Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > Boosterism as banishment

Associated organisational unit

Links

Text available via DOI:

View graph of relations

Boosterism as banishment: identifying the power function of local, business news and coverage of city spaces

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>2015
<mark>Journal</mark>Journalism Studies
Issue number4
Volume16
Number of pages17
Pages (from-to)497-512
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date19/06/14
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This paper performs a qualitative critical discourse analysis of 52 local news articles from four Florida (United States) newspapers to identify and expand the notion of journalistic boosterism. In the paper, I argue that boosterism—everyday news that promotes mediatized notions of a community's dominant traditions, dominant identities, and potential for future prosperities—functions as a form of social control by performing, as banishment, an act that secludes particular social groups from participating in community spaces, social roles, and storytelling. This paper conceptualizes journalistic boosterism as operating via a duality of community building and social banishment, a practice that continues to spread across the globe.