Journalistic Expertise Research Articles

Participatory Online News Expertise and Credibility: A Study on Visual Citizen in TikTok bikini.bottom.news

TikTok already has the power to spread news apart from providing entertainment content. The emergence of TikTok is very massive and is used by many groups. TikTok brings a novelty with its content which is not only entertaining like lots of challenge videos and also often informative because many news channels have started to use TikTok as their media platform. One of them is the Bikini Bottom News TikTok account which actively reports the latest information on both socio-political issues and issues of international celebrities. The expertise of journalists and the credibility of TikTok, which started as an entertainment platform, come into question when we talk about news. This study analyzes the expertise and credibility of participatory online news in the visual community or citizens. Using case studies by conducting literature reviews and discussions with informants who have the same background, namely students regarding the bikini.bottom.news account, the authors obtain data that the TikTok platform, especially on the bikini.bottom.news account has two acceptances, which are considered to have met the skill requirements of a journalist to be trusted for the credibility of the news content and are considered not in accordance with the provisions of the expertise of a journalist and the content is considered not credible.

Tension between Journalistic and Entertainment Values in Live Soccer TV Commentary: The Commentator’s Perspective

This article examines the tension between journalistic and entertainment values in live soccer TV commentary from the perspective of German commentators. We situate journalistic and entertainment values within the commentators’ wider understanding of their roles as sports journalists and commentators, looking at a specific type of sports journalist who has different responsibilities from the general sports reporter. We asked how soccer commentators assess the role of journalistic and entertainment values in their work, and what constraints they face, such as how the perceived expectations of their employer affect this assessment. We interviewed 28 TV commentators, one radio commentator, and one expert working for relevant German TV channels and streaming platforms, such as ZDF, Sky, and DAZN. While all interviewees see themselves as companions telling the story of the match, most commentators in the sample value journalistic values over entertainment values, a surprising finding in the hyper-commercialized world of sports television. Well-founded journalistic expertise and soccer knowledge are considered most important. However, this assessment depends on factors such as the broadcaster’s guidelines and the nature of the match. In summary, the role of the commentator is either an ‘objective mediator’ or an ‘emotional entertainer’, but this is a balancing act.

Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction

Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction

REVIEW: Parents’ letters trace story of triumph and tragedy from Egypt to New Zealand

IN HIS newly released Wars Apart: WWII Letters of Love and Anguish From Cairo to Christchurch, retired award-winning New Zealand journalist and academic Alan Samson tells the love story of his parents through the letters and photographs they exchanged while they were stationed in the Middle East during the Second World War. They later migrated to New Zealand and their story continued from Cairo to Christchurch. Cairo was the place in which his parents began their story, which continued as they adapted to the diversity and triumphs of a new life in New Zealand. A journalism lecturer who taught at Wellington’s Massey University for more than a decade and is a former Pacific Journalism Review reviews editor, Samson uses his academic research skills and journalistic expertise in telling this story of love and anguish, hope and despair, of his own mother and father who had distinguished service records with the South African and British armies.

Politics of Crisis: Threatening and Defending Journalistic Expertise—A Processual Account

In this article, we argue for making the frequently invoked notion of “crises of journalism” itself the proper subject of sociological analysis. Based on a case study of a public controversy over an adversarial TV interview with a well-known politician on Austria's public service broadcaster ORF, we provide an analysis of the practical use of crisis claims in metajournalistic discourse. Drawing on ethnomethodology, interactionism, and situational analysis and suggesting the discursive trajectory as an analytic tool, we show that crisis accounts serve as an instrument of politicizing journalistic expertise, i.e., as a discursive strategy of mobilizing heterogeneous actors to impose interpretations of how journalism ought to be.

Seeking “skilled, poised, fluent” verbal communicators: Aesthetic labor and signaling in journalism job advertisements

Journalism job advertisements send important signals about valued skills and attributes. How such advertisements articulate journalistic expertise, including interactional expertise, has been studied, but signals about verbal communication usually have been overlooked. Little is known about how journalism employers define the most valued communication skills and the ideal journalistic voice. This signaling theory study explores expectations advertisements convey for how journalists should sound through a thematic analysis of U.S. journalism job listings (n = 510) specifying substantial verbal communication. Requirements for exceptional verbal skills and explicit calls for vocal clarity raise barriers to entry for journalists with speech disabilities or speech anxiety.

