Journalistic Authority Research Articles

False news claims as media criticism: Situating 1930s-1940s U.S. progressive critiques of “falsehood in the daily press”

Widespread claims charging news media with intentionally presenting false information to advance a political agenda are commonly understood as a recent phenomenon driven by the rise of right-wing populism. This article unpacks the prominence of charges of false news in the 1930s and 1940s United States among progressives who identified the commercial press as a powerful conservative force working on behalf of economic elites and against progressive movements. It argues that liberal and left critics deployed claims of falsehood in news as they sought to convince audiences that dominant news institutions were unworthy of their trust, underscore the importance of alternative media, and promote reform of newspaper industry labor practices. Bringing a case study from an illustrative past moment into conversation with recent work on post-truth politics and journalistic authority, this article contributes to the literature on “fake news” as media criticism.

Stepping forth: Representation of people with mental health issues in Norwegian newspapers 1950-2020

Since 1950, remarkable changes have occurred in both mass media, mental healthcare, and mental health discourse. Despite mass media’s pivotal role in reflecting and shaping societal attitudes about mental illness, little scholarly attention has been dedicated to the historical development of media representations of individuals with mental health issues. In this study, unique historical data serve as foundation for analysis of Norwegian newspaper articles about mental illness from 1950 to 2020. Through combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the analysis of selected news stories illuminates how these stories both complement and challenge medical and journalistic authority. Two main findings emerge. Firstly, notwithstanding the authoritative status of expert voices, individuals with mental health issues have transitioned from being essentially absent to becoming increasingly visible in the news. However, secondly, these individuals primarily represent lighter illnesses, or “general”, unspecified mental health conditions. Consequently, one may question the assumption of destigmatization for all mental illnesses, including more severe diagnosis. In conclusion, this study underscores the role of media professionalization, tabloidization, and technology in fostering societal openness to mental illness.

Visualising a Murder Mystery: Shifting Visibilities and Epistemic Uncertainty in Investigative Crime Journalism

ABSTRACT This study examines how the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang visualises an ongoing unsettled crime event. A qualitative longitudinal multimodal content analysis is deployed for 310 online news stories published between 2019 and 2021 covering Norway’s most infamous unsolved crime in recent years. The study (1) maps out the visual inventory of the case, (2) reconstructs how the victim, the alleged main perpetrator, and the crime scene are represented visually and how their visibilities change in response to shifting epistemic conditions, and finally (3) analyses how visual modes of knowing are used performatively to signal authority and mitigate uncertainty. The findings suggest that photographs serve motivated epistemological purposes in news coverage of contested events as their context-dependent ambiguity can create empathy, cast suspicion, and enable retrospective imagination. The study contributes to the literature on visual journalism and journalistic epistemologies by examining photographs as “infrastructures of inference”, thus highlighting the importance of visual storytelling in mediating journalistic authority.

Nominal construction of epistemological positions and power relations in journalistic stance taking: Variation across British and Chinese media discourse in English

Pursuing new ways of understanding the norm of objectivity and journalistic authority in the analysis of contemporary journalistic discourse has been a focal point of interest. Latest developments in the study of journalistic discourse have extended beyond the more traditional critical discourse analysis to methodologies that involve large corpora of texts and in-depth linguistic analysis to capture attitudinal expressions. We aim to study epistemological positions and power relations in journalistic stance taking focused on noun + that-complement clause constructions based on a comparable corpus of British and Chinese media discourse and the application of a functionally based taxonomy of stance nouns. Through the empirical observation about the deployment of different types of stance nouns, our study revealed important similarities between the two discourse types in that they both rely heavily on stance nouns showing beliefs, attitudes and cognitive grounding in addition to those of actions, processes and states of affairs specific to events. More significantly, the study pinpointed important differences by unveiling a preference for verbal propositions and speech acts in British media discourse and a contrasting preference in Chinese media discourse for propositional truth judgements deploying stance nouns designating epistemic status. Most importantly, the current study has suggested a corpus-based approach to stance taking in journalistic discourse by way of functional classification of nouns as a linguistic analytical procedure that has proven to be particularly suited for this purpose.

