Considering Community-Centered Journalism in the New Media Landscape

Inspired by the Hutchins’ Commission 1947 report on the freedom of the press, Fred Siebert, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm explored the concept of a socially responsible press. Their work to develop the social responsibility theory of media set the stage for 50 years of a theory that holds that the press while enjoying a “privileged position under our government, is obliged to be responsible to society for carrying out certain essential functions of mass communication in contemporary society” (Seibert et al., 1956). The basic premise is that the media have a responsibility to the public, and to an extent democracy, to provide a platform for discourse. In the more than half a decade since the publication of Four Theories, the media landscape has changed, drastically (Bagdikian, 2004). Media became a commodity and the highest bidder won the prize. Social media opened the flood gates for anyone with access to Internet and the idea to voice it. Traditional media outlets are no longer the main source of news for most Americans who use a blend of traditional and new sources to get their information (Pew, 2011). With these dramatic changes, does social responsibility still have a place in the media landscape? Adams-Bloom and Cleary (2009) claim that “although the paradigm shift has occurred, the theoretical writing has not kept pace with the modern reality” (p. 2) and propose a framework based on stakeholder theory to explain the current media landscape—a dual responsibility model—which “allows for an acknowledgment of the financial side of the media business while preserving the editorial integrity that has traditionally been at the root of social responsibility theory” (p. 7). This model focuses on the marketplace and the media outlets, but where are the journalists and the communities they serve? Wenzel (2020) offers another framework that is based on communication infrastructure theory and focuses on building trust between residents, local media outlets, and Book Review