Journalism Studies 2011: Contents and Abstracts
Previous Abstracts and Video Reviews
Contents and Abstracts of December 2011
(Vol 12 - No 6)
VIDEO REVIEW
Special Issue: Explorations in Global Media Ethics
EDITORIAL NOTE
Bob Franklin
INTRODUCTION
Explorations in Global Media Ethics
Muhammad Ayish and Shakuntala Rao
ARTICLES
The Philosophy of Technology: Globalization and Ethical Universals
Cliff G. Christians
The philosophy of technology has a substantive role in constructing ethical universals during an era of globalization. It makes two major contributions to a new generation of media ethics: a critique of the prevailing view of technology as neutral and a human-centered theory of technology. Three applications are pertinent: 1) it prevents us from universals in the Enlightenment tradition; 2) it advocates including alternative technologies in universal theory; and 3) it demonstrates the need for transforming values through education.
Ethical Flourishing as Aim of Global Media Ethics
Stephen J. A. Ward
This paper proposes a new and comprehensive goal for global media ethics – the promotion of ethical flourishing across borders. The ideal of ethical flourishing underwrites more specific global principles and provides a target at which responsible global journalism can aim. A major task of global media ethics is to re-conceive journalism ethics around the idea of ethical flourishing. Promoting ethical flourishing is defined as the development of four levels of essential goods that together constitute the idea of the human good: individual goods, social goods, political goods, and ethical goods (or the goods of justice). These goods contribute to a life that has rational, social, political, and ethical dignity. The paper uses work in development theory and Sen’s “capacity” theory to identify basic capacities that cross borders and should be protected and promoted by global media.
Patriotism and Popularity in News: Tough choices facing Arab journalists
Abeer Al Najjar
Journalists’ understanding of patriotism seems to be contextual, varies across time and depends on specific cultural and political situations. This paper investigates how global ethical journalism standards of impartiality and objectivity are challenged by patriotism among Arab journalists. It discusses two case studies: the coverage of Al-Jazeera news channel of the War on Gaza and the Egyptian media coverage of the aftermath of the World Cup qualifying football match between the Egyptian and Algerian national teams. Both cases show that patriotism, for many Arab journalists, is a virtue and not a breach of journalism ethics though journalists also believe that such patriotism could stifle criticism of the current political order and lack of press freedom.
Morality in Media Ethics: Readings of Nursi’s theory of God’s attributes
Abderrahmane Azzi
This paper examines ethics and morality as studied by Al Nursi, a reformist Muslim scholar accredited with the rise of the current Muslim revival in modern Turkey. The paper examines Al Nursi's macro theory of God's attribute and establishes a concise linguistic and semantic link between a sample of God's attributes and journalism ethics. The paper presents a normative perspective on journalism ethics from the religious-Islamic standpoint and maintains that the field of journalism ethics is further enhanced and transformed when the religious source of morality is brought to bear on ethics and practices.
Television Reality Shows in the Arab World: The case for a ‘glocalized’ media ethics
Muhammad Ayish
As much as Western-style reality television in the Middle East has gained extensive popularity among the region’s audiences, it has also provoked serious ethical questions. In addressing this emerging genre, some television channels have evolved their own reality shows that emphasize local values and traditions. Based on a survey study and a focus group discussion involving University of Shajrah (UAE) students who were exposed to two sets of reality shows, one “globalized” and the other “localized”, it was clear that both were perceived to carry converging and diverging universal and Arab-Islamic values and norms. The findings of the study suggest that perceptions of a convergence between indigenous and universal media ethics supports the case for a “glocalized” media ethics the Arab World needs to sustain its emerging media industries in a global context.
The ‘Local’ in Global Media Ethics
Shakuntala Rao
This article explores critical regionalism, as defined in the works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, as a way to understand and expand the concept of ‘local’ in global media ethics. By using examples of South Asian media the essay concludes that the epistemic inclusion of critical regionalism, contextualized within the broader disciplinary position of Postcolonial theory, can enrich our understanding the nexus of media ethics, localization, and identity politics.
Meanings of Responsibility and Freedom: Negotiating African perspectives in global mediaethics
Herman Wasserman
This article argues that a global media ethics can only be arrived at via a study of local contexts. Following the notion of a ‘critical dialogic ethics’ suggested by Christians (2010), it is argued that a global media ethics should be constructed not as an overarching framework or global social contract arrived at through rational deliberation of ethical concepts removed from historical contexts, everyday lived experience and embedded practices, but through critical dialogue and interaction with Others within those contexts. An ethnographic, cultural approach that seeks narrative accounts of local values and practices should go beyond accepting local values and practices as unalterable or essentialist. Such a global dialogic ethics would start with thick descriptions of contextual values and practices. This article offers a first step towards a description of such values and practices within two particular African contexts, South Africa and Namibia. The contextual understanding of normative concepts of “social responsibility” and “freedom” are explored in journalistic narratives. The article points to conflicting interpretations of these notions and highlighting the need for an approach to global media ethics that takes account of the complexity of African contexts.
Journalism’s Moral Sentiments: Negotiating Between Freedom and Responsibility
Lee Wilkins
Philosophers since Adam Smith and David Hume have theorized that emotions play a role in ethical decision making. The most recent findings in neuroscience suggest that moral action does not occur without a firm handshake with the emotions. This paper explores the connection between emotions, bounded rationality and professional ethical decision making, specifically journalistic negotiation between freedom and responsibility. Based on the findings of neuroscience and coupled with feminist ethics and the concept of protonorms as outlined by Christians (2009, 2010), journalists’ moral sentiments regarding these core concepts are linked to the development of a moral imagination that seeks both professionally sound and morally creative alternatives to difficult ethical choices. A case study of one documentary filmmaker illustrates the theory.
Negotiating Global and Local Media Ethics: A case-study of how a local Dubai radio talk show covered the arrest of a couple for kissing in public
James Piecowye
Nightline is an English language talk radio format program broadcast in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on 103.8FM. As the host of Nightline, I try to balance local, sensibility, regulations, institutional codes of conduct, regional morality, and global media ethics. Through investigations and interviews, Nightline regularly pushes the boundaries of what is defined as acceptable programming in the United Arab Emirates. In this paper, I discuss one particular case study which highlights the difficulty of negotiating global and local journalism ethics in a predominantly Arab-Muslim region.
REVIEWS
Research Review
Voices from Asia and Beyond: Centre for Communication Research at City University of Hong Kong
Chin-Chuan Lee
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of October 2011
(Vol 12 - No 5)
VIDEO REVIEW
ARTICLES
Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere of Influence: British-American press competition in early twentieth-century China
Yong Z. Volz and Chin-Chuan Lee
British-American press competition occurred in semi-colonial China in the early 20th century, when the US, as a rising world power, challenged the British monopoly by advocating an “Open Door Policy.” While the British and American presses in China strengthened the cohesion of their respective expatriate communities, we maintain that these newspapers also contributed in a fundamental way to the colonial reconfiguration and power redistribution between Britain and the US as they vied for influence with different ideas and practices of colonialism. The historical legacies of semi-colonialism are relevant to contemporary globalization where countries are growing more interconnected while constantly competing for power and privilege.
‘A Mirror of the Times’: A history of the mirror metaphor in journalism
Timothy P. Vos
This is a cultural history of how the mirror was invoked as a metaphor for newspapers and journalism during parts of the 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S. This study examines how journalists’ own discourse invoked the mirror as a metaphor and how this discourse related to the broader cultural understanding about the nature of mirrors. Three main meanings emerged— the mirror as means for self-reflection and moral judgment, the mirror as reliable reflection of events, and the mirror as reflection of the nature of a newspaper’s readership or market.
Giving Voice To The “Voiceless”: Incorporating nonhuman animal perspectives as journalistic sources
Carrie Packwood Freeman, Marc Bekoff and Sarah M. Bexell
As part of journalism’s commitment to truth and justice by providing a diversity of relevant points of view, journalists have an obligation to provide the perspective of nonhuman animals in everyday stories that influence the animals' and our lives. This essay provides justification and guidance on why and how this can be accomplished, recommending that, when writing about nonhuman animals or issues, journalists should: 1) observe, listen to, and communicate with animals and convey this information to audiences via detailed descriptions and audiovisual media, 2) interpret nonhuman animal behavior and communication to provide context and meaning, and 3) incorporate the animals’ stories and perspectives, and consider what is in their best interest. To fairly balance animal-industry sources and the anthropocentric biases that are traditionally inherent in news requires that journalists select less objectifying language and more appropriate human sources without a vested interest in how animals are used.
Gender Discourse and Ubuntu Media Philosophy: News framing of rape in Sowetan Online
Nancy Worthington
This paper examines news framing of rape on the website of South Africa’s most popular newspaper during 2008-2009, following the passage of major legislation reforming the treatment of sexual assault. A qualitative analysis of 145 Sowetan Online news stories revealed three major, often overlapping frames: (1) ubiquity of rape, (2) enforcing male dominance, and (3) justice denied. Drawing on literatures addressing anti-rape activism and media in South Africa, I argue that the dominant framing mobilizes the discourse of anti-rape advocates, although with notable caveats attributable to the adherence to news values of drama, conflict and celebrity, which serve the website’s interest competing with rivals in an increasingly tabloid-oriented marketplace. The dominant framing pattern is attributed, in part, to editorial decisions consistent with ubuntuism philosophy, which privileges educating the public, facilitating dialogue, and eradicating social hierarchy. The findings suggest that, when gender hierarchy is fore-grounded as problematic, ubuntuism- influenced news frames can challenge cultural discourses that resist progressive reforms. Additionally, the case suggests that media philosophy and media organization reputation can be important influences on news framing.
Authors and Poets Write the News: A case study of a radical journalistic experiment
Hagar Lahav and Zvi Reich
This study analyzes a journalistic community’s interpretation of an experiment in which authors (primarily fiction writers) and poets replaced the reporters of a major Israeli newspaper and produced the news in two special issues. Using a mix of methodologies – content analysis, interviews with journalists and authors, a survey among journalists and analysis of readers’ responses – the study shows that the journalistic community reacted conservatively to this exceptional project and framed it as a “deviation” to be rejected as “not real journalism.” This may suggest that the journalistic communities’ reflexive protection of their familiar routines is so strong that it may endanger their ability to survive unfolding threats.
Citizen Journalists and Their Third Places: What makes people exchange information online (or not)
Sue Robinson and Cathy DeShano
This research examines whether people who contribute to local news sites achieve feelings of community typically associated with America’s “Third Places” (an Oldenburg, 1991, term that refers to the coffee shops, libraries and other community gathering spots). The article posits that some so-called “citizen journalists” find that they enhance their individual fulfillment, empowerment over information and local communal connections when they contribute to local news sites and blogs online. The research also explored why some otherwise motivated people remain non-contributors. Four realms of tension inhibit full engagement – perceptions of a social collective, authority over information, temporal confusion, and a spatial discomfort between physical and virtual worlds.
Heroes in the Sports Pages: The troubled road to victory for Belgian cyclist Tom Boonen
Tim Hoebeke, Annelore Deprez and Karin Raeymaeckers
Concepts such as myth and archetype offer interesting opportunities for research on media content. Both concepts, however, have very diffuse definitions and operationalizations stemming from specific fields of application. As a result, the concepts of myth and archetype have proved difficult to translate into a transparent and replicable research design to study journalistic output. This paper aims at a thorough operationalization of the hero myth/archetype. The hero archetype will be explored in detail as it is one of the most common archetypal narratives. The archetypal hero journey is translated by developing an operational hero grid in which the archetypal hero narrative is classified in nine sequences and three constituent components. The Flemish press coverage of cyclist Tom Boonen is analyzed to test empirically the developed research tool. While the emphasis of this paper lies on the empirical testing of this research tool, it also aims to broaden empirical data on the coverage of sport figures in the press. Results clearly show myth at work in the newspaper reporting on Tom Boonen.
Mediating a Global Imaginary: Obama’s “Address to the Muslim World” in the Western European press
Markus Ojala
This article addresses the role of journalism in the construction and mediation of global imaginary. I suggest that the notion of global journalism helps us understand how the image of an interconnected world becomes embedded in the news. The operation of global journalism is illustrated with a qualitative content analysis of the coverage of President Obama’s “Address to the Muslim World” in quality British, German and Spanish newspapers. The analysis examines how the newspapers make sense of the President’s lecture in Cairo as a transnational news event by evaluating it against the political and historical background of the Middle East conflict and the contentious intercultural relations between “the Muslim world” and “the West”. Based on the analysis, I argue that the Western European newspapers craft a strikingly unified narrative of the Cairo event. The article concludes with a discussion on the implications of transnational news narratives and on the relevance of global imaginary in journalism.
Disturbing the Peace: Gender, journalism and the Cypriot press
Mashoed Bailie and Bekir Azgin
This article explores the structures of both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot press in Cyprus in order to consider the role that gender plays in the construction and distribution of knowledge in Cypriot society. The question is whether columns published across the ideological spectrum in both the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot daily press challenge preconceived notions of gender in the broader communities or whether they reproduce and reinforce previously held patriarchal views of the roles of men and women as citizens in Cyprus. Such views, it is argued, have systematically marginalized women from visible participation in offering alternative futures for the Cypriot communities in Cyprus and relegated them to the position of secondary agents who more often than not play the role of bringing to fruition the imaginings of their male counterparts.
