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Now over a decade since the influential paper Understanding Social Media Logic by van Dijck and Poell was published, the total number, sheer variety and penetration of social media apps in everyday media consumption and production behaviour has exploded. This poses risks and opportunities for legacy media corporations as well as scholars attempting to make sense of the various affordances each individual social media platform offers to facilitate the production, dissemination and consumption of novel types of news content. Drawing on insights from the articles published in this special issue on the characteristics, constraints and contingencies of social media journalism, we seek to advance scholarship by challenging and expanding existing frameworks. We synthesise the current state of research and propose a research agenda for peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do journalists conceive of covering climate change from a lifestyle perspective? Do they think reporting on climate and lifestyle should provide their audiences with advice and solutions for how to make climate friendly choices? We address these questions through a survey among Norwegian journalists and editors with questions about their experience with reporting on climate and lifestyles, their evaluation of the importance of journalism on climate and lifestyle, and what role they see for constructive journalism in the coverage of climate and lifestyle issues. We provide evidence that issues of climate change and lifestyles to some extent are covered by journalists within a range of journalistic beats reflecting that climate change affects lifestyle choices in complex ways. A central idea in our argument is that there is a close conceptual connection between lifestyle journalism and constructive journalism, and we show that there is a systematic relationship between evaluations of the importance of lifestyle journalism and of the role constructive journalism should have in the coverage of climate and lifestyles. We also chart the nature and extent of the disagreement around the role of constructive journalism in the coverage of this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalistic work has become increasingly precarious. Labor conditions in the profession meet several criteria of precarity, as established in the sociology of work. Journalists, especially freelancers, often have low and unstable incomes and only limited access to social insurance. Thus far, precarity research in journalism has primarily focused on empirical investigations of precarious employment rather than on theorizing how journalists actually perceive these working conditions. This paper proposes a theoretical model that determines the factors of security and insecurity that can lead to a stronger or weaker perception of precarity. Drawing on a review of the precarity literature, the model allows for subjectivity within the precarious experience of journalists. It shows that family responsibilities and personality traits belong to the subjective factors influencing journalists' perceptions of precarity. In addition, perceptions of insecure employment conditions depend on the life stage of the worker. We strongly recommend a multidimensional approach that captures not only the objective conditions of work but also journalists' subjective sense of precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to criticisms that conflict reporting is at times overly sensational with negative impacts on individuals, peace journalism aims to shift journalistic attention from episodic, event-based reports to coverage highlighting structural causes of conflict as well as its peaceful transformation. However, little is known about how audiences perceive such reports, particularly when it comes to perceptions of credibility or trust. Using an experiment in the U.S. context, this study examines the effects of exposure to peace journalism on individuals' perceptions of news-item credibility and trust in news media generally. Results show that peace-journalism framing may have short-term positive effects on individuals' perceptions of a news article's credibility, but general media trust is primarily driven by political ideology. Implications for journalism theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalistic objectivity has long been in flux. This paper examines cases in which we see journalists aiming to subvert norms, and managers pushing back, reprimanding the journalists and removing them from coverage or firing them. Understanding what's happening at these edges of acceptable journalistic practice can offer clarity about the nature of change in the field. We find journalists arguing that objectivity works differently when reporting on minority groups—so much so that they suggest focusing instead on context and truth in these cases, while managers counter that objectivity is universal. We note that scholars offer alternatives—Ward's "pragmatic objectivity," which recommends taking the perspective of the community, and Durham's "strong objectivity", which suggests embodying the most marginalized groups in a discussion. This examination offers insight into how journalism is evolving, in particular in a moment of racial reckoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balance and impartiality are central principles in journalism, but this study argues their conceptual application in news reporting should be subject to more academic scrutiny. In the UK, the way "due impartiality" has been applied and regulated by broadcasters has raised concerns about promoting a 'she-said-he-said' style of reporting, which constructs balance but not scrutiny of competing claims. In this study, we analyse how the UK's "due impartiality" was applied by journalists in different political contexts by assessing how the BBC dealt with competing party-political claims. We develop a nuanced quantitative analysis of BBC journalist interactions (N = 967) with claims made by the four main party leaders during the 2019 UK and 2020 US elections. Overall, we found BBC reporting robustly challenged claims by US politicians, whereas coverage of UK politicians often only conveyed claims and counterclaims with limited journalistic intervention, particularly on television news. We argue that impartiality should be viewed more as a fluid than fixed concept given that the context shapes how it is applied. As concerns about misinformation have grown over recent years, we conclude that more finely tuned studies are needed to understand how journalists apply concepts about balance and impartiality in political reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding journalistic truth has always been important in Journalism Studies, but it is increasingly significant in a society influenced by constantly evolving digital technologies and information disorder. This article explores the potential of "actor-network theory" to enhance the understanding of journalistic truth, surpassing the limitations of existing perspectives that categorise it as objective, subjective, or