News sources and the epistemic authority to represent reality: How journalism constructs an order of authorized knowers in local television news

Distinguishing two types of epistemic authority, narrative and eyewitness, illuminates their distinct contributions to journalistic authority and reveals how journalism constructs an order of authorized knowers in local television news. Quantitative content analysis of local television news shows how different sources, such as public officials, civil authorities and citizens, are assigned epistemic authority both in terms of how frequently they appear in news and what journalists empower them to say. The basis of sources’ epistemic authority and the type of story they appear in shapes the knowledge about social reality they are discursively permitted to create. Citizens uniquely contribute to journalistic authority by imparting eyewitness authority to news. They take more speaking turns than other sources, but the epistemic authority their eyewitnessing creates is commonly coopted by elite sources whose status-derived narrative authority lets them characterize social reality without claiming to have witnessed it. Citizens appear in few government stories and take relatively few speaking turns in them, although most of their turns characterize social reality. Citizens take more speaking turns than authorities in crime stories, but their relatively even mix of characterizing and witnessing undermines their narrative authority relative to officials who take few witnessing turns. Demographics matter: White women citizens take more witnessing turns than all other citizen race and gender categories combined. Connecting social status with the authority to characterize social reality maintains structures of inequality, and authorities telling average people how to make sense of their experiences can be seen as dismissive of citizens’ judgment.

Mimicking power

This article explores performances of satire as a form of journalism in Zimbabwe by analysing performances by satirists who mimic to mock journalistic conventions and political authorities. Through analyses of YouTube videos, the article explores the ways in which satire as journalism is visualised. Onscreen, satirists mimic the gestures, mannerisms and aesthetic objects connected to both political figures and state journalists on the state-run television station for ridicule. This paper argues that the parodying and mimicking of aesthetics of authority legitimises and professionalises satire as journalism, even as it seeks to critique notions of journalistic authority in an authoritarian state. Through analyses of three Zimbabwean satire shows on YouTube, the paper finds that, while satirists mimic journalistic practices and journalistic authority with the goal of mocking state media and the censorial state, a closer reading of their practices shows that they themselves become legitimate news tellers. This kind of satire plays with familiar broadcasting television aesthetics to signal authority, providing current news and otherwise censored critique.

“What the Heck Is Going on in the Group!”: Challenging Journalistic Authority by Pseudo-Professional WhatsApp News Groups

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the ways new entrants and mobile technologies have become significant challenges to the old news’ legitimacy models by focusing on pseudo-professional WhatsApp news groups from a journalistic authority standpoint. Based on a comparative textual analysis of how a breaking news event was handled by a leading Israeli pseudo-professional WhatsApp news group, compared to how it was covered by the Israeli News13 TV news broadcast, the findings indicate how, by adopting professional news practices and establishing unique relations of information exchange with traditional news outlets, journalistic authority is challenged by pseudo-professional WhatsApp news groups in today’s mobile news environment.

Trustable News from China? How Chinese Journalists Negotiate Epistemic Authority in Transnational Digital News Production

The adoption of social media platforms by news organizations invariably coincides with transformations in the production, expression, and acceptance of news as public knowledge claims. This study explores how a special subset of Chinese journalists—the foreign-aimed journalists—negotiate their epistemic authority while producing transnational news on foreign platforms. Drawing on 26 in-depth interviews, findings reveal four major tensions as Chinese journalists strive to negotiate authority among foreign audiences: reaffirming professional boundaries; navigating the management directives; maintaining a state messaging position; and understanding digital infrastructure. This study further contextualizes how, parallel to digital transformations, cultural transformations around journalistic knowledge claims are linked to historically and socially embedded priorities and constraints. The established conceptualizations of digital journalistic authority require expansion, as China’s case illuminates the complex interplay between technology, politics, media regulation, and individual agency in shaping the epistemic landscape of contemporary journalism.

