Showing papers by "Christopher Anderson published in 2019"

Dealing with the mess (we made): Unraveling hybridity, normativity, and complexity in journalism studies:

Abstract: In this article, we discuss the rise and use of the concept of hybridity in journalism studies. Hybridity afforded a meaningful intervention in a discipline that had the tendency to focus on a stabilized and homogeneous understanding of the field. Nonetheless, we now need to reconsider its deployment, as it only partially allows us to address and understand the developments in journalism. We argue that if scholarship is to move forward in a productive manner, we need, rather than denote everything that is complex as hybrid, to develop new approaches to our object of study. Ultimately, this is an open invitation to the field to adopt experientialist, practice-based approaches that help us overcome the ultimately limited binary dualities that have long governed our theoretical and empirical work in the field.

HCI for Accurate, Impartial and Transparent Journalism: Challenges and Solutions

Abstract: While new media technologies hold the potential to serve journalism's dual goals of informing and engaging the public, these technologies also challenge the journalistic norms of accuracy, impartiality and transparency. The key question in this workshop is: How can HCI support accurate, impartial and transparent journalism? This question is ever more timely as the need for accurate and credible journalism is growing amid the proliferation of disinformation and opinion manipulation. In this workshop, we will identify challenges and solutions in the design of user interfaces, user experiences and production processes in journalism. We bring together researchers and practitioners designing, deploying and studying new technologies in journalism. The goal of the workshop is to harness the potential of HCI for supporting accurate, impartial and transparent journalism.

Journalism as procedure, journalism as values

Abstract: Historical research has shown that Anglo-American journalism, at least in its ‘informational’ form (Schudson, 1978) is in part the inheritor of Enlightenment values (Anderson, 2018; see also Mindich, 2000; Ward, 2006). Part of this commitment can be seen in journalism’s embrace of procedural mechanisms for determining social truth, alongside a professional belief in the importance of institutional fora as the field in which these procedures play themselves out. In other words, one of journalism’s primary values is its’ belief in process. The difficulty lies when these procedural values contradict other values also inherited from the Enlightenment tradition. This, I argue, is the situation in which Anglo-American journalism finds itself today, and untangling the conflict between processes and values constitutes the primary challenge facing journalism in the 21st century. In this, journalism can serve as a case study of the crisis facing Western democratic institutions in general. In this brief overview, I want to compare the proceduralism of journalism to several other forms of procedural democratic practice – voting, deliberative democracy, and participatory culture. I next highlight the manner in which journalism’s practices and professional codes embody a certain type of procedural faith in the clear separation of facts from values and compare journalism to science, its epistemological cousin. I conclude by discussing how the present political moment highlights tensions that lie at the heart of journalism’s liberal, Enlightenment project.

Fake news and scandal

Abstract: This chapter aims to understand and misunderstand fake news as a research concept. It addresses each of the critiques by outlining elements of our research on fake news production in the Philippines, which was selected insofar as it provides a non-European case of a phenomenon the discussion of which is usually confined to the industrialized West and which serves as a launching pad for engaging in larger meta-theoretical reflection. The chapter describes the term “fake news” while agreeing entirely with the criticism that its use is problematic. It explores the fake news as words on a page rather than images or other forms of visual content. The chapter discusses the initial conversation about the media and scandal and discusses how the different frameworks for considering fake news shed light on the relationship between scandal and the media. One of the forms of media visibility arises via scandal, which is itself related to certain changes in the constitution of politics.

Populist Time: Mediating Immediacy and Delay in Liberal Democracy

Abstract: The conduct of politics is, in part, constructed by conceptions of time, and this happens through an interplay between mechanisms of governance and different media systems and technologies. This article argues that we are witnessing an increasing divergence between the mechanisms of delay built into liberal democracy and a “politics of impatience” that is part of a larger populist communications style. Furthermore, we contend that social media—particularly Twitter—help pave the way for this growing populist impatience, creating what we label “populist time.” In theoretical terms, the article draws on journalism studies, on research on social media and populism, on mediated time, and, finally, on the temporalities of democratic governance. Our contribution is to bring these literatures together in order to posit three distinct building blocks for the formation of populist time, which are part of the communication on Twitter: feelings of “realtimeness,” “unmediation” and “impulsivity.” This article thus aims to suggest conceptual building blocks for more nuanced investigations of how temporal processes and perceptions play into the performance of populism on social media.

Managing Journalistic Innovation and Source Security in the Age of the Weaponized Internet

Abstract: Journalism scholarship has for the last two decades grappled with a paradox: while the industry spent years mired in gloomy proclamations of falling ad revenue, shrinking newsrooms, and the death of local reporting, since the late 2000s the industry has also been caught up in a wave of jubilance about technology and innovation. After a tour through academic theories on innovation through organizations and industries, we adopt the models of Social Construction of Technology and Institutional Isomorphism. With these frameworks in hand, we then introduce two empirical case studies on the adoption of novel technologies, specifically, privacy- and security-enhancing tools. Through these case studies we explain the puzzling paradox in the shift from stasis to change in the news industry, and show that innovation is neither an imposing, inexorable force of nature demanding compliance nor a sweeping wave of future-oriented effervescence. Rather, innovative tools and practices are interpreted and implemented against a backdrop of social, environmental and structural parameters. We close with recommendations for how managers can implement innovation in their own newsrooms, in particular through hiring practices, and hiring from diverse backgrounds but taking care to hire key “brokers” who have experience across backgrounds and can do critical translation work between groups.

Between Certainty and Uncertainty: The Historical, Political, and Normative Contexts of Inferential Journalism Claims:

Abstract: What do you think? You know the shit he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists. I don’t know, members of the press, what the fuck? [Reporter tries to interrupt.] Hold on a second. You know, it’s these questions that you know the answers to. I mean, connect the dots about what he’s been doing in this country. He’s not tolerating racism; he’s promoting racism. He’s not tolerating violence; he’s inciting racism and violence in this country . . . I don’t know what kind of question that is. (https://medium. com/whither-news/beto-to-journalism-what-the-fuck-b31e5e8c8ad9)