News Organizations and Social Cohesion in Small, Large, and Global-Local Communities

Abstract

This study assesses the influence of community “structural pluralism” on local news media reporting, in the context of global networks. Adopting and adapting the community structural pluralism approach, we compare news content across low pluralism (small communities), high pluralism (urban communities), and “global-local” pluralism (urban and globally connected communities). Specifically, we examine how local news media’s role in aiding community social cohesion is shaped variably by the different arrangements of power across these communities. A content analysis of newspapers of record from 12 communities with different pluralism levels offers mixed findings. Results indicate that traditional structural pluralism theory helps explain the ways that news media reporting encourages or ignores social cohesion, a finding that suggests expanded range for this theory; however, there is little support for the idea that news reporting in global urban environments is shaped differently. There is stronger evidence that the global nature of these cities and their news outlets do not diminish attention to the local area, which is an indicant of benefits for local citizens and which runs counter to common concerns about local news. Evidence of routinized coverage also exists, as a broad range of news outlets typify coverage areas in similar ways.