Enacting Journalistic Authority: The Communicative Challenges and Competences of Live Two-Way Correspondents in Swedish Public Service Broadcasting

ABSTRACT Whenever a major event flares up in the world, we are bound to be met by correspondents reporting live on the news. The correspondents are typically promoted as authoritative voices. Their live talk is delivered in “the live two-way,” a broadcast interaction between the presenter and the correspondent on location. Focusing on live reporting during the Ukraine–Russia war (2022–), this study analyses the communicative work that goes on in the live two-way, and how correspondents handle the tasks related to the enactments of epistemic authority. A conceptual framework is applied defining the communicative and epistemic dimension of the live two-way. This study applies a discourse approach and focuses on experienced correspondents in Swedish public service. Data consists of 30 live two-ways and interviews with 5 of the journalists about planning and execution of the live reporting. Results show how practices and roles separated in other genres of news are integrated in the complex work of the correspondent who is expected to fluently report from location, convey a sense of being there, present facts, and analyse and explain. This study indicates different styles of reporting when correspondents alternate between a careful and confident stance as they balance their commitments to truth.

Media-Tech Companies as Agents of Innovation: From Radical to Incremental Innovation in a Cluster

During recent decades new players, forms, and practices have been entering the journalism field, prompting a re-examination of journalism’s professional and organizational boundaries. Many scholars argue for expanding the scope of journalism studies beyond the newsrooms to encompass actors labelled as strangers, peripheral players, or interlopers. Those actors do not belong to traditional journalism but are becoming involved in the production of news, challenging journalism borders from the inside and out. Their influence has been growing and scholarship is increasingly mapping out these strangers and assessing their role in journalism innovation. In this article, we examine the role of one type of implicit interloper in journalism innovation: media-tech companies. We consider companies that provide video management and virtual reality services as implicit interlopers, due to their connection to journalism through the boundary object of news production and lack of claim over journalistic authority. We argue that media-tech companies have been under-researched based on a review of literature on innovation according to Holton and Belair-Gagnon’s (2018) typology of interlopers. Therefore, we examine what kind of innovation comes from the periphery of journalism, and the prerequisites for and the role of those innovations in the context of a specific cluster. We conducted a case study of Media City Bergen based on a thematic analysis of semi-structured elite interviews with executives of media-tech companies. Our findings show how media-tech companies bring innovation to production and distribution, content, and content consumption. Furthermore, they show how disruptiveness and the degree of innovations change with the maturation of the cluster.

“We are the In-betweeners”: Communicating the Expertise of Boundary Spanning Audience-Oriented Professionals in Media Organizations

ABSTRACT With the audience turn in journalism being actively embraced, media organizations are increasingly hiring audience-oriented experts. Drawing on interviews with 57 audience-oriented professionals working in 46 U.S. news organizations, this study situates audience-oriented roles as boundary spanning experts and aims to understand how they conceptualize engagement through job roles and routines and communicate the value of their expertise within the organization. The findings suggest that these individuals are faced with challenges of communicating their expertise to the various actors in news work, especially when faced with a paradox of adaptability to journalistic authority and institutional norms. These experts face structural challenges including continuous lack of understanding and acceptance of engagement experts within news organizations, despite the growing emphasis placed on audience engagement. Media organizations are internally resisting the expertise of these nominated boundary spanners by being bound to traditional institutional models of news production and promotion.

