Edward Snowden's revelations about the mass surveillance capabilities of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other security services triggered an ongoing debate about the relationship between privacy and security in the digital world. This discussion has been dispersed into a number of national platforms, reflecting local political realities but also raising questions that cut across national public spheres. What does this debate tell us about the role of journalism in making sense of global events? This book looks at discussions of these debates in the mainstream media in the USA, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China. The chapters focus on editorials, commentaries and op-eds and look at how opinion-based journalism has negotiated key questions on the legitimacy of surveillance and its implications to security and privacy. The authors provide a thoughtful analysis of the possibilities and limits of 'transnational journalism' at a crucial time of political and digital change.

1. Introduction by Risto Kunelius & Heikki Heikkilä
2. Local Frames: Domesticating Snowden by Risto Kunelius and Heikki Heikkilä
3. Principles of Justification: A transnational sketch by Risto Kunelius & Heikki Heikkilä
4. Whistle Blowers and Journalist Ideals. The Snowden affair and journalistic autonomy by Elisabeth Eide
5. News Flashpoints and the Snowden Revelations by Adrienne Russell & Silvio Waisbord
6. Justifying Surveillance: The new discursive settlement in UK opinionated journalism by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Katy Jones
7. Security, terror and freedom: The dynamics of public opinion by Olivier Baisnée and Frédéric Nicolas
8. 'Please stay frustrated!' :The politicisation of media technologies in the German NSA debate by Johanna Möller and Anne Mollen
9. Media diplomacy and the NSA event: The case of China by Haiyan Wang and Ruolin Fang
10. Governance and digital sovereignty: The instrumental role of journalistic consensus in Russia by Dmitry Yagodin
Notes

Risto Kunelius is Professor of Journalism at the University of Tampere; Heikki Heikkila is Senior Research Fellow at Research Center for Journalism, Media and Communication (COMET) at the University of Tampere; Adrienne Russell is Associate Professor in the Emergent Digital Practices program and co-director of the Institute for Digital Humanities at the University of Denver; Dmitry Yagodin is Researcher in the Research Center for Journalism, Media and Communication (COMET) at the University of Tampere.