a combination of the two. Alternatively, through the utilisation of a plausibility probe case study in investigative journalism, the article suggests examining news-making as black-boxing and conceptualises journalistic truth as arising from the skilful construction of journalistic chains comprising heterogeneous actors. We discuss these as pivotal steps toward gaining a deeper understanding of journalistic truth that paves the way for constructing an alternative but empirical account of journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has examined the sociomaterial contexts that shape journalistic practice within and beyond the newsroom, considering relationships between humans, and between humans and (non)physical artifacts like desks, computers, or software. While much of that research has focused on the use and role of technology, recent research also suggests an affective dimension of materiality like the sense of stability provided by physical news spaces. The newsroom as a material and lived place and place of power relations can greatly shape journalists' work practices and identity. However, the relevance of the newsroom as a physical place for journalistic practice has so far been taken for granted. This study investigates the role of the newsroom as a physical, material place for journalistic practice and how it contributes to journalists' sense of belonging and identity. Drawing on interviews with 18 Austrian journalists, we find that newsrooms as sociomaterial places facilitate proximity and serendipity which is perceived as relevant for creative and effective work, as well as a visible manifestation of in-group belonging. As such this study contributes to a better understanding of the meaning and relevance of newsrooms as material places for journalistic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the peer-reviewed literature about solutions journalism and constructive journalism to unpack their components, as such emerging solutions-oriented approaches gain steam in journalistic practice and scholarly examination. We find that solutions-oriented journalism differs from problem-oriented journalism in its qualities, frames, scope, purpose, orientation, boundaries, and journalists' reporting processes. While solutions-oriented journalism prioritizes coverage of credible responses to social problems as a method for enhancing journalists' social responsibility, tensions exist over the nature of those responsibilities, especially in different national contexts. Using the components we identified, we suggest future research clarify the individual-societal levels of solutions-oriented journalism effects, explore how it differs in various media contexts and political systems, and investigate how diverse audiences perceive and are served by solutions-oriented approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomy is considered a prerequisite for the press to function in service of the public. Over the past few decades, both journalism and society at large have been subjected to significant change and instability, potentially affecting journalists' independent modes of production. We, therefore, argue that a re-evaluation of journalism's institutional strength to perform the societal functions bestowed upon it by the public is imperative. This paper attempts to contribute to this re-evaluation by examining to what extent legacy media journalists act according to their own professional logic rather than being historically conditioned to act according to external logics imposed on the field of journalism. We adopt a qualitative historical approach grounded in the theoretical framework of field theory for our examination of the development of journalistic autonomy at Flemish newspaper De Standaard. Based on a rich body of source material that emphasizes the rarely considered perspective of chief editors, we reconstruct journalistic autonomy as a dynamic concept shaped by an intricate web of interconnected macro-, meso- and micro-level developments and interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contradiction is a defining characteristic of contemporary journalism, despite the risks it carries of raising uncertainty among audiences. Scholars and observers alike have called for journalists to embrace an epistemological stance rooted in adjudication of competing claims, but studies suggest journalists can only rarely perform this service. What, then, is the epistemological role of contradictions in journalism? This study employs quantitative and qualitative analysis of news texts over a 12-year span to explore tensions in journalistic norms that shape the presentation of contradictions. Findings suggest contradictions are infrequently presented in news texts and are usually between sources on equal footing. In the rare cases journalists themselves contradict their sources, these contradictions are neither explicit nor forceful. Many contradictions revolve around questions of interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon interviews to reveal how a small minority of journalists are working towards more ethical approaches to representing transgender participation in sport. Writing in a context of a growing transphobic discourse in both the mainstream media and public sentiment, we examine the learning journeys of six sport journalists reporting on transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard's participation in the Tokyo Olympic Games. The paper reveals variable reflexive considerations; ongoing efforts to educate themselves, colleagues and readers; varying levels of care in sourcing practices (i.e., members of the transgender community; scientists and anti-trans groups); and considerations about their responsibilities amidst rising transphobic discourse and online abuse. Engaging with recent writings on journalistic ethics and reflection-in-practice, this paper offers an example of the possibilities for more reflexive and responsible reporting on issues of social and political importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional journalism's relationship with democracy has been tested in recent years. A so-called crisis of journalism has shaken several of the bedrocks upon which both journalism and liberal democracy are based. One response has been to try and rediscover and strengthen these foundations, and in the process for journalism to reaffirm its central place within democratic societies. In this paper, I theorise what might happen if we were to understand journalism in relation to a different form of democracy, a radical democracy. How might our understandings (public and academic) of journalism change, and how might journalism itself transform if it were to comprehend its vital public role in relation to a set of values, practices and systems radically different to those of dominant models of rational consensus? The article presents three main arguments. (1) The current crisis of journalism is predominantly built upon journalistic values associated with liberal and deliberative democracy. (2) This particular construction of crisis ignores the exclusions