can be seen as investment in stakeholder relationships that create long term economic returns." (Page xxxii)
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"Robert G. Picard describes the evolvement of UNESCO's media development indicators. The chapter describes a growing focus on economic, financial and managerial dimensions, since, it argues, they pave the fundament to any sustainable, commercial or non-commercial journalistic venture. What Picard cr
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itically argues is that there is no universal quick fix for sustainable journalism. Any normative effort to define and measure media development or sustainable journalism also needs to take into account the local contingencies, where sustainability may look quite different depending on its temporal, geographic, economic and cultural context." (Page xxxi)
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"[This chapter] primarily devotes analytical attention to mainstream news media's ability, or rather lack of ability, to report violations against international public law in the context of war and conflict reporting, and their continuing vulnerability to propaganda and manipulation. In the introduc
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tion, the authors suggest a definition of "sustainable war journalism" which, among other things, involves "media's ability to provide citizens with reliable, objective news from multiple sources," as well as to "promote free speech and access to public information within a context of changing legal and social norms." Different forms of shortcomings in war journalism are discussed in relation to several military conflicts, stretching from the Gulf War (1990-91) to the Libyan War (2013) and the ongoing Syrian War. They emphasize the importance of integrating and addressing international public law in journalism education programs around the world. Only this can engender a sustainable journalism and prevent it making the same errors again and again." (Page xxxi)
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"[The authors] introduce a conceptual model for organizations and other stakeholders wishing to monitor and evaluate sustainable journalism. Their chapter provides a theoretical foundation for the argument that journalistic media competes for a wide range of resources that determine their success an
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d sustainability. By carefully identifying and monitoring the distribution of these resources, which include, for instance, advertising revenue, audience attention, government resources, investor capital and skilled labor, we will better understand the nuances and dynamics of media ecologies, and possibly respond to the processes by which some organizations evolve while others fade away." (Page xxxi)
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