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of June 2011
(Vol 12 - No 3)
VIDEO REVIEW
ARTICLES
Mapping Journalism Cultures Across Nations: A comparative study of 18 countries
Thomas Hanitzsch, Folker Hanusch, Claudia Mellado, Maria Anikina, Rosa Berganza, Incilay Cangoz, Mihai Coman, Basyouni Hamada, María Elena Hernández, Christopher D. Karadjov, Sonia Virginia Moreira, Peter G. Mwesige, Patrick Lee Plaisance, Zvi Reich, Josef Seethaler, Elizabeth A. Skewes, Dani Vardiansyah Noor and Edgar Kee Wang Yuen
This article reports key findings from a comparative survey of the role perceptions, epistemological orientations and ethical views of 1800 journalists from 18 countries. The results show that detachment, non-involvement, providing political information and monitoring the government are considered essential journalistic functions around the globe. Impartiality, the reliability and factualness of information, as well as adherence to universal ethical principles are also valued worldwide, though their perceived importance varies across countries. Various aspects of interventionism, objectivism and the importance of separating facts from opinion, on the other hand, seem to play out differently around the globe. Western journalists are generally less supportive of any active promotion of particular values, ideas and social change, and they adhere more to universal principles in their ethical decisions. Journalists from non-western contexts, on the other hand, tend to be more interventionist in their role perceptions and more flexible in their ethical views.
From Idealist-Entrepreneur to Corporate Executive: Provincial newspaper editors’ and publishers’ ways-of-thinking from the mid-1800s to the present
Monika Djerf-Pierre and Lennart Weibull
This article describes the changes in the management of provincial newspapers in Sweden from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Five Swedish newspapers form the focus of the study:Barometern (Kalmar), Borås Tidning (Borås), Jönköpings-Posten (Jönköping), Nya Wermlands-Tidningen (Karlstad) and Sundsvalls Tidning (Sundsvall). The article traces the development of the organizational cultures of the newspapers and the ways-of-thinking that have guided editors and publishers, in particular their ideas of the paper as a business or editorial venture, respectively. The findings indicate that changes in managerial thinking hardly follow a linear development, but are instead characterized by what is known in institutional theory as critical junctures (formative phases) and path dependency. At certain crucial points in a paper’s history choices are made that continue to influence the paper’s development for many years thereafter. Typically, it is the ways-of-thinking regarding the business aspects of newspaper publishing, the ideas about the newspaper’s role in society and the newspapers approach to other political, cultural and social institutions that linger on.
Online Journalism and the Promises of New Technology: A critical review and look ahead
Steen Steensen
Research about online journalism has been dominated by a discourse of technological innovation. The “success” of online journalism is often measured by the extent to which it utilizes technological assets like interactivity, multimedia and hypertext. This paper critically examines the technologically oriented research about online journalism in the second decade of its existence. The aim is twofold. First, to investigate to what degree online journalism, as it is portrayed in empirical research, utilizes new technology more than previously. Second, the paper points to the limitations of technologically oriented research and suggests alternative research approaches that might be more effective in explaining why online journalism develops as it does.
Construction of Semi-Investigative Reporting: Journalists’ discourse strategies in the Slovenian daily press
Melita Poler Kovačič and Karmen Erjavec
In the last few years, a new practice known as semi-investigative reporting has appeared in Slovenian journalism. This article presents a study of the strategies used by reporters to construct an image of investigative reporting and of reporters’ own interpretations of this practice. A critical discourse analysis of reports of institutional scandals in the Slovenian quality daily press during a four-year period is combined with in-depth interviews with reporters. Textual analysis revealed four strategies used in the majority of reports: factism; extensive citing of authoritative official sources; reliance on faceless (secret) sources; and appealing to common knowledge and common sense. The interviewees justified semi-investigative reporting via the changes in contemporary journalism, the tastes and desires of their readers, and market-driven pressures from editors. Semi-investigative reporters do not uncover failures in society’s systems of regulation, but in truth they stabilize relations of power within society. In the long term, this practice is harmful to the readers who are exposed to the agendas and frames of official sources under the veil of investigative reporting, which diminishes the credibility of quality media, which are supposed to make those holding power accountable.
Not One of U.S. Kate Adie’s report of the 1986 U.S. bombing of Tripoli and its critical aftermath
Michael Higgins and Angela Smith
Although the professional activities of the war correspondent have commanded critical attention for much of the last century, discussion has intensified in recent years. This article seeks to place some of these debates within a longer-term perspective, by examining a broadcast by the BBC journalist Kate Adie, reporting on the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986: a broadcast that attracted widespread media and political hostility at the time, as well as prompting the governing Conservative Party to commission a report on perceived bias in BBC news reports. Using Adie’s previously unavailable reporters’ notebooks, as well as other contemporary material, the article examines the processes of drafting involved in the broadcast, including the discarded elements. The article outlines evidence of the configuration of human interest-driven news values for an environment of civilian injury and destruction, drawing upon a tradition of the war correspondent as “witness”. The article suggests that accusations of a lack of objectivity on Adie’s part failed to account for the role of a particular set of interpretive conventions in reporting the bombing’s aftermath, and such broadcasts may be more productively assessed within discussions of “contextual objectivity” in war reporting.
Agenda-Setting and Attitudes: Exploring the impact of media salience on perceived salience and public attitude strength of U.S. presidential candidates from 1984-2004
Spiro Kiousis
This study examined the relationships among media salience of presidential candidate images, perceived candidate salience, and public attitude strength using media and public opinion data from six U.S. presidential elections. The results indicate that media salience is positively related to both public salience and attitude strength. In addition, the findings offer modest evidence suggesting that the sequence of influence among these variables entails media salience leading to stronger attitudes, which subsequently results in increased public salience. The implications of the findings are discussed.
Examining Professional and Academic Culture in Chilean Journalism and Mass Communication Education
Claudia Mellado
This article discusses key findings from a survey of the professional patterns, scholarly productivity, and educational characteristics of Chilean Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) educators, as well as documentary information about the schools where they work. The results reveal a weak academic culture that contrasts with a strong professional culture among the members of this community, but also the influence that both organizational and individual variables have on Chilean JMC educators’ orientations. Specifically, the analyses indicated that the level of education, part-time/full-time commitment, and the type of university are the most influential factors in defining both the prevalence of a professional culture and the lack of research productivity. These findings support other international studies, indicating a global tendency across key variables that influence academic development in the field. Likewise, it shows how distant Chilean JCM educators are from the university-scholarly tradition.
REVIEWS
Research Review: Center for Journalism Ethics, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Stephen J. A. Ward
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of April 2011
(Vol 12 - No 2)
VIDEO REVIEW
ARTICLES
The Wire: Dramatising the crisis in journalism
Roger Sabin
The acclaimed HBO television drama The Wire (2002-2008) is both journalistic and about journalism. It was created by a former journalist, David Simon; it was part-based on two journalistic investigations (which became Simon’s Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and Simon and Ed Burns’ The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood); and it tells its story in an almost docu-drama style largely inspired by ‘New Journalism’. Most pertinently, Season 5 of the show focuses on a newspaper, The Baltimore Sun, and explores in methodical fashion the failings of modern journalistic practice. The question posed by the season is a simple one: why isn’t Baltimore, and by extension America, ‘getting the message’? This essay seeks to explore the roots of The Wire’s analysis, the dramatic techniques it utilises to get its message across, and the reaction to the show in the newspaper industry. Although comparisons with the industry are inevitable, the essay is more interested in The Wire’s manipulation of the ‘rhetoric of the real’ rather than any correlation with ‘the real’ itself (always in inverted commas). It is a contention that the show capitalises on the freedom offered by fictional (TV) writing to present a critique that is reformist and nostalgic, but which is informed by Marxist-derived media theory.
Reality Without Scare Quotes: Developing the case for critical realism in journalism research
Kate Wright
This article builds on initial arguments about the advantages of using Critical Realism as an underpinning ontology in Journalism Studies, by discussing its compatibility with practical journalistic teaching and some aspects of constructivism, its grounds for political and ethical engagement, and its ability to open up new avenues of research in Journalism Research. In particular, it advances ideas about the ways in which Critical Realism allows Journalism scholars to move beyond the rigid categorisation of different fields of research, by encouraging the critical exploration of the inter-relationship/s of structure and agency. It then turns to 'mid-range' theory-building: considering whether the work of Archer, Bourdieu and Bates would help researchers ask more nuanced questions about journalistic processes and products, as well as assisting them in modelling time and change.
Beyond the Broadcast Interview: Specialized forms of interviewing in the making of television news
Mats Ekström and Åsa Kroon Lundell
Based on a mixed-method approach, this article aims at exploring the specialized forms of interviewing that are used as resources in television broadcast news production. Interviews are analyzed as functionally specialized forms of interaction (cf. Heritage, 1985) with various functions in different phases of the news production. We assume that interviews are organized and carried out as communicative activities oriented towards specific tasks, identities and contexts of interaction. In contrast to established definitions of the archetypical on air news interview, we argue that broadcast interviewing is only partially produced for an “overhearing audience” (ibid.). Taking into account the entire process of producing and presenting news, journalism harbours a multitude of interviewing practices and activities which remain invisible if only the taped and transcribed broadcast talk is analyzed. Our study clearly indicates that news interviews contain more diversified and hybrid activities of communication than have been described in previous research.
The Potential of Web-Only Feature Stories: A case study of Spanish media sites
Ainara Larrondo Ureta
This article presents a case study that examines formal, stylistic and functional characteristics of the web-only special features of three Spanish quality newspaper sites. The research, conducted in the framework of the author’s doctoral dissertation, employs a mixed methodology based on an analysis of their links and their hypertextual structure, as well as on interviews with the editors concerned. The results show an extensive use of the technique of non-linear and multimedia writing, as well as specific narrative patterns that require further creative skills. These findings make it possible to understand why this type of production is today one of the main values in the informative and business strategy of the most popular online media. From a less pragmatic point of view, the case studies confirm the potential of this type of microsite for developing stories in depth, which supposes an enriching of the traditional genre of the feature or special report. The article discusses the implication of these findings for reporting practice and the need for further research about the impact of Internet on the principles of journalism genres.
Mothering and Governing: How news articulated gender roles in the cases of Governors Jane Swift and Sarah Palin
Jamie Loke, Dustin Harp and Ingrid Bachmann
Media discourse scrutinized Massachusetts’ Governor Jane Swift when she bore twins but Governor Sarah Palin’s pregnancy garnered different reactions. From a feminist perspective, this research uses articulation theory to examine discursive links and frames in news coverage of Swift and Palin as governors and mothers — both of whom were members of the Republican Party and proponents of heterosexual marriage. Articulations vilified Swift’s parenting and governing because she strayed from a dominant mothering ideology and her husband, a stay-at-home father, disrupted hegemonic white masculinity. News stories about Palin, in contrast, present her circumstances favorably, we argue, because she identified herself foremost as a mother and more closely fitted familial gender roles.
Between Impartiality and Ideology: The BBC’s paradoxical remit and the case of Islam-related television news
Chris Flood, Stephen Hutchings, Galina Miazhevich and Henri Nickels
This article examines the paradoxical requirements of the BBC’s public service broadcasting (PSB) remit, which prescribes impartiality, fairness and balance in news reporting but also requires the broadcaster to serve specified civic values deemed fundamental to British society. Since this combination of civic values is not ideologically neutral, it raises the question of how liberal ideological assumptions are communicated in news items purporting to show due impartiality. The matter is further complicated when the quality of background information and analysis accompanying news stories is included as a factor within the remit, while market pressures and other practical constraints push in a different direction. We examine the tensions arising in this regard with reference to the reporting of Islam-related topics on the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News over two years (November 2006 – October 2008). Our analysis combines a quantitative overview of frequency, salience and patterns of topic selection across the dataset as a whole with a case study of reports on one of the legal trials arising from a protest demonstration by Muslims in London. The concluding discussion reflects on the trade-offs involved in applying the different aspects of the BBC’s remit to newsmaking practice.
Transnational Journalism Education: Promises and challenges
Kevin Grieves
Journalism educators in Europe are gradually implementing training aimed at breaching borders between national newsroom cultures. At the same time, a “European” journalism culture has yet to materialize on a significant scale in the continent’s newsrooms. This article examines this disconnect via a case study of a new transnational journalism education program. Graduates of the Master’s in French-German journalism program face challenges in locating jobs that utilize their abilities, in large part because the media world still seems locked into national ways of thinking about journalism. As a result, these future journalists often find themselves in a sort of limbo, armed with a cutting-edge preparation but stymied by a profession still waiting to advance to a pan-European mindset.
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of February 2011
(Vol 12 - No 1)
VIDEO REVIEW
Special Issue: Journalism as an Institution
EDITORIAL NOTE
INTRODUCTION
David Ryfe & Mark Ørsten
We introduce a special journal issue on new institutionalism and the news. This tradition began with the publication of Cook (1998) and Sparrow ’s (1999) analyses of American news media. At the time, Cook and Sparrow turned to new institutionalist concepts to explain the relative homogeneity of the American media system. In subsequent essays, the authors articulate research agendas that allow for more variation across media systems and more change over time. The essays collected in this issue take up this theme in analyses of change and variation across several news systems around the globe. Among other things, the authors show that new institutionalist concepts are useful for addressing the following research questions: has the Brazilian media system become “Americanized” in the past half century? Why have American newspapers failed to innovate in response to new technological and economic pressures? What has been the impact of YouTube on broadcast journalism practices? Why do some American news organizations produce higher quality content than other news organizations? What explains the rise of objectivity in turn-of-the-twentieth century American news media? What has been the impact of commercialization on Scandinavian media systems? And, over the past few decades, have Chinese news media become a more autonomous watchdog of the Chinese government? Overall, the articles show new institutionalism to be a vital center linking research projects across the sub-fields of journalism studies to a common theoretical tradition.
ARTICLES
Quoting Practices, Path Dependency, and the Birth of Modern Journalism
David Ryfe and Markus Kemmelmeier
Using Hallin’s (1994) analysis of soundbites in network television news coverage as a model, we track the quoting practices of five American newspapers during the transition to modern news (1876-1916). We find that despite variation in the size, geographic location, and partisan orientation of these newspapers, trends in their quoting practices moved in relative lockstep. Drawing on the institutionalist concept of path dependency, we argue that these patterns are not consistent with an economic explanation of the transition to modern news. Rather, we suggest that political change—specifically, the breakdown of the third party system in 1896, served as a “critical juncture” in the transition to modern news. Overall, we argue that detailed analysis of newsgathering practices coupled with an institutional approach may allow historians to trace the timing, sequence and explanation of historical change in journalism in finer detail.