Day of Rage: Forensic journalism and the US Capitol riot

This article examines how video journalism produced by the elite press is using forensic techniques and aesthetics as part of the effort to reinvent journalistic authority in a fragmented media and political sphere. I first discuss some earlier moments in which news coverage of events adopted a media-forensic epistemology and style, and then turn to the formation of the New York Times Visual Investigations team, a group at the leading-edge of this type of journalism today. I provide an analysis of one of the team’s investigative reports, a 40-minute account of the January 6 Capitol riot assembled from vernacular video, surveillance footage, police bodycam video, and other non-news source materials. In both its formal aspects and its subject matter, the piece represents an important example for understanding an emerging form of forensic journalism. While the January 6 Capitol riot was not the first time news coverage of a violent event adopted a forensic style and epistemology, the forensic-media coverage of the riot represents a unique conjuncture. A new convergence of media-technological developments and journalist practices shaped how the storming of the Capitol was experienced, investigated, and covered as a media event.

Immediacy and Journalistic Authority For Reporting Environmental Disasters: Case Study Of 2022 Floods Of Pakistan

Real-time journalism is informing the public about the pace of the event that is happening. The story changes as time passes. It is playing with the nerves of the people as at that time the media is the only source of information and people are compelled to believe it. In the case of flood reporting and the reporting of the flood-affected areas makes the people of that area attentive and ready to take action upon the instructions of the media. In such a situation, as and when any single news channel tries to break the news of any emergency. Panic has been created in the target area and the people of that particular area try to escape from that area because they don’t know the volume of water coming in in such a situation many lives have expired due to the panic situation. The more dangerous is that the other news channels also follow the first line and start exaggerating the activity of that area and this becomes more dangerous because the people of target areas get frightened, and this makes their lives miserable. For this research, we have selected five Pakistani news channels during the 2022 flood in Pakistan. We will analyze the one-month highly flood season news reporting of these channels i.e. July 16 to August 15, 2022, how much news they break, and whether there was a need to flash that news as breaking news.

Democratic listening: News podcasts, trust and political participation in Australia

This article illustrates how news podcasts are playing a productive role in animating democracy in Australia. Drawing on findings from an exploratory online survey, it highlights how audiences view news podcasts as an important enabler of their participation in democratic life, and that news podcast listeners are likely to engage in both latent and manifest forms of political action. It also indicates that news podcast listeners are discerning media consumers, and that news podcasts are valued for reasons of both convenience and content. With limited prior research into the relationship between podcast listening and civic engagement, this article provides evidence for how this relatively new podcast genre is prized for its ability to enhance democratic life in Australia. It also problematizes the notion of trust in audio news, signalling a key avenue for further research examining the interplay between traditional markers of journalistic authority and more emotional styles of podcast journalism storytelling.

“Fake News” and Journalistic Authority in Newspaper Editorials

ABSTRACT The article investigates how newspaper editorials address the “fake news” phenomenon concerning (1) the damages that mis- and disinformation pose to society and journalism; (2) the roles news organizations claim for themselves; (3) the communication agents mentioned; and (4) how media companies defend the field. We use content analysis to study 375 editorials published between 2017 and 2020 in three Brazilian quality-papers. Brazil is a relevant case since its media system and political institutions differ from those in the United States and Western Europe, leading us to understand metajournalistic discourses not necessarily seen in more stable environments. The results indicate that key political events (e.g., social security reform and presidential elections) became occasions for media organizations to publish more editorials discussing “fake news.” Harming democracy was the main problem caused by mis- and disinformation. The newspapers regularly identified themselves as victims of attacks from political authorities. The editorial texts reinforced journalism's expertise in crafting and providing credible information, but, at the same time, such newspapers avoided responding to external criticisms. More interestingly, the outlets used terms associated with mis- and disinformation to attack rival groups. Lastly, our codebook provides an original contribution to the field as it considers a wide range of variables, encouraging comparative studies.

