JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-17DOI: 10.1177/14648849241284005
Tal Mishaly, Zvi Reich
{"title":"Knowledge can wait? The epistemic conversion of new beat reporters","authors":"Tal Mishaly, Zvi Reich","doi":"10.1177/14648849241284005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241284005","url":null,"abstract":"This study shows how, during the turbulent period of their initial months on the job, new beat reporters experience a shift in their basic approach to knowledge. This new epistemic approach encompasses two interconnected shifts: From seeing self-knowledge as a necessity to reliance on sources’ knowledge, and from prioritizing content knowledge to prioritizing journalistic knowledge. Findings suggest that reporting without knowledge isn’t a bug, but rather a major feature of news reporting; that at least during reporters’ first years, the main epistemic challenge is reporting despite the lack of beat knowledge; and that the foundations of source-reporter relations are laid down when the latter are at their weakest point in terms of power and knowledge, enabling sources’ to gain a dominant position in shaping the reported realities.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142249879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-14DOI: 10.1177/14648849241284575
Rui Wang, Yotam Ophir
{"title":"Behind the black box: The moderating role of the machine heuristic on the effect of transparency information about automated journalism on hostile media bias perception","authors":"Rui Wang, Yotam Ophir","doi":"10.1177/14648849241284575","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241284575","url":null,"abstract":"Facing historically low levels of public trust, journalists had been increasingly interested in the potential of artificial intelligence to produce news content. Some have suggested that Automated Journalism (AJ) may reduce Hostile Media Biases (HMB), where partisans perceive balanced articles as slanted against their side. However, empirical evidence for the hypothesis remains limited and inconclusive. In this study, we examine whether the effectiveness of AJ at reducing HMB perceptions could be enhanced by disclosure of transparency information about how the algorithm works. We conducted an online experiment ( N = 264 US adults) in which participants were randomly assigned to read a balanced news article about gun control written by different authors (AJ, AJ + transparency information, journalist, student, no author). Our findings indicate that AJ transparency, on average, did not significantly reduce HMB compared to AJ along. A significant interaction effect was identified: participants who strongly endorsed the machine heuristic were less likely to perceive the content in the AJ transparency condition, but not that of other conditions, as biased. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142249880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-14DOI: 10.1177/14648849241279011
Meghan Sobel Cohen, Job Mwaura, Karen McIntyre
{"title":"Citizen journalism revisited: A case study of Kenya’s kibera news network","authors":"Meghan Sobel Cohen, Job Mwaura, Karen McIntyre","doi":"10.1177/14648849241279011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241279011","url":null,"abstract":"In an evolving media landscape, the prominence and influence of citizen journalism has grown markedly, challenging historical norms and providing alternative narratives. While traditional journalism has been guided by objectivity, autonomy, and ethics, its representation has been questioned, especially in marginalised communities like Kibera, a neighbourhood in Nairobi, Kenya. Scholars have shed light on the transformational role of journalism and the ensuing need for democratisation in its practice, acknowledging the challenge it faces in representing diverse sections of the population. Using Kibera News Network (KNN) as a case study, this mixed methods study looks at the extent to which citizen journalists, despite lacking formal training, uphold and perhaps even redefine traditional journalistic principles. Utilising a qualitative content analysis of KNN videos and in-depth interviews with citizen journalists in Kibera, findings suggest that these citizen journalists exhibit a solid commitment to ethical reporting, emphasising accuracy and fairness, perhaps due to these journalists being citizens in their community—a community that has been marginalised and misrepresented—and thus experience a heightened sense of belonging. KNN citizen journalists also demonstrate high levels of autonomy and journalism ethics and are unburdened by the political and financial pressures that shape some mainstream media narratives. Taken together, findings suggest that the citizen journalist work of KNN contributes to multiple civic outcomes, including neighbourhood belonging and collective efficacy, which leads to civic participation.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142249881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-14DOI: 10.1177/14648849241284338
Olga Dovbysh, Mika Perkiömäki
{"title":"(De)politicization of the environmental agenda in Russian media","authors":"Olga Dovbysh, Mika Perkiömäki","doi":"10.1177/14648849241284338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241284338","url":null,"abstract":"In the early 2020s, climate change and environmental challenges became increasingly important issues in the Russian political discourse. This was followed by growing media interest in environmental and climate reporting. This article explores how environmental journalists in Russian media outlets make sense of and discursively frame the environmental agenda. Based on in-depth interviews with environmental journalists working in the Russian media inside the country and in exile, we explore the role of the environmental agenda in a authoritarian regime such as Russia’s. The research reveals the forces shaping the environmental agenda and journalists’ perceptions of it. Drawing on theoretical perspectives on the politicization and depoliticization of the environmental debate, we explain how the prevailing forces shaping the environmental agenda lead to the depoliticization of environmental beats. As a result, some topics are treated as purely scientific problems that do not affect society or the state at large. On the other hand, regional environmental issues that do not affect state security issues allow for freer and more investigative reporting.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"116 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142249887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-08DOI: 10.1177/14648849241273599
