Breaking The News

In Breaking The News, the first book- lenght study ofthe media of any AngloCaribbean country, Trinidadian journalist Raymond Ramcharitar exmines the constitution of the Trinidadian daily press (and to alesser extent, the electronic media) in terms of nationalist culture, polity, and economic factors.

This study avails itself of conventional media criticism and analysis, but also acknowledges the importance of imformal, locally specific media like Carnival and Calypso, and devotes attention to them.

The author uses a large volume of contemporary Press and broadcast citations which he contextualizes to address contemporary local issues. Two lenghty chapters are devoted to examining the formation and function of socio-historical structures which shape media practice, and the treament of race and ethnicity via the media and their effects on media practice.