and inequalities of its rationalist foundations. (3) A radical democratic perspective provides a model through which to understand the crisis of journalism in a way that may address such exclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that there are overlooked yet important journalistic beliefs, norms, rules and practices regarding, aesthetics, automation, distribution, engagement, identity, and proximity that could be a part of formalized codes of ethics. There are four reasons why these should be formalized. First, making the implicit normative dimensions explicit allow for a shared understanding of journalism, cutting across institutional borders. Second, it promotes a more unified and homogenized understanding of journalism across the institution based on those shared explicit norms (normative isomorphism). Third, it reduces the fuzziness of these codes and sharpens their functions as boundary objects, simplifying the negotiation between journalists and audiences. Fourth, and finally, these implicit codes might be an untapped resource that could make journalism better connect with citizens and increase its legitimacy. The paper offers two main contributions to journalism studies. First, it shows that elements of journalistic practice and culture that seem disparate in fact play similar institutional roles, forming boundary objects as sites of tension where codes are negotiated by different actors. Second, systematizing these informal codes into the style of traditional codes of ethics renders them more visible and could help journalism scholars understand the uneven formation and evolution of journalistic norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how objects of investigative journalism challenge journalistic authority and knowledge production from the textual space of their own platforms. Drawing on theories of image repair discourse, legal defense strategies, and socio-moral meaning making, a thematic analysis is used to research how the defenses criticize the investigations, what type of dialogical socio-moral meaning making they initiate, and what challenges that meaning-making poses to journalism. The article identifies three positions vis-à-vis the accusations: disclaiming, mitigating, and character boosting. The positions represent journalism respectively as either malevolent adversary, legitimate censor, or associate moral champion, and the stances criticize investigations for being either wrongful, exaggerated, or a distortion of character. The defenses challenge investigative journalism to substantiate accusations, justify methods, renegotiate guilt, acknowledge the validity of excuses and justification, and give credit for alleged moral qualities. The study ends with a discussion on the importance for journalism to engage seriously with defenses to uphold its role as a just and fair institution of accountability, and as a relevant actor in the construction of societal moral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This mixed-method study examines the mindset journalists in the United States bring to their work in an effort to gain insight into emerging journalistic viewpoints and their relationship to established doctrines and roles. Study 1 (n = 167) asked professional journalists, journalism professors, and student journalists to rank statements on journalism ethics and norms from most to least like their mindset toward the profession. Using the factor analysis procedure common to Q methodology, we identified two distinct mindsets among the participants. One factor expresses a neutral journalistic mindset that favors dispassionate reporting. The other shows more concern with the impact of journalism on its sources and a desire for more engagement in political discourse. A participant pool larger than that of a typical Q study allowed for additional quantitative analysis that identified significant differences in mindset by age, gender, professional experience, and journalistic platform. Using an explanatory-sequential design, study 2 (n = 16) further explored the journalistic mindset—the underlying web of beliefs and attitudes about the profession's core values—with a textual analysis of follow-up interviews. The results have applications to research on journalistic norms, boundaries, and ethics, and may provide insight into the divisions generating conflict in many newsrooms today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite ongoing endeavours to decolonize and de-westernize journalism studies, the current literature offers very few clues about the history of women's journalistic practices and struggles in Third World/Global South contexts. The objective of this article is to help to fill this gap by focusing on the lived experiences and struggles of key Turkish-speaking women journalists who worked in private and public sector media outlets in Turkey in the period 1920–1980. Drawing on these women's self-narratives and biographical accounts, as well as arguments in debates on parrhesia and emancipatory journalism in dialogue with Third World/Global South feminist epistemologies, we explore the ways in which journalism has been a site of life-time resistance and struggle for women seeking justice and truth on behalf of the oppressed. Their conceptualization of journalistic identity as truth- and justice-seekers in an unfree media environment, and their determination to speak the truth to challenge intersecting forces of domination cannot be captured in the binary of "media freedom" and "media development" paradigms. Nonetheless, their struggle to dismantle oppressive reality by way of distinctive, courageous, justice-seeking and truthful communication can be educative at a time when the relationship between journalism and truth is increasingly being undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the trajectory of Brazilian journalism and its academic mediations during the period 1945–1964, this article provides elements to identify what we would call the negative dialectics of intellectual colonialism. In the Brazilian press, the replacement of the French paradigm by the North American one was seen by many as progress, without speculation about the possibility of cultivating a native formula. Associated with the institutional modernization triggered by the 1930 Revolution, the model of news production imported from the United States was softly assimilated instead of being imposed on professionals. There was a "passive revolution". Rather than resisting new foreign influences, most of Brazil's first generation of professional journalists and academics exploited for their own benefit the opportunities that, not by chance, emerged from the situation created by the context of the Second World War. On the other hand, the modernization of the press, paradoxically, had no significant impact on professional training within journalism schools, which arose in Brazil as an annex to the faculties of philosophy verified at that time and, therefore, out of step with the pedagogical pragmatism and practical teaching that characterized academically journalism