Institutional Effects on the Information Quality of Campaign News
Johanna Dunaway
Recent work highlights the fact that there are clear differences in the quality of the news product offered by different news outlets. What is not clear is why some news outlets consistently produce a more informative and less superficial news product while others do not. Media scholars suggesting an institutional view of the news media have acknowledged the idea that institutions can be multi-layered, and point to the need to understand specific institutional aspects of the media at all levels. Building from the idea that we can benefit from understanding the institutional similarities and differences between local media outlets, this article examines the quality or issue substance in campaign news coverage as a function of the institutional arrangements within media outlets and their economic and political contexts.
Youtube and the Challenge to Journalism
Limor Peer and Thomas B. Ksiazek
News media are an institution where ritualized journalistic practices govern the production of news content. This study analyzes those practices in a new realm, online video, to assess whether this form of video journalism deviates from traditional standards. A content analysis of 882 videos on YouTube reveals that most news videos adhere to traditional production practices (e.g., editing techniques, audio quality), but break from common content standards (e.g., use of sources, fairness). We find that these more relaxed content practices are rewarded with a higher number of views, while adherence to traditional production practices does not predict popularity. Interestingly, online videos that are repurposed from broadcast platforms experience the greatest spike in viewership when breaking from those standards, suggesting that such deviations in traditional television news are especially valued by audiences. We discuss these results in the context of the possibility of a new set of institutionalized practices and address implications for the current and future state of journalism.
Institutionalism, News Organizations, and Innovation
Wilson Lowrey
This study adopts new institutional theory from the sociology of organizations, as well as concepts from the study of social networks, to help explain news organizations’ struggles to innovate in the face of uncertainty. This literature suggests organizations with institutional orientations tend to adopt fleeting change, following industry trends, or even buffering internal processes from innovation in the product. In contrast, organizations that network with markets and readers tend to adopt more substantial change. Factors shaping managers’ decision-making are explored, with a particular focus on the role environmental uncertainty plays in news organizations pursuing connections within the news institution (strong ties) or with audiences (weak ties). Data from a survey of news organizations and an analysis of features on their Web sites suggest levels of innovation are low, and institutionalist tendencies dominate decision-making about product change. Where innovation occurs, it is due to corporate coercion and resources, and concrete evidence from the organization’s market. Uncertainty about audiences and technologies tends to reinforce institutionalist tendencies by encouraging managers to follow present industry trends. Uncertainty does seem to fuel the news organization’s internal capacity to innovate, but it does not lead to actual changes in Web site features. This suggests news organizations are decoupling internal processes from external processes – more evidence of an institutional orientation.
The Copy Desk and the Dilemmas of the Institutionalization of 'Modern Journalism' in Brazil
Afonso de Albuquerque and Juliana Gagliardi
The institutional research of the news media has mainly focused on the American news media and political institutions. By discussing the reform of the Diário Carioca newspaper, in the 1950s – usually referred as the birth of modern journalism in Brazil – this article aims to examine the institutionalization of the news media in a different social context. The reform of Diário Carioca in the 1950s provides an early example of the influence of the American model of journalism overseas. Its purpose was to replace the French-inspired model of journalism, literary and politically engaged by an informative, fact-centered model of journalism. However, Brazilian journalists did not adopt the American model in a passive manner. They reinterpreted it, in order to make it fit the characteristics of the local society. In order to put the new model into practice the Diário Carioca reformers adopted authoritarian modernization methods: They downplayed reporting in comparison to news writing, endowed the copy desk with a core ideological and normative role in the newsrooms, and significantly reduced the autonomy of the journalists at work. By doing so, they fostered a “professionalization without professionalism” model, and hampered the institutionalization of the new rules introduced by the Diário Carioca.
The News Media as a Political Institution: a Scandinavian Perspective
Sigurd Allern and Mark Ørsten
On the basis of Scandinavian journalism research this article discusses the changing political roles of news organizations and journalists after the fall of the party press and the dissolution of broadcasting as a state controlled monopoly. Given these institutional changes, we ask the following: what new roles, if any, are news organizations and journalists playing in the political system? What are the characteristics of these new roles, and how do news organizations use their newfound political power? We address these questions in the context of an institutional approach to the news coupled with Hallin and Mancini’s analysis of media systems.
Yu Lun Jian Du: The Practice of Chinese News Media in an Institutional Perspective
Dan Huang
“Yu Lun Jian Du”, or the Chinese media’s practice of scrutinizing government activity, has become a popular discourse in China. This study stresses that: a) By institutional arrangement, China’s media are “mouthpieces” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their “Yu Lun Jian Du” practice has always been under strict party control; b) As a media discourse, “Yu Lun Jian Du” helps journalists pursue professional autonomy under the premise of conformity to party rules; c) the emergence of the Internet affords unprecedented possibilities for free expression, however, it has as yet not subverted China’s established media system. Provided that China’s political system remains intact, the media will remain an organ of the CCP and the practice of “Yu Lun Jian Du” will remain one component of the CCP’s exercise of political power.
REVIEWS
RESEARCH REVIEW
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
David Levy
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of December 2010
(Vol 11 - No 6)
VIDEO REVIEW
ARTICLES
The NewBreed of Business Journalism for Niche Global News: The case of Bloomberg News
David Machin and Sarah Niblock
News providers such as Bloomberg's multiplatform service and innumerable business-to-business magazines are flourishing despite the hugely challenging economic climate for journalism. They are catering for a new type of global audience that demands a different editorial strategy. Rather than writing news for local markets they produce for a global professional readership. This paper interrogates the nature of this global news style through linguistic analysis, supported by interviews with journalists. The paper raises questions about the continued efficacy of 'traditional' models of journalism practice and notions of audience.
Measuring the Impact of PR on Published News in Increasingly Fragmented News Environments: A Multifaceted Approach
Zvi Reich
As news environments become more fragmented, public relations grows more sophisticated and editorial systems weaken, the impact of PR on news becomes greater and more diverse. Its scope and intensity, however, can hardly be grasped by traditional newsroom -oriented and press release-centered approaches that try to reduce PR impact to a single bottom line. The present study proposes a multifaceted approach to studying PR impact on the news. It examines textual and oral PR-media exchanges flowing inside and outside newsrooms that reach reporters personally or through their respective newsrooms and affect published news both directly and indirectly. The study adopts an innovative method: A series of face-to-face reconstruction interviews in which reporters representing nine leading Israeli news organizations detailed, contact by contact, any type of PR involvement or contribution to a random sample of their freshly published items. PR impact was found to be richer, more complex and broader than suggested by former studies. Although reporters rarely allow practitioners to serve as single sources for their items, they often let them serve as dominant sources, constituting at least 50% of their contacts for specific items. Furthermore, practitioners lead agenda building for every other item and involve themselves in no less than 75% of items by supplying information, story leads and even dubiously “technical” services. PR is more involved in business and domestic affairs than in politics, especially in non-exclusive and less prominent items and in stories whose sources stay anonymous. Apparently both parties’ interest in disguising their exchanges overrules the public’s interest in proper disclosure to enable assessment of the information and its source credibility.
Politics of Sexting: Re-negotiating the Boundaries of Private and Public in Political Journalism
Laura Juntunen and Esa Väliverronen
Sex scandals have become a recurring feature of political journalism worldwide. This article discusses the blurring line which divides public from private in contemporary media reporting and explores the changes sweeping Finnish political journalism. The intimate life of politicians has long been a taboo subject in Finnish journalism, but this has been slowly changing since the early 2000s. This article focuses on two cases including the various sex allegations made against Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen in 2005–2009 and the text messaging scandal involving the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ilkka Kanerva in 2005 and 2008. Our argument is that scandals have the effect of softening the boundaries between different media and creating greater coherence in the media field.
No-Spin Zones: The Rise of the American Cable News Magazine and Bill O’Reilly
Chris J. Peters
Over the past decade a new breed of television journalism, what I term the cable news magazine, has risen to become the highest-rated programming on the cable news networks. Despite their popular appeal, and arguable status as the definitive genre of cable news, such broadcasts receive scant academic attention. This paper analyses the most prominent of these cable magazines, The O’Reilly Factor, on Fox News. I argue that through performing belief, The Factor ‘re-makes the news’ in a manner that lowers the threshold demanded under journalism’s traditional rules of truth. Yet surprisingly, the show also adheres to, or at least lauds, many traditional tenets of the objectivity regime. What is novel, and what possibly accounts for its popularity, is the wilful intertwining of belief, journalistic involvement, and truth-claims in a brazen fashion; a dramatic departure from the cool style which epitomised 20th century journalism.
Chatting the News: The Democratic Discourse Qualities of Non-market and Market Politcal Talk Television
Neil Stevenson
A body of scholarship has begun to chart the influence of ‘chat’ modes of news delivery on discourse quality as part of what is termed the internal fragmentation of news: the shift from monological to dialogical modes of news delivery (Ben-Porath, 2007). This article investigates the democratic costs and benefits of political discourse contained in these ‘political talk’ news formats. It focuses on four New Zealand programmes and is structured in terms of market (commercial) and non-market performance. Discourse quality is measured quantitatively by content analysis; the results identify some important democratic trade offs that market and non-market modes of political talk make. This paper adds to international scholarship by contributing empirical data to research investigating the democratic values of public service and commercial news content; it also enables critical engagement with the issue of the internal fragmentation of news formats by providing a more nuanced account of political talk than previous criticisms.
The Reciprocity Of Journalism’s Social Contract: The Political-Philosphical Foundations Of Journalistic Ideology
Helle Sjøvaag
This article traces the political-philosophical background of journalism’s social contract metaphor. The social contract of the press finds its professional ideal in the intersection between republican and liberal philosophies originating with the classical philosophies of Rousseau, Locke and Hobbes. From these origins, the mechanism of contractual reciprocity is appropriated to the relationship between journalism and its audiences to expose hidden ideological traits within the profession. The concepts of rights and obligations found within a contractarian perspective thus offer a new way of conceptualising the role of journalism in democracy and the function of journalistic ideology. The press’ social contract ideology entails a professional world-view that establishes journalism as a separate contractual partner with a mission to sustain the democratic order as it is expressed in the original political-philosophical social contract. This theoretical investigation of the ideological link between the two contractual metaphors reveals how journalism functions according to the contractual reciprocity principle, particularly with regard to its expectations of balanced rights and obligations within the democratic order.
Foundation-Funded Journalism: Reasons to be Wary of Charitable Support
Harry Browne
This paper looks at examples of journalistic institutions that receive prior funding (as opposed to post-facto reward) from charitable foundations. It examines ProPublica in the United States (financed by the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation) , Transitions Online in eastern Europe (financed initially by the Open Society Institute) and the Centre for Public Inquiry in Ireland (closed down by its sole funder, Atlantic Philanthropies, after a government and press campaign against its executive director). Drawing on the sociological literature about foundations, it raises questions about the purposes of philanthropy, about the transparency of media that use philanthropically funded material, and about the assumption of a unitary “public interest” common to both philanthropy and to traditional journalism. It concludes that both a critical understanding of foundations themselves and a consideration of the case-studies presented should encourage wariness about philanthropic funding as an unproblematic model for the future of journalism.
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of October 2010
Foreign Correspondence Special Issue
(Vol 11 - No 5)
VIDEO REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Foreign Correspondence
John Maxwell Hamilton and Regina Lawrence
ARTICLES
Normalcy and Foreign News: Woodward's Law
Cleo Joffrion Allen and John Maxwell Hamilton
This longitudinal study examines what is “normal” in U.S. newspaper foreign coverage in the 20th century. A quantitative content analysis of three newspapers among the 40 examined by Woodward (1930) looked at two constructed weeks of each in 1927, 1947, 1977, and 1997. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to explain the findings related to 39,841 articles encompassing 246,301 paragraphs in 168 issues. Our findings support what we call Woodward’s Law: Putative lapses in foreign news coverage are actually the norm. Low levels of foreign news are the benchmark that should set expectations; it is the increases, which occur particularly during wars, that are exceptional. This research indicates, first, that the proportion of foreign news is relatively small in times of peace. Second, increases indicate that lamentations about the decline of foreign news during the 20th century were overstated. Third, neither absolute-item frequency nor front-page analyses provide a complete or accurate picture: Analyzing sheer numbers of foreign news articles suggests a decline while examining front-page coverage only suggests a greater supply. Our investigation, one of the most exhaustive ever, suggests a better outcome through examination of the entire news hole using both proportion and absolute-item frequency.
The (Many) Markets for International News: How News from Abroad Sells at Home
James T. Hamilton
This essay explores the economics behind changes in what types of international news reach what types of audiences in the United States. I first review the demand and supply for news from abroad, explore what has changed recently in US media markets, and then assess the likely ways that international news will be supplied in the US in the future. I also draw tentative conclusions about the implications for these media market changes for different types of US readers and viewers.
From Murrow to Mediocrity? Radio Foreign News from World War II to the Iraq War
Raluca Cozma
This content analysis compares a unique CBS radio dataset during the “golden age” of foreign correspondence (1940-1942) to National Public Radio’s (NPR’s) coverage during the Iraq War (2004-2006) to track changes in sourcing, originality, and typology of foreign news reporting on radio. Findings show that NPR outshines the golden-age performance, suggesting that we should stop taking reverential trips down memory lane when assessing broadcasting reporting and instead recognize that current reporting can be even better in keeping audiences well informed about international affairs.
