Institute Of Journalism Research Articles

Del periodismo interpretativo e innovador de los años sesenta y setenta al periodismo de resistencia frente a la dictadura militar (1976-1983)

The article aims to reconstruct the reconfigurations that political journalism underwent between the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the roles of the profession and the journalism models that became legitimate throughout the analyzed period. To achieve this, it first concentrates on the emergence of analytical, interpretive, and committed journalism associated with the "new journalism" movement, which found its most representative expressions in the political-intellectual magazine Primera Plana, the newspaper La Opinión, and the figure of Rodolfo Walsh. Secondly, it explores how this innovative project was shut down by the censorship of the last military dictatorship. The analysis examines how a journalism of resistance and denunciation of state terrorism was configured from exile or ostracism—by those who remained in the country. Methodologically, the research focuses on a qualitative inquiry strategy centered on the main journalistic institutions and actors that formed those intellectual formations and dissemination networks during the dictatorship.

Journalists’ Attitudes Towards Obstacles to Creativity in the Internal and External Environments of Saudi Newspapers: A Field Study

The study aims to monitor the attitudes of Saudi journalists toward obstacles to creativity in the internal work environment of journalistic institutions. These obstacles can be classified as personal, economic, and administrative, as well as obstacles to creativity related to the external environment, which can be identified as social, organizational, and legislative obstacles. Furthermore, the study seeks to identify the prominent proposed solutions from the journalists' perspective in order to enhance creativity in Saudi journalistic institutions. The study relied on a questionnaire tool applied to a sample of 150 Saudi journalists. Among the study's key findings, statistically significant differences were found between the study groups (males and females) regarding the personal, economic, and administrative obstacles journalists face in the internal environment of newspapers, with a significance level of less than 0.05. It was also found that the obstacles to creativity faced by journalists in the internal environment of newspapers were represented by economic obstacles at a rate of 86.02% in the first place, followed by administrative obstacles at a rate of 77.32%. Finally, personal obstacles were represented at a rate of 53.64%. Similarly, statistically significant differences were found between the study groups (males and females) regarding the social, organizational, legislative, and technological obstacles faced by journalists in the external environment of newspapers, with a significance level of less than 0.05. It was revealed that the obstacles to creativity faced by journalists in the external environment were represented by social obstacles at a rate of 78.98% in the first place, followed by organizational and legislative obstacles at a rate of 77.80%. Lastly, technological obstacles were represented at a rate of 78.41%. Keywords: Obstacles to creativity - Saudi newspapers - journalists.

Sustaining journalistic continuity in the face of change: Announcing a new editor at the New York Times

An ample body of journalism studies research examines moments of disruption when a particular critical incident sparks widespread reflection about news and journalism. But we should not neglect how moments of orchestrated non-disruption perpetuate journalistic ideologies while stifling potential alternatives or deeper calls for change. This was the case when on April 19, 2022, the New York Times announced that managing editor Joseph Kahn would be taking over as executive editor from the retiring Dean Baquet. As an amiable and expected event, the Times promoted both a discourse of continuity surrounding journalistic norms and practices with a discourse of change focused on digital innovation and global audience growth. These discourses were challenged by critics who used the opportunity to lambaste the Times for insufficient news coverage of antidemocratic forces and a resistance to foundational introspection. This incident reveals how the Times sought to maintain its cultural authority and status as an elite journalistic institution while shaping normative expectations about journalism. It underscores the importance of attending to the interpretive power that privileged news organizations possess to speak about journalism at a time when many voices are contesting what news ought to look like.

Fact-checkers and the news media: A Nordic perspective on propaganda

ABSTRACT Combatting disinformation and propaganda has become an increasingly common task in Nordic newsrooms. The independent fact-checking organisations are currently joining forces with journalists in keeping the public informed. To better understand what these organisations do and how they do it, this study investigates the fact-checkers’ challenges and interrelations with traditional journalistic institutions, media literacy organisations, and associated national policymaker institutions in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The study is based on 18 in-depth interviews, and the findings show that fact-checking journalism is considered an important counterpart to traditional news media. However, there are many challenges in countering disinformation in the Nordics – both socioeconomical and policy related – that should be considered when discussing how to maintain and improve on the resilience against disinformation and propaganda in the Nordic media welfare states. The study aims to bring some of these challenges to the fore.

