“SOMEONE'S GOTTA BE IN CONTROL HERE”

Journalists explain daily happenings according to a uniform mission, agreed-upon routines, and established societal relationships. Their product—American newspaper stories in this case—helps shape the social order by controlling information dissemination in a structured environment. As a result, the press enjoys the status of a political institution that operates with some authority. When technology allows the audience to take over some control in this process, its institutional dynamics shift. This research examined the words of 35 journalists to explore how technology is causing marked evolutions in newspaper journalism's missions, routines, and relationships with sources and readers. This paper found that news considerations center on personal experience for journalists and their audiences. The evidence indicates that journalists are sharing their ability to tell the day's news with people outside of the institution. Eventually, the changes in news production will have implications for the press's ultimate authority as a societal institution.     

The Use of Social Media by Chinese Climate Journalists: A Case Study of COP21

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to probe into the social media use by Chinese climate journalists through the examination of their professional practices on social media. Taking COP21 as a case, the study conducted a survey from Chinese COP21 journalists and analyzed WeChat and Weibo posts from Chinese journalists and tweets from their UK and US colleagues. The results show the prevalent use of WeChat among Chinese journalists and the personalization of the social media content accordingly. Compared to their Western counterparts, the use of social media for professional purposes by Chinese COP21 journalists was relatively limited. Nevertheless, several patterns of using social media were identified. Specifically, Chinese journalists tended to more frequently express personal opinions, discuss work experience and favor conventional news sources of authority than UK and US journalists. The results also suggest that climate change in Chinese media discourse will remain more a policy-related issue instead of an environmental or scientific issue, with Chinese government playing a central role.     

Online Censorship and Journalists' Tactics

This paper explores the dynamics between journalistic practices and the mechanisms of internet control in the Chinese context. Principally drawing on interviews and focus group discussions with journalists, this paper investigates in detail the key tactics employed by journalists to counter online censorship, which include: journalists working undercover; the use of “transformed words” or alternatives to “sensitive” words to evade blocking filters; and de-verification on microblogs (Weibo in Chinese) where critical alternative accounts on social media oblige officials to recant earlier versions of events reported on traditional media. Informed by Scott's research, this paper argues that journalists employ these strategies as weapons against the party-state's censorship. Such strategies avoid direct confrontation with the authorities, and are conducted on a “quiet” but substantial scale. Consequently, it is not easy to apply sanctions against particular individuals. The strategies have a profound impact on the dynamics of the relationships between journalists and the powerful party-state. On the one hand, the strategies can empower journalists with psychological gains. On the other, these strategies weaken the party-state's authority. But such strategies are not new and can also be found in traditional journalistic practices. However, one phenomenon worthy of note is the association between journalists and scholars facilitated by microblogs, since increased associations among various professional groups may spark resistance to the party-state's information monopoly.     

Chinese journalists' views of user-generated content producers and journalism: a case study of the boundary work of journalism

This article examines how journalists defend their boundaries and epistemic authority in the face of the challenges from user-generated content (UGC). It investigates the issue through exploring 51 Chinese journalists’ views of UGC producers and journalism. The interviews reveal that in this case study, Chinese journalists’ commitment to their social identity as ‘people of work units’ (danwei ren), i.e. their identity is defined by the employment relationship between journalists and news organisations, forms the ground of demarcating the boundaries between journalists and UGC producers. As a result, this group of Chinese journalists reinforces their conventional journalistic norms and identity as ‘organisational men/women’ and keeps old-fashioned journalism alive. In the meantime, however, they are aware of changes in the environment within which they practice, and therefore they reflect on their work and (re-)define what journalism is in order to adapt to the changes. This case study shows that the boundary work of Chinese journalists interviewed in the study and their understanding of boundaries are contextually bound. The boundary work of journalism is not only about defence but also about adaptation. It offers a perspective for understanding both continuity and change in the transformation of Chinese journalism as well as the boundaries of journalism in general.     