Bridging Past and Future: Using History and Practice to Inform Social Scientific Study of Foreign Newsgathering
John Maxwell Hamilton and Regina Lawrence
Sourcing is a bedrock routine of American journalism, but little is known about how it may have evolved over time. This exploratory study combines social scientific and historical methods to examine sourcing in New York Times coverage of two incidents separated by decades: The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and the Russian invasion of Chechnya in 1994. We find that while official sources have long been a mainstay of American reporting abroad, reporting in the more recent case also made greater use of local eyewitnesses and media sources. Archival research and interviews reveal the contextual factors shaping these changes.
International Television News: Germany Compared
Christian Kolmer and Holly A. Semetko
In contrast to the United States, Germany has a strong public service broadcasting system that reaches all parts of the country and is mandated to deliver news from around the world each day. We discuss the key characteristics of the German public service broadcasting system and compare the quantity of foreign affairs news in evening news programmes on the flagship public service (ARD and ZDF) and private channels (RTL and SAT.1) from 2001-2007. We find that while the amount of foreign affairs new ebbs and flows, it remains substantial and within the range of 40% to 50% of the programmes on both the public service and the private channels. We then compare programmes in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, U.K., South Africa, U.S. and on transnational Arabic channels, for one year from April 2007 to April 2008, to assess what regions are covered and what predicts foreign news. Geographic proximity and national interest were shown to be important factors in explaining the regional focus of foreign news in these countries and outlets.
The Morality Play: Getting to the Heart of Media Influence on Foreign Policy
Derek Miller
One of the core questions in the research programme on media-government relations — with implications for democratic theory, journalism, governance, and international relations generally — is how the media can be influential. I argue here that the government (deliberately) and the media (as a function of their communicative acts) are involved in a never-ending conversation with moral implications that affect a government’s capacity to lead or act. This theory is validated through empirical research, is falsifiable, and has explanatory force. It also supports or otherwise does not contradict key theories in political science about media-government relations including the rally-around-the-flag effect and the honeymoon period for new Presidents. By contrast, the theory does take the research agenda away from the complexities of causality and the seeming importance of public opinion in that dynamic, while taking the field towards the study of communicative force in both inter-personal and inter-institutional relations.
Transnational Journalism, Public Diplomacy, and Virtual States
Philip Seib
As a public diplomacy tool, transnational journalism (principally broadcasting) has long had appeal to governments. It is a relatively efficient and inexpensive way to reach potentially vast audiences throughout the world with messages that presumably possess added credibility when wrapped in the trappings of journalism. Non-state actors, including media organizations themselves, may conduct their own versions of public diplomacy. New communication technologies have led to an expanded number of players in this field and to an even larger audience, which has gradually become more sophisticated and less credulous. Broadcasters are no longer just broadcasters. The most creative among them use Internet-based media to enhance their reach and influence. For purveyors of public diplomacy to earn and maintain the trust of the publics they seek to reach requires an adherence to established principles of journalism, more specifically those of foreign correspondence. If this occurs, a new genre of international reporting may take shape and help compensate for the diminished amount of traditional reporting from abroad.
Networks and the Future of Foreign Affairs Reporting
Steven Livingston and Gregory Asmolov
The future of foreign reporting is affected by more than the economic crisis gripping the Western news industry, though that too is important. We argue that overseas bureaus and foreign correspondents are tied to a particular morphology of global governance, one rooted in a system of nation-states. The nation-state is the product of a particular information technology that emerged in the 18th century, flourished in the 20th, and is undergoing significant change in the 21st. The nation-state emerged from the convergence of a new system of production and a new information technology: newspapers and books. Historically, foreign corresponding has been constituted by a mostly symbiotic relationship among institutions of nation-states and media institutions. Drawing on recent international relations theory, we argue that a second sort of imagined community has emerged. It is organized according to non-spatial relationships among nodes in electronically enabled networks and is characterized by information abundance. Conversely, traditional foreign corresponding is characterized by the central spatial nature of its purpose (foreign corresponding) and by the norms and routines that have defined its relation to hierarchically organized state bureaucracies. We offer three case studies to illustrate our argument.
Looking Forward: The Future of Foreign Correspondence Serge Schmemann
Serge Schmemann
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of August 2010
The Future of Journalism Special issue
(Vol 11 - No 4)
VIDEO REVIEW
FOREWORD
Jay G. Blumler
INTRODUCTION
Bob Franklin
PLENARY PAPER
The Future of Journalism
James Curran
ARTICLES
The Past Is Prologue, Or: How 19th century journalism might just save 21st century newspapers
Debbie Reddin Van Tuyll
The death of the American newspaper has been predicted for years now, and reasons offered to explain its demise are legion, ranging from the simple (the economy) to the self-effacing (journalistic narcissism). Some suggest the biggest problem is the lack of a viable business model, and to some extent they have a point. Metropolitan dailies, “the elite press,” are having particular difficulty finding readers willing to pay for their content. This does not mean, however, that American journalism is on its way to extinction. It is possible to preserve the newspaper industry by looking to earlier forms of journalism, in the partisan press that dominated American journalism through the 19th century. In fact, some newspapers have already taken unwitting steps in this direction, and this paper will point to other practices that could also contribute to the preservation of American newspapers.
Labour, New Media and the Institutional Restructuring of Journalism
James R. Compton and Paul Benedetti
Thousands of news workers were laid off in the UK and North America in 2008-2009. While daily newspapers were particularly affected, labour cuts also hit broadcasters and news magazines. Popular commentary has often attempted to explain the cuts as a result of Internet competition, aging audiences for news and a slumping global economy. Optimists suggest the rise of new media practices such as blogging and citizen journalism have, despite the contraction of newsrooms, expanded the range of information and opinion available to citizens. This paper is an attempt to clarify what is an unquestionably chaotic moment in journalism. Our focus is the labour of reporting – the quotidian work of gathering information of public interest and packaging it into a story. The paper uses Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory to contextualize the use of new media technologies by amateur and professional journalists in an attempt to understand the power relations that inform the work of reporting. We argue that labour rationalization in combination with the use of new technologies, shrinking audiences, 24-hour news cycles, and intensified hyper-commercialization is fundamentally reorganizing the division of labour in newsrooms. Importantly, we argue there is little empirical evidence to suggest that unpaid citizen journalists will replace the lost labour of reporting – the work of collecting information, synthesizing it and presenting it for public consumption via storytelling.
From ‘We’ to ‘Me’: The changing construction of popular tabloid journalism
Martin Conboy and John Steel
In 1886, in ‘The Future of Journalism’, W.T. Stead expressed the view that it was the ‘personal touch’ in newspapers that would transcend the vapidity of a hypothesised ‘we’. Nevertheless, it was to be the ability of newspapers, exploiting his own pioneering take on the New Journalism, to articulate a plausible version of a collective voice which was to dominate the journalism of the mass market of the twentieth century. A refinement of the language of this collective articulation of the interests and tastes of a mass readership comes in the popular tabloid newspapers of the period following WWII and reaches its most self-consciously vernacular expression in the Sun from the 1980s onwards. However, when comparing the print version of the contemporary Sun with its on-line version, we might expect to witness a radical departure from traditional notions of the popular predicated on an appeal to a relatively homogenous collective readership and a move to a more atomised, self-assembling notion of the on-line reader. The ‘personalized’ touch of this form of journalism is very different from that envisaged by Stead but by exploring the ways in which a theme which he considered central to journalism’s mission (its address to an audience) is adapting to an online environment, we may be able to reconsider the changing definition and function of the ‘popular’. In doing so, it may allow us to reflect upon the implications of a move from ‘we’ to ‘me’ in the articulation of audience in the online version of the Sun.
Rethinking [Again] the Future of Journalism Education
Donica Mensing
For many of the previous 100 years the role of a journalist was to find information, shape it into an accurate story and transmit it as quickly as possible to a mass audience via a mass medium. Today, information is no longer scarce, breaking news is no longer the province of professional journalists, mass media are declining in influence and news is easily personalized. Like many news organizations, journalism education programs are distinctly unprepared to respond to such deeply structural changes in the environment. Preliminary research indicates that the response to date has been primarily to expand technology training and reorient sequence and media emphasis tracks. The present study recommends a realignment of journalism education from an industry-centered model to a community-centered model as one way to re-engage journalism education in a more productive and vital role in the future of journalism. A community-centered focus could provide a way to conceptualize a reconstitution of journalism education to match that taking place in journalism beyond the university. Three examples from current journalism programs illustrate the implications of this analysis and provide an indication of future directions for realignment.
The Shifting Cross-Media News Landscape: Challenges for news producers
Kim Schrøder and Bent Steeg Larson
The article offers new insights for democracy and for news producers by mapping the use and users of today’s cross-media news landscape, as the everyday consumption of news across the range of available news media and formats is shifting reflecting transformations of technology, culture and lifestyles. Theoretically the study is anchored in Habermas’s notion of the public sphere, and its recent reconceptualizations in theories of ‘cultural citizenship’, 'civic agency' and 'public connection'. The project operationalizes these theories through the concept of users' perceived “worthwhileness” of news media, a user-anchored concept which incorporates the different functionalities of the situational cross-media use of news by citizen/consumers in everyday life. Empirically the article presents the findings of a large-scale survey that traces the imminent challenges facing players in the news market, as a consequence of accelerating divisions between 'overview' and 'depth' news media (across print, broadcasting and the internet). The project is conducted in a partnership of university-based researchers and analysts from one of the major newspaper publishers in Denmark, and presents the first user-based analysis of the relative position of each individual news medium in the entire news media matrix.
Rituals of Transparency: Evaluating online news outlets’ uses of transparency rituals in the US, UK and Sweden
Michael Karlsson
Transparency has been suggested as a new norm in journalism. However few studies have investigated how the overarching notion of transparency is utilized in everyday news. The purpose of this study is to identify and compare how leading mainstream online news media in the US, UK and Sweden make use of transparency techniques in news items. The results show that transparency has begun to effect online news but that current journalism practice is a long way from a fully-fledged transparency norm.
Journalism In Second Life
Bonnie Brennan and Erika dela Cerna
Our research seeks to understand the emerging journalism practiced in Second Life – a computer-generated alternative reality. Framed by postmodernism, this study uses an ideological analysis to evaluate the three Second Life newspapers: the Alphaville Herald, the Metaverse Messenger and the Second Life Newspaper. We suggest that journalism in Second Life focuses on community building and education, considers the influence of the on-line world to resident members’ off-line lives and raises important questions about freedom of expression.
The Form of Reports on U.S. Newspaper Internet Sites: An update
Kevin Barnhurst
A previous study found that U.S. newspaper electronic editions did not appear to reinvent themselves. In 2001, the web versions reproduced the substance of print editions so as to relate similarly to readers. A replication of the study shows that by 2005 the online editions were changing, especially in the form of news. For readers, the laborious process involved in using the Internet editions in 2001 had changed, but many clicks and scrolls had shifted from mapping the content to managing reading. Multiple screens for each story exposed readers to more ads. Some interactive elements became standard, such as reader-produced comments and links to archives. But individualized hyperlinks to resources from other agencies or providers were rare, keeping traffic inside the site. The Internet versions were still visually meager compared to print, which has more typographical range and many more graphics and pictures. The study results suggest that print publishers have moved only tentatively into the new technology, continuing a long history as slow adopters of innovation and new techniques for informing the public. Their primary drive has been to serve the needs for revenue, not to provide for the comfort and information of citizens.
The Gradual Disappearance of Foreign News on German Television: Is there a future for global, international, world or foreign news?
Klaus-Dieter Altmeppen
Television news (especially foreign news) is under constant threat of being replaced by live sporting events or film award ceremonies, as hard news is increasingly substituted by soft news, infotainment, or popular journalism. These developments are indicators of structural forces acting to change the nature of television and journalism in Germany. However, the current media crisis has revealed that these forces are indicative of changing structures globally that are leading to a gradual disappearance of foreign news from TV channels. This paper aims to establish a theoretical setting that describes the structural characteristics of this disappearance of foreign news and its relevant mechanisms. Accordingly, this paper outlines a theoretical model for analysing the mechanisms of economization (where economic factors rather than editorial standards drive news reporting), based on differentiation between the media organisation and newsrooms as the prominent organisational expression of journalism. The differentiation is based on the different functions and performances of media organisations and newsrooms. The (metaphorical) assumption is that journalism sells the news to media organisations, while they pay for the news (via resources), one reason for the disappearance of foreign news stems from the changing rules of the business of the media.
The Future of Newsmagazines
Carla Rodrigues Cardoso
More than 80 years ago, Time magazine was launched in the United States, heralding the birth of a new journalistic genre. Since then, countless newsmagazines have appeared around the world. What are the elements that contribute towards the success of this journalistic genre today? And what are the perspectives for the future of newsmagazines? This study analyses 26 issues of six newsmagazines – Time (4 copies), Newsweek (4), L’Express (5) Le Nouvel Observateur (5), Sábado (4) and Visão (4) during January 2009. The focus of the study is on the covers (cover lines, images, design) and the subjects that each magazine chooses for the front page. The objective is to cross-reference the data gathered using content analysis with the results of a previous study of newsmagazines in 1999. Comparing the reality of ten years ago with newsmagazines today facilitates understanding of the differences between this genre and others, as well as the ways in which newsmagazines are adapting to the advances of digital journalism. It will also assist in understanding whether it is really possible to talk about a “newsmagazine genre”, based on the differences and similarities found within the selected corpus.
Journalistic Elites In Post-Communist Romania: From heroes of the revolution to media moguls
Mihai Coman
In the 20 years since the fall of communism, the professional field of journalism has been increasingly carved up by press barons on the one hand and the majority of ordinary journalists on the other. The euphoric attitude and the solidarity that marked the very beginnings of a free press slowly faded away. They were replaced by the fight to achieve and maintain control over the resources offered by mass media: economic status, political power and social prestige. In fact, one group has monopolized the economic resources, the access to centres of political decision-making and the channels of distribution of professionally legitimating discourse. This study examines the mechanisms used by a group of journalists to achieve economic and professional control. In other words, the study shows how star journalists became media moguls.
