Showing papers in "Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism in 2005"
TL;DR: The history of journalism in elective democracies around the world has been described as the emergence of a professional identity of journalists with claims to an exclusive role and status in society, based on and at times fiercely defended by their occupational ideology.
Abstract: The history of journalism in elective democracies around the world has been described as the emergence of a professional identity of journalists with claims to an exclusive role and status in society, based on and at times fiercely defended by their occupational ideology. Although the conceptualization of journalism as a professional ideology can be traced throughout the literature on journalism studies, scholars tend to take the building blocks of such an ideology more or less for granted. In this article the ideal-typical values of journalism’s ideology are operationalized and investigated in terms of how these values are challenged or changed in the context of current cultural and technological developments. It is argued that multiculturalism and multimedia are similar and poignant examples of such developments. If the professional identity of journalists can be seen as kept together by the social cement of an occupational ideology of journalism, the analysis in this article shows how journalism in the...
1,404 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored how the increasingly popular blog format, as adopted by journalists affiliated with mainstream media outlets, affects long-standing journalistic norms and practice, focusing on nonpartisanship, transparency and the gatekeeping role.
Abstract: This study explores how the increasingly popular blog format, as adopted by journalists affiliated with mainstream media outlets, affects long-standing journalistic norms and practice. It focuses on nonpartisanship, transparency and the gatekeeping role, using a content analysis of twenty Weblogs dealing with politics or civic affairs. Although expressions of opinion are common, most journalists are seeking to remain gatekeepers even in this highly interactive and participatory format. Political j-bloggers use links extensively – but mostly to other mainstream media sites. At least in their early use, journalists are `normalizing’ the blog as a component, and in some ways an enhancement, of traditional journalistic norms and practices.
514 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines current events weblogs or blogs that were particularly active during the second US war with Iraq, in the spring of 2003, and suggests that these blogs are a new genre of journalism that emphasizes personalization, audience participation in content creation and story forms that are fragmented and interdependent with other websites.
Abstract: This article examines current events weblogs or blogs that were particularly active during the second US war with Iraq, in the spring of 2003. Analysis suggests that these blogs are a new genre of journalism that emphasizes personalization, audience participation in content creation and story forms that are fragmented and interdependent with other websites. These characteristics suggest a shift away from traditional journalism’s modern approach toward a new form of journalism infused with postmodern sensibilities.
165 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use key notions of the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe to analyze the identity of the media professional, which is seen as over-determined, contingent and constructed but at the same time subjected to a hegemonic articulation, based on objectivity, autonomy, management of resources and employee-employer relations.
Abstract: This article uses key notions of the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe to analyze the identity of the media professional. Within their post-structural framework, this identity is seen as over-determined, contingent and constructed but at the same time subjected to a hegemonic articulation, based on four nodal points: objectivity, autonomy, management of resources and employee-employer relations. Combined with a theoretical discussion on the (counter-)hegemonic articulations, this allows for the field of discursivity that surrounds the identity of the media professional to be (re)constructed, resulting in four dimensions that offer potential points of identification. This field of discursivity is then used and put to the test as a series of sensitizing concepts for the analysis of the seven phone-in broadcasts the program Ter Zake (on VRT - the North Belgian public broadcasting company) has organized, illustrating both the contingency of the identity of the media professional and the rigidity of the he...
114 citations
TL;DR: This paper investigated how news media in Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands covered the Convention's preparation of the European Union Constitution, drawing on interviews with journalists from the UK, Germany and Netherlands.
Abstract: This multi-method study investigates how news media in Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands covered the Convention’s preparation of the European Union Constitution. The study draws on interviews w...
97 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that saliency is an effect of selectivity in fact-gathering and emphasis in news-writing, and that resonance is the effect of those same practices when accomplished with eloquence.
Abstract: To offer mythic appeal or ritual value, news must be framed not only to make certain facts and interpretations salient but also to resonate with what writers and readers take to be real and important matters of life. Paralleling salience as an effect of selectivity in fact-gathering and emphasis in news-writing, this study argues that resonance is an effect of those same practices when accomplished with eloquence. Continuing coverage of a particular news event provides the opportunity to study the recurring narrative structures and rhetorical strategies that just seemed to work in telling the story. That story, a poignant death and its aftermath, illustrates three resources for crafting resonance - all of which point to an ultimate source of resonance in the complexities of human desire.
