News Journalism Research Articles

‘We want to deliver good talent’: investigating the media-related practices of Australian mental health organisations

ABSTRACT This article explores the media-related practices of Australian mental health organisations by drawing upon interviews with people whose role was either the CEO, Director, or communications and media manager of the organisation. The findings suggest that organisations have become increasingly sophisticated in their media and communication activities. Participants discussed practices such as packaging stories to accommodate news values and journalists’ routines, strategically using digital and social media, providing media training, and facilitating contact between journalists and people with lived experience. Participants also identified challenges, including a tension between being in the media for the purposes of advancing advocacy objectives and for branding the organisation. The analysis is informed by research into the mediatisation of organisations, journalists’ experiences reporting on mental health issues and Mad Studies scholarship, which provides a critical lens through which to think about the practices of organisations, journalists and other actors in the mental health field.

A knowledge-graph platform for newsrooms

Journalism is challenged by digitalisation and social media, resulting in lower subscription numbers and reduced advertising income. Information and communication techniques (ICT) offer new opportunities. Our research group is collaborating with a software developer of news production tools for the international market to explore how social, open, and other data sources can be leveraged for journalistic purposes. We have developed an architecture and prototype called News Hunter that uses knowledge graphs, natural-language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML) together to support journalists. Our focus is on combining existing data sources and computation and storage techniques into a flexible architecture for news journalism. The paper presents News Hunter along with plans and possibilities for future work.

ORGANIZATIONAL AND PEDAGOGICAL CONDITIONS FOR THE FORMATION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY OF FUTURE JOURNALISTS IN THE SYSTEM OF LIBERAL EDUCATION

The problem of professional identity of students in the field of "Journalism" has recently become increasingly relevant in connection with technological changes affecting the professional activity. Modern journalism is being robotized, there is a separation of human and machine labor in this profession. Changes in the industry entail a review of the educational process at the substantive and organizational levels. In this regard, the article substantiates a model of organizational and pedagogical conditions that contribute to the formation of professional identity of future journalists in the system of liberal education. We proceed from the provision on robotization of news journalism, therefore, analytical and publicistic journalism will become relevant, and for training in these areas liberal education methods are needed - in-depth reading, working with texts, free writing. The article presents and analyzes the system of organizational and pedagogical conditions for the formation of professional identity of future journalists studying in the liberal education system at NArFU named after M.V. Lomonosov.

Emotional Labor During Disaster Coverage: Exploring Expectations for Emotional Display

ABSTRACT Journalists are among the many professionals whose daily work involves emotional labor, or the manipulation of their emotions in front of others, in orderto do their jobs. This study explored the tenets of emotional labor in the context of natural disaster– a scenario when the emotional burden is high and the energy to cope with it is low. Qualitative analysis of 30 interviews with journalists who covered hurricane Harvey revealed journalists actively engaged in emotional labor during their coverage. Furthermore, their choices for emotional display were based on a shared understanding of professional guidelines and expectations mandating emotional distance in order to maintain objectivity. Implications for news coverage planning and journalists’ mental and emotional health are explored.

Health literacy level among journalists and general population: a cross-sectional survey

Abstract Background Recent studies have shown that low Health Literacy (HL) negatively influence people's health. In an era of fake news journalists are called to recognize reliable sources in order to provide trustworthy information, especially on health topics. The aim of the study was to evaluate the knowledge of health-related topics among health journalists and how it differs from general population. Methods A cross-sectional survey was made by administering an online 28-item questionnaire. The questionnaire was constructed by joining an introductive part assessing socio-demographic characteristics with three tests: Single Item Literacy Screener (SILS), Medical Data Interpretation Test (MDIT) and IMETER, the Italian version of Medical Term Recognition Test (METER). Results A total of 589 valid surveys were obtained. Regarding this sample, 130 participants were journalists, 142 were healthcare workers and 317 belonged to general population. Journalists dealing with health-related topics (p = 0.016) and writing for online newspapers (p = 0.035) were found to have a higher HL, as well as those having a postgraduate qualification compared to colleagues with lower educational qualifications (p = 0.012). Instead, low HL was found among those journalists considering insufficient their economic status (p = 0.031) and among those who had never or only occasionally written about health-related issues (p < 0.001). Among general population HL level was lower for females (p < 0.001), while it was higher for participants with higher educational status (p = 0.038). Conclusions These results suggest that education is a key factor for an adequate health literacy. Given the importance, writing about medical and healthcare topics should be prerogative of journalists specifically formed in those fields. Key messages An adequate education strongly influences health literacy. It is of great importance to have specialized journalists write about medical and health-related topics.