News from and in the ‘Dark Continent’: Afro-pessimism, news flows, global journalism and media regimes
Arnold S. deBeer
The concepts news flow, global journalism/news and media regime are under theoretical construction. News media content is becoming increasingly deterritorialised, involving complex relations and flows across national borders and continents. Consequently, it becomes more difficult to categorise news in the traditional binary context as either national or international news as was the case with news flow studies since the mid-1990s. These changes are perhaps most evident in centres outside the global North, where rapid development of media infrastructures, coupled with political and social shifts as a result of widespread democratisation since the mid-1990s, have brought about complex configurations of the local/global relationship in news. Global journalism/news is suggested as an alternative concept and the notion of media regimes is introduced as a way to interrogate assumptions about global news flows as it relate to Africa. A content analysis of TV news channels in three world regions was conducted to facilitate the analysis.
The Journalism ‘Crisis’: Is Australia immune or just ahead of its time?
Sally Young
Australia is facing many of the same trends in journalism that are occurring in other countries with mature media industries including declining numbers of journalists, fragmenting audiences, a loss of advertising revenue for media organisations and other challenges to their traditional business models including shifting patterns of news consumption, new competitors for old media and new technologies that demand more time from audiences. However, Australia is also in a unique position. It has a small population and unusually concentrated media ownership; recent newspaper circulation declines have not been as large as in the US or UK; and Australia’s major media organisations have ‘colonised the web’ to a larger degree than in many other countries. This has led to suggestions that Australian journalism will be immune from many of the most damaging international trends. Yet other evidence suggests Australia is already in the midst of an economic and professional crisis in newspaper journalism and that this is even more advanced than in other countries such as the US and UK. This paper tests these competing propositions.
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of June 2010
(Vol 11 - No 3)
VIDEO REVIEW
ARTICLES
The Patriotic Good Mother Of World War II: A Study Of A Cultural Ideal
Ana C. Garner and Karen Slattery
The archetypal good mother and the archetypal patriotic mother are important symbols in American culture. Both are rooted in maternal work but are separated by two conflicting assumptions. The good mother nurtures her children and protects them from harm, while the patriotic wartime mother remains silent when the government sends her child directly into harm’s way. This study explores how the World War II press positioned mothers of soldiers to sacrifice their children in support of the nation’s war effort. The findings point to the importance of understanding the role of archetypes in news narratives.
Deeper than the Fictional Model: Structural origins of literary journalism in Greek mythology and drama
Charles Marsh
The critical perception that literary journalism owes the concept of plot to prose fiction has nurtured enduring allegations of generic inferiority. This study proposes an earlier provenance, tracing the structure of literary journalism to Greek tragic drama. In ancient Greece, the adaptation of mythology-as-history from oral tradition to drama necessitated structural changes, a process called “displacement” by Northrop Frye. The first critic of mythology’s displacement into drama was Aristotle, who identified eight essential conventions of plot. This study documents the inherency of those eight conventions within modern nonfiction narratives and concludes that, far from being derivative and inferior, literary journalism returns to the origins of literature by displacing fact into art. Like the first literary myths, therefore, modern nonfiction narratives may be revelations of important cultural standards and beliefs.
Resurrecting the 1938 St Louis Post-Dispatch Symposium on the Freedom of the Press: Examining its contributions and their implications for today
Nikki Usher
In 1938, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch convened a symposium on the freedom of the press in response to a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The President hoped to have a “national symposium” to discuss whether a free press could truly exist in a for-profit media system. The Symposium on the Freedom of the Press brought together 120 public intellectuals to discuss the matter. Here, I attempt to reacquaint scholars with this forgotten collection of contributions on the subject. I specifically focus my analysis on two major themes: the way contributors define public interest and their response to Roosevelt’s question as to whether a newspaper could only be edited in the interests of the “counting room,” as he put it.
Democratizing Journalism? Realizing the citizen's agenda for local news media
Irene Costera Meijer
Media scholars and journalists expect local media to function as vital institutions for the creation and maintenance of a democratic political and public arena and a general sense of social cohesion and public connection (Aldridge, 2007; Couldry et al. 2007; Franklin, 2006; Rosenstiel et al. 2007). Taking a different angle, this paper tries to understand what kind of social role the audience wants their local media to perform.
The material presented here relies on audience research and ethnographic investigation of the largest local TV broadcaster in Amsterdam (AT5), as well as on a basic production study of 17 local broadcasters in Rotterdam. It turns out that city residents of Amsterdam expect their local TV station to perform seven social functions: (1) supplying background information (unbiased, reliable, good-humoured, fast and multi-perspectival); (2) fostering social integration, or giving citizens insight into how the city “works”; (3) providing inspiration; (4) ensuring representation (“voice”, recognition and “mirroring”); (5) increasing local understanding; (6) creating civic memory; and (7) contributing to social cohesion, or a sense of belonging. We argue that local media do not only constitute a precondition for democracy by representing the city to its residents; to meet this standard, local TV broadcasters will also have to become more democratic themselves, in the sense of better representing local residents to the city and each other by supplying more nuanced stories about them.
Seeking Safe Ground: Russian regional journalists’ withdrawal from civic service journalism
Elina Erzikova and Wilson Lowrey
This paper adopts a system of professions perspective from the sociology of work to assess efforts by Russian regional journalists to redefine the purposes and standards of journalism in an increasingly constraining political and economic environment. Data from interviews and observations at four newspapers in a central Russian province reveal that journalists at these papers have responded to pressures in varied ways, suggesting fragmentation in the occupation. Journalists who came of age during perestroika now avoid public issue reporting, but they seek to maintain jurisdiction over journalistic work by serving as ‘in-house communicators’ for officials, by advising readers on everyday individual needs, and by focusing on literary writing or moral education.
Sustaining Hyperlocal Media: In search of funding models
David D. Kurpius, Emily T. Metzgar and Karen M. Rowley
As traditional media operations struggle to find their footing in a world of rapidly evolving interactive technology and economic turmoil, media innovators are exploring new ways to identify, collect, and disseminate information. One innovation that is attracting attention is the development of hyperlocal media.
Hyperlocal media are characterized by their narrow focus on a handful of topics or geographic areas, but they vary widely in the type and reliability of funding that supports their operations; the training, expertise, and size of their staffs; and their ability to attract an audience. They also follow in a long line of media reform efforts that have tried to fill the gap in public affairs coverage left by the shrinking traditional media, including civic journalism, C-SPAN, and statewide public affairs television networks. And like these earlier reform efforts, hyperlocal media operations face the same dilemma — how to create a sustainable funding model that will allow them to provide the information members of the public need. This paper examines the various funding models used by hyperlocal media operations and assesses whether they are sustainable for the long term.
A View that’s Fit to Print: The national association of manufacturers’ free enterprise rhetoric as integration propaganda in The New York Times, 1937-1939
Burton St. John III
This study examines the appearance of National Association of Manufacturers’ propaganda, from 1937 to 1939, in articles within The New York Times. NAM’s ability to place such rhetoric in The Times reveals both the presence of integration propaganda and the beginning of a press acclimation to propaganda as news. This examination reveals a crystallizing of professional journalism’s reliance on authoritative, yet propagandistic sources, a dynamic that persists to this day.
A Partial Europe without Citizens or EU-Level Political Institutions: How far can Euronews constitute a European public sphere?
Iñaki Garcia-Blanco and Stephen Cushion
Euronews is a multilingual television news channel broadcast in eight languages with a remit to cover news and current affairs from a ‘European perspective’. Launched in 1993, the channel was set up to unite linguistic and cultural differences amongst European citizens and help towards shaping a more inclusive European identity. This article asks – seventeen years since it began life – in what ways does Euronews reflect European perspectives? Drawing on a content analysis of Euronews’ English language news coverage supplemented with a brief schedule analysis of its routine content, we look, in detail, at Euronews’ journalistic practices and reflect upon the democratic implications for Europe and its key democratic institutions.
We argue that Euronews’ journalistic practices (no anchors, reporters on location, scarce interviews or other typical news conventions) provide a set of journalistic constraints that weakens its editorial control and autonomy, resulting in repackaged news that is primarily national rather than supranational in focus. This, we argue, works against the possibility of fostering a shared European news agenda likely to invigorate public debate or civic engagement on EU level matters. Euronews’ potential to constitute a common European public sphere is, we conclude, difficult to imagine when its citizens or key political institutions are so marginalised in its news coverage.
Blogging from the Niches: The sourcing practices of science bloggers
Gina Walejko and Thomas Ksiazek
Digital media lower barriers to entry and offer a “long tail” of specialized subject matter, providing scientist bloggers with the ability to challenge traditional science news norms, thereby overcoming challenges associated with sourcing practices in science journalism. This study analyzes the sources of 41 science bloggers that discussed two different topics, global warming and intelligent design, between 2004 and 2007. The 3576 sources in these 300 posts are hand-coded by type of web site. Results indicate that science bloggers often link to blogs and the online articles of traditional news media, similar to political bloggers writing about the same topics. Science bloggers also link heavily to academic and non-profit sources, differing from political bloggers in this study as well as previous research. In conclusion science bloggers writing about science topics rely on conventional blog linking practices while expanding those voices which get heard online, adding complexity to online science news.
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of April 2010
(Vol 11 - No 2)
VIDEO REVIEW
ARTICLES
The Patriotic Good Mother Of World War II: A Study Of A Cultural Ideal
Ana C. Garner and Karen Slattery
The archetypal good mother and the archetypal patriotic mother are important symbols in American culture. Both are rooted in maternal work but are separated by two conflicting assumptions. The good mother nurtures her children and protects them from harm, while the patriotic wartime mother remains silent when the government sends her child directly into harm’s way. This study explores how the World War II press positioned mothers of soldiers to sacrifice their children in support of the nation’s war effort. The findings point to the importance of understanding the role of archetypes in news narratives.
What Are Financial Journalists For?
Damian Tambini
In order to understand why so little media attention was paid to risks in the banking sector in the run up to the financial crisis, we need to understand the framework of law, regulation, self regulation and professional incentives that structure the practice of financial and business journalism. This paper focuses in particular on what role financial journalists play in the system of corporate governance, the ways in which law and regulation recognize that role, and the extent to which this role is accepted and understood by financial journalists themselves.
The first part of the essay reviews recent debate on financial journalism and investigates the role of financial journalism from a systemic perspective: looking at its role in corporate governance, and its impact on market behaviour. I develop the notion that financial and business journalists operate within a framework of rights and duties which institutionalize a particular ethical approach to their role. The second half of the article, which draws more extensively on interviews conducted with journalists and editors, asks how journalists themselves understand and describe their role and what they see as the key challenges they face as they attempt to perform it. It emerges that there is no consensus among financial and business journalists about their ‘watchdog’ role in relation to markets and corporate behaviour, and whilst the financial journalists interviewed tended to agree on the key challenges they face, they are uncertain how to respond to them.
Reciprocal Journalism: Breakfast News, Sunrise And The “Televisual Sphere”
Stephen Harrington
This paper examines the Australian breakfast news program Sunrise. By drawing on interviews with both viewers and producers, as well as selected textual analysis, it examines the show, how it is “used” as a news source, and explores its role within the audience’s morning routines. By viewing the show as a part of what Baym has termed the “Televisual Sphere”, it will argue against the common discourse that the program has simply followed a populist style in pursuit of higher ratings. Because of its success in communicating and connecting with viewers, it may be more constructive to consider Sunrise a very effective form of journalism which has been at the forefront of the recent trend towards increased levels of viewer input in television journalism.
“Between Language Support And Activism: A Complementary Journalism Function Among European Minority Language Newspeople”
Iñaki Zabaleta, Nicolás Xamardo, Arantza Gutierrez, Santi Urrutia, Itxaso Fernandez And Carme Ferré
This article outlines the extent to which journalists working in European minority-language media believe that their journalistic role within the community is strictly professional or alternatively should incorporate a complementary function as language supporters or activists. A weighted and reasonably representative survey of 230 journalists from 10 European minority-language communities (Basque, Catalan, Galician, Corsican, Breton, Frisian, Irish, Welsh, Scottish-Gaelic, and Sámi) indicates that journalists favour a journalistic professional activity which incorporates a role as language backing actors. This may underlie the idea of a contextual approach to the concept of journalism.
A Study Of The New York Times Coverage Of Darfur, July 2003 – 2006
Ammina Kothari
This multi-method study examines how the New York Times reported the Darfur conflict in the Sudan, which has led to an estimated 300,000 deaths and over 2.3 million people displaced by the fighting. Drawing on normative media theories and prior studies of Africa's representation, the role of sources in the frame-building process was analyzed, together with the impact of news-making processes on journalists’ reporting about Darfur. The textual analysis largely supports results of prior studies on news framing of Africa. However, interviews with four New York Times journalists reveal that the individual biases and motives of the journalists and their sources significantly influenced the coverage. While the journalists participated in news-making processes distinguishable by journalist goal, source availability, and source credibility, their sources also provided information that reinforced certain media frames.
Don’t You Forget About Me: An Exploration Of The “Maddie Phenomenon” On Youtube
Julia Kennedy
In June 2008 the search term “Madeleine McCann” generated around 3,700 videos on YouTube, attracting over seven million text responses. This research project used generic analysis to allocate videos to categories according to their content. Using critical discourse analysis, the nature of the comments posted in response to the videos was then assessed. Both methods were deployed to explore three broad research questions.
First, what kind of content were people uploading to YouTube in response to the case? Second, where did YouTube users position themselves in relation to the dominant discourses of the news media in this case? Third, previous work demonstrates evidence of “collective expressiveness, emotionality, and identity” (Greer, 2004) in virtual communities structured around cases of child murder in the UK: to what extent were these characteristics of imagined community evident in responses to videos? Results demonstrate that YouTube provides a forum for a broad range of responses to the case, both accommodating and expanding on dominant mainstream discourses. Evidence of distinct imagined communities forming around particular responses to the case demonstrate nuanced and complex patterns of responses to mediated crime through YouTube, as technology erodes the traditional boundaries between producers and consumers of crime news.