in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past studies conceived of journalists-audience relations as largely dyadic, highlighting the interaction between the two sides. The current study argues that such a conceptualization should now be modified to fit today's media environment, where these interactions obtain on social media platforms. Through a process of platformization—the subjugation of news production to social media logic—these platforms are reshaping journalists' and social-media editors' conceptions regarding audience, its role in news production, and its expectations vis-à-vis the newsroom. These beliefs translate into news professionals' everyday practices as concerns contact with audiences, and ultimately influence news production. Based on interviews with 18 social-media editors and 24 journalists, the study demonstrates how each of the above relational aspects has been modified in line with social media's economic, governmental and infrastructural logic. It also shows how, due to their diverging goals, news organizations and journalists have come to cultivate a semi-autonomous relationship with audience members, thus introducing new tensions into the newsroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a participatory approach to realize journalistic ethics and values in platform news distribution systems. Using methods from participatory governance and design thinking, three panels of journalists and platform news representatives in 2020 tried to find consensus around value definitions that could inform the ranking and recommendation of news articles. Examining how they negotiated the areas of local, opinion, and science/health journalism, we discover possibilities and limitations for journalists to inform the design of these systems. More broadly, the effort to prioritize news content according to journalistic values belongs to a larger question regarding the role of expertise within democratic societies. The establishment of technical definitions in collaboration with others can be understood as a softer form of algorithmic governance. This governance may allow for some democratizing potential in online systems, here within a "minipublic" model defined by political scientist Archon Fung. Yet the implementation of these definitions remains within the decision-making power of technology companies that do not identify as news publishers. The exploration into platform news distribution is an opportunity to reflect on the challenges of governance, both algorithmic and democratic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares how the Swedish public and journalists assessed the ethical aspects of harmful exposure and dissemination of unverified information in news reporting of the 2017 terrorist attack in Stockholm. The analysis derives from comparable web surveys with 1092 journalists and 3881 citizens who answered identical questions about the attack. Focus is placed on ethics as an expression of journalistic practice and the influence of situational factors on ethical assessments. The findings demonstrate an overall similarity between the public's and journalists' assessments of ethical judgments made in the news reporting, but also notable differences. Furthermore, significant differences were found between journalists who had personal experience of reporting on the terrorist attack and those who did not. One conclusion is that the public assesses ethical decisions based on information aspects more than do journalists, while the opposite is true for considerations of personal integrity. The main contribution of this study is that it adds to previous research on the influence of organisational and individual factors by demonstrating the additional influence of situational factors on journalists' ethical assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public broadcaster RTV Slovenia strategically relied on non-standard employment for its permanent workers until the courts ruled that this was unlawful about a decade ago. The ensuing process of standardising employment has led to the regular employment of about 500 "permanently outsourced workers" under various arrangements. To interrogate the inverse, the study tests the Streeckian "beneficial constraints hypothesis", whereby a reduction of external numerical flexibility should push RTVS on to the path of socially more sustainable flexibility in its internal functions that prove to be economically beneficial. The process expanded the standard employment and the grounding for the collective organisation of newsworkers, while the prevailing imperative of "rationalising" the tendencies for the norm of work intensification with greater workloads, saturated working time, and basic reskilling in the newsroom. Unlike the process of "proletarisation" that has economically subordinated journalists through the process of professionalisation and its ideologisation that sought to align their interests with those of media owners, the study reveals patterns of the "creative destruction of journalism" in response to the worsening material conditions of professional journalism, adapting newswork to the evolving commercial modes of digitised communication, introducing the ideology of non-professionalism to reskilling, while exposing newsworkers to pauperisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By focusing on journalistic YouTubers, this interview study investigates journalism on social media and how new digital actors on the periphery of journalism complement or compete with newsroom journalism. More specifically, the study examines journalistic YouTubers' motivations and role orientations, work process perceptions in relation to network media logic and the modernization of journalism, and professionalization experiences on YouTube. Interviews with 16 journalistic YouTubers in Germany within and without the public broadcasting network funk reveal that most interviewees perceive themselves as journalistic actors to some extent. They identify the most with monitorial role orientations, striving to disseminate information, contribute to opinion formation, and enhance public participation. Moreover, they believe that their work contributes to the modernization of journalism by pushing journalism towards younger target groups, entertaining presentation styles, and a strong focus on audience interactions. Finally, funk YouTubers are incorporated into professional editorial structures and must follow qualitative and quantitative success criteria. In sum, our findings reveal a normalized revolution" (Klotz, R. J. 2019. "Deleveraging Creative Capital: A Decade of YouTube Campaigning." International Journal of E-Politics 10 (1): 1–11): while public broadcasters benefit from young YouTubers acting as a gateway to a younger audience, the YouTubers integrated in the funk network profit from the resources and professional standards of media organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental study was conducted to see what impact varying the level of self-disclosure by a journalist, as well as providing information about why and how a story is being covered, has on