Fact, fiction, and letters to the editor in fielding's essay‐journals

Letters of Intent: Election Campaigning and Orchestrated Public Debate in Local Newspapers' Letters to the Editor

“…Rather, letters are selected and edited in accordance with the identity of the newspaper, the (often only perceived) preferences of the readership, and other more mundane requirements of space and balance. During this process, editorial teams regularly change the order of sentences and paragraphs, purposefully place readers' letters in relation to other letters (Bromley, 1998;Goldgar, 1994), and, by doing so, construct debates within and between letters and contiguously signal the pertinence of the included letters to the "debate," thereby acknowledging and on occasion (depending on how the letter is being used) legitimating their contents (Richardson, 2001). Consequently, the form and content of these "debates" reflect what is seen as justifiable, acceptable, or "normal" comment by a newspaper's editorial team.…”