UGC And Gatekeeping At The BBC
Jackie Harrison
This is an observational study of the way the BBC deals with UGC at its UGC hub. It finds four types of UGC. First a form of unsolicited news story: second a form of solicited content for specific extant news stories; third a form of expeditious content for specific items and features and fourth a form of audience watchdog content. The study also finds that UGC is routinely moderated by the BBC hub and that traditional gatekeeping barriers have evolved over time to ensure the maintenance of core BBC news values. The study concludes with the view that the extensive use of UGC at the BBC hub encourages the increasing use of “soft journalism”, with as yet unknown consequences for the BBC.
Salazar’s Interference In The BBC Portuguese Service During World War II
Nelson Ribeiro
This article presents a case study on the limits of the BBC Overseas Service’s journalistic independence during World War II. Not only editorial policy but also the personnel hired by the BBC Portuguese Service were subject to pressure from Salazar through the Foreign Office. How the Lisbon government was made aware of the events taking place inside the Portuguese Service and which strategies were used to interfere in its editorial line are discussed. This history presents clear evidence of how the BBC was required to trim its output in order to avoid diplomatic problems arising between the British and the Portuguese governments.
DEBATE
The Scorecard on Reporting of the Global Financial Crisis
Maria B. Marron; Zeny Sarabia-Panol and Marianne D. Sison; Sandhya Rao and Ray Niekamp
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of February 2010
(Vol 11 - No 1)
VIDEO REVIEW
Theory Review - Call for Papers
ARTICLES
Freezing the Flow of Online News: Exploring approaches to study the liquidity of online news
Michael Karlsson & Jesper Strömbäck
According to previous research, two characteristics of online news as opposed to traditional news are interactivity and immediacy. However, most research in this area has focused on the news site-level of analysis, and there are only few studies on how interactivity and immediacy affect online news on the news story-level of analysis. The main reason for this appears to be that the very nature of online news makes observation by traditional research methods, such as quantitative content analysis, problematic. Against this background, the overall purpose of this paper is to explore methodological approaches for the study of interactivity and immediacy on the news story-level of online news.
The paper develops a three-pronged strategy for freezing the flow of online news to enable systematic content analyses of interactivity and immediacy, and tests this strategy in a comparative analysis of the online news sites Guardian.co.uk in Britain and Aftonbladet.se in Sweden.
Interviews as Communicative Resources in News and Current Affairs Broadcasts
Åsa Kroon & Göran Eriksson
This study quantitatively establishes the centrality and importance of interviews in news and current affairs broadcasts. We show how segments of interviews (from soundbites to longer recorded, or live, question-and-answer interactions) are deployed as communicative resources in the construction and presentation of news in various ways. The data allow for a cross-national comparison in between the UK and Sweden which points to differences in practice between the countries.
We argue that our findings may be used critically to examine various conceptualisations of broadcast interviews in general and political interviews in particular. We also show how journalists outnumber politicians as interviewees in the news, a finding that is in need of further exploration from a range of perspectives. We also believe that our study provides solid ground on which to base future critical studies of the authority of journalism, dialogical and soundbite journalism, and the alleged fragmentisation of news.
Chain Reactions in the Newsroom: Factors affecting journalistic action
Peter Bro
Public journalism has been termed the best-organized movement in the history of American press, but the movement has implications for news reporters – and researchers - stretching far beyond a re¬stric¬ted peri¬od in time and a limited spatial context. The formation of the movement has, namely, accentuated universal aspects of journalistic practice that in various ways can affect the actions of news re¬por¬ters. In this sense, the popularization of public journalism serves as a critical incident, which offers news reporters and researchers a new framework for understanding journalism. This framework consists of six distinct, but interconnected factors that affect journalistic actions, and when connected in what in this context is termed the news chain, they essentially help news reporters and researchers gain a better understanding of the problems and potentials that confront contemporary journalism.
Travel Journalism and Environmental Conflict: A cosmopolitan perspective
Lyn McGaurr
Although travel journalism can have considerable influence in one of the world’s largest marketplaces, a definition remains elusive and the genre continues to be under explored. The explanation may be a scholarly ambivalence towards the use of the word “journalism” to describe texts characterised by subjectivity and a conspicuous proximity to tourism advertising. Yet not all travel journalism is tourism’s handmaiden. Drawing on examples of US and British newspaper and magazine travel articles that criticize forestry practices in Australia’s island state of Tasmania, this paper attempts to understand better the genesis and deployment of political comment in a genre routinely subsidized and besieged by government public relations.
The paper argues that travel journalism that subverts traditional expectations of the genre through its mediation of environmental conflict can usefully be understood as a textual manifestation of the cosmopolitan interplay of culture and environment arising out of transnational and cross-genre discourse. Noting Ulrich Beck’s faith in the media to promote active political cosmopolitanism, the paper hypothesizes that further analysis of travel journalism has the potential to provide surprising insights into journalism, public relations and the mediation of global concern.
The Dimensions of Travel Journalism: Exploring new fields for journalism research beyond the news
Folker Hanusch
Much of the existing empirical research on journalism focuses largely on hard-news journalism, at the expense of its less traditional forms, particularly the soft-news areas of lifestyle and entertainment journalism. In focussing on one particular area of lifestyle journalism – the reporting of travel stories – this paper argues for renewed scholarly efforts in this increasingly important field. Travel journalism’s location at the intersection between information and entertainment, journalism and advertising, as well as its increasingly significant role in the representation of foreign cultures makes it a significant site for scholarly research.
By reviewing existing research about travel journalism and examining in detail the special exigencies that constrain it, the article proposes a number of dimensions for future research into the production practices of travel journalism. These dimensions include travel journalism’s role in mediating foreign cultures, its market orientation, motivational aspects and its ethical standards.
Journalism Education ‘Down Under’: A tale of two paradigms
Martin Hirst
Journalism studies is currently undergoing one of the periodic renovations that is characteristic of an active and diverse community of scholars. This paper examines aspects of this renewal debate among journalism scholars by focussing on the situation in Australia and New Zealand. It argues that the debate ‘Down Under’ mirrors global differences on the issues of “theory” and “practice” in journalism education and that an understanding of the key fault lines in this context can provide useful insights into the wider arguments. In Australia and New Zealand a key area of discussion is around attitudes towards the concept of professionalism in the practice, training and scholarship of journalism. These tensions are apparent in both the news media and in the academy. The contradictory positions of those who favour greater industry involvement in curriculum matters, including accreditation of courses, and those who are less sanguine about the normative influence of industry on critical scholarship are explored in relation to differing attitudes to professionalism and the political economy of news production.
The paper concludes that rather than pegging the debate to an unstable definition of professionalism, journalism educators should instead focus more on journalism scholarship founded on a political economy approach.
Australian Journalism and War: Professional discourse and the legitimation the 2003 Iraq invasion
Giles Dodson
This paper presents an original study of Australian journalistic professionalism as observed during the Iraq invasion, 2003. Through an analysis of both in-depth interviews conducted with Australian journalists reporting from Iraq and news discourse produced by Australian journalists at Central Command and ‘embedded’, it is argued that professionalism provides the normative framework used by war journalists to produce accounts and make sense of war. In this sense professionalism serves as a ‘regime of truth’, which bounds the journalistic possibilities in reporting war and restrains the capacity of journalists to provide critical or reflexive examinations of military operations or media-military relations.
Drawing on interview and news-report material the paper demonstrates that the professional discourse furthermore serves to justify and legitimate at times problematic journalistic practice and meaning construction, tending to obscure the functional role played by journalism within contemporary war administration and military strategy. Elaborating the concept of the professional ideology I argue that professionalism operates as a form of ideological fantasy, which overlooks the always already ideological nature of discourses. Professionalism here both militarises journalism and conversely journalises the military, while limiting war correspondents awareness of this problematic aspect of their central legitimating ethos.
Construction of the Truth and Destruction of A Million Little Pieces: Framing in the editorial response to the James Frey Case
Nicole Smith Dahmen
A recent case in the United States has called into question the value that we, societally speaking, place on truth. This research attempts to understand how an audience of reasonable persons—opinion and editorial writers—reacted to and subsequently framed truth in the James Frey case. The editorial pages provide a place with which to begin public discussion of key issues, whether political, social, or moral. The qualitative, framing analysis examines editorials and opinion pieces with the purpose of providing an understanding of the news frame surrounding “truth.”
Findings indicate that editorial and opinion writers strongly supported truth as a bedrock for a functional society. However, while editorial and opinion writers clearly acknowledged the contributions of other societal institutions to ushering in the “Age of Truthiness,” they were negligent in considering the contributions of their own institution.
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of December 2009
(Vol 10 - No 6)
VIDEO REVIEW
EDITORIAL
On Journalism Studies’ tenth anniversary
Bob Franklin
ARTICLES
Journalism and public service in troubled times
Randal A. Beam, Bonnie J. Brownlee, David H. Weaver and Damon T. DiCicco
This article examines U.S. journalists’ views about public service within their profession and news organizations at a time of significant economic and technological turmoil in the news business. The findings show that journalists remain strongly committed to informing the public and to serving the public interest.
But an examination of factors that influence journalists’ views on public service suggests that the hard times facing U.S. news organizations today may undermine their ability to uphold this professional value.
The Sunday Times and Andrew Neil: the cultivation of market populism
David McKnight
This article contends that, the Sunday Times became a champion of the ideas of free market populism after it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch. The driving force for this shift was the editor (1983-1994), Andrew Neil, who argued that free market ideology was a radical set of ideas which was on the side of ordinary people and which was opposed mainly by ‘elites’ and ‘establishments’. This populist view of markets owes much to the ideas of the American Right and was shared by the newspaper’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch.
The market populism of the Sunday Times was allied to a discourse in which opposing left-liberal views were characterised as politically correct ‘orthodoxies’ rather than authentic positions. This article examines the newspaper’s challenge to the ‘orthodoxies’ of economic policy, the welfare state and policy on AIDS. It concludes that the popularisation of the market as a vehicle for social betterment was one of the lasting influences of this Murdoch newspaper, rather than simply its support for a particular leader (Thatcher) or party (the Conservatives).
Catching the wave: forty years of lesbian magazines in Britain
Georgina Turner
Due to some of the unique conditions surrounding its production, there is a lack of knowledge about lesbian journalism in Britain that this article hopes to go some way to remedying. The first half of the article traces some of the key moments in the British lesbian publishing tradition; from the 1960s, when lesbian publishing first became viable, through to the 1990s, when the launch of DIVA demonstrated the new viability of a commercial, ‘mainstream’ lesbian magazine. Using interviews with key staff from the time, the second half of the article discusses the circumstances surrounding DIVA’s launch and the philosophical and financial culture of its production.
It ends with a discussion of DIVA as a product, in terms of its brand message and the nature of its content. The article aims to show the changes that afforded lesbian journalism a place within the mainstream and to highlight the abiding nature of the alternative values with which the tradition began.
Off the blacklist, but still a target: The anti-communist attacks on Lisa Sergio
Stacy Spaulding
This detailed case study documents the anti-communist attacks on Lisa Sergio, who worked as a news commentator for the New York Times-owned WQXR from 1939 to 1946. Using her 300-page FBI file and her personal papers, examines the FBI’s investigation of Sergio, the circumstances surrounding WQXR’s decision to fire her, her blacklisting experiences (including her successful bid to remove her name from
American Legion lists) and a few of the many public attacks she endured.
Altogether, this paper contributes to a portrait of blacklisting as a complicated web of collaborators that encompasses private citizens, business, social organizations, and the executive and legislative branches of government.
Mediating ideology and changing cultural realities: Changing meaning of “Boss” in China's Xinhua News 1978 to 1989
Ji Pan
This paper explores Chinese media reconstructions of the ideologies surrounding particular forms of address, informed by pre-reform legacies, such as “boss” and “comrade”. Specifically, it depicts how throughout the 1980s the official Chinese medium of Xinhua News Agency mediated between the pre-reform orthodox Marxist ideology and China’s rapidly changing priorities to re-construct the meanings of “boss” by language use.
Qualitative textual analysis revealed that the language use of China’s official media alternated between the pre-reform political conceptualization and the post-reform economic references to endow meanings to“boss” according to the authority’s needs at a particular time. Based on this case, it is inferred that during social reforms, government-controlled media retain and adapt pre-reform ideological legacies to fit the needs of the authority even when reconstructions are invented and widely used.
What's stopping them? Towards a grounded theory of innovation in online newspapers
Steen Steensen
Findings in recent research suggest that online journalism is much less innovative than many researchers and scholars predicted a decade ago. Research into online journalism has, however, been biased towards a focus on online news journalism, thereby neglecting the magnitude of new styles and genres that are currently emerging online. In this paper the findings of a longitudinal ethnographic case study of the development of a section for feature journalism in the Norwegian online newspaper dagbladet.no is presented.
The study is framed by an understanding of innovation as a process where organizational structures and individual agency interact. The findings suggest that individual action has been downplayed in previous research as a determinant for processes of innovation in online newsrooms, and that a substantive grounded theory of innovation in online newspapers is comprised of five factors: newsroom autonomy, newsroom work culture, the role of management, the relevance of new technology and innovative individuals.
Calculation, celebrity and scandal: the provincial press in Edwardian England
John Benson
This article seeks to contribute to the study of the early twentieth-century English provincial press by examining the ways in which the newspapers in one English town, Wolverhampton, covered the arrest, prosecution and acquittal of a well-known local businessman for the murder of his mistress. It shows that the papers in the town adopted a number of the strategies which are associated most often with the sensationalism of the national, popular press. It suggests therefore that Wolverhampton’s newspapers – and possibly provincial newspapers more generally – were prepared to personalise, to denounce and to celebrate in their efforts to remain competitive in the face of the political, technological and commercial challenges which confronted them.