Trust Through Relationships in Journalism

ABSTRACT Digital communication technologies have upended the business models and work practices of professional journalists. Moreover, these technologies have altered the relationship between journalists and the public, resulting in blurred boundaries between the two and more avenues for interactions and relationship-building. In this theoretical paper, we argue that scholarship on the sociology of news has to be broadened to include the concept of relational work, which aims to create relational trust between journalists and their audiences. Specifically, we argue that previous sociological and professional conceptualizations of trust in journalism rest on normative values such as accurate, objective and reliable reporting, presuppose cognitive evaluations of journalistic content and minimize the role of journalist-audience interactions. These conceptualizations frequently neglect emotional and social factors alongside the power structures of news production that impact relationships between journalists and their audience and consequently the evaluation of news. We posit that the relational trust that can arise from these relationships may be critical in the overall development of trust in the journalistic institution, particularly in the current post-truth era of heightened political polarization.

News from the User’s Perspective: With Naivety to Validity

In journalism studies, news is still closely tied to journalistic institutions. However, the rise of digital platforms as gateways to news, catalyzing processes of dedifferentiation, challenges established news definitions. This makes a dedication to the audience understanding of news all the more urgent. That is, in order to measure news in everyday life contexts as validly as possible, scientific operationalization and lay definition of news should be as close as possible. Accordingly, drawing on 26 semi-structured in-depth interviews with subjects diverse in age, gender, and education, this article explores what constitutes news from user’s perspectives, and to this end, differentiates between news originator, content, style, channel, and function. Interviews were complemented by card-laying tasks with participants being asked to decide whether or not different actors, actants, headlines, and social media posts were news (dimensions). Findings show that people have a heterogeneous understanding of news originators and channels, but their associations of news content and style are informed by traditional journalistic norms. Thereby, audiences emphasize neutrality and news as output of selfless activity. The article concludes that an institutionally shaped definition of news does not capture the term’s extension in people’s everyday exposure any more. Finally, methodological-practical implications are discussed.

Parasitic news: Adoption and adaption of journalistic conventions in hybrid political communication

This article explores how political parties and individual politicians in Sweden communicate strategically in an online environment where the close relationship between news and journalistic institutions no longer can be taken for granted. We define the adoption and adaption of journalistic conventions in political communication as a particular communication style, conceptualized as “parasitic news”. The article presents an analytical framework that explicates the role of parasitic news across five dimensions: ideological transparency/position, alternativeness, news genres, individual vs. collective media practices, and social media affordances. An analysis of three news projects, representing right-wing populist, liberal/conservative, and left-wing/green ideological positions, reveals that parasitic news is a flexible communication style that blurs the boundaries of politics and media in online spaces. Moreover, parasitic news challenges the relevance of established terms such as alternative, hyper-partisan, and fake news, pointing to the need of a renewed conceptual vocabulary in journalism, media and political communication research.

Emerging hybrid networks of verification, accountability, and institutional resilience: the U.S. Capitol Riot and the work of open-source investigation

AbstractThe violent spectacle of the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot provides a case study of how online open-source investigation helped identify members of the mob and provide deeper understanding of the day’s events. Considering this form of investigation as an emerging network for the hybrid institution of journalism, an assemblage extending beyond the newsroom, this study takes a mixed-method, networked ethnography approach to map out this open-source space. Using a network analysis of open-source investigators based on Twitter data shows that the recently emerged Bellingcat organization and similar open-source groups serve a liaison function, bridging professional journalists and largely anonymous citizen “sleuthers.” Using this network as a guide, depth interviews were conducted with key participants, showing that the community was organized around an accountability ethos and a methodology of verification. We argue that this interlocking network has potential to strengthen the resilience of the journalistic institution, build citizen trust and resist politicized historical revisionism.

AI ≥ Journalism: How the Chinese Copyright Law Protects Tech Giants’ AI Innovations and Disrupts the Journalistic Institution

Journalism and other institutions clash over automated news generation, algorithmic distribution and content ownership worldwide. AI policies are the main mechanisms that establish and organise the hierarchies among these institutions. Few studies, however, have explored the normative dimension of AI in policymaking in journalism, especially beyond the West. This case study inspects the copyright law’s impact on AI innovation in newsrooms in the unexamined Chinese context. Using neo-institutional theory and policy network theory, the study investigates the Third Amendment to the Chinese Copyright Law, exemplary court cases regarding automated journalism copyright disputes (such as Tencent v. Yingxun and Film v. Baidu), and other supporting documents. The findings show how China’s copyright legal framework separates authorship and ownership; defines “originality” and “creativity” in human-machine collaboration; and prioritises tech companies while undermining journalistic autonomy. We argue that the law’s eager embrace of AI may give tech companies an advantage over news organisations that do not necessarily have a strategy to adopt AI. Moreover, it favours state-owned, resource-rich official media over the private sector. An implication of this shifting power dynamic is the possibility of privately owned news media being marginalised, resulting in even stronger state control over media production and information flow.

