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The last decade has witnessed a significant, albeit understudied, increase in media reporting and media criticism in the U.S. news media. An exploratory study of leading media reporters and media critics in the United States indicates that these journalists have considerable potential as instruments of media self-regulation. Their impact on other media professionals, however, is partially left unexploited, mainly because of the peer orientation of media critics and media reporters.

Cultures of transparency in a changing world : an introduction. Part 1. Transparency and public policy : historical and methodological perspectives. Transparency in public affairs : the rise of a successful political metaphor -- Transparency and economic development -- Part 2. Transparency in the digital age. Bullets of truth : Julian Assange and the politics of transparency -- Whistleblowers, the media and democracy in Latin America -- Blind spots : shedding light on media transparency research across the world -- Part 3. The limits of informational openness. Does transparency endanger trust? : Reflections on a delicate relationship -- Can transparency be a sin? : On the advantages and obstacles of the new silver bullet in academic research -- The limits of transparency : China, the United States and the World Trade Organization -- Part 4. Transparency and the individual : the end of privacy. Transparency and privatisation -- Transparency, privacy commons and civil inattention -- Part 5. Towards a transparent society?. Stainless subjects : transparency imaginaries of the avant-gardes -- The idea of the public sphere and social movements as agents of transparency : historical perspectives.

Journalismus ist vielschichtig und vielfältig – gerade im internationalen Vergleich. Während die Journalismusforschung mit hohem Aufwand und großen Investitionen die Entwicklungen im globalen Westen präzise untersucht, gibt es im Vergleich dazu nur sehr wenig Forschung und Studien zur Frage, wie Journalismus im globalen Süden theoretisiert und praxisnah erklärt werden kann – das gilt insbesondere für den afrikanischen Kontinent. Im Interview mit Communicatio Socialis erklärt Susanne Fengler die Hintergründe zur medialen Darstellung und journalistischen Entwicklungen dort und liefert Hinweise und Beispiele, wie Förderung und Kooperation vor Ort gelingen kann.

This article summarises the global state of the art of research into media accountability, using this overview as a framework for an analysis of 14 European countries' structures and the possibilities for monitoring their media accountability landscapes. The first step shows that a model developed purely in the context of liberal Western democracies struggles to explain the diversity of media accountability instruments, actors, proceedings, and the effectiveness of these systems in different countries. When a broad understanding of media accountability is applied, different models of media accountability frameworks can be identified globally, and even within Europe. These findings on structures and actors in the field function as guidelines for the second part of the article, which analyses monitoring capabilities in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Sweden - with a special focus, not only on the status quo, but also the capability to monitor changes and trends over time. Even in countries with generally well-developed monitoring and research structures in the media sector, much of the available literature focuses on normative questions, and available data is not necessarily comparable longitudinally or cross-nationally. International efforts have inspired key publications in a number of countries, but they are rarely followed up by continuous monitoring of developments in the field. Several cases describe a common reason for monitoring deficits: Weak professional culture among journalists leads to ineffective and often neglected media accountability measures, which in turn limits research activity and funding opportunities.

SUMMARYWhile economic theory has been applied to fields such diverse as religion, arts, law and crime in past years, journalism has until recently remained a blind spot of economic analysis. Media economists may have described media markets, but few economists so far have studied self‐interested journalists as actors in information‐attention markets. Frequently, it is still assumed that journalists serve the public, strive for objectivity in their news products, and seek to act as a 'fourth estate' in democracy. We consider this a 'nirvana approach' to journalism, and we seek to demonstrate instead that media content is severely influenced by rational journalists' and other communication professionals' self interests.In this paper we outline an Economic Theory of Journalism, referring to the few scholars of economics and of mass communication who have, explicitly or implicitly, used economic theory as an analytical tool to analyze journalism. We argue that economic concepts like principal‐agent theory, free‐riding, external effects, the tragedy of the commons, and the tyranny of small decisions can fruitfully be applied in order to provide more in‐depth explanations of often‐criticized developments in journalism such as the rising influence of PR and spin doctors on journalism, 'pack reporting', and 'horse‐race journalism'. We conclude that an Economic Theory of Journalism will enable both economists and scholars of journalism to identify and predict more systematically the failures of journalism, the excesses and the blind spots of media coverage, and we claim that economics and mass communications need to observe and to inspire each other more closely in the future.