78 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the Swedish media elite from a gender perspective based on a survey study among all top-level managers (the Swedish national institutional elites) in seven different social fields and interprets the results by drawing upon Bourdieu's theories on habitus, capital and field and Toril Moi's "appropriation" of Bourdeau, in What is a Woman? And Other Essays.
Abstract: The Nordic countries are often noted for their high level of gender equality. The media sector is no exception and it is true that almost 50 percent of Swedish journalists are female. However, female presence at the senior level of media organizations remains much lower. This article analyses the Swedish media elite from a gender perspective. It is based on a survey study among all top-level managers (the Swedish national institutional elites) in seven different social fields and interprets the results by drawing upon Bourdieu’s theories on habitus, capital and field and Toril Moi’s ‘appropriation’ of Bourdieu (in the essay ‘Appropriating Bourdieu’, in What is a Woman? And Other Essays). Differences and similarities between men and women in the media elite are identified and analysed, including differences regarding social background and the amount and type of capital they have accumulated when reaching the top. The main conclusion is that the acquisition of social capital is of major significance to coun...
59 citations
TL;DR: For instance, the adoption of American-born rhetoric and practices by other countries has been studied in comparative journalism studies as mentioned in this paper, with a focus on the use of American journalism as an almost universal standard for comparative studies.
Abstract: American journalism has been taken as an almost universal standard for comparative journalism studies. Most of those focus on the adoption of American-born rhetoric and practices by other countries...
58 citations
TL;DR: The concept of media logic put forth by Altheide and Snow (1979) was extended by those of gender logic (the symbolic construction of male-female dichotomy) and the logic of war (the legitimization of war through the construction of self and other) as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The article raises the question of how the news narrative of the liberation of Afghan women from the Taliban regime is linked to the legitimization of military involvement in general and of German foreign policy in particular. We extend the concept of media logic put forth by Altheide and Snow (1979) by those of gender logic (the symbolic construction of male-female dichotomy) and the logic of war (the legitimization of war through the construction of self and other). The interconnectedness of these three logics leads to a specific presentation of women, which in turn serves as proof for the allegedly altered circumstances after the defeat of the Taliban. The discourse analysis of Germany’s leading news magazines Der Spiegel and Focus shows that the veiling and unveiling of women is the most prominent feature in their reports on Afghanistan. ‘The veiled woman’ becomes a highly symbolic representation that marks the other culture as both foreign and irrational.
45 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assume that journalists are able to pursue "functional truth" - an account of issues and events reliably describing social reality, but researchers have often found systematic bias.
Abstract: Journalism assumes reporters are able to pursue ‘functional truth’ - an account of issues and events reliably describing social reality. But researchers have often found systematic bias. In reporti...
40 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the impact of specific research methodologies on findings regarding gender news influence -based on survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews of female and male editors working in Israeli public radio, as well as on content analysis of their editorial product.
Abstract: Whether, and how, gender affects the news product is one of the most challenging areas in the field of gender and the media. This article analyzes the impact of specific research methodologies on findings regarding gender news influence - based on survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews of female and male editors working in Israeli public radio, as well as on content analysis of their editorial product. Based on different results obtained from these qualitative and quantitative methodologies, we conclude that gender/news research cannot rely on either method exclusively, as heretofore has been overwhelmingly the case. Editorial interviewees’ responses can be as unreliable as autobiographies due to socio-organizational exigencies, while content analyses of news product must also be viewed critically as they do not necessarily reflect underlying gender ‘otherness’. This study discusses the research implications of the findings as well as the extent of ‘real’ gender influence on news product/ion.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the ways in which the interactions between female Israeli journalists and their male news sources are gendered and sexually structured, and examine the practices that the journalists adopt in order to cope with these attitudes and the views that these female journalists express concerning the legitimacy of their own practices.
Abstract: A B S T R A C T This article studies the ways in which the interactions between female Israeli journalists and their male news sources are gendered and sexually structured. The article is grounded in feminist critiques of journalism as well as feminist organizational and work studies and it is based on examination of the narratives of individual experiences of 32 female Israeli journalists, working for 10 newspapers. I set forth the attitudes of the male sources toward the female journalists as the journalists perceive them, and then I examine the practices that the journalists adopt in order to cope with these attitudes. Finally, I both set forth and examine the views that these female journalists express concerning the legitimacy of their own practices. The research findings illustrate how gender and sexuality interact in journalism by showing the dynamic character of this process in organizations. The findings demonstrate that gender and sexuality are key aspects of the relationship between the female journalists I studied and their male sources in the Israeli context.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the news coverage of the display of public grief in the Finnish newspapers following the murders of Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden in 1986, and Anna Lindh, the Foreign Minister in 2003.
