Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Communication Inquiry
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
0196859909333693v1
33/3/258    most recent
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Carlson, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Media Criticism as Competitive Discourse

Defining Reportage of the Abu Ghraib Scandal

Matt Carlson

Saint Louis University, mcarls10{at}slu.edu

This article treats media criticism as a specific form of discourse that aspires to define what journalism is, what it should aspire to, and who should speak about it. Recognizing journalists' cultural role of creating shared meaning, criticism either strives to uphold journalistic norms and isolate problematic incidents as deviant or calls attention to a faulty underlying framework of news production and presents foundational alternatives. Aside from being competitive discourse, media criticism is also collective by constructing various groups through its discourse by addressing specific audiences in an effort to create boundaries of acceptability. As a site for inquiry, the article tracks criticism surrounding reportage of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in April and May of 2004. Specific critical arguments regarding the scandal are systematically examined in four different spheres: within the news, the journalism trade press, from the left, and from the right.

Key Words: journalism • media criticism • journalistic authority • Abu Ghraib

This version was published on July 1, 2009

Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 33, No. 3, 258-277 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0196859909333693
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?