scholarly journals Journalism Studies’ Systematic Pursuit of Irrelevance : How Research Emphases Sabotage Critiques of Corporate-Run News Media

2018 ◽  
pp. 37-51
Author(s):  
Yigal Godler ◽  
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Journalism Studies

scholarly journals News and Participation through and beyond Proprietary Platforms in an Age of Social Media

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Westlund ◽  
Mats Ekström
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Thematic Issue ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Participatory Journalism ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Key Aspects

The link between journalism and participation has since long been envisioned and argued to be an important one. However, it is also a complex link. It encompasses how the news media and their social actors actively work towards enabling and engaging citizens as active participants through the digital infrastructures of their proprietary platforms, as well as the ways citizens potentially make use of such opportunities or not in their everyday lives, and how this affects epistemologies of news journalism. However, to date, journalism studies scholars have mostly focused on positive forms of participatory journalism via proprietary platforms, and thus fail to account for and problematize dark participation and participation taking place on social media platforms non-proprietary to the news media. This introduction, and the thematic issue as a whole, attempts to address this void. The introduction discusses three key aspects of journalism’s relationship with participation: 1) proprietary or non-proprietary platforms, 2) participants, and 3) positive or dark participation.

Economic Inequality and News Media

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
News Media ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Mainstream Economics ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Blind Spots

Despite the rediscovery of the inequality topic by economists and other social scientists in recent times, relatively little is known about how economic inequality is mediated to the wider public. That is precisely where this book steps in: it examines how mainstream news media discuss, respond to, and engage with such important trends. The book addresses significant ‘blind spots’ in the two disciplinary areas most related to this book—political economy and media/journalism studies. Firstly, key issues related to economic inequalities tend to be neglected in media and journalism studies field. Secondly, mainstream economics have paid relatively little attention to the evolving scope and role of mediated communication.

Blessed be the educated journalist: Reflections on a religious literacy gap in the field of journalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enqi Weng ◽  
Alexandra Wake
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Religious Literacy ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Literacy Gap ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Media

Religion has ‘returned’ to news discourses, since 9/11, with a focus on Muslims and Islam and more recently on Catholicism (in the wake of paedophile priest scandals) and anti-Semitism (with the rise of the far-right movements). These news discourses, however, tend to adopt limited perspectives, and do not reflect the diversity of practices and viewpoints within these religious traditions. As Australia becomes increasingly ‘superdiverse’, there is a greater need for the inclusivity of cultural perspectives of these religions. Current research findings show that religious literacy among media practitioners in Australia is not only limited to specific notions about a small number of religions, it is exacerbated by an Anglo-Celtic dominance in the media workforce. This article suggests that for news media to provide a more culturally and religiously inclusive public service to promote societal understanding, current and emerging journalists require a more reflexive understanding of religions, through journalism studies and humanities more broadly, and how they have historically shaped the world, and continue to do so.

Shifting foundations: Journalism and the power of the ‘common good’

Journalism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 801-816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristy Hess
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Social Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

This essay rethinks the relationship between news media and the universal notion of the ‘common good’ as a key foundational concept for journalism studies. It challenges dominant liberal democratic theories of the press linked to the idea of the ‘public good’ to offer a new way of conceptualizing news media’s relationship to civic life that incorporates power and legitimacy in the changing media world. In doing so, it argues current understandings of journalism’s relationship to the common good also require some re-alignment. The essay draws on Pierre Bourdieu to contend the common good can be understood as a global doxa – an unquestionable orthodoxy that operates as if it were objective truth – across wider social space. How this is carried out in practice depends on the specific context in which it is understood. It positions the common good in relation to news media’s symbolic power to construct reality and argues certain elites generate and reinforce their legitimacy by being perceived as central to negotiating understandings of the common good with links to culture, community and shared values.

Objects of journalism, revised: Rethinking materiality in journalism studies through emotion, culture and ‘unexpected objects’

Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146488492098573
Author(s):  
Rachel E. Moran ◽  
Nikki Usher
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
News Media ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Soft Objects ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Emotional Dimensions

Despite attempts to reinvigorate studies of materiality in Journalism Studies, research has often failed to move beyond a narrow application of actor-network theory focused on the affordances of digital objects of journalism. As a result, journalism studies has missed a productive opportunity to consider the emotional, cultural and aesthetic potential of object-oriented study. This article makes the case for focusing on how objects of journalism are felt, experienced and are otherwise culturally situated. Drawing on cultural studies, we advocate for a rethinking of materialism to more expansively reckon with the affective and emotional dimensions of journalism. Further, we develop Schudson’s (2015) theory of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ objects to include a third category: ‘unexpected objects’ of journalism. These objects, such as art on newsroom walls, news media merchandise, and daily ephemera, often have little directly to do with newsmaking processes, yet play an important affective role in journalism.

Inequality, Mediatization, and Critical Takes on Making the News

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-69
Author(s):  
Paschal Preston
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
News Media ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Economic Equality ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
The Media ◽  
High Level ◽  
Changing Role

Chapter 3 continues the initial review of existing research literature related to the changing role and forms of the media and economic affairs, and the issues of economic inequality in particular. It aims to identify some high-level ideas and concepts drawn from the fields of socioeconomics and political economy, as well as certain sub-sets of the communication and journalism studies fields, which shed light on the meaning of economic inequality and the key influences on the selection or making of news culture and journalistic practices. The chapter considers the shifting forms and meanings of economic equality in the modern social sciences, indicating the diversity of prior studies, engagement with, or neglect of inequality matters. It then moves on to address the notion of mediatization and select aspects of the evolving role and scope of the media in relation to economic and other societal processes, including those related to economic inequality. Next, some of the major approaches and prevailing perspectives on ‘making the news’ are identified. This outlines a typology of the prior research literature, noting a number of distinct schools in explaining the key influences on newsmaking and shaping journalism discourses. The authors focus on certain macro- and meso-level factors which influence news media and journalistic discourse (rather than individual-level characteristics or failings of journalists). The chapter ends with an outline of the authors’ transdisciplinary approach towards ‘making the news’, combining conceptual elements from both the critical cultural studies and political economy approaches. A final section considers conclusions and implications.