Contextualizing Psychological Outcomes for TV News Journalists: Role Differences in Industry Culture, Organizational Hierarchy and Trauma Exposure

Research indicates that TV news journalists’ ongoing exposure to trauma can result in psychopathology. However, we currently know little about potential differences in trauma exposure between individuals in varying journalistic roles. The aim of this study is to contextualize the existing knowledge of psychological outcomes for TV news journalists and to complement current deductive trends in literature by asking: How do TV news journalists of differing roles and responsibilities experience unique factors that ultimately influence their trauma exposure? Individuals in journalistic roles that experience differences in their exposure to trauma compared to other roles, may be at risk of elevated psychopathology or in need of greater support to prevent distress. A social constructivist approach was adopted and in-depth interviews were conducted with 21 Australian TV news camera-operators and reporters. Analysis was conducted according to a systematic and transparent thematic analysis. The findings suggest that TV news camera operators and reporters experience differences in: (1) experiences of industry culture within organizational hierarchy, (2) role expectations of physical proximity to trauma, and (3) social visibility during trauma exposure. By considering role-based differences, this study recommends resources and support necessary for reporters and camera operators. The present findings inform news organizations providing support for their staff, and news consumers of the circumstances under which news workers perform roles.

Retroactive causation and the temporal construction of news: contingency and necessity, content and form

ABSTRACT This article affords particular attention to the relationship between memory, the narrativization of news and its linear construction, conceived as journalism’s ‘memory-work’. In elaborating upon this ‘work’, it is proposed that the Hegelian notion of retroactive causation (as used by Slavoj Žižek) can examine how analyses of news journalists ‘retroactively’ employ the past in the temporal construction of news. In fact, such retroactive (re)ordering directs attention to the ways in which journalists contingently select ‘a past’ to confer meaning on the present. With regard to current literature, it is noted that a retroactive analysis can highlight two important dialectics within the practice of news journalism: (1) the relation between contingency and necessity; and, (2) the relation between content and form. Indeed, it is argued that this theoretical account offers a novel approach to examining the significance of memory in news journalism as well as the inconsistencies which underscore journalism’s memory-work. It is in accordance with such inconsistency that broader reflections on time, temporality and our relations to the past can be made.

Moral emotions when reading quotidian circumstances in contexts of violence: an fMRI study

The increase of violence in Mexico and consequent suffering during the last decades is evident, but its effects over feelings and moral judgments remain uncertain. We used journalistic news showing...

Moral emotions when reading quotidian circumstances in contexts of violence: an fMRI study

The increase of violence in Mexico and consequent suffering during the last decades is evident, but its effects over feelings and moral judgments remain uncertain. We used journalistic news showing real-life situations to investigate the effects of facing violence over the experience of four moral emotions which represent powerful impulses for social actions in situations of suffering linked to violence: Negative Compassion, Positive Compassion, Schadenfreude, and Indignation. We evaluate brain activation by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during three cognitive conditions: reading, introspection, and resting. When reading the news, only Indignation-evoking stimuli elicited salient brain activations in the posterior cerebellum, and temporal and parietal cortical regions, whose functions are related to anger experiences and processing of socially relevant circumstances. When introspecting the emotional experience, cerebellar, frontal, parietal, and occipital activations related to self-focused experiences were observed for all emotions. When resting after facing the stimuli, only the Negative Compassion emotion elicited brain activations in the posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus related to emotional self-reference processing; thus, negative compassion may produce more perdurable cognitive-affective effects related to sadness while perceiving suffering in others. Our results may suggest different emotional-based social decisions to face suffering and violence and to motivate pro-social actions in the collectivistic Mexican culture.

Transitions in Journalism—Toward a Semantic-Oriented Technological Framework

The technologies behind today’s web services, tools, and applications are evolving continually. As a result, the workflows and methods of different business sectors are undergoing constant change. The news industry and journalism are heavily affected by these changes. New technological means for practicing journalism and producing news items are being incorporated in media workflows, challenging well established journalistic norms and practices. The perpetual technological evolution of the web creates a wide range of opportunities. For this reason, both technology companies and media organizations have begun to experiment with semantic web technologies. Our focus in this paper was to discover and define the ways that semantic technologies can contribute to the technological upgrade of everyday journalism. From this perspective, we introduced the term ‘semantic journalism’ and attempted to investigate the transition of journalism to a semantic-oriented technological framework.