Marina Morani, Ceri Hughes, Stephen Cushion, Maria Kyriakidou
{"title":"Why media platforms police the boundaries of impartiality: A comparative analysis of television news and fact-checking in the UK","authors":"Marina Morani, Ceri Hughes, Stephen Cushion, Maria Kyriakidou","doi":"10.1177/14648849241273599","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241273599","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores whether different media platforms across impartial news media supplied the same level of scrutiny in how they fact-checked political claims. While prior research has largely focused on independent fact-checking organisations, the fact-checking practices of legacy media through a cross-platform perspective have comparatively received limited attention. The study develops new lines of inquiry into the fact-checking practices of legacy media, presenting one of the largest and most forensic cross-platform studies of fact-checking to date. It draws on a systematic content analysis of 355 items from fact-checking sites, including 689 claims and 1850 instances where journalists or sources interacted with them in 2021, and assesses how they were covered by a further 280 television news items. Our findings demonstrate that the selection and degree to which journalists and sources scrutinised political claims varied across media platforms, with television news less inclined to report and analyse policy claims than dedicated fact-checking websites. Overall, we argue that the editorial boundaries of fact-checking are policed by journalists’ interpretations of impartiality, which differ across platforms (in television news or dedicated fact-checking websites) due to a range of editorial factors such as production constraints and news values.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142184791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-07DOI: 10.1177/14648849241281179
Oleksandra Hrybenko
{"title":"Intermediaries of change: How media-focused non-governmental organizations shape meta-journalistic discourse in Ukraine","authors":"Oleksandra Hrybenko","doi":"10.1177/14648849241281179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241281179","url":null,"abstract":"Ukrainian media is currently undergoing its most challenging period in history. Still transitioning from political and economic instrumentalization, it has been significantly affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, impacting both safety and the economy. The loss of advertisement revenue has made them dependent on the support of media-focused NGOs and foreign donors. Established by journalists and funded by foreign donors, these organizations find themselves in an ambiguous position – not at the core of the journalistic field, as they do not compete with legacy media in content production and revenues; and not at its periphery, as they actively shape journalism culture in Ukraine by legitimizing and delegitimizing actors, norms, and practices based on their definition of ‘good journalism.’ Due to their autonomy from state and market influence, they manage to combine regulatory and activist functions, monitoring journalists’ adherence to journalistic standards and criticizing violations while supporting the interventionist role of the media in collecting evidence of war crimes and promoting political missions like gender equality. Simultaneously, the ongoing war means that in frontline areas, the transition is held back, as the quality of the media becomes less important than mere access to information. Drawing on nine semi-structured interviews with key actors from prominent NGOs such as Lviv Media Forum, The Reckoning Project, Women in Media, the Institute of Mass Information, and a professional association (National Union of Journalists of Ukraine), conducted online in 2023–2024, this research utilizes discourse analysis to investigate how mediafocused NGOs shape the meta-journalistic discourse in Ukraine.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142184793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-05DOI: 10.1177/14648849241282510
Kaixin Cheng, Marc Verboord
{"title":"The diffusion of immersive journalism as media innovation from media professionals’ perspectives","authors":"Kaixin Cheng, Marc Verboord","doi":"10.1177/14648849241282510","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241282510","url":null,"abstract":"While immersive journalism (IJ) has been seen as one of the most significant innovations in the journalism field in the past decade, its advance seems to have been halted. This article studies the diffusion trajectory of IJ in news media from professionals’ experience to better understand how media innovation works in the contemporary media field. What led to the news media’s decisions to start/stop their IJ project, and how were these decisions made? This study approaches these research questions by interviewing 13 experienced professionals from different roles in news media who have worked on IJ. The results identify three groups of core actors in the decision-making process in news media innovation: key users (champions), early adopters, and media leaders and managers. At the same time, there are clear influences from existing newsroom culture and conventions on news media’s innovation activities. Furthermore, the study sheds lights on the environment of media innovation adoption consisting of competing innovations, as well as actors in and out of the media.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142184794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-04DOI: 10.1177/14648849241278287