What on Earth do Journalists Know? A New Model of Knowledge Brokers’ Expertise

AbstractThe article offers a new theoretical model that conceptualizes the “exotic” expertise of journalists and other knowledge-brokers who specialize in particular domains (e.g., teachers, librarians, analysts). The model adapts theories from sociology, pedagogy and philosophy and juxtaposes them against the insights of 14 editors-in-chief from leading Israeli media, in order to validate, refine and illustrate the theoretical generalizations. According to the suggested model, specialized knowledge brokers develop a unique type of expertise that can be modeled across four distinct dimensions: The manifestation of expertise (doing/talking), the mechanism of expertise (interplay between journalistic and domain knowledge), the socio-epistemic position (outsiders/insiders) and the density of expertise (homogenous versus heterogeneous knowledge). Understanding journalists’ expertise is crucial due to the overwhelming assault on experts in “post truth” societies; their role as mega brokers of expert knowledge from all disciplines (outside one’s own expertise) and the ongoing scholarly dispute on the nature of expertise.

(Re)defining Journalistic Expertise in the Digital Transformation: A Content Analysis of Job Announcements

ABSTRACTIn the last decade or so, the attempt to rethink journalism expertise has been made in the context of a radically changing media environment. While many new journalism skills and knowledge areas have been identified, the existing literature lacks a clear conceptual framework that can comprehensively and systematically examine the many dimensions of journalistic expertise. Drawing on the expertise theory, this study explicates the concept of journalistic expertise and reviews the literature on the disruption, transformation, and reinvention of the journalism industry that forces a rethinking of journalistic expertise. Previous studies based on journalist job announcements are also reviewed and gaps identified. We then present an empirical content analysis of 669 journalist job announcements posted on Indeed.com from 1 July to 31 December 2017. Four types of journalistic expertise are proposed, identified and measured. The journalistic expertise preferences across different journalism platforms and for different journalistic positions are also analyzed. The conceptual implications of this study are addressed and the practical implications for journalists and journalism education are discussed.

Blurred boundaries: Citizens journalists versus conventional journalists in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has a reputation for being one of the freest media societies in Asia, but its ranking on press freedom indices has fallen steadily since the Chinese takeover in 1997. The online media have nevertheless created a space for a widened public sphere. In a situation of growing self-censorship and rise of alternative journalism formats, this study asks whether citizen journalism represents a viable alternative to conventional journalism. The aim of the study is to map out differences between conventional journalists and citizen journalists with regard to role perception. The empirical data consist of 12 semi-structured interviews with citizen journalists and conventional journalists in Hong Kong. The study finds that both groups are concerned about the future of press freedom, perceiving high degrees of self-censorship as well as political and commercial pressure. Concerns about declining trust are strong. Neither of the informant groups trusts the media to be neutral, and they do not express support to “Beijing” (i.e., central Chinese politics). At the same time, professional journalists do not trust citizen journalism to be a viable alternative to traditional journalism, especially because of deficient validation processes and lack of neutrality. The citizen journalists on their part are in fact often organized in one way or another, and they do to some extent follow established editorial procedures. This indicates that even if the conventional journalists are skeptical to the new group of journalists, the two groups may not be as different as they might think. The two groups largely share ideals related to journalistic expertise, duty and autonomy, but differ on the collectivist–individualist dimension. Overall, the study identifies blurred boundaries between conventional journalism and citizen journalism in Hong Kong.

Newsrooms accommodate data-based news work

Similar to prior cycles of newsroom specialization, news organizations must integrate the expertise of data journalists. Based upon 18 in-depth interviews with data journalism leaders within American newspapers, this study examines how newsrooms are restructuring to accommodate data news work. More specifically, the research identifies four “critical junctures” by which newspapers expand data journalism operations. The interviews establish that expanding a paper’s commitment to data journalism requires reorganizing the newsroom with new layers of structural complexity.

