Cover -- Half-title -- Series-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Mass media and civil society -- Comparing racial discourses in the news -- Los Angeles, race, and urban America -- 1 Race, media, and multiple publics -- News media and the public sphere -- Media access and participatory inequality -- The counter-hegemonic function of multiple publics -- 2 Historicizing the public spheres: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago -- An early history of the press and public spheres -- The urban ghetto and the public sphere -- New York -- Chicago -- Los Angeles -- General trends in the African-American and mainstream public spheres, 1950-1990 -- 3 The Watts uprisings of 1965 -- The Los Angeles press -- The Chicago press -- The New York press -- The McCone commission -- Racial formation, Watts, and multiple publics -- 4 The Rodney King beating -- Early constructions of the crisis in the daily press -- Narrative tension and the elaboration of the crisis -- Genre strategies and the formation of official investigations -- Narrative updating amidst failed attempts at resolution -- The Christopher Commission and the move toward resolution -- Narrative variations: race, nation, region -- 5 Rodney King 1992 -- Early news narratives: the verdicts -- Early news narratives: descriptions of the rioters -- The tragedy of urban neglect and the tragedy of history -- The tragedy of politics -- The tragedy of racial division and legal paralysis -- The persistence of tragedy -- Conclusion -- News media and the home territory -- The racial stratification of the public sphere -- Tragedy and the present crisis of race in civil society -- Increasing racial engagement in civil society -- Notes -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Race, media, and multiple publics -- Chapter 2. Historicizing the public spheres: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago.

Chapter 3: The Watts uprisings of 1965 -- Chapter 4: The Rodney King beating -- Chapter 5: Rodney King 1992 -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.