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Public culture, independent online news and the Tasmanian Times

This article presents a case study of an independent online news site, the Tasmanian Times (http://www.tasmaniantimes.com), to highlight and analyse a number of critical issues in contemporary media culture and journalism practice. These issues include the social and political functions of online news sources, the interplay between contending discourses of `quality' and `tabloid' journalism, the role of celebrity culture and reporting in news media, and the implications of using the world wide web to deliver news and information to readers, as well as to interact with them. The site was selected for study because of the impact that it has made in Tasmania, which is an Australian state and island home to almost half a million people who live in regional cities and rural settlements. This essay is part of a larger research project that seeks to demonstrate that news media in culturally and geographically marginal regional areas is of significance in the creation and functioning of the'network society'. The sociology of Richard Sennett and Jürgen Habermas are applied selectively in order to demonstrate the deeply rooted social, cultural and historical processes informing the content and journalistic practices that sustain the Tasmanian Times. Evidence is drawn from in-depth interviews with the award-winning journalist running the site, continuing email correspondence with him, and observation of the Tasmanian Times website.