Challenges Kenyan Television Journalists Face in Spotting Fake News

A fake news story can travel half way across the world as the truth puts on its socks. There are myriads of challenges facing journalists in spotting fake news hence its wide proliferation. Fake news has become a prominent subject of enquiry especially following its alleged influence of the 2016 general elections in US. Unfortunately, research on fake news has focused on social media, politics, elections, and economies. Few studies have focused on the challenges that TV journalists face in spotting fake news prompting this study. The specific research question was; what are the challenges facing television journalists in spotting fake news in Kenya? The study adapted a relativist-constructivist/interpretivist ontology and epistemology, qualitative approach and multiple case study methodology. Data was generated through in-depth interviews, direct observation and documents review. The study used purposive sampling to generate data from 16 journalists. Data was then analysed in themes and presented in narrative form. Key findings were that in spotting fake news, journalists faced challenges like; loss of viewers, lack of authoritative contacts, sources who gave fake news for personal, business, political, and economic benefits, ability of fake news to camouflage real news, speed of fake news, typologies of fake news, live reporting, inexperienced correspondents and interns, and social media. The study concludes that the challenges facing journalists in spotting fake news were majorly based on sources, technology, education, skills and training, and its typology. The study therefore recommends that editorial boards invest in experts to train journalists on styles, architecture, propagation and use of fake news, inoculation of journalists and audiences, raising fake news literacy levels, and use of technology based approaches like reverse search and fact checking sites.
 Key words: Fake news, journalists, spotting, challenges, television, Kenya

Negotiated Autonomy: The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Editorial Decision Making

Social media platforms have increasingly become an important way for news organizations to distribute content to their audiences. As news organizations relinquish control over distribution, they may feel the need to optimize their content to align with platform logics to ensure economic sustainability. However, the opaque and often proprietary nature of platform algorithms makes it hard for news organizations to truly know what kinds of content are preferred and will perform well. Invoking the concept of algorithmic ‘folk theories,’ this article presents a study of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 U.S.-based news journalists and editors to understand how they make sense of social media algorithms, and to what extent this influences editorial decision making. Our findings suggest that while journalists’ understandings of platform algorithms create new considerations for gatekeeping practices, the extent to which it influences those practices is often negotiated against traditional journalistic conceptions of newsworthiness and journalistic autonomy.

Covid-19: Studying Policy Gap in Relation to Role of Primary Health Care in Pakistan

The novel COVID-19 pandemic is yet to unfold its impact and long-run consequences. Both developed and developing nations are trying their level best to cope and address the current situation in their respective affected regions with the help of the international guidelines and through their own experiences. The policies play an effective and efficient role in understanding different dimensions of the practices including social distancing, washing hands, wearing masks and most above all the lockdown. Such series of actions demand strong policy and learning both from global scenarios and national or provincial experiences. This study suggests how the policy gap may be identified to especially link the primary health care for the adequate response to this challenge. The study covered the editions of the latest news journals, newspapers, websites published between the months of March 2020 to April 2020 because the Pandemic paced up in these months.

The normalization of the populist radical right in news interviews: a study of journalistic reporting on the Swedish democrats

ABSTRACT Focusing on the salient case of news interviewing, this paper investigates the role of journalism in the normalization of radical right-wing politics and the discourses of nationalism and nativism. Normalization is related to transformations in the socio-political landscape, the discursive strategies of political actors, the professional norms of journalism, and the discursive positioning of political views in news reporting. Data include news interviews with the leaders of the Swedish right-wing populist party, the Swedish Democrats. A discourse- and conversation analytical approach is applied to analyze the discursive representations and positioning of political views in four different contexts of interviewing: routine news events, political scandals, live two-party interviews, and set piece interviews. The study shows an overall tendency to normalize and legitimize the political views and language of the radical right. Distinctive practices and mechanisms are identified. The study highlights the challenges of journalism, related to the normalizing implications of the restricted forms of impartiality applied in news journalism.

Hidden Hands: An Institutional Force in Political News Translation

This article explores translation in news institutions. While being heavily relied on by media organizations, translation is rarely acknowledged. Translation is deeply interwoven with news in that it is used to employ ideological tendencies and political agendas. This study investigates the powerful role of media institution as a force that intervenes in producing news reports. It uses a questionnaire and interviews to see the influence of editors in the translation of news texts. For this purpose, the views of 21 news translators, journalists and news were surveyed to infer the role of institutions in translation. The study looks at this role from different angles including translator training, instructions given to translators, textual alterations, and policies of news institutions. The findings indicate that intervention by the editors and producers on translation is taking place. The interview participants tend to agree with the intervention of the institution. The questionnaire respondents agree with the statement that translators are given instructions to use specific terminology but disagree with a statement that they have to comply with the policies of the institution.