Lıquıd Journalısm: The Transformatıon Of Professıonal Identıty Of Photojournalısm In The Uncertaın Dıgıtal Medıa Economy

Bu çalışmada Zygmunt Bauman’ın akışkan modernite yaklaşımı çerçevesinde foto muhabirliği kimliğinin dönüşümü incelenmiştir. Sürekli “değişimin” ve “belirsizliğin” baskın olduğu akışkan modernite, gazetecilik kurumunu derin bir biçimde etkilemektedir. Çalışmada, Mark Deuze’un Bauman’ın akışkan modernite yaklaşımından uyarladığı “akışkan gazetecilik” kavramı “akışkan foto muhabirliği” olarak kavramsallaştırılmıştır. Çalışmada, gazeteciliğin belirsizlikle tanışmasına neden olan güçler incelenmektedir. Çalışmada, yeni medyaya geçişle birlikte geleneksel iş modelinin çöküşünün, foto muhabirliği emeğini nasıl etkilediği ele alınmaktadır. Aynı zamanda çalışmada, iş yaşamının bireyselleşmesinin yansıması olarak serbest çalışma modelinin foto muhabirliği kimliğini nasıl etkilediği incelenmektedir. Bununla birlikte, çalışmada “akışkan foto muhabirliği kimliği” teknolojik yöndeşme ekseninde ele alınmıştır. Nitel araştırma desenlerinden olgu bilimin kullanıldığı çalışmada, geleneksel medyadan dijital medyaya geçişle birlikte, foto muhabirliği kimliğinin köklü bir dönüşümden geçtiği sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Elde edilen bulgulara göre, dijitalleşmenin ekonomik sonuçları foto muhabirliği emeğinin dışsallaştırılmasına neden olmuştur. Serbest çalışma modeli, preker çalışma modelinin bir parçası olarak foto muhabirliği emeğinin bireyselleşmesine neden olmaktadır. Bununla birlikte, teknolojik yöndeşmenin çalışma pratiklerini köklü bir biçimde değiştirmesi, profesyonel kimliği oluşturan sınırların silikleşmesine neden olmuştur. Sonuç olarak foto muhabirliği kimliği, müphemleşmektedir.

On Social Networks, Anonymous Testimonies, and Other Tools of Feminist Activism against Sexual Violence in Egypt

On Social Networks, Anonymous Testimonies, and Other Tools of Feminist Activism against Sexual Violence in Egypt

Information Threats to the State Security of Ukraine in the Hybrid Warfare

The existence, self-preservation and progressive development of Ukraine as a sovereign state depend on a clear commitment to protection of its national interests and provision of state security. In modern conditions, the geopolitical standing of a state in the international arena, its ability to influence world events depends not only on economic and military strength but also on the information factor which plays increasingly important role nowadays. Rapid IT development at the beginning of the 21st century has led to a new global socio-technological problem, namely the problem of information security of a man, society and the state. The essence of this problem is that the most important interests of a man, society and the state are determined by the information environment. Therefore, deliberate or unintentional, external or internal influences on the information sphere can hinder those interests and pose a threat to the information security of a man, society and the state. Such a threat to national security is posed by external information expansion. The development of the advanced information technologies has led to the transition from the so-called classical war to a new type of warfare, namely information and psychological one. The sophisticated technical equipment and facilities which can affect not only the psyche and consciousness of people but also the information and technical infrastructure of states enable us to consider information weapons as a means of mass destruction capable of exerting large-scale psychological impact on political and business opponents. Similarly, the Russian Federation exerts destructive informational and psychological influence both outside and inside Ukraine using social contradictions, provoking ethnic and religious conflicts, undermining social unity and inciting hostility. The analysis of the ways of applying methods of information and psychological influence by the Russian Federation on the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea makes it possible to identify major threats to state security in the information sphere which are aimed at discrediting the top military and political leadership of the state, inciting anti-state sentiments in Ukraine and conducting information operations to mold the cultural oneness of the population on the occupied territory of Crimea and the population of Russia. The information aggression against Ukraine nowadays is aimed at weakening and splitting the country from within through engineering and exacerbating existing political, socio-economic, ethnic and other contradictions. Underestimation of the possibilities of information and psychological influence and of measures to counteract influences as well as failure to regulate the specifics of a particular territory can be fatal during the further aggravation of the military-political situation around Ukraine. In view of the above, the task of all state, public, research, expert, and journalistic institutions should be to develop effective measures to neutralize the aggressive information activities of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and to counteract their further conduct.