Preparing Society for the Information Age

The Federal Government of Germany has initiated a nationwide discussion on the forthcoming “Information Society.” The purpose is to broaden awareness of the opportunities, challenges and risks of future telematics applications on all aspects of life and to prepare the citizens for these changes, including labour market and media literacy, sustainable development and cities, etc. More than 150 societal groups, associations, and organizations are participating (trade unions, citizens' groups, industry associations, large corporations, representatives of churches, youth, women, handicapped people, elderly citizens, etc.). All serve as multipliers to spread awareness into all the facets of the society. The paper reviews the conceptual approach, the organizational infrastructure, the topics, the implementation of the dialogue process and the first experiences. It also identifies implications for similar initiatives in other countries. 7     

Monologisation as a Quoting Practice

This paper explores a particular aspect of journalistic quoting, monologisation. During monologisation, the interactive turn exchange between the journalist and the interviewee is simplified in the resulting article. This simplification process mainly takes the form of obscuring the role of the journalist in the original spoken discourse. As a result, the quotations appear to be unprompted, continuous utterances by the interviewee, and this in turn has seminal consequences for the interpretation of the quotation. This paper will demonstrate that monologisation is an effective means for journalists to steer the reading of the article and to include their own points of view without breaking the professional rule that journalism must separate facts from opinions. The results of this study are based on a comparison between two types of empirical data; recordings of journalistic interviews, on the one hand, and published articles, on the other. This study will focus on one particular type of journalistic interview that has been largely neglected in prior research along with its specific quoting practices, namely the interviews were conducted by the journalists in order to collect raw material for written journalistic items, published either in print or electronic form. This paper will show that interviews of this type involve highly diverse and mutually adaptive interaction, contrary to the clearly structured question–answer interviews that are used as sound bites in television news items and have thus far remained the primary focus of research on both journalistic interviews and quoting processes. The notion of monologisation could be applied in various domains where an interview is converted into a written account, such as research interviewing and police interrogations.     

Health Journalist Role Conceptions

Using interview methodology, this research examines the role conceptions of US health journalists. Asking journalists from different types of media to define their roles as they relate to public health, inequalities, responsibility and news values reveals the external demands on journalists as well as internal processes that shape professional identity. This paper considers professional and normative role conceptions. Interviews with experienced health journalists revealed that they do not identify with any one of these roles in particular but operate on a spectrum, navigating competing pressures resulting from individual, organizational, and societal influences. Through the process of analyzing and categorizing health journalists’ goals, responsibilities, and ideals, we explore how topics and tasks specific to covering health relate to the democratic functions of the press. The findings of this study advance knowledge about the sociology of newswork and shed light on the professional identities of health journalists.     

“When I Ask a Question,They Look at me Strangely”

This study uses qualitative interviews with 66 women journalists from print, broadcast, and online media in India, to understand how women political reporters assigned to the political beat negotiate gender issues and organizational and news routines while being effective journalists entrusted to cover matters of policy and enhance political awareness among audiences. Using Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchy-of-influences model that introduces five levels of influence on news content, this study explores how institutional, news gathering, societal procedures, and professional practices influence the functions of women journalists on the political beat and percolate into the content they produce. The results show that in India’s growing media market, organizational and news routines, as well as the contentious issue of gender, control access to beats, especially the political beat, and percolate into news content produced by women political reporters.     

AMERICAN SPORTS WRITERS’ SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON PROFESSIONALISM

American sports writers' use of social media as a newsgathering tool has influenced journalism practice, further complicating the industry's abstract definition of “professionalism.” This study builds on a pilot study published in the fall 2011 issue of Journal of Sports Media, which assessed print sports journalists' use of social media. In the current study, a survey was administered to 77 full-time print sports journalists who cover professional sports. This paper seeks to extend the pilot study and previous professional research in two ways: firstly, to assess how this specific subgroup of sports writers use Facebook and Twitter to gather information; and secondly, to analyze how these sports writers define “professionalism” and what industry factors correlate with chosen definitions, such as newspaper circulation and work superiors' attitudes toward social media. Cross-tabulations and chi-square tests were used to test hypotheses. Cramer's V or Phi, depending upon the cross-tabulation, were used to measure relationship strength. Results suggest this subset of sports writers more often uses Twitter for newsgathering purposing than Facebook. There is also a strong relationship between the frequency of Twitter usage and the definition of professionalism chosen; circulation size and instances of directly quoting from athletes' social media accounts; and age and Twitter usage.     

