Investigative Journalism Research Articles

Media’s Roles in Reporting Corruption in the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) Lands Restitution Process in Fako Division: 2014-2021

Media’s roles in exposing corruption is itemised in the CDC land restitution process in Fako Division of Cameroon, captioned as “The Land Grabbing Saga in Fako Division” by newspapers. Journalism in general and investigative reporting in particular, play a critical role in raising consciousness of and fighting against corruption. It is one of the most effective means of raising public consciousness about corruption. It is in this light that the researchers set out to investigate the actual role played by the media in reporting corruption in the CDC land restitution process. Two qualitative research methods were used to gather data. The first method, the qualitative content analysis, examined contents of four editions of CRTV Buea Press Club radio programme and also exploited contents of some newspapers and online media platforms on corruption in the CDC land restitution process. The second research method, in-depth interview, was used to gather data from some elites of Fako Division, members of the affected villages, journalists who reported on the corruption, some accused persons and CDC officials to ascertain media’s role in exposing corruption. The data reveal that the media played three roles in exposing corruption in the CDC land restitution process: giving information and creating awareness; public education; and prompting peers (other journalists) to also report on corruption. The elites and members of the affected communities attested that some of them were not aware of any corrupt practices until they heard about it on CRTV Buea Press Club and later followed it on newspapers and online media platforms. Findings also show that media investigative reports corroborated evidence to establish the occurrence of corruption in the restitution process. The media exposed this issue by naming and shaming those involved in the corruption (publishing their names and pictures). Amongst other things, this study recommends that the media should be considered as an important tool in the fight against corruption; those interested in exposing corruption in the media should be involved in investigative journalism that will enable them back their reports with documented evidence since corruption is a complex crime. Also, people in public offices should be compelled by law to make available information that is of public interest and good to journalists to enable them expose societal ills (like corruption), especially in public offices and spheres.

The challenges of investigative journalism in Kurdistan region and developing prospects Investigative journalist’s perspective as examples

In this study, the challenges of investigative journalism in Kurdistan region; and developing prospects investigative journalist’s perspective as examples. The study used a “descriptive” method and an “in-depth interview” approach to survey journalists as a direct sample, to take into account the influential variables and reach significant and important conclusions. For this purpose, are divided into three broad themes. The first theme is devoted to the presence and participation of grassroots journalists with many characteristics, such as: gender, qualifications, journalistic age, age of journalistic career, age of employment, place of work and membership of an organization or trade union. Another topic examines the situation of the media in three main issues: the level of development and obstacles to development, and finally the importance of this media model. In this article, the media is analyzed through its impact on the three branches of government (judicial, legislative, executive), along with the role of the judiciary in terms of the prosecutor general, and then details and statistics on the relationship between journalism in the Kurdistan Region Working age and membership in their respective unions and organizations were examined. The final topic is an assessment of the future prospects of investigetive media in Kurdistan, through three different issues that involve how to promote the model and the role of relevant institutions such as journalists unions, academic centers, prosecutors and other NGOs in promoting investigative media and, then identifying a signal such as optimism for the future of the underground media. The results showed that all the investigative journalists are male (%100 ), of whom (%66 .66 ) do not have academic degrees in the field of media. Also, %50 of the respondents believe that the development of grassroots media in the Kurdistan Region is moderate, but a significant percentage (%41 .7) considers it poor, which is due to political and financial obstacles, especially (%24 .53) believe that political obstacles in general. Political instability, outstanding issues between Erbil and Baghdad) are the main reasons for these obstacles, followed by financial and economic reasons (%17.6). However, the journalistic working environment in the Kurdistan Region is considered to be somewhat favorable for the development of grassroots media, according to journalists (%66 .7) who are not members of organizations and trade unions and the working age of the majority (%50) is between 10 -6 years . . . . The respondents (%38.96) believe that the existence and influence of the media is important because it monitors the spheres of power and plays the role of the fourth power. According to the role of the media in the Kurdistan Region, it is moderate for %50 and never for %41 .7, which can act as an observer over the judiciary, executive, legislative. Results about the role of all relevant institutions (mentioned above) are bad to varying degrees but high, which did not satisfy the journalists of the underground in their work. Furthermore, despite the limited data such as the number of interviewees, there is optimism to see a bright future for invetigative journalism and make a big difference. The recommendations are directed to the authorities, trade unions and relevant institutions to enthusiastically follow this model, such as allocating the necessary budget, facilitating the provision of information and encouraging women to enter this model and investigate the reasons for their absence.

How Do Investigative Journalists Initiate Their Stories? Exploring the Investigative Ecosystem of Switzerland

ABSTRACT This paper analyses investigative journalism as an ecosystem. It aims to reconstruct the “food chains” of investigative journalism by identifying the origin of investigative stories. Based on a triangulated analysis of a nine-month sample of news content in French-speaking Switzerland, systematic research in news databases, and 23 in-depth interviews with Swiss investigative journalists, it proposes three main characteristics of the Swiss investigative ecosystem: (1) it is mainly reactive; (2) it functions at two speeds; and (3) it is self-feeding. It also shows that investigative journalists view the reactiveness of the ecosystem as a lesser evil that allows them to cope with the pressures constraining their daily practice. Furthermore, while investigative journalists devalue ordinary journalism in general, they see it as a rich source of story leads.