المسؤولية القانونية للعمل الصحفي في السودان وفقاً لقانوني الصحافة والمطبوعات والعقوبات

This study sheds light on the legal responsibility for journalistic work in Sudan in the context of a number of regulations governing journalistic and media activity in Sudan. The study aims to identify the legal consequences of violating the rules and regulations imposed on journalistic activity in this country, with emphasis on the most notable articles of the law to which journalists could be subjected in cases of violation. The study adopts the descriptive, Analytical and historical methods. At the end, the study has reached a number of conclusions as follows , consequences of violating the regulations organizing journalistic work in Sudan involve legal action , criminal or civil responsibility; Sudanese journalist is subject to a range of regulations on top of the specifically publications regulations including 1991penal code and national security law; Sudanese journalistic institutions should conform with administrative andobligationsimposed by 2009 regulations pertaining to press and publication; large number of people involved in the journalistic domain make it difficult to assign clear responsibility to any of partners in a journalistic criminal offense.

The Str(AI)ght Scoop: Artificial Intelligence Cues Reduce Perceptions of Hostile Media Bias

In the face of increasing public distrust for journalistic institutions, stories sourced from artificially intelligent (AI) journalists have the potential to lower hostile media bias by activating the machine heuristic—a mental shortcut assuming machines are more unbiased, systematic, and accurate than are humans. An online experiment targeting issue partisans found support for the prediction: a story presented as sourced from an AI journalist activated the machine heuristic that, in turn, mitigated hostile media bias. This mediation effect was moderated: perceived bias was more strongly reduced as partisan-attitude extremity increased.

International perspectives on suboptimal patient‐reported outcome trial design and reporting in cancer clinical trials: A qualitative study

PurposeEvidence suggests that the patient‐reported outcome (PRO) content of cancer trial protocols is frequently inadequate and non‐reporting of PRO findings is widespread. This qualitative study examined the factors influencing suboptimal PRO protocol content, implementation, and reporting, and use of PRO data during clinical interactions.MethodsSemi‐structured interviews were conducted with four stakeholder groups: (1) trialists and chief investigators; (2) people with lived experience of cancer; (3) international experts in PRO cancer trial design; (4) journal editors, funding panelists, and regulatory agencies. Data were analyzed using directed thematic analysis with an iterative coding frame.ResultsForty‐four interviews were undertaken. Several factors were identified that could influenced effective integration of PROs into trials and subsequent findings. Participants described (1) late inclusion of PROs in trial design; (2) PROs being considered a lower priority outcome compared to survival; (3) trialists’ reluctance to collect or report PROs due to participant burden, missing data, and perceived reticence of journals to publish; (4) lack of staff training. Strategies to address these included training research personnel and improved communication with site staff and patients regarding the value of PROs. Examples of good practice were identified.ConclusionMisconceptions relating to PRO methodology and its use may undermine their planning, collection, and reporting. There is a role for funding, regulatory, methodological, and journalistic institutions to address perceptions around the value of PROs, their position within the trial outcomes hierarchy, that PRO training and guidance is available, signposted, and readily accessible, with accompanying measures to ensure compliance with international best practice guidelines.

Overseas media, homeland audiences: examining determinants of newsmaking in Deutsche Welle’s Amharic Service

Historically, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s (FDRE) media environment faced a state apparatus that had been hostile to journalism practice. In particular, government-sponsored intimidation, jailing, and censorship of journalists paralyzed non-state journalistic institutions. With the political establishment’s hostility toward non-state press incapacitating credible journalism internally, foreign-based international and diasporic news outlets have enjoyed considerable following by Ethiopians. In the absence of reliable domestic news sources, Germany’s public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), alongside the Voice of America, has become arguably the most sought-after source of news in Ethiopia. Through data generated from interviews with newsroom staff, document analysis, and workflow observation, the purpose of this study is to examine newsmaking determinants in DW’s Amharic Service. The study identifies three major factors that influence newsmaking practices at DW Amharic, namely ideological determinants, geographic determinants, and audience-generated determinants. Ideological determinants mainly ascribe to the tensions between the host (Germany) and homeland (Ethiopia), emerging principally from the former’s mission of ‘a democratic export’ and the latter’s resistance to it. Geographic determinants enhanced journalistic safety at the expense of eyewitness reporting and sourcing triangulation. Finally, in engaging with audience-generated determinants, findings reveal how partisan political groups attempt to exert pressure on coverage and the mechanisms the newsroom implemented to navigate externally generated challenges of journalistic autonomy.