Awareness,Reporting, and Branding: Exploring Influences on Brazilian Journalists’ Social Media Use across Platforms

ABSTRACT

This study examines the individual and organizational level factors shaping Brazilian journalists’ use of social media. Results from a survey of 774 reporters show that individual factors influence awareness and reporting uses, while organizational factors are associated with branding. Results suggest no difference between groups of journalists, when it comes to incorporating social media for reporting; but online reporters engage in branding and use social media as an awareness system more than their counterparts. Findings also reveal that journalists have not fully embraced the participatory potential of social media, as only trust in information posted by other journalists relates to adoption.     

Time's up. Or is it? Journalists’ Perceptions of Sexual Violence and Newsroom Changes after #MeTooIndia

ABSTRACT

The #MeToo movement, which engulfed much of India's news and entertainment industry in October 2018, was projected by many as a watershed moment for Indian journalism. Driven largely through social media activism, it created significant public discourse and outcry, leading to the “outing” and resignation of many journalists. This paper explores the perception of #MeTooIndia in regional and national newsrooms. Drawing on Manuel Castells's ideas of networked social movement, we consider the origins of #MeTooIndia, including its mediation on private and social networks. We then draw on 257 semi-structured interviews with journalists working in 14 languages across India to explore the “cause” of the campaign—the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual violence in workspaces—before turning our attention to the impact, or potential for impact, that journalists saw in it. We find most journalists felt the movement was “good”, but did not think it influenced their environment or newswork in any meaningful manner. Regional journalists expressed more pessimism about the #MeTooIndia, men more so than women.     

Journalists Primed: How Professional Identity Affects Moral Decision Making

ABSTRACT

This study examines whether professional journalists reason differently about moral problems when primed with their professional identity. This between-subjects experiment (N?=?171) used the Defining Issues Test, a much-used and validated instrument that measures moral reasoning. The results show identity priming does not affect how journalists apply ethics. The study also found that journalists score far lower in moral reasoning than they did 13 years ago. These results are interpreted through the lens of social identity theory.     

INFORMING,ENTERTAINING, EMPOWERING

Public service has been seen as a powerful element in the professional self-definition of journalists. In this article I examine the renegotiation of the ideal of public service by analysing Finnish press journalists’ ways of constructing and representing it in interview talk. The data analysed consists of 32 in-depth interviews with press journalists conducted in 2003–4. The interviewees’ talk is understood discursively. Among the interviewees the discourse of the societal newspaper was challenged by that of the market-oriented press. According to the data analysed, the two discourses are simultaneously present and intertwined in the practice of newsrooms. Accordingly, they both appear fundamental in defining the future of the ideal of public service. For these reasons, the discursive negotiation of “good” journalism in the Finnish press can be characterized as a hybrid. What seems to be important is that together the discourses of the market-oriented newspaper and that of the societal newspaper form a continuum of different ideals and tasks; the professional role constructed for a journalist comprises a rich, fluid spectrum of responsibilities—informing, entertaining and empowering.     

Journalists’ Coverage of Online Firestorms in German-Language News Media

When people perceive events that conflict with their expectations they can easily express their agitation and concerns online and likely find others who share their opinion. When large quantities of messages containing negative word-of-mouth suddenly spread in social media we speak of an online firestorm. By covering the outcry, journalists elevate it onto a mainstream communication platform and support the process of scandalization. Content analysis was used to explore how journalists, working for German-language media, cover this phenomenon. Over a period of 16 months, 130 online firestorms were identified and analyzed. Based on a typology of online firestorms, we have found that the majority of cases address events of perceived discrimination and moral misconduct aiming at societal change. Vilification of the organization or person occurred to a much lesser extent. Thus, journalistic coverage of the phenomenon focuses on the rectification attempts of an aroused public. Image-repair responses of the firestorm objects are quoted by journalists in about half of the articles, thereby providing some balanced reporting about the online criticism. This study provides an initial insight into how online firestorms are used as a topic of news coverage by journalists and explores journalists’ contribution to attempts of online scandalization.     