Ufuoma Akpojivi, Modestus Fosu
{"title":"Ethnic journalism, audiences and community development: An analysis of audience perceptions of fafaa FM’s journalistic activities","authors":"Ufuoma Akpojivi, Modestus Fosu","doi":"10.1177/14648849241278287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241278287","url":null,"abstract":"This study broaches a conversation on ethnic media and journalism in Ghana by asking whether Fafaa Radio, a private commercial FM station in Dzodze, practices ethnic journalism based on audience perception of the station's functions and responsibilities. Using mixed methods of survey distributed to 500 participants, in-depth interviews with four purposively selected media practitioners of the station, and document analysis, the study addresses issues relating to Fafaa as an ethnic media outlet. The study occurs within an interpretative analytical approach underpinned by sociological imagination and normative considerations about professionalism in local and national contexts. The findings suggest that Fafaa FM’s audiences believe that the station is an ethnic media organisation because it fulfils the characteristics and tenets of ethnic media. This is evident in the station’s intervention journalism, which seeks to promote the cultural values and interests of its host communities and the station’s revolutionary bottom-up approach to news production. However, Fafaa FM’s ethnic media tendencies raise serious regulatory and conceptualisation issues as the regulatory bodies in Ghana, the National Communication Authority (NCA) and National Media Commission (NMC), do not recognise ethnic media in their classification of types of radio, thereby posing an identity crisis for Fafaa FM.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142184806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-09-01DOI: 10.1177/14648849241272255
Steven Barclay, Steven Barnett, Martin Moore, Judith Townend
{"title":"Local news as political institution and the repercussions of ‘news deserts’: A qualitative study of seven UK local areas","authors":"Steven Barclay, Steven Barnett, Martin Moore, Judith Townend","doi":"10.1177/14648849241272255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241272255","url":null,"abstract":"A transformation in the political economy of local news provision has led to claims that an increasing number of local areas have become ‘news deserts’ – areas that are poorly served or not served at all by professional and dedicated news services (Abernathy, 2022). Such developments have raised widespread concerns about the future health of local democracy. One aspect of local news’ declining capacity that has received little attention to date is the impact on its role as political institution. This paper first examines the impact of changes on those most closely affected by the reduction or closure of UK local news media outlets – the consumers and sources of local news. Through empirical research in 2021-22, the authors explore Cook’s theory of the news media as political institution (2005), by examining local citizens’ experience of – and attitudes towards – their local news outlets, and the extent to which they believe these continue to perform an institutional role. Second, the paper seeks to explore the extent to which other information services – most notably social media and online communities - substitute for the institutional roles of local news outlets. The paper argues that the diminishing role of local news media as political institution has significant political and democratic implications which are not being addressed by policymakers, who are more concerned with the economic interests of corporate media owners than the broader democratic and societal interests of local communities.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142224118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
JournalismPub Date : 2024-08-29DOI: 10.1177/14648849241279579
Samuel Danzon-Chambaud, Alessio Cornia
{"title":"The cultural capital you need to work with automated news: Not only “your beautiful piece of work”, but also “patterns that emerge”","authors":"Samuel Danzon-Chambaud, Alessio Cornia","doi":"10.1177/14648849241279579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241279579","url":null,"abstract":"This article sheds light on the emerging forms of cultural capital that media practitioners need to acquire to work with automated news, as in Bourdieu’s understanding of unique abilities that include, among others, journalistic expertise and technical know-how. To uncover these new skills, we carried out 30 interviews with editorial staff, executives and technologists working at 23 media organisations based in Europe, North America and Australia. We show that these new forms of cultural capital are essentially two-fold: on the one hand, they involve taking a “structured journalism” approach so as to think of what an ideal story may look like, and then by breaking it down into smaller predictable elements that can be reusable across many versions of that same story; on the other hand, they also call for knowing how to embed a media organisation’s standards and practices into code for automated news. Overall this study argues that a new type of cultural capital emerges, as it is associated with the production of automated news. We call it the distinct-abstract capital, whereby journalism is thought of both as a one-off endeavour and as a process that can be deconstructed in an abstract way close to computer programming.","PeriodicalId":51432,"journal":{"name":"Journalism","volume":"73 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142184824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}