Book Review: Alternative Media in Contemporary Turkey: Sustainability, Activism and Resistance and Social Media and Politics in Turkey: A Journey Through Citizen Journalism, Political Trolling, and Fake News by Murat Akser and Victoria McCollum and Erkan Saka

Book Review: <i>Alternative Media in Contemporary Turkey: Sustainability, Activism and Resistance</i> and <i>Social Media and Politics in Turkey: A Journey Through Citizen Journalism, Political Trolling, and Fake News</i> by Murat Akser and Victoria McCollum and Erkan Saka

From repression to oppression: news journalism in Turkey 2013–2018

The political context for practicing free and independent journalism has always been challenging in Turkey and ever more so after the failed coup d’état of 2016. This article examines and analyzes the changes brought about by this failed coup d’état in terms of their civil, legal, and political significance for news journalism and news journalists. More specifically and based on two sets of semi-structured interviews with Turkish editors and senior journalists supported by an analysis of gray literature, we argue that between 2013 and 2018 Turkey has moved from a pre-coup repression of news journalism (2013–2016) to a post-coup oppression of news journalism (2016–2018). The former was characterized by unsystematic attacks on news journalism conducted with impunity leading to a climate of fear that made self-censorship inescapable. In contrast, the latter relied on constitutional changes and the use of law to systematically compromise the civil institution of news journalism and to cast news journalists as political enemies of the Turkish state resulting in what can be likened to a loss of their citizenship. We further argue that the development from the repression to oppression of news journalism has been ‘authorized’ and ‘legalized’ by the constitutional changes that came into force on 9 July 2018.

A RECONFIGURAÇÃO DO (DES)ACONTECIMENTO JORNALÍSTICO EM VIAS DE MIDIATIZAÇÃO

Sob perspectiva dialógica, discutimos, neste artigo, a reconfiguração do acontecimento jornalístico em dois estágios: em um primeiro momento, como movimento de resistência que parte do campo profissional, lançando a acepção do desacontecimento enquanto dispositivo para narrar atores tradicionalmente marginalizados pelo interesse público e midiático; e, inscrevendo a reflexão no contexto processual de midiatização, alargamos seu escopo como contrapartida, em âmbito de resposta social (BRAGA, 2006), que pode também despontar ao cenário jornalístico pelo potencial de tentativo dos atores sociais.

Hamza Ethelb; Hidden Hands: An Institutional Force in Political News Translation

This article explores translation in news institutions. While being heavily relied on by media organizations, translation is rarely acknowledged. Translation is deeply interwoven with news in that it is used to employ ideological tendencies and political agendas. This study investigates the powerful role of media institution as a force that intervenes in producing news reports. It uses a questionnaire and interviews to see the influence of editors in the translation of news texts. For this purpose, the views of 21 news translators, journalists and news were surveyed to infer the role of institutions in translation. The study looks at this role from different angles including translator training, instructions given to translators, textual alterations, and policies of news institutions. The findings indicate that intervention by the editors and producers on translation is taking place. The interview participants tend to agree with the intervention of the institution. The questionnaire respondents agree with the statement that translators are given instructions to use specific terminology but disagree with a statement that they have to comply with the policies of the institution.

The War on Drugs between Exception and Legitimacy: García Márquez’s News of a Kidnapping

The article reads García Márquez’s journalistic novel News of a Kidnapping against the grain, demonstrating its potential for interrogating unifying narratives about global legality. The argument has several parts. First, it builds upon a careful textual and structural analysis of the literary work in question, parsing out the suggestive complexities of the novel’s narrative voice and metaphors as they confront issues of transnational legitimacy. Secondly, it examines how García Márquez’s narrative, perhaps unintentionally, engages with and buttresses the selective suspension of legality in Colombia (“the exception”). Special attention is given to the Colombian constitutional reform movement in this context, as well as to the novel’s grappling with the contradictions of reasserting legality through lawless means. Heuristically, News of a Kidnapping is then measured against contemporary judicial decisions. In closing, the article situates the novel within the panorama of contemporary legal and literary studies pertaining to the global drug trade.