the perceived credibility of the journalist, the story, and the organization for which the journalist works. A study was conducted that included 885 participants from the United States. Results indicate the group that saw a picture of the journalist, a low level of disclosure regarding the journalist, and information about why and how the story was being covered rated the journalist, story, and organization highest in terms of perceived credibility. These findings indicate that traditional news organizations, when it comes to building audience credibility, should consider including at least some information about the journalist, and perhaps, more importantly, information about why and how the story is being covered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to neo-institutional theory, the survival of institutions in society is predicated on a cultural discourse. Dubbed "the institutional myth," this discourse reflects the core values, practices and aspirations of an institution and legitimizes its existence to internal and external stakeholders alike. In this paper we suggest that recent attacks on mainstream news outlets—notably President Trump's accusations that they constitute "fake news"—have led journalists to defend the journalistic institutional myth as part of their efforts to re-legitimize their profession. Our findings indicate that journalists seek to bolster and uphold their institutional myth through a range of discursive strategies ranging from highlighting established journalistic norms and practices and emphasizing journalism's central role in the maintenance of democracy, to attacking the accuser and calls to action in which journalists make a case for ignoring the president's rhetorical assaults and continuing to do their job. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Established in 1982, the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic Service became one of the most popular news outlets for Ethiopians in Ethiopia and Ethiopian diaspora communities across the world. Angered by the Service's coverage of human rights abuses, bad governance, and other issues of public interest, Ethiopia's ruling party made the discontinuation of the Service one of the top priorities of its diplomatic ties with the United States. This study examines the major pressure points of the Service's newsroom autonomy permeating from Ethio-American shared public diplomacy interests through the optics of newsroom staff. Findings from document analysis and interviews reveal VOA Amharic journalists experience primary pressure sources (host political factors and homeland political factors) and secondary pressure sources (personal/relational factors, diasporic political factors, and audience factors) challenging their journalistic autonomy. Despite these pressures, journalists highlight the significance of the organization's legislative "firewall" and evidence-based external review process in upholding the newsroom's autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores interactions between journalism and Silicon Valley with a qualitative textual analysis of interviews in the Riptide oral history of the digital disruption of journalism. Discourse between 4 senior news executives and 22 technology executives, developers, investors, and entrepreneurs indicated that journalists and technologists interact with each other based on institutional-level concerns. Journalists and technologists expressed a shared assumption that Silicon Valley platforms have taken an intermediary gatekeeping role between journalism and citizens. Silicon Valley actors expressed common values such as a belief that technological solutions can be found for societal problems and that information should be freely accessible. To the extent that institutions are influenced by discourse and discourse shapes understanding of journalism and other institutional actors, the findings suggested Silicon Valley could be understood as an emerging institution that has gained control of a societal sector of exchanging information over digital networks. Silicon Valley and journalism actors expressed common concerns such as a need for citizens to have information they need to participate in democracy. However, Silicon Valley actors did not express a belief that the values of journalism are necessary to achieve those outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the transformation of the culture of the Czech news media in the wake of the Cold War. Existing research on transitions from statist to capitalist media models emphasizes political or economic variables, and so this analysis is distinguished by a focus on culture—specifically, the collective beliefs and attitudes among networks of journalists and political actors in a particular national context. This research incorporates a synthesis of existing literature as well as in-depth interviews with key informants (including journalists, scholars, and political strategists) in the Czech Republic during fieldwork in the fall of 2015. It attempts to explain how the pivot to a market-oriented media culture within the Czech Republic led to: the fortification of a nationalist identity, an abundance of journalism outlets, and ultimately a celebritization of the political culture within the Czech Republic. These outcomes are described and interpreted within the context of globalization and media change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the impact of One River, Many Stories, a community storytelling project designed to disrupt relationships between news organizations and their audiences. Informed by scholarship on the changing role of journalists as facilitators rather than gatekeepers of public discourse, community engagement methods were used to study this two-year storytelling project. Ripple Effects Mapping methods measured its impact. Findings reveal that traditional news media deviated little from established journalism routines while citizen participation was diverse and expansive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a new analytical tool, supervised machine learning (SML), a large number of newspaper articles is analysed to answer the question how newspapers frame the news of public risks, in this case of earthquakes caused by gas drilling in The Netherlands. SML enabled the study of 2265 news articles published over a period of 25 years. Our study shows that there is a disproportional relation between media reporting and actual risk; and that the use of dramatization bias in framing the issue about gas drilling increased, but the use of personalization and negativity bias did not become more dominant after a major media change in 2013. Sensational/tabloid newspapers make more use of personalization bias, whereas quality newspapers make more use of value conflict and political disagreement in the framing about gas drilling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on the news coverage of war and conflict has argued that journalists maintain more professional independence and are more critical of the government and military than in the past. At the same time, critiques