Journalistic Values in Modern Democracy: Balancing Power Between Constitutionalism and Populism

In modern representative democracy, political legitimacy is based on potentially conflicting principles: (1) the “popular sovereignty” principle, stating that the republic must be based on “the opinion of the people,” and (2) the “rule of law” principle which suggests that constitutional values of the republic must be protected from “irregular interpositions of the people.” As a parallel institution supporting the democratic republic (e.g., the press as the “Fourth Branch”), the role of journalists has continuously changed, and the journalistic institution has been balancing those two potentially conflicting principles. This study examines the current status of journalistic values as part of modern democracy. Traditionally accepted news used to balance the conflict between constitutionalism and populism by distancing journalists from both the existing elites and the mass. However, due to the recent transformation of the media landscape and the uprising of people’s anti-establishment feelings, news audience has struggled to relate their everyday lives to the mainstream journalism institutions. As a key alternative journalistic value of the traditional journalistic standard, the “news objectivity,” this study suggests “social empathy” as a solution of the modern political conundrum between two potentially conflicting principles that most representative democracies face.

A one-man show: Journalist Reuven Pedatzur and the Arrow missile project 1994–2012

This article seeks to examine whether, in an age where anyone ostensibly can become a journalist without the backing of any professional and responsible system, a single journalist can bring an important topic, related to a central security issue in a given society, to the attention of the media and of decision-makers. To this end, this study compared the salience and framing of coverage of the Arrow missile project in the Israeli press and among Israeli journalists to the coverage of two other complex topics – the Dolphin submarine project and the Merkava tank project. Two Israeli newspapers were examined: Ha’aretz, which appeals mainly to intellectual readers, and the mass- circulation Yedioth Aharonoth. The findings show that the Arrow project received much more salient coverage than the other projects examined, thanks to the salience Reuven Pedatzur, Ha’aretz journalist, afforded the project. Moreover, Pedatzur’s negative framings of the Arrow project were the most salient, such that the project was framed more negatively than positively, as was also the case for the Merkava tank project, which was framed negatively by Ha’aretz journalist Amnon Barzilai, though its salience was much lower. Hence, the findings of this study contribute to constructing a normative and effective model for journalistic work. The model centers on personal affinity for the topic covered, a sense of mission regarding the need to change the policy of a political institution, specialization in and study of the topic under consideration, a solid standing in the world of journalism, journalistic experience, backing from high quality and anti-establishment journalistic institution and support from the military (the air force in this case) and the political elite.

Dalla trasmissione alla condivisione: Ripensare il rapporto fra giornalismo e cittadini

Trust in journalistic media has decreased for many years. However, this decline is rarely linked to the transformations of forms of citizenship that characterize citizen participation in public space and a broader process of redefining the relationship between journalism and the public, accelerated by digital communication. The essay analyzes the main reasons for these changes and delineates the characteristics of a new information pact. Journalism delimits the facts, it selects and hierarchizes the events and social phenomena to be brought to the attention of the public opinion. This delimitation takes place on the basis of a negotiation with the sources and the public, progressively less available to rely on the definitions of the situations proposed by the press. The hiatus between the promise of completeness of information and the centrality of the facts and the effective operating modes of journalism is seized by demanding and critical citizens. If they capture limits and partialities in the journalistic mediation, they prefer other readings of society, or to share what is more in line with their vision of the world. However, the peculiarities of digital communication suggest a new informational pact between the journalistic institution and the citizens, in which the dense network of relationships defined between sources, the public and the journalistic system

A Spectacle of Silencing: A Rural African-Canadian Woman’s Media Trial

This thematic case study explores international, national, and local media coverage of a conflict between Barb Reddick, a rural, working-class, African-Nova Scotian woman, and her nephew over the ownership of a winning ‘Chase the Ace’ lottery ticket. Beginning from general media valuation of lottery winners, and Canadian coverage of the Nova Scotia CTA lottery ‘craze’, we find when Reddick goes off script as loving aunt she is pathologized and degraded in a dramatic reversal from soft to hard news story. Reddick’s habitus and trust in journalists to support her counternarrative became the dramatic content of media spectacle-making – what we call a ‘spectacle of silencing’ – as well as her deviance from Canadian white rurality, and class and gender norms. Rather than mere ‘misrepresentation’ of minorities, we conclude that the dynamics of counternarrative struggle are embedded in reportage itself as spectacle, reproducing the legitimacy and authority of journalistic institutions through a symbolic violence of consensus making.