The Regulatory Dilemma on Mass Communications Surveillance and the Digital Right to Privacy in Africa: The Case of South Africa

Behind the cloak of maintaining national security and public order, African governments and the private sector constantly encroach upon the data privacy rights of individuals. The right to privacy is not only protected by various international human rights instruments that African states have voluntarily ratified but has been enshrined in several constitutions. Yet, without proper safeguards, the same states continue to stifle the right through intrusive surveillance methods. They indiscriminately acquire, intercept, transmit, analyse and retain an individual’s data, able to be amassed to generate intimate and detailed profiles of individuals. While the right to privacy is not absolute, international human rights law requires that its limitations be legal, justifiable and reasonable 129 . Hence the purpose of this article is to determine the extent to which the South African communications surveillance law conformed to the foregoing. The article finds that the silence of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act 130 (RICA) on mass surveillance, its weak and ineffective data privacy safeguards, insufficient oversight provisions and law enforcement officials’ impunity render the law invalid for a democratic society. Further, the new personal data law 131 has exempted national security operations from its regulation. As a result, RICA needs to be reformed, as affirmed by the recent verdict of AmaBhunghane Centre for Investigative Journalism NPC v. Minister of Justice and Correctional Services & Others 132 .

Rejecting the military to serve the Nazis. Italian conscientious objectors in Gaeta’s jail from 1948 to 1972

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the Italian conscientious objectors imprisoned in the military jail of Gaeta from 1948 to 1972, who shared the prison with the two ex-Nazi officials Herbert Kappler and Walter Reder, responsible for the most pitiless massacres that occurred in Italy during WWII. The study is based on interviews with and diaries and memoirs by conscientious objectors who were in jail for rejecting the military and knew Kappler and Reder. While existing studies on the topic centre on legal and normative aspects of conscientious objection, this analysis concerns the personal experience of the objectors in jail and investigates the relationships between the prisoners and the two war criminals. The interviewees have revealed the many privileges reserved to Kappler and Reder, adding to what had already been reported by journalistic investigations and political parliamentary interrogations. They have also stated that many of them were pushed to become the orderlies of Kappler and Reder. They carried goods to the apartments of the two ex-Nazis, set the room for Kappler’s wedding and call them ‘Colonel’ and ‘Major, not to worsen their conditions in jail. In conclusion, the article demonstrates that in Gaeta in those years a paradoxical scenario existed: the objectors were deprived of their pacifist identities and inserted into a military structure governed by the military law; the two war criminals, conversely, were allowed to save their Nazi identity by wearing their uniforms, being called ‘Major’ and ‘Colonel’ and continuing to give orders. Symbolically, the official version saying that democratic Italy was constructed on the defeat of Fascism was thus totally upended.

Exploring the Normative Foundation of Journalism Education: Nordic Journalism Educators’ Conceptions of Future Journalism and Professional Qualifications

This article deals with Nordic journalism educators’ conceptions of journalism by placing the concept of normativity at the center. The values, norms and ideas concerning journalism and journalistic practice have previously been studied by journalists and journalism students around the world and in the Nordics, while the Nordic journalism educators’ conceptions have remained more or less without attention. Nevertheless, journalism educators play a crucial role in defining what journalism is and what it is not, and thus largely affect future practitioners’ ideas of journalism. Using a questionnaire that has been employed in previous studies, journalism educators within the academic journalism training in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden (n = 115) were surveyed in terms of their conceptions. It was found that the journalism educators, of which 35 per cent had a doctoral degree, still largely subscribe to the ideas of the welfare state. In addition, the ideas of slow, investigative, constructive and solutions-based journalism have gained high popularity among the Nordic educators, which, we argue, dovetails well with the pedagogical aims of journalism education.

Reporting a Rural Reality: A Case Study of an Agricultural Newspaper’s Series on the Rural Opioid Epidemic

Opioid drug abuse has created an epidemic recognized as a public health emergency in 2017, and the detrimental impacts of this epidemic have reached into rural America. When it comes to presenting information via the mass media, communications professionals serve as gatekeepers for what information is passed on to media consumers. Additionally, news organizations place certain degrees of importance upon issues through the amount of coverage dedicated to an issue. In late 2016, when the Farm and Dairy newspaper editorial staff decided to dedicate a vast amount of time and resources to covering Ohio and Pennsylvania’s rural opioid epidemic, a variety of questions and concerns followed. This complicated topic was largely unfamiliar and untraditional to agricultural communications. Concerns about how to research the topic, work with sources, and manage responses from stakeholders emerged at the onset, but motivations to increase awareness, reduce stigma, and instill hope in the midst of a rural opioid epidemic brought the series to fruition. This case study details the actions taken by those involved in the series and stakeholder reactions to a unique journalistic investigation from a rural newspaper. Discussion of recommendations for future research and curricular impacts are provided.

DIGTIAL TECHNOLOGIES IN COMBATING GLOBAL CORRUPTION

A transnationalization of corruption practices, born by globalization processes, is one of nowadays negative phenomenon that deserves intensive studying. Digital technologies smooth the pathways for transnational corruption. On the other hand, digitalization also provides tools for building up respective countermeasures. This article examines the potential of digital technologies, primarily artificial intelligence (AI