Citizen Journalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Miller
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Citizen Involvement ◽  
Citizen Journalism ◽  
Content Quality ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Content ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Organizational Ties

The emergence of citizen journalism has prompted the journalism field and scholars to readdress what constitutes journalism and who is a journalist. Citizen journalists have disrupted news-media ecosystems by challenging the veracity and representativeness of information flowing from mainstream news-media newsrooms. However, the controversy related to the desired level of citizen involvement in the news process is a historical debate that began before the citizen-journalism phenomenon. As early as the 1920s, journalist and political commentator Walter Lippman and American philosopher John Dewey debated the role of journalism in democracy, including the extent that the public should participate in the news-gathering and production processes. This questioning of citizen involvement in news reemerged as an issue with the citizen journalism phenomenon around the late 1990s. People with no news-media organizational ties have taken advantage of the convenience and low cost of social computing technologies by publishing their own stories and content. These people are referred to as citizen journalists. Scholars have assessed the quality and credibility of citizen-journalism content, finding that citizen journalists have performed well on several standards of traditional news-content quality. Levels of quality differ dependent upon citizen journalists’ goals and motivations, such as serving the public interest, increasing self-status, or expressing their creative selves. As it is an emerging area of study, unarticulated theoretical boundaries of citizen journalism exist. Citizen-journalism publications emphasize community over conflict, advocacy over objectivity, and interpretation over fact-based reporting. In general, citizen journalists have historically acted when existing news-media journalists were not fully meeting their community’s informational needs. Scholars, however, vary in how they label citizen journalists and how they conceptually and empirically define citizen journalism. For example, researchers have shifted their definitional focus on citizen journalists from one of active agents of democratic change to people who create a piece of news content. The mapping of the citizen-journalism literature revealed four types of citizen journalists based on their levels of editorial control and contribution type: (1) participatory, (2) para, (3) news-media watchdog, and (4) community. Taken together, these concepts describe the breadth of citizen-journalist types. For those of us interested in journalism studies, a more targeted approach in the field of citizen journalism can help us build community around scholarship, understand citizen journalists’ contributions to society and practice, and create a more a stable foundation of knowledge concerning people who create and comment on news content.

Behind the mask: women in television news

2016 ◽  
Vol 160 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise North
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Gender Equity ◽  
News Media ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Television News ◽  
Baseline Study ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Experiences Of Women ◽  
Women In Television

The characteristics and lived experiences of women who work in television news in Australia have largely been overlooked in the field of journalism studies. This article, drawing on data from a larger project undertaken in 2012, focuses on 93 female respondents who identified as working in television news. It aims to provide a baseline study for further research by noting the characteristics and experiences of women who work in television news compared and contrasted with those women working in other news media platforms (newspapers, radio, wire services and online). While there are similarities between the cohorts, women in television in Australia are typically younger, earn more money and perceive greater gender equity in their workplaces. They do, however, experience higher levels of sexual harassment in the newsroom, although many appear to be resilient to its personal and professional ramifications.

scholarly journals Bringing Propaganda Back into News Media Studies

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Zollmann
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
Research Gaps ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Systematic Understanding

With the ascendance of liberal democracy, propaganda activities have vastly increased. The main aim of propaganda has been to protect state-corporate power from the threat of public understanding and participation. Because of its societal importance for public opinion formation, the news media constitutes an obvious channel for the dissemination of propaganda. However, contemporary communication, media and journalism studies have mostly neglected to critically assess the news media’s role in producing and distributing propaganda. In fact, despite of the news media’s integration into the state-corporate nexus, the term propaganda is rarely used in academic treatises on the news media. Furthermore, only a small number of scholars have engaged in elaborating a systematic understanding of the manifold propaganda techniques that are currently applied in liberal democracies. To fill these research gaps, this article maps out various concepts of propaganda and relates them to the process and content of the news media. On the basis of theoretical and empirical studies, the article demonstrates how different forms of propaganda can manifest in news media content. Based on an integration with, as well as a development of, existing literature, the essay aims to build a tool box that can be applied and refined in future studies in order to detect propaganda in news media texts.

From headline to lifeline: does news set agenda for policy?

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 352-368
Author(s):  
Jenna Grzeslo ◽  
Yang Bai ◽  
Ryan Yang Wang ◽  
Bumgi Min ◽  
Krishna Jayakar
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Content Type ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Negative News ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose This paper is an investigation of the volume, nature and tone of news media coverage of the federal Lifeline Program from its inception to 2018. It aims to examine whether news media coverage is correlated with significant episodes of reform in the program. Design/methodology/approach Using the ProQuest Major Dailies database, articles covering the “Lifeline Program” were analyzed. Specifically, a quantitative codebook was developed, based on the literature, and four coders were trained to systematically analyze the 124 articles that discussed the program between 1985 and 2018. Findings The findings suggest that reforms in the program were preceded by significantly higher volumes of media coverage; however, the analysis is unable to confirm that negative media coverage has a stronger agenda setting effect. In addition, no significant difference was found between positive and negative news stories in their use of research-based information. Originality/value This study is interdisciplinary in its ability to combine policy and journalism studies as a mechanism to understand the relationship between the two forces.

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