Abstract: The supposed ‘emotionalization’ of the public sphere has recently been the target of much hostile commentary, both lay and academic. In the news media, there certainly seems to be a growing interest in emotion, as more and more space is devoted to the representations of mourning in the coverage of major disasters or extraordinary deaths. In this study I look at the news coverage of the display of public grief in the Finnish newspapers following the murders of Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden in 1986, and Anna Lindh, the Foreign Minister of Sweden in 2003. The similarities between the Palme and Lindh cases give an opportunity to examine how the representation of mourning has changed over time. The second aim of this article is to explore how gender is constructed in the portrayals of grief: are we witnessing a change regarding the persistent stereotypes about the emotional woman and the unemotional man in the representations of grief or just a new deal in gendered emotions?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the communication structures of journalism and public relations, using the communication ethics of Jurgen Habermas and conclude that good journalists reject the use of public relations techniques in their own practices.
Abstract: This article seeks to analyze the communication structures of journalism and public relations, using the communication ethics of Jurgen Habermas. The intention is to use this analysis to draw attention to the differences between journalism and public relations in the interests of good journalism and in the interests of democracy. I do not deny that public relations is an inevitable part of the communications order but rather that, contrary to some recent suggestions, it is with good reason that good journalists reject the use of public relations techniques in their own practices. The article ends with the suggestion that journalists need to defend their practice in policy and a clearly articulated self-understanding.
TL;DR: The authors discusses newspaper coverage of a plan by the Massachusetts Port Authority to construct a new runway that would triple the amount of flights at Boston’s Logan International Airport, which is the largest airport in the US.
Abstract: This article discusses newspaper coverage of a plan by the Massachusetts Port Authority to construct a new runway that would triple the amount of flights at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Th...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight the efforts of a group that produces, under the aegis of the National Organization for Women, a feminist public affairs series cablecast on cable television public access channels.
Abstract: This article highlights the efforts of a group that produces, under the aegis of the National Organization for Women, a feminist public affairs series cablecast on cable television public access channels. The question addressed here is whether this work, called ‘New Directions for Women’, can be seen as representing agency in the public sphere, assuming that something like the public sphere is indispensable to democratic political practice. The research finds that public access cable television does provide viable opportunities for feminist ‘content’, for activist-minded news, discussion, and criticism of the economy sphere, the state, and family. Yet, publicness is at odds with certain feminist principles, at least as these have been practiced in feminist journalism (i.e. directed at the enclave), in large part because the technology constrains enactment of feminist modes of news production.
TL;DR: The idea was intriguing: there was so much academic work on journalism, along with a multitude of books and articles, and the number of scholars in the field was constantly growing.
Abstract: The idea was intriguing: there was so much academic work on journalism, along with a multitude of books and articles, and the number of scholars in the field was constantly growing. But the International Communication Association (ICA), one of the world’s largest organizations of academics in the field of communication, had no journalism section. This held true until May 2004, when a group of scholars concerned with the study of journalism proposed the creation of a Journalism Studies Interest Group at the ICA during the association’s annual conference in New Orleans. It was amazing to see how fast this initiative evolved. After all, it took only four months from the initial idea to institutionalization, and this came as a surprise even for those who started this movement. To establish a new section in ICA, one has to find at least 30 member colleagues who are willing to sign a petition. Therefore, we screened the ICA online membership directory for potential petitioners who had devoted a great deal of research to the study of journalism. Our first call, sent out by e-mail by the end of February 2004, met with an overwhelming response from all over the globe. We approached 50 colleagues; 31 responded during the first six hours! All of them were supportive and not a single one opposed the initiative. Many of them said that the establishment of a journalism section at ICA was a ‘long overdue’ (H. Stocking1) and ‘timely move’ (J. M. Chan2). Some seemed Journalism
TL;DR: In 2001, a photo montage by Los Angeles artist Alma Lopez called Our Lady created a firestorm in Santa Fe, New Mexico as discussed by the authors, which highlighted the underlying issues surrounding the controversy largely unexamined.
