Deregulation or democracy? New media, news, neoliberalism and the public interest

This article began from the premise that news media are in crisis. The crisis is being managed by closing papers or shedding staff. Drawing on extensive empirical research the paper argues that these cuts are having a devastating effect on the quality of the news. The cuts are being delivered to news so that shareholder profits remain in an increasingly deregulated news environment. This is having a particularly negative impact on local news. While new technology is opening up new spaces for the engagement of local communities and communities of interest, and new news spaces are emerging these are far from being adequate replacements for a quality, genuinely local, independent news service. The paper suggests that at the heart of this dilemma is a contradiction between the democratic potential of new technologies and the stifling constraints of the free market.