Journalistic expertise: A communicative approach

Journalists’ privileges and the perceived value of their contributions are being affected by the increasing belief that journalistic work is a product that can be produced by anyone. This perspective should prompt questions related to the conceptualization of journalistic expertise and the functions of educational institutions that assert they teach it. This research contributes to scientific knowledge by introducing an alternative scholarly approach toward defining journalistic expertise—a communication perspective. Prestige in the digital landscape is increasingly associated with the ability of communicators to package information conveying their expertise to various publics. We proposed a set of variables to assess expertise: journalism-related degree, previous professional journalism experience, affiliation, journalism awards, specialization, technical skills, journalism skills, and public service through a content analysis of public Facebook fan pages. The results revealed that journalists communicated their expertise by highlighting their affiliation, previous experience, and specialization(s).

Knowledge, Expertise, And Professional Practice in the Sociology of Michael Schudson

Although we often do not think of him this way, Michael Schudson can be seen as a moderate, critical-yet reasonable sociologist of knowledge. This identity reveals itself most clearly in his very first work, his doctoral dissertation, completed in 1976 and published in full in 1990. The second part of this essay argues that in his later career Schudson turned his gaze from questions of knowledge per se to questions of occupational expertise. I frame this turn towards the normative by recounting what we might call the Schudson–Carey debate over the nature and desirability of journalistic and professional expertise. I then tie this debate into current battles over the status of journalistic professionalism in the digital age. I conclude the essay by arguing that, while normative debates over the status of journalistic expertise remain important in 2017, these claims are also confronting a radically altered socio-technical environment. In our current unsettled times, Schudson’s sociologist of knowledge may—along with more radical theorists like Michel Foucault and Bruno Latour—serve as a helpful empirical guide and useful normative corrective to more extreme views on the constructed and power-indebted nature of knowledge.

Readers’ perception of computer-generated news: Credibility, expertise, and readability

We conducted an online experiment to study people’s perception of automated computer-written news. Using a 2 × 2 × 2 design, we varied the article topic (sports, finance; within-subjects) and both the articles’ actual and declared source (human-written, computer-written; between-subjects). Nine hundred eighty-six subjects rated two articles on credibility, readability, and journalistic expertise. Varying the declared source had small but consistent effects: subjects rated articles declared as human written always more favorably, regardless of the actual source. Varying the actual source had larger effects: subjects rated computer-written articles as more credible and higher in journalistic expertise but less readable. Across topics, subjects’ perceptions did not differ. The results provide conservative estimates for the favorability of computer-written news, which will further increase over time and endorse prior calls for establishing ethics of computer-written news.

Periodismo especializado y especialización política

En este artículo se revisa la bibliografía sobre periodismo especializado y se analizan los rasgos normalmente aducidos para identificar la especialización periodística, que apuntan por lo general al contenido de los textos: la especificidad temática, el enfoque en profundidad, la metodología de investigación, el recurso a fuentes expertas, la necesidad de formación complementaria a la pro-piamente periodística, la orientación a audiencias segmentadas, el uso de géneros textuales con-cretos, o la adecuación lingüística. La aplicación de estos mismos factores a la especialización políti-ca pone de manifiesto la necesidad de cuestionar los rasgos aducidos y considerar otros criterios en el concepto de especialización, referidos principalmente a las rutinas profesionales de producción. Se propone que en la especialización política es la propia praxis profesional, con sus particularida-des y características (relación con las fuentes, conocimiento del sistema y las instituciones), la que determina la propia especialización del área y del profesional.

Losing my profession: Age, experience and expertise in the changing newsrooms

The article examines how the crisis in journalism was experienced in the Finnish newsrooms in the spring of 2010. Based on interviews conducted in six newsrooms, this article highlights changes in journalistic practices, and the ways in which these changes have affected professional identity and journalistic expertise, in particular, in terms of age. The change does not affect everyone in a similar way. Its implications are experienced differently according to the position and work history of individual journalists. The article points out two particular factors that had a specific impact on shaping the boundaries of the journalistic profession, and notions of journalistic identity, skills and values. These are the concurrent processes of the move towards convergent newsrooms and the implementation of pension packages to downsize the newsrooms. With the implementation of pension packages as a solution to downsize newsrooms, age became the defining factor for professional identity, capacities and skills in the Finnish newsrooms. This particular time of change was also characterized by the implementation of new technology in the newsrooms. Thus, the measures taken in newsrooms emphasized speed, technological skills and youth as characteristics that were needed to compete in the changing and increasingly convergent media markets. It is argued that journalistic identity is tightly bound to its practice. Changes in practice are reflected in professional identity and the qualities that are valued within the profession. During this time of transition, the older journalists, particularly, struggled to hold on to their professional values and notions of expertise when, in practice, they had difficulties in bringing their expertise into use in the new technology-centered newsroom structure. Research highlights the multiplicity and complexity of change, where taken-for-granted positions are challenged and put into circulation. It provides insight into changes in the professional imagination and shared journalistic values.

