"More journalists are being killed and threatened around the world than at any time before. How do we account for these disturbing trends and why do journalists increasingly put themselves in harm’s way? This chapter argues that if we are to better understand the motivations of journalists and the mobilisation of journalism as a communicative and collective enterprise, one that is now capable of both reporting on and recognising the human plight of others in violent, uncivil places, it is important to understand how journalism is caught up in the vortices of history and the globalising present. The discussion develops on the important work of Jeffrey Alexander (2006), reconceiving journalism in and through the prism of the ‘Civil Sphere’, and inflected here both historically and globally. In a world of globalized communications, journalism’s capacity to report from uncivil places, I argue, has become geographically expanded, culturally deepened and, in important respects, historically and normatively compelled." (Abstract)