Abstract: In 2001, a photo montage by Los Angeles artist Alma Lopez called Our Lady created a firestorm in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Because of journalistic practices that wait for officials or major players to raise issues before doing stories on them in order to claim ‘objectivity’, newspaper coverage left many underlying issues surrounding the controversy largely unexamined. This predominant trend in coverage privileged the almost exclusively male protesters by constantly replaying their attacks. Also, the way in which the different sides were condensed in ongoing stories forced the artist and her mostly female supporters to play defense without their best defense: the Sandra Cisneros essay that inspired the work and its feminist critique of Chicano culture and its effect on Latinas’ self-image.
TL;DR: In this article, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has regained its former industrial influence within the provincial newspaper industry, after a decade of derecognition by employers and following the introduction of new statutory union recognition mechanism.
Abstract: This article examines whether, having regained many earlier lost union recognition agreements, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has recaptured its former industrial influence within the provincial newspaper industry, after a decade of derecognition by employers and following the introduction of new statutory union recognition mechanism. The processes by which the NUJ regained union recognition agreements after maintaining its membership base are considered. Thereafter, an assessment is made of how influential the NUJ has been in advancing and protecting its members’ interests through the institutions and processes of collective bargaining in the post-recognition period.
TL;DR: This paper found a strong emphasis on episodic and personal stories, with minor allusions to greater social issues, and concluded that the challenge for the public health model is to find "scripts" that journalists deem to be publicly consumable and ratings friendly.
Abstract: Surveys of mass media content related to social violence suggest that it generally focuses on the individual, atomistic ‘act’ (e.g. the bang-bang car chase) rather than issues of cause and prevention. Yet, increasingly - but with controversy - doctors, health officials and activists have pushed for a ‘public health’ model of reporting news about crime and violence that looks at interactions between the victim, the agent of injury or death, and the environment in which the injury or death took place rather than viewing it in strictly individual terms. In this study of television news-magazine stories, we found a strong emphasis on episodic and personal stories, with minor allusions to greater social issues. The emphasis on entertainment seemed to negate any promised ‘public health’ angles. We conclude that the challenge for the public health model is to find ‘scripts’ that journalists deem to be publicly consumable and ratings friendly.
TL;DR: A free press is necessary for a healthy democracy but how can imprisoned journalists speak the truth to power? To answer that question, the authors maps the development of an inmate newspaper over time.
Abstract: A free press is necessary for a healthy democracy but how can imprisoned journalists speak the truth to power? To answer that question, this article maps the development of an inmate newspaper over...
TL;DR: The authors examines the intersections of gender, race, and class in the origins of modern crime news and sheds light on the hold these forms of threat construction continue to exercise within US crime news, and public discourses about crime.
Abstract: Based on an analysis of episodic crime reporting in the New York Herald and the New York Sun of the 1830s, the following article examines the intersections of gender, race, and class in the origins of modern crime news. The role played by intersections among race, gender, and class in US crime news has not always been transparent or straightforward. In the ideologically charged context of crime news, for example, codes for representing black masculinity as criminal grew out of early 19th-century conceptualizations of gender, race, and class that were fundamentally racist and misogynist. Re-examining the early development of US crime news through a lens that encompasses race, gender, and class can tell us much about how various forms of threat construction came to be, as well as shedding light on the hold these forms of threat construction continue to exercise within US crime news and public discourses about crime.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the role and significance of media proprietors and the everyday practices of political journalists in Australian political communication, and provide an excellent starting point for those seeking an understanding of how contemporary Australian political communications have evolved.
Abstract: kingmakers in their own right, yet acknowledges that these journalists were in an ongoing dialogue with their media owners, and so parameters existed about the boundaries of the ‘acceptable’ and the ‘unacceptable’. By the time of the 1975 Federal election, these had been stretched to breaking point in news media organizations such as News Limited. By setting its time frame quite tightly, it can only suggest, in its Epilogue, at two key subsequent developments in Australian political communication. One is the way in which the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, which held power for 13 years, the longest period of continuous Labor rule in Australia, did so through a deft strategy of management of national political journalism. The other is the rise of the Liberal–National party coalition government since 1996, which has been the beneficiary of the corollary of the shift of the middle classes to Labor – the growing attraction of the Liberals to upwardly-mobile working-class suburban families, who felt disenfranchised from the group-oriented politics of the Australian Labor Party – and the direct appeals made to this ‘aspirational’ politics by various media, ranging from the ‘tabloid’ newspapers to talkback radio (cf. Brett 2003). Nonetheless, for those seeking an understanding of how contemporary Australian political communication has evolved and the relationship it has to the role and significance of media proprietors and the everyday practices of political journalists, this book is an excellent starting point.