Dear Colleagues,
I would like to announce two recently published books by me and by Scott Eldridge.
Book 1:
The Margins of Journalism
By: Lenka Waschková Císařová, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Copyright 2025, Peter Lang
Series: Frontiers in Journalism Studies, editor: Scott A. Eldridge II, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Website: https://www.peterlang.com/document/1340781
The Margins of Journalism explores the peripheral journalists and media organisations who have been overlooked in our efforts to understand a changing journalistic field. Seeing local journalists as unmapped agents of the journalistic field, this book provides a comprehensive study of local journalism in the post-socialist, post-transitional Czech media system, and conceptualises these actors as unique agents within the journalistic field. Informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, it adopts an inductive approach, presenting the stories of specific journalists derived from interviews and participant observation in the places where they work, alongside surveys of local newspapers. From these studies, this book systematically maps these peripheral, journalistic actors and their positions in the journalistic field, accounting for their relationships and the trends shaping Czech journalism to give voice to those who are not usually heard – journalists on the margins.
Book 2:
Journalism in a Fractured World
By: Scott A. Eldridge II, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Copyright 2025, Peter Lang
Series: Frontiers in Journalism Studies, editor: Scott A. Eldridge II
Website: https://www.peterlang.com/document/1288791
Journalism in a Fractured World addresses the fractured nature of journalism as it has developed online. Engaging with theories from journalism studies and politics, it bases its findings on the study of peripheral journalistic media from the US, UK, and Netherlands. It addresses the pronounced animosity that has become a feature of peripheral, political, digital news. Focusing on the metajournalistic discourses produced by peripheral actors, it develops a framework to distinguish between peripheral antagonists and agonists. Antagonists blur lines between news and politics and foment societal divisions through narratives of backlash, fragmentation, and grievance. Journalistic agonists, on the other hand, are also political and critical, but offer a constructive vision of what journalism and society can become. Journalism in a Fractured World presents theories and frameworks for engaging with these actors with a clear-eyed message about the challenges journalism faces and how we might find our way forward, even in our fractured societies.
Journalism in a Fractured World is available Open Access, courtesy the University of Groningen Library Open Access Book Fund.
Thank you.
Best regards
Lenka Waschková Císařová, Masaryk University