Press constraints as obstacles to establishing civil societies in central Asia: toward a new model of analysis
Richard Shafer and Eric Freedman
More than a decade and a half after independence, none of the press systems in Central Asia’s five former Soviet republics are categorised as free, nor have any of these countries transitioned to democracy. The question becomes: Why have they failed to evolve into democratic nations after successfully rejecting Soviet domination and Russian colonialism?
The Western-rooted development model assumes that democracy, media independence, free markets, and civil society can help establish the primary prerequisites for free and prosperous nations. However, the results of that assumption fall far short of expectations in Central Asia. Recent events provide little reason for optimism about prospects for such structural changes. This study discusses the interrelationship between press freedom and post-communist democratisation. It proposes an exploratory matrix of variables of external factors, including religion, that may help explain why press freedom has failed to materialise in Central Asia while democracy has become a reality in other parts of the former Soviet Union and in most former Warsaw Pact nations.
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of October 2009
(Vol 10 - No 5)
Video Review
ARTICLES
Tell it not in Harrisburg, Publish it not in the Streets of Tampa: Media ownership, the public interest and local television news
Amit M. Schejter and Jonathan A. Obar
A framing analysis was performed on 22 local news reports identified in 90 newscasts carried by television stations covering the FCC’s public hearings on media ownership held in Harrisburg, PA and Tampa, FL in 2007. It revealed two frames: one portraying the hearings as “unimportant” and another suggesting that “media consolidation is not a problem.” Taking into account that the stations are owned by non-local media conglomerates, the findings of this study imply that maintaining broadcasters independent of the networks serves the diversity of viewpoints in a market, especially regarding issues in which media conglomerates have an invested interest.
Reporting Israel/Palestine: Ethnographic insights into the verbal and visual rhetoric of BBC journalism
John E. Richardson and Leon Barkho
Two landmark events have characterized the recent violent years of Israeli- Palestinian conflict: The killing of a U.S. peace activist by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to prevent it from demolishing the home of a Palestinian resident in Gaza; and the removal of Israeli setters from Gaza by their own government. Of course all sides to the conflict see their arguments as persuasive and logical. But how exactly have those arguments been carried to the rest of the world? This paper examines how the BBC approached both events in two broadcast texts, the discursive and visual rhetoric employed in reporting them, and the argumentative representations it favoured. These argumentative representations are discussed and contextualised through reference to ethnographic and interview data collected with key BBC editorial and executive personnel. The paper finds that the corporation has numerous ‘gate-keeping’ practices shaping its Palestine/Israel news discourse and that its argumentative representations are based on authority and rule rather than pragmatism.
Jump Back Jack, Mohammed’s Here: Fox News and the construction of Islamic peril
Fred Vultee
This discourse analysis uses Said’s concept of Orientalism to explore the ways in which Fox News uses the tools of news practice to create an ideological clearinghouse for a uniquely menacing image of Islam. As Said (1979) suggested, within this image, Islam is inseparable from what Muslims do, and Muslims are inseparable from each other. The modern image of an irrational, backward East that can never reconcile with the rational, progressive West echoes centuries of Orientalist conventional wisdom. The discourse Fox creates with its audience helps to set a foundation for polarized commentary and to legitimize support for a limitless war on the unknown.
The Daily Mirror and the creation of a commercial popular language: A People’s War; A People’s Paper?
Adrian Bingham and Martin Conboy
It has long been acknowledged that the Mirror’s transformation from middle-class to working-class newspaper after 1934 was effected to a large extent through its astute identification of a language which could communicate its journalism to a new market. This language has been explored with particular intensity during the period of the Second World War and the post-war period when the paper rose to both political as well as commercial prominence. However, there has been little interest in the early years of this evolution, merely a generally held assumption that some time between 1934 and 1940, the newspaper developed a brand of journalistic language which embodied a credible appeal to a working class readership. This paper attempts to redress this imbalance by focusing on the ways that the newspaper dealt with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939; part of the period described by Pugh as the neglected pre-1939 era - a neglect which is all the more surprising because, as he observes, “the Mirror was profoundly influenced by international events around 1935-36, and by 1939 it had become a central element in the tide of opinion that was shortly to envelop the parliamentarians” (Pugh, 1998, p. 424).
Reflecting the four Nations? An analysis of reporting devolution on UK network news media
Stephen Cushion, Justin Lewis and Chris Groves
This article examines how the new political world of UK devolved politics is reported in UK-wide broadcast media. Drawing on a large scale content analysis of 4,687 news items, our study indicates that while devolution is not ignored, there remains an overwhelming focus upon England and Westminster politics. News about devolved politics or issues occupies a tiny part of everyday news coverage. When it is covered it is often unhelpful in communicating the nature of devolved government across the UK. We found, in particular, a blurring of the distinction between England and the UK, a lapse that might misinform viewers and listeners that policy initiatives in England apply to Britain or the UK as a whole. There remains, we argue, an untapped potential for UK news media to explain domestic news items in the context of different polices pursued right across the devolved institutions.
Journalism and Media Studies in Lebanon
Jad Melki
This study uses mixed-methods to map out the field of journalism and media studies in Lebanese universities and deploys a Q-technique to capture faculties’ opinions. The Q-analysis of 29 instructors revealed three groups of opinions towards journalism studies: one advocated a professional approach, one preferred a communication arts focus, and one pushed for a theoretical and researchintensive orientation. While the three groups differed on various matters, they all agreed that journalism and media studies in Lebanon urgently needed more qualified faculty, locally oriented research, and relevant academic and technical resources. Student demographic analysis revealed a stable increase in broadcast journalism and public relations (PR) enrolments but a decrease in print journalism; Advertising and marketing were the most popular subjects, followed by broadcast journalism and PR; females outnumbered males; and the Lebanese University (LU), the only public university, remained the most prestigious and popular program despite its dire financial situation. The curricula analysis found most programs had either a practical or a liberal-professional orientation, while only one had a liberal emphasis. In addition, most programs required an internship, while only two required a thesis; English and the US academic system dominated; only one program offered online journalism; while none offered media or news literacy.
Taking the Paper Out of News: A case study of Taloussanomat, Europe’s first online-only newspaper
Neil Thurman & Merja Myllylahti
Using in-depth interviews, newsroom observation, and internal documents, this case-study presents and analyses changes that have taken place at Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat since it stopped printing on 28 December 2007 to focus exclusively on digital delivery via the web, email, and mobile. It reveals the savings that can be achieved when a newspaper no longer prints and distributes a physical product; but also the revenue lost from subscriptions and print advertising. The consequences of a newspaper’s decision to go online-only are examined as they relate to its business model, website traffic, and editorial practice. The findings: illustrate the extent to which the medium rather than the content it carries determines news consumption patterns, show the differing attention a newspaper and its online substitute command, and reveal the changes to working patterns journalists can expect in the online-only environment.
REVIEWS
Theory Review
Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics And Journalism Research
Donald Matheson
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of August 2009
(Vol 10 - No 4)
Video Review
ARTICLES
‘The Left-Media’s Stranglehold’: Flak and Accuracy In Media Reports (2007-08)
Brian Michael Goss
This investigation analyzes Accuracy in Media (AIM)’s bi-weekly “Reports” in an effort to apply Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “Propaganda Model” (1988) to the current media environment. Herman and Chomsky’s concept of flak– defined as campaigns to mobilize various forms of harassment – is particularly important to the discussion. The investigation analyzes 36 AIM Reports that were published between January 2007 and July 2008. Following a sketch of AIM’s history and an account of the model’s filtering mechanisms, the investigation discusses AIM Reports’ cultivation of flak toward ideological opponents. I demonstrate that AIM’s discourses do not align with its stated mission of “fairness, balance, and accuracy” (www.aim.org). The investigation focuses specifically on AIM Reports’ discourse on torture, climate change, globalization and Barack Obama as instances of right-wing flak.
Glocalization of Indian Journalism
Shakuntala Rao
This article explores glocalization, a theoretical framework advanced by Ronald Robertson, as a way to understand the changes taking place in Indian journalism practices and news content. The impact of globalization on news in India, when understood as glocalization, can be interpreted as a set of practices in which the local media has absorbed the global, rejuvenated the local, and given audiences possibilities of strengthening democratic discourses. While journalism practices such as integration of new information technologies, increased audience feedback, and increased professional training of journalism students have become globalized, news content continues to be highly localized in its purpose and scope.
Film Portrayals of Foreign Correspondents: A Content Analysis of Movies before WWII and after Vietnam
Raluca Cozma & John M Hamilton
This study combines content analysis and a close reading of movies to assess the portrayal of foreign correspondents in films during two periods: the golden age of foreign correspondence (the 1930s to World War II) and the years after the Vietnam War. The analysis revealed that movies generally depict foreign correspondents as heroes, but their status changes over time, and so do the circumstances in which they work. The differences during the two periods track changes for real foreign correspondents. In the golden age, silver screen correspondents were happy elites at ease with themselves even when stepping out of journalistic roles, unlike the latter period, when they were angst-ridden and questioned their responsibilities.
Gendered confidence/cynicism and the effects of neoliberalism in Australian newsrooms
Louise North
In a time of dramatic and rapid change in the global media industry and when technological advances and media concentration are shaping the way news is produced and consumed, little research has focused on how the producers of news are affected by such change. This paper explores narratives of confidence and cynicism as told to me by Australian print news media journalists. I’m interested in journalists’ memories and experiences of personal change that arise from an intensified workplace and how neoliberal discourses affect newsroom culture. How do the journalists I interview experience and speak of changes in the newsroom? In what ways is being a journalist different now to when they entered the industry? In effect, how have journalists changed as a result of journalism’s changes? The interviews with 17 print media journalists contain rich narratives with which to explore how participants remember and make sense of industry changes. This paper finds that the intensification of work practices, ethical constraints and gender bias have aided in creating a cynicism among many of the journalists interviewed. Nevertheless, the majority of interviewees suggest that a career in journalism has increased their personal and/or professional confidence. There are, however, gendered differences in this experience.
New Hacks, Old Hands: How the twenty-first-century media map reflects the first century of English newspapers
Uriel Heyd
This article examines newspapers’ self-perceptions from an historical perspective. By comparing some of the major themes in current news press’ own analysis of itself with the way newspapers presented themselves in the eighteenth century, an argument for deep-seated self-reflections of the press is made. Twenty-first-century themes, focusing on evaluation, problems and future of the British newspaper press, are compared to self-reflexive self-promoting introductory columns, appearing in virtually every new paper two and three hundred years ago. These columns offer a unique forward-looking source making them suitable for depicting some of the ways the newspapers in their first century of continuous publication presented themselves and the industry. A twenty-first-century perspective based on an ICA roundtable of newspaper insiders is juxtaposed with this historical angle. Themes include market saturation and segmentation, trust and authoritative journalism, press wars, role within democracy, influence on readers’ perceptions and identity, interactivity, among others. The comparison offers a long-term view of issues facing newspapers today and points to some historical continuity in the trends in the self-perception of the news press. While far from arguing that there is an unchanged media map, the article
Local Media in a Global World: The Framing of Saddam’s Execution in the U.S. Press
Daniela V Dimitrova & Kyung Sun Lee
One of the major international events at the end of 2006 was the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The rushed execution sparked a controversy around the world and provided national media with an opportunity to frame the event in ways that resonate with their local audiences. This study focuses on the framing of the execution in the elite newspapers in the United States. Using a content analysis methodology, the study examines the news framing of the event in the US press. Of particular interest is the distributive and procedural justice frames used to describe Saddam’s execution. In addition to dominant justice framing, the study also identifies the signature matrix of the coverage and the main interpretive packages comprising it.
Citizen Journalism and the Parallel Market of Information In Zimbabwe’s 2008 Election
Dumisani Moyo
This article discusses the role of citizen journalism in Zimbabwe, focusing specifically on citizens’ uses of SMS and web logs to exchange information during the controversial delay in releasing the 2008 general election results. It explores and analyses the various emerging aspects of citizen journalism and how they manifested themselves during this moment of political tension. The paper argues that citizen journalism contributed a great deal to the circulation of public opinion, and to some extent influenced the way mainstream media covered this post-election period. By adding voice to the coverage from mainstream media, this ‘parallel market’ of information contributed to the further exposure of the Mugabe regime’s sinister machinations, thereby stopping the potential wholesale theft of the Zimbabwean people’s victory in that election.
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors
Contents and Abstracts of June 2009
(Vol 10 - No 3)
Video Review
ARTICLES
Strategies for Autonomy: Arab journalists reflecting on their roles
Noha Mellor
This article aims at unraveling the views of Arab journalists towards their profession particularly during the second half of the 20th century through examining the memoirs of a sample of veteran journalists primarily from Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Thus, the article acknowledges the role of journalists particularly in the so-called developing world as cultural producers and cultural intermediaries. The analysis shows how these memoirs include discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion aiming at defining the borders of the profession and gaining more prestige for journalists. The article examines statements and reflections of around 20 Arab journalists; in these, the journalists reflect on their profession and the political era of which they were witnesses. Indeed, these Arab journalists have adopted the role of eyewitness to national and international events, and several of them have been able to translate this knowledge into notoriety in the political field, by functioning as experts and advisers to those in power. The article argues that those journalists have managed to negotiate their autonomy, albeit partially, from the political regimes by (re)defining their role in society.
Bye Bye Rock': On the possibility of an ethics of rock criticism
Devon Powers
An incident at the U.S. men’s magazine Maxim involving a rock critic who did not listen to a record before reviewing it serves as a catalyst in this paper for considering the ethics that guide the practice of rock criticism. By examining the historical genesis of the field and its relationship to nontraditional, literary journalism, this article attempts to theorize how rock criticism has mediated the relationship between criticism and journalism in ways that offer it conflicting standards on which to build its ethics. This article argues that journalism studies needs to consider the challenge rock criticism presents in order to do better by nonstandard forms of journalism as well as the contemporary economic realities which constrain music critics.