Metajournalistic Discourse on Participatory Journalism: Examining a Decade of Coverage in Trade Magazines

Audience participation is a contested issue in newsrooms and can challenge journalistic authority. By conducting a mixed-method analysis of a decade (2009–2018) of metajournalistic discourse (N = 135) on participatory journalism in two leading trade magazines in the US and Germany (Columbia Journalism Review and Journalist), this study aims to contribute to the field’s understanding of how and in which contexts audience participation is covered in public discourse and of reasons for positive and negative public evaluations of participatory journalism. The results show that while metajournalistic discourse covered participatory journalism in all stages of the news production process, notable differences in the coverage emerged depending on the specific context factors of participation dealt with. It is therefore depicted as a pervasive and multi-faceted phenomenon. 93 articles featured an evaluation: 53% depicted participatory journalism positively, 16% negatively and 31% left a mixed impression. Several themes emerged in the reasons for these evaluations, some of which are exact opposites, indicating that the presented evaluation depends on the specific circumstances of audience participation, namely the contexts of participatory journalism, the degree of involvement and character of audience participation and the resources available to the journalists.

Haters as Anti-Fans? Accruing Capital through Audiences Who Hate Journalists

Within journalism literature, the relationship between journalists and their haters, the audiences who threaten journalistic authority, has been portrayed as antagonistic. However, fan studies scholarship suggests that anti-fans can be just as engaged, committed, and beneficial as fans. In fact, they contribute to solidifying the celebrity’s fame and status. Borrowing insight from anti-fandom literature that suggests the symbiotic relationship between haters and the celebrity, this study sheds new light on viewing the relationship between journalists and haters. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 40 South Korean journalists who have experienced harassment and hateful expressions from the audience, this study investigates that journalists capitalize on anti-journalist hate in several ways: they use anti-journalist hate as indications of their journalistic performance, which allows them to gain respect from their peers and establish reputation. This newly acquired symbolic capital, in turn, leads journalists to make better social connections with their informants and accrue social capital. This study concludes with the implications of digital hate becoming a capital within the journalism field.

Disclaiming, Mitigating, and Character Boosting—How Targets of Investigate Journalism Negotiate Guilt, Excuses, Justification, and Morality

ABSTRACT 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.

A Case of Claims and Facts: Automated Fact-Checking the Future of Journalism’s Authority

This article investigates the role of automated fact-checking on journalistic authority. Using metajournalistic discourse analysis, this article analyzes 137 articles from January 2015 to December 2022 about automated fact-checking to attempt to understand its role in the evolution of the profession’s boundaries. The data reveals three core themes: shifts of labor and experiences, social and civic responsibilities, and attribution and accuracy as contested issues. Each theme offers a different perspective on journalism’s dialogue of itself. Labor shifts illuminate making the work environment easier. Social and civic responsibilities represent the contention between fact and fiction. And attribution and accuracy highlight the need for human actors in the fact-checking process. The journalists welcome the AFCs for their assistance in labor and combatting misinformation. But the journalists draw a line in the sand to protect their autonomy and authority regarding the evolution of technology in ways like natural language processing and algorithmic accountability.

Journalistic knowledge production during a social crisis: How journalists claimed professional authority during the Chilean social uprising

In this paper we problematize protest coverage as an epistemological challenge for journalists, based on the case of the 2019 social uprising in Chile, in which the authority of professional journalists as narrators of events was questioned by audiences. The study aims at identifying the main dimensions of news production that become altered in an extended social crisis, as well as the main repertoires of practice and justifications deployed from the journalistic field to face them. The paper is based on the analysis of episodic narrative interviews ( n = 32), with journalists who participated in the coverage of the uprising in different capacities, in TV, radio, print and digital only media outlets. In our findings, we identify disruptions of epistemic consequence for news production during the coverage of the protests and riots, such as safety issues, and the relationship of journalists with space, time and the evidence recognized as appropriate for journalistic content, an issue that became particularly problematic around episodes of violence. We then identify four epistemic modes (approaches to knowledge-production) activated during the protests: detached narrator, conflict deflector, conflict mediator and involved narrator. These modes reveal differentiated responses to protest coverage inside professional journalism, which are in turn based on complementary claims of legitimacy for journalistic practice.