that during wartime journalists rally around the flag and serve as mouthpieces for nationalist propaganda persist. Given these opposing views, we examine the ways in which three Israeli online newspapers covered the 2014 Gaza War and compare this coverage to posts on the Israel Defense Forces' official social media pages. Through close discursive analysis of legitimation and referential strategies, the use of reported speech, transitivity, voice, and modality, we demonstrate both the great ideological similarities between news discourse and military public relations, and the ways in which journalists transform the authoritative, formal voice characteristic of official texts into the more personalized, emotional voice of media discourse. We discuss our findings as reflective of the complementary influence of journalists' ideological presuppositions, professional rituals, and commercial constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not-for-profit news organisations are increasingly funded by private foundations, supported by wealthy entrepreneurs. This raises a range of ethical dilemmas for journalists, which are particularly serious when their donors are alleged to have been involved in unethical or illegal activities. Although this is a relatively common occurrence in the non-profit sector, so far there has been no critical discussion of these issues in relation to foundation-funded journalism. In this article, we interrogate a rich and detailed case study of the relations between a non-profit news organisation and a donor accused of being involved in a massive, international fraud scandal. We document how the news outlet justified their acceptance of this donor's money; the defensive strategies they used to protect their reputation, organisational values and editorial freedom; and the conditions that ultimately led to journalists parting ways with the foundation. In so doing, we draw on ideas about philanthrocapitalism, stakeholders and resource dependence in order to develop model of how nonprofits respond to "tainted" donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of the ongoing discussion on how the media represents spaces and territories to audiences, this pilot study proposes a methodological approach to investigate how diverse online news sources (national and regional legacy media, local public institutions, hyperlocal and community media, etc.) cover a territory—in this case, Brussels. Through a transversal analysis of the contents produced in 152 news items from as many sources, the paper aims to examine how online media ascribes particular meanings to spaces, which in the end might affect audiences' perceptions. To assess how Brussels and its municipalities are represented, positive and negative values are assigned to news items describing its social problems. Results show that the complexity of Brussels's institutional structure is an issue for the Belgian media, which has difficulty describing the territory it covers. Furthermore, the contents produced about Brussels indicate that online news producers may consistently portray poorer areas of the city as hosting more social problems than richer areas, hence stigmatizing these places. Finally, results suggest that the methodology presented and tested is viable to study place-problematizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of online journalism together with rapidly evolving internet technologies has affected basic journalistic work processes. As content is moving online, the interest in monitoring web traffic numbers is crucial for media companies and anyone who publishes online news content. This paper studies the use of Web Analytics in the context of media outlets and online journalism in general. Using as case studies Greek newsrooms and a sample of professional Greek journalists, the research focuses on how media organizations are using various quantitative measures and their impact on news work. The results of the survey indicate a significant impact on the way journalists create or address news stories, as well as differences among media outlets and a lack of a newsroom, editorial analytics culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2016, Iran detained 10 US sailors who had drifted into Iranian territory, releasing them 15 hours later after intense diplomatic activity. This article explores the discursive choices evident over three days of broadcast and cable news coverage of the incident to illuminate ideological stances common to several of the reports, with emphasis on two clips from CNN and Fox News that bear significant formal distinctions concealing close substantive similarities. The analysis calls into question dominant views on the ideological positioning of US cable news networks and the discursive emphases among varying journalistic formats, with implications for US domestic politics and global relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explicates meanings of local journalism when what was traditionally treated as a local issue for local audiences--Miami's rising seas--was thrust onto a national stage by national press and for wider audiences. Through a textual analysis of local news stories over a period of three years, this paper highlights how local journalists demarcated local and national journalistic boundaries, using national news to legitimize previous local coverage of sea-level rise, as news sources in local environmental journalism that strengthened presentations by local press as expertise on the issue, ultimately positioning national journalists as "outsiders." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings from a 2013 survey of 1080 US journalists and a 2014 survey of 1230 US citizens, focusing on their views of traditional journalism roles and the performance of journalism in the United States. The study finds significant differences in how journalists and the public evaluate news media performance and journalistic roles. It also finds that news consumption and social media use predict stronger support for traditional journalistic roles among journalists and citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses two blind spots related to normativity in journalism studies. First, the digital journalism literature has led the field too far away from what journalism does for people and offers a shallowly-theorized and technocentric conception of journalism's social objectives. Second, the emphasis on reporting and the journalism/democracy framework has privileged particular forms of journalism over others and led to a thin conception of journalistic normativity. While the journalism/ democracy framework should not be abandoned, it should be resituated as part of a more expansive treatment of journalistic normativity. These blind spots mean that normativity in journalism studies must be both re-centered and broadened. To this end, this article argues that helpfulness ought to be considered journalism's "normative anchor"--that is, the foundation upon which journalistic normativity rests. It follows, then, that the fundamental objective of journalism is to be helpful. Understanding