Description
Book SynopsisMatthew Powers analyzes the growing role NGOs play in shaping—and sometimes directly producing—international news. Through an unprecedented glimpse into NGOs’ newsmaking efforts, Powers portrays the possibilities and limits of NGOs as media makers, with important implications for the intersections of journalism and advocacy.
Trade ReviewPowers provides a rich analysis of the role of NGOs in shaping international news, taking a useful institutional—“on-the-ground”—perspective to supplement the more celebratory analysis by many communication scholars of digitally enabled social movements, including the Arab Spring and related online phenomena. -- Stephen Reese, University of Texas, Austin
Powers offers a sharp dissection and a comprehensive analysis of the news-making strategies of global NGOs. Grounded in smart interpretations of institutional theories, the book shows the ambiguities of NGOs as news makers - the innovations as well as the limitations to broaden the content of regular news cycles. The cases discussed amply demonstrate that NGOs make decisions in fields of news shaped by multiple factors. Powers convincingly argues that NGOs do not make news as they please, but they do so under institutional circumstances existing already in a world saturated with information. -- Silvio Waisbord, George Washington University
Matthew Powers'
NGOs as Newsmakers combines rich empirical observation, gained through interviews and field work at the Syrian-Turkish border, with sophisticated causal analysis. He compellingly shows how the dwindling resources for international coverage on the one hand and humanitarian NGOs' move toward newsmaking on the other reinforce rather than sideline professional news norms. A must read for anybody interested in the fate of cosmopolitan journalism and humanitarian aid. -- Hartmut Wessler, University of Mannheim
Powers has produced a landmark study of one of the complex high-stakes dynamics shaping the future of journalism.
NGOs as Newsmakers is a work of theoretical nuance and empirical rigor that spotlights the ways NGOs are fueling important and original reporting while also nourishing stereotypes and power dynamics inherent to traditional news practices that have hemmed in reporting. -- Adrienne Russell, University of Washington
Scholars, editors, journalists, NGO practitioners, and policy experts would benefit from reading
NGOs as Newsmakers to better understand the current state of affairs between NGOs and newsmakers. In particular, by applying the field variant of institutional theory to illuminate how journalists and NGOs vie for attention in an age of information overload. -- Allison J. Steinke, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities * Digital Journalism *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
1. A New Era of NGO-Driven News?
2. The Changing Faces of NGO Communication Work
3. The Partially Opening News Gates
4. The Strategic Advocate in the Digital Storm
5. Publicity’s Ends
6. Explaining the Endurance of News Norms
7. The Possibilities and Limitations of NGO Communication
Methods Appendix
Notes
References
Index
