Abstract
Just as journalism is vital for public life, so public life is vital for journalism. For David Ryfe there is, socially and historically, considerable variation in the meanings of both journalism and the public, with different forms of journalism being associated with different forms of public life, and existing in response to different pressures from state, market and civil society. We can think of this variation in terms of alternative paradigms of media systems, as with Hallin and Mancini; in terms of field theory, as with Bourdieu; or in terms of institutional approaches, as with March and Olsen. Ryfe takes all three into consideration in looking historically at American and French journalism, with their different positions in public life, in looking comparatively at forms of journalism outside of the West, in looking at the normative tradition and its contemporary relevance, and in looking at the future of journalism in the light of new communications technologies. This is a highly readable and widely referenced book, offering an excellent discussion of the public/journalism relationship. It is as much for the lay as the academic reader, and deserves to be broadly consulted.