Partners in Power

This historical analysis examines the relationship between investigative journalists and official sources through the prism of Pulitzer Prize archive materials from 1917 through 1960. Most prize research has focused on the content of winning stories, but this study provides a fuller picture of the process of newsmaking—and policymaking—through an exploration of deliberative material created by prize juries. While the role of the press in these decades and beyond has been conceptualized alternately as a passive lapdog or an aggressive watchdog, this essay offers a more nuanced view of newspapers that are fully entangled with power in society—sometimes collaborating with a faction of power, sometimes confronting a faction, and, often, both at once. Detailed jury notes on the nominations tell the stories behind the investigations, revealing a press that sometimes leads and other times takes the lead from those in positions of official power. The paper adds to the literature on policy and media agenda building, arguing that through investigative reporting, journalists have often been active rather than passive partners in systems of community standard maintenance.     

JOURNALISTS AT WAR

This article looks closely at the issue of unionization among a sample of Arab journalists working in transnational media. Although divided geographically, these media share the same trait of addressing Arab audiences all over the Arab region and indeed the whole world. The main question addressed in this article is how those journalists perceive the role of unions and whether there are differences among those who work in Europe, particularly London, vis-à-vis those in the Gulf. The article is based on interviews with 25 journalists from such outlets, who were asked about their membership and views of journalism unions in their local or host countries. I argue that journalists who work in London and who have joined the British National Union of Journalists (NUJ) see the NUJ as part of the British political scene and consider it to be a powerful potential tool in defending journalists' rights when reporting inside the Arab region.     

Suffering in Silence: The Resilience of Pakistan’s Female Journalists to Combat Sexual Harassment,Threats and Discrimination

ABSTRACT

Pakistan’s journalists confront severe safety risks across the country and impunity to crimes against them allows the perpetrators to go unpunished. Now the country is recognized as one of the deadliest places for working journalists in the world. Given this situation, the Pakistani female journalists are more vulnerable because they are not only prone to safety risks and sexual harassment, but also they face gender discrimination when it comes to their recruitment and equal pay-scale. In the past decade, there has been an alarming increase in attacks on female journalists and incidents of their sexual harassment in Pakistan. Notwithstanding the growing plague of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the country, the resilience of female journalists to work within a threatening and prejudiced environment has not yet fully explored and analysed. Therefore, drawing on the postcolonial feminist theory, this study aims to investigate the Pakistani female journalists’ lived experiences of sexual harassment, threats and discrimination. The study also analyses the impacts of sexual harassment, threats and gender discrimination on the country’s female journalists. To achieve the aforementioned aims, this study uses the qualitative methods of in-depth interviews and focus groups discussion, and offers a thematic analysis of qualitative data.     

Separating real from fake: Building news literacy with the Frayer Model

News literacy is an important part of journalism and liberal arts education. Adapting a tool called the Frayer Model, the activity guides students in developing a conceptual understanding of news by creating a definition, listing essential characteristics, and coming up with examples and non-examples. This activity is intended to set the stage for an introductory newswriting course, as students learn to connect journalism's purpose with its format.

Courses: Newswriting, reporting

Objectives: Facilitating news literacy and understanding of how the civic function of journalism is related to content creation.     

Gender,Risk and Journalism

The central concern of this paper is to address the question, “Is it more dangerous to be a woman journalist when reporting conflict”. Beck states “risk is the anticipation of the catastrophe—so it is existent and non-existent”. Is the contention that female journalists are more at risk, knowledge, or a construction of knowledge? Are editors and journalists who decide that women are more at risk merely anticipating a catastrophe? There is no certainty, of course, that women are more at risk, but the fear that they might be can prevent them from being sent to cover conflict, or force them to decide not to go to dangerous places. Certainly, an improvised explosive device or rocket fire does not distinguish between sexes. In many situations being female actually helps women journalist in conflict zones. In this paper we present findings from a survey of journalists who work in conflict zones and ask whether it is the job or the gender which is the most dangerous?