Investigative Journalism in China Today
Jingrong Tong & Colin Sparks
The situation of investigative journalism in China is precarious. There are serious pressures from both the party-state and advertisers that have reduced the opportunities for this kind of journalism. On the other hand, investigative journalism has proved a very important tool in the economic development of some newspapers, and has been integrated into their organisational structure as well as providing what might be termed a professional ideology for journalists. But as the pressures on news organisations have grown, they have been forced to respond. Some, notably television but also many newspapers, have more or less abandoned investigative journalism. Others attempt to retain the practice, but adopt a very cautious strategy. In some cases, however, the market position of the newspaper and the self-identity of the journalists mean that they retain a strong commitment to investigative journalism. In this, they are aided by the development of the internet, which provides a good source for stories, an arena in which it is possible to publish material that could not appear in the traditional media, and a way of ensuring that sensational stories gain a wider audience. On the other hand, even those newspapers that pride themselves on maintaining their commitment to this kind of journalism have developed strategies to minimise the negative political and economic consequences of their activity. The article concludes that while investigative journalism in China faces a difficult future, it is very far from entirely defunct.
Claiming Journalistic Truth: U. S. press guardedness toward Edward L. Bernays’ conception of the minority voice and the “corroding acid” of propaganda
Burton Saint John III
The U.S. press’s assertions of credibility stem from the post WWI decade. Disillusioned with its own earlier credulity regarding the Committee on Public Information’s (CPI) wartime propaganda, the press gradually professionalized during the 1920s. During those years, it focused on developing fact-oriented work routines that allowed it to claim it was more accurately reporting the “truth.” During that same decade, PR pioneer Edward L. Bernays claimed that propaganda served as a pro-social mechanism, offering new minority viewpoints that the press may overlook. Bernays’ advocacy of propaganda during that decade aggravated news worker concerns about post-war domestic propaganda; the press attacked propaganda as corrosive and his claims as elitist, disingenuous and irresponsible. Not surprisingly, journalism’s professionalization movement gained further momentum, asserting a scientific approach that emphasized gathering facts contextualized by experts. However, this same technique for guarding against propaganda had the unintended effect of news workers turning to PR sources for the data and contacts needed to report stories. Journalistic claims of autonomous authenticity continue to exhibit a dissonance that has roots in these dynamics.
Is More Always Better? Examining the adverse effects of competition on media performance
Lee B. Becker, C. Ann Hollifield, Adam Jacobsson, Eva-Maria Jacobsson and Tudor Vlad
While classic market economic theory argues that competition among media is better for consumers, preliminary research in emerging media markets suggests otherwise. High levels of competition in markets with limited advertising revenues may lead to poorer journalistic performance. This study tests that argument using secondary analysis of data from a purposive sample of countries where measures of news media performance and market competition exist. The authors find a curvilinear relationship between competition and the quality of the journalistic product, with moderate competition leading to higher-quality journalism products and higher levels of competition leading to journalistic products that do not serve society well. The implications of the findings for media assistance initiatives are discussed.
William Worthy: The man and the mission
Jinx Coleman Broussard & Skye Chance Cooley
This article examines the career of William Worthy Jr., an influential but overlooked African-American foreign correspondent whose activities and writings from the 1950s through the 1980s helped transform the role of modern foreign correspondence. The study argues that Worthy’s successful challenges of government-ordered travel bans solidified the right of the media to report from anywhere in the world. An examination of approximately fifty articles identified the range of Worthy’s foreign reporting which addressed imperialism, communism, race relations, and United States practices and policies abroad. His work was important not simply because it changed how foreign news is gathered, but because it represented a missing voice and provided a distinctive perspective on world events and the impact of US government actions on the global community. Research on Worthy’s career is significant not merely because it fills a void, but it is emblematic of African American foreign correspondence, an area of journalism with which contemporary scholars may have lost sight or perhaps are unaware.
Sky News Australia: the impact of local 24-hour news on political reporting in Australia
Sally Young
Despite its very small audience, Sky News (to date, Australia’s only locally-produced 24-hour news channel) has recently become an important player in the Australian politics/media landscape. In 2007, Sky had a series of successes including hosting the only leaders’ debate of the federal election and being the first channel to predict and announce the election outcome. More broadly, Sky is having a significant impact on the way in which news is reported in Australia. It has become a key journalistic source and has encouraged a faster, longer news cycle and a digital newsroom, content-packaging approach to journalism. Sky is also influencing the behaviour of Australian politicians, increasing their sensitivity to media coverage and prevailing news values and acting as a key site where they try to influence broader media reporting but also shape political outcomes such as leadership battles. This article examines these factors and considers the nature of the “elite-elite communication” that is taking place via Sky News (Davis, 2007, p. 73).
DEBATE
Electoral Communication, News Journalism And The 2008 Presidential Campaign:
Front line reports
Lynda Lee Kaid, Walter R. Mears, Debora Halpern Wenger and Susan A. MacManus, Josh Kraushaar and Merrie Spaeth
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Contents and Abstracts of April 2009
(Vol 10 - No 2)
Video Review
ARTICLES
“This is a workfree smokeplace”: Public policy change and the resilience of cultural frames
Robert L. Handley
This study scrutinizes how nine different newspapers in nine different cities and states across the U.S. reported an approaching public policy that challenged deeply held cultural assumptions. Smoking bans in bars, justified as a labor issue, contradict the assumption that cigarettes are essential to the bar and that bars are places where work does not occur. This study shows that journalism enters a stage of constructivism when new public policies approach in order to close the gap between new realities and old meanings. In a contradictory fashion reporters legitimated the new public policy but reinserted modified versions of dominant cultural frames into news discourse. Although the smoking ban was legitimated the bar continued to be a “workfree smokeplace” and not a “smokefree workplace.”
KEYWORDS archetypal narrative; constructivist newswork; culture; frames; smoking ban
Inside The Arab Newsroom: Arab journalists evaluate themselves and the competition
Lawrence Pintak and Jeremy Ginges
In the years since 9/11, much has been written about the alleged bias and lack of professionalism in the Arab media. The first cross-border survey of Arab journalists finds that they have a mixed view of their own industry. They are frank about the lack of independence, fairness and professionalism among Arab news organizations. They admire the professionalism of their U.S. counterparts, but give them low marks for fairness and independence. Overall, they have the highest regard for European journalists. Arab journalists have a mixed view of some of the traditional norms of Western journalism; they believe reporting should be infused with respect and that journalists may also be political activists, but they ultimately aspire to objectivity. They don’t think their own media has been particularly objective in coverage of U.S. Middle East policy, but do they do believe they been marginally more objective than their U.S. counterparts.
KEYWORDS Arab; identity; journalist; Middle East; norms; terrorism
The Importance of the Internet for Journalistic Research: A multi-method study of the research performed by journalists working for daily newspapers, radio, television and online
Marcel Machill and Markus Beiler
This article reports how journalists integrate online research procedures into the overall research process, how they assess the internet and search engines and how highly developed their competences are in using search-engines. Observation of 235 journalists from newspaper, radio, television and online media platforms provide the data base. To this are added a written survey of 601 journalists and the participation of 48 journalists in an experiment. The observation phase revealed that journalists employ computer-aided research tools more frequently but for shorter periods than classical, non-computer-aided research tools. The telephone remains the most important research tool. Search engines, in particular Google, dominate the source-determination process and thereby have a decisive influence on the entire course of journalists’ research. The survey showed that a high level of journalistic attention focused on only a few internet offerings. The surveyed journalists exhibit a pragmatic attitude towards the internet and search engines as a research tool, even though they are aware of possible problems. The search-engine experiment revealed that journalists only achieved moderate success in their research. The greatest search success was achieved by journalists who entered the search terms in a thought-out manner and combined them logically. Overall, the study shows that computer-aided research supplements but does not displace classical research. Instead, the internet gains in significance in those tasks which it helps to fulfil more efficiently. However, the increased self-referentiality in journalism and the “Google-ization” of research represent a cause for concern.
Keywords Google; internet; investigation; journalists; observation; research; search engines
Journalist-Source Relations, Mediated Reflexivity and the Politics of Politics
Aeron Davis
This essay discusses journalist-source relations but with an emphasis on how such relations influence the understanding and behaviour of politicians. It explores the issue through empirical work conducted at the site of the UK Parliament at Westminster. Findings are based on semi-structured interviews with 60 Members of Parliament [MPs] and 20 national political journalists.
The research findings initially confirmed many of the observations of earlier studies in the field. UK journalist-source relations still resemble Gans’ (1979) original ‘tug-of-war’ description of an ever-shifting power balance between the two sides. Such interactions, in turn, are reflected in more compliant or adversarial news coverage. Of greater interest here, the interviews also revealed that such relations have come to play a significant role in the micro-level politics of the political sphere itself. This is because reporter-politician relations and objectives have become institutionalised, intense and subject to a form of ‘mediated reflexivity’. Consequently, politicians have come to incorporate such reporter interactions into their daily thinking and behaviour. As such, journalists are seen as more than a simple means of message promotion to the public. They also act, often inadvertently, as information intermediaries and sources for politicians trying to gauge daily developments within their own political arena.
KEYWORDS media-source relations; mediation; parliamentary politics; reflexivity; social construction
The ‘Radical’, the ‘Activist’ and the Hegemonic Newspaper Articulation of the Aotearoa New Zealand Foreshore and Seabed Conflict
Sean Phelan and Fiona Shearer
Popular assessments of the media treatment of the foreshore and seabed conflict point to a picture largely consistent with the well established argument that mainstream Aotearoa New Zealand media function as hegemonic agents of the dominant Pakeha culture. This paper reflects on the hegemonic representation of the 2003/2004 conflict over the “ownership” of the country’s foreshore and seabed by examining specifically how two ideologically potent signifiers, “activist” and “radical”, were articulated in a newspaper corpus of over 1 million words. Our theoretical and methodological approach is structured around a combination of macro and micro-textual discourse analysis approaches. We justify our particular empirical focus by arguing that the controversy associated with the figures of the (predominantly Maori) radical and the activist can be regarded as both symptomatic and constitutive of wider race relations antagonisms. Our analysis examines the media-political significance of textual presences and absences and presents an overview of how all relevant lexical variants of activist and radical were articulated in our newspaper corpus. We also discuss the political significance of our findings, partly by briefly considering additional empirical evidence of how Maori identities were represented in the corpus.
KEYWORDS Activism; corpus; foreshore and seabed; hegemony; Laclau; New Zealand newspapers; radicalism.
In Defense of Textual Analysis: Restoring a challenged method for journalism and media studies
Elfriede Fürsich
This essay examines the contribution of textual analysis to media and journalism research. Based on my experience with text-based journalism studies, I highlight the unique methodological position of media content between producers’ intentions and audience interpretations. My central argument is that media texts present a distinctive discursive moment between encoding and decoding that asks for special scholarly engagement. The narrative character of media content, its potential as a site of ideological negotiation and its impact as mediated reality necessities interpretation in its own right. By engaging current criticisms of the methodology (especially by Greg Philo) I hope to reposition textual analysis (as text-only analysis) as an important option for journalism scholars.
KEYWORDS cultural studies; critical discourse analysis; Glasgow University Media Group; methodology; textual analysis
In the Shadow of a Leader: News of violence, power and politics post-Arafat
Amani Ismail
This study investigates the construction of Palestinian political violence in U.S. news within the second Palestinian intifada, using Arafat’s death as a key moment. It sheds light on the role of media as critical public informants about political violence by examining such elements as labels attached to violence and how these elements speak to ideologies embedded in the news concerning the Palestinian struggle for state. News articles were chosen from selected regionally diverse U.S. newspapers that are among the top fifty U.S. circulating papers. Textual analysis indicated that news distinguished between Palestinian violence and the Palestinian cause. The death of Arafat was reported with both recognition of his relevance to the cause and some degree of sympathy for the Palestinian plight. The news, however, did not, however, go so far as to legitimate – much less celebrate – Palestinian violence geared to statehood. Also, journalists attributed “terrorism” exclusively to Palestinians, thereby delegitimating Palestinian violence as a means of resistance.
KEYWORDS Arafat; intifada; Israel; media; Palestine; terrorism
DEBATE
Things People Older/Younger Than Me Don’t Understand About The Internet
David T. Z. Mindich, John Carey, Matthew Powers and Sue Robinson
Jhistory, the international listserv that is a forum for journalism historians, has sponsored an annual panel at the AEJMC since 1995. At last summer’s Chicago convention, the panel topic was “Things People Older/Younger than Me Don’t Understand about the Internet.” The following essays emerged from this panel.
REVIEWS
Theory Review
Extending the Theoretical Cloth to Make Room for African Experience: An interview with Francis Nyamnjoh
Herman Wasserman
Book Reviews
Contents of February 2009
(Vol 10 - No 1)
Video Review
Guest Editor: Henrik Örnebring
EDITORIAL NOTE
GUEST EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
Questioning European Journalism
Henrik Örnebring
ARTICLES
Europe in Crisis? Discourses on crisis-events in the European press 1956-2006
Michał Krzyżanowski
The Mohammed Cartoons Crisis in the British and Greek Press: A European matter?
Anna Triandafyllidou
Travel Journalism: Europe imagining the Middle East
Ben Cocking
Reflections on Changing Patterns of Journalism in the New EU Countries
Epp Lauk
Divisions and Struggles of the Slovenian Journalistic Guild: A case study of contemporary European journalism
Primož Krašovec & Igor Ž. Žagar
Exploring the European Elite Sphere: The role of the Financial Times
Farrel Corcoran & Declan Fahy
An Elusive Trans-national Public Sphere? Journalism and news cultures in the EU setting
Paschal Preston
REVIEWS
Book Reviews
Notes on Contributors