What aggregators do: Towards a networked concept of journalistic expertise in the digital age

This article analyzes expertise in the digital age through an ethnography of an increasingly valorized form of newswork – ‘serious, old fashioned reporting’ – and its purported occupational opposite, news aggregation. The article begins with a content analysis of the 4 March 2010 Federal Communications Commission workshop in which journalists tried to draw a sharp boundary between reporting and aggregation. In the second section the article explores the actual hybridized practices of journalistic aggregation. The empirical investigation serves as a scaffolding on which to build a theory of digital expertise that sees the nature and struggle over that expertise as networked properties. Expertise, according to the argument advanced in the final section, is neither a fixed property that can be ‘claimed’, nor is it simply the inevitable outcome of a clear occupational struggle over a particular jurisdiction. Specifically, the networks examined here coalesce around different conceptions of ‘what counts’ as a valid form of journalistic evidence under conditions of digitization.

Helen Woodard Atwater: A Leader of Leaders

This article chronicles the life of Helen W. Atwater, a leader of leaders, and emissary for journalistic expertise, home economics, and women's role in civil society. Atwater's career as a writer and editor encompassed three decades in the early twentieth century during which she prepared reports for the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Office of Home Economics, served as the first full‐time editor of the Journal of Home Economics, and participated in early public policy advocacy of the American Home Economics Association. Atwater's active membership in many professional organizations contributed to the understanding of home economics outside of the profession.

Journalism as Bipolar Interactional Expertise

This article offers a theoretical framework for understanding journalistic expertise, based on a revision of Collins and Evans' model. While their model maintains that a small elite of experienced and diligent journalists can become “interactional experts” in the respective specializations of their news sources, the current paper suggests that experienced journalists develop different degrees of bipolar “interactional expertise,” specializing in interactions with their sources on one hand and audiences on the other. The audience pole not only limits their expertise and fits it to the constraints of the news environment but also drives and legitimizes their focus on information that is simple and quick to obtain and convey and is ostensibly interesting and important for their audiences.

Playing with News

The idea of incorporating digital games in journalism education provides the convenience of experiencing real-time happenings in a virtual world and opens up a new possibility for teaching journalism students. These games have the flexibility of offering different perspectives to students, providing them with a bigger picture and required skill sets. They can assist students in acquiring required analytical reasoning and train students to compile and edit news stories, learn about interview techniques and support the development of empathy and cultural sensitivity, crucial for journalistic expertise. Despite these attributes and their existence for over a decade, digital games have yet to be incorporated as a frequently used pedagogical tool in journalism education. This study explores the existing shape of digital games relevant to journalism, and the reason for their rare use as an educational and training resource.

Food nanotechnology in the news. Coverage patterns and thematic emphases during the last decade

For novel issues like food nanotechnology, media can play an important role in shaping the awareness and mental associations that underlie public opinion. Seeking to complement recent research exploring public opinion formation about food nanotechnology, this study tracks the evolution of U.S. newspaper coverage of food nanotechnology, identifying the descriptive and thematic traits that have characterized this coverage over time. We use a rigorous methodology to examine the levels of coverage, authorship patterns, and thematic emphases exhibited in the American journalistic narrative about this burgeoning application of nanoscience. Our findings indicate that U.S. newspaper coverage of food nanotechnology is relatively modest in terms of how often it has been covered, its thematic diversity, and the level of journalistic expertise from which it was produced. To our knowledge, this is the first study to empirically assess journalistic coverage of food nanotechnology.