helpfulness as journalism's normative anchor satisfies the demand of recentering journalism's public goods while also satisfying the demand of broadening the horizons of journalism studies with regard to the range of journalistic specialisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through studying the turn from conflict to function in one of the most expensive media events in history, the Beijing Olympics, and by building on Jeffrey Alexander's cultural pragmatics theory, the article proposes a theoretical framework for studying mega-events as a transnational social drama, i.e, a strategic contest whereby media engage social institutions in stylistic but contentious public performances. Eventually, which performance stands out as resonant is contingent upon the script, the actors, the audience, the mise-en-scène, and social power. Initially, the performance of Free Tibet protesters was judged to be more authentic through coherent media framing. But the subsequent redress phase saw a return of the affirmative narrative made possible by the redefinition of the mise-en-scène following the Wenchuan earthquake and authorities' enhanced capability in controlling symbolic production. The Chinese performance came to be seen as more or less authentic, hence strategic public diplomacy was transformed into a ritual-like experience. The article reads media events as neither a mythical system functioning in a consensual way nor merely an ideology serving instrumental interests. An interactional approach focusing on the contention among performers in which conflict may be ritualized, with media playing a crucial but not determining role, comes closer to explaining the course of the Games and similar global media events to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is limited knowledge about why political actors are dissatisfied with journalism. This article attempts to answer this question by pointing to individual-level perceptual processes of politicians. We argue that part of politicians' unease with the media can be explained by the hostile media phenomenon (HMP). Originally developed in audience research, the HMP refers to a process by which highly involved individuals tend to perceive media coverage as biased against their own views. Based on a survey of politicians in three European countries, we demonstrate that the HMP also holds for political actors. More importantly, we show that the HMP makes politicians less likely to contact journalists and more likely to use conflict and drama to gain public attention. Finally, the HMP decreases politicians' trust in democracy by fostering the belief that the public is not adequately informed about political matters. Theoretical and societal consequences are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent rise in anti-media political rhetoric in the United States and Europe, which aims to tap into and stoke citizens' beliefs and attitudes about journalism, raises the stakes for understanding those beliefs and attitudes. This article explores how the "episodes" method can be used to study citizens' "folk theories" and feelings about journalism. The method asks interviewees to describe concrete episodes in which complex, potentially abstract concepts or institutions played a role in their lives. I illustrate the method using interviews with ordinary people who were named in mainstream news stories in the US. Interviews focused on participants' experiences as news subjects, but in discussion their more general beliefs and attitudes about journalism emerged organically. I detail two specific folk theories about journalistic ethics that interviewees embraced. First, many people felt "good" reporters should not seek out quotes to fit into stories that had largely been written already. Second, interviewees believed that journalists should take responsibility for the outcomes of their stories. I go on to describe a broader, more emotional narrative about the relationship between the news media and the citizenry that emerged in interviews. In that "deep story" citizens saw journalists more as bullies than as advocates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the conditions for covering terrorists in the post-factual era. Specifically, the article focuses on what it means when the news media show images of terrorists or deprive them of media attention. Regardless of whether the news media apply self-censorship in coverage of terrorists, the implications of their decision can be linked to the post-factual: on the one hand, self-censorship might feed into narratives of the post-factual as information is withheld and reality possibly distorted. On the other hand, if the news media opt against self-censorship, coverage of terrorists often includes "post-factual" elements such as the dramatic and sensational aspects of the visual culture surrounding terror. Accordingly, the objective of this article is to explore dilemmas attached to media coverage and media self-censorship of terrorists. A theoretical framework is developed for understanding challenging aspects of news coverage of the "selfie-generation" of terrorists and media self-censorship. Empirically, the article takes its departure point in news coverage on Danish public service broadcasters DR and TV2 in 2016. The analysis focuses on the paradox that despite conflicting public statements for (DR) and against (TV2) self-censorship, a quantitative content analysis demonstrates similar coverage of terrorists by these two media organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, using a discursive institutionalism lens, examines how US journalists have assessed and constructed journalistic institutional authority from 2000 through 2016. The findings provide a set of pivot points around which journalistic discourse has orbited, showing how journalists renegotiated their authority in the face of challenges to journalism's material, professional role, and social impact bases. While discourse comes back to authority rooted in journalism's democratic function, journalists also appear uncertain about the basis of their authority in a seeming posttruth age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

December of 2015 two major journalistic scandals hit the Danish news media. The two scandals ran almost concurrently, which increased the media attention and was reflected in the coverage. In a time of diminishing trust in the news media these scandals represented a significant and acute credibility problem for the news media that were affected. Using paradigm repair theory coupled with a theory about transparency, this paper analyses which strategies the affected news media employed to re-instore trust in their journalism, and thus in the traditional news paradigm. Like previous studies, we find that the news media tried to distance themselves from the journalists involved in the scandals and describe them as "bad apples." In both scandals the news media also went to great lengths to investigate the accusations and publically document the transgressions of the reporters. This effort could be seen as an attempt to increase transparency about the scandals, but the reports focused only on the journalists in focus, and not on the news organization, where they worked. As a consequence, the affected editors and news organizations largely avoided any blame and speculation as to their role in the scandals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reporting of two prominent AIDS-related deaths in South Africa in the early 2000s, at a time of intense public controversy about official policy on HIV, provides an illustration of how ethical norms in journalism may shift over time. The media's coverage of the first death drew strong criticism and debate on ethical grounds, specifically about the balance between privacy and the public interest; truth and evidence; and the limits of advocacy. The change in approach noticeable in the handling of the second case is attributable at least partly to this public discourse on ethical norms and their application. That change became formalised in revisions of the South African Press Code. The example illustrates the way in which Discourse Ethics, as theorised by Apel and Habermas, can provide a framework to understand how shifts in ethical norms may be effected in social discourse. It thereby illustrates one productive application of the theory, and also makes it possible to draw out some implications for the broader discussion on universal and contingent media ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on Bourdieu's field theory, this study explores how journalistic doxa and cultural capital come to be discursively formed. The study culls references to journalistic transparency from a broad range of US journalism trade publications and sites from 1997 to 2015 in order to examine the discursive construction of transparency within the journalistic field. The analysis focuses on what members of the journalistic field in the United States mean by transparency and how transparency is or is not discursively legitimized. Implications for field theory are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of indigenous and ethnic minority news media tend to emphasise their political advocacy role, their role in providing a voice to communities overlooked by mainstream media and increasingly, the cultural forces at work in these media. By considering ethnic media in terms of how ethnic minority audiences understand what they do with these media, this study provides a different perspective. Focus groups held with Pacific audiences at several urban centres in New Zealand found participants routinely use the idea of journalism in evaluating Pacific media--and journalism for them was a term defined to a significant extent by wider societal expectations around journalism and not by their ethnic difference. Through examining the intersection of media practices with the ideals and expectations of journalism, this paper questions how far we should foreground the specifics of culture in interpreting people's media use and advocates a commitment to more empirical research to reorient the study of ethnic media away from a fixation on difference and towards people's media practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The path between journalism and parliamentary media advising is well trodden. However, there has been little examination of the impact becoming a media adviser has on a reporter's conception of journalism values and practice. This paper reports on a selection of findings from broader inductive qualitative research into the under-explored career transition from journalism to parliamentary media advising and back. Semi-structured interviews with 21 journalists who had moved between the two roles revealed the shift to political public relations (PR) led several of the journalists to reassess their commitment to the fundamental journalism principle of the “public's right to know”. Once working as parliamentary media advisers, the transcripts showed a growing sense of caution around the release information by the former journalists, in response to the confidential nature of politics, and being on the receiving end of unethical journalism practice. Central to this change was an erosion of trust in particular reporters due to perceptions of unethical practice. Based on these findings this paper argues it is important for both journalists and political media advisers to reflect on the way in which their own actions might be perceived by the other, and consider whether their practices are helping to facilitate or restrict the free flow of information to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008, the financial press attracted criticism for its coverage: specifically that it did not provide any forewarnings to the general public; that it lacked sufficient scepticism when reporting on financial and economic trends; and that reporters were too close to the sources they used for information. This paper argues the GFC represents only the latest manifestation of dissatisfaction with the financial press, with similar concerns being raised in previous financial crises such as the recession of the late 1990s and the Dot Com boom in 2000. The paper presents the results of a longitudinal tri-nation quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the reportage in three mainstream newspapers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia across three decades, along with industry insights provided by interviews with reporters in each of the countries studied. The interviews and empirical evidence indicate there has been a decline in mainstream financial journalism standards since the 1980s, as the media have faced increasing institutional, ideological, and industrial pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The norms of modern journalism were shaped by the development of university-based journalism programs in the United States in the late nineteenth century. In Europe, journalism still struggles with ongoing “academicization”. Academic subjects introduced in j-schools, however, are based on either factual trivia or media studies. Thus, journalism students encounter the social sciences as either a meta-study of their future industry or as a reservoir of factual knowledge useful when covering particular beats. The research methodologies of these sciences—the very production of knowledge—are assumed irrelevant to journalists. This article suggests that one way to bridge the gap between the academy and journalism is to introduce journalism students to social science as a toolbox. Academic methods resembling reportage—like ethnography—may serve as a convenient starting point. Yet, while the practical tasks of the ethnographer and the journalist—interviewing, observing, writing, etc.—are similar, the epistemic and ethical regimes of these two disciplines often collide. In addition to a theoretical outline, this article, therefore, presents an empirical study of ethnography in journalism education. In turn, it argues that, in the new “golden age” of narrative journalism, ethnographic strategies may become essential journalistic skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]