Ethical implications of key concepts and issues in current local media research

This paper reports on current issues in research into local media and journalism and identifies ethical implications emerging from these investigations. It explores the key concepts of locality and community – and considers in turn six key issues: power relations; historical continuity/discontinuity; sustainability; local media gaps/deserts; a collaborative turn; regulatory intervention and subsidy systems. We find these explorations keep returning to the tensions between forms and models of local journalism which deliver benefit for the public and for the elites – powerful commercial, corporate or political interests. A journalism which serves public benefits, we suggest, facilitates and is immersed in the practices and processes of community. Research shows that, in some regions, local media are at a point of transition from a predominantly profit-seeking approach towards one which focuses on sustainable delivery of public benefit. But we find that on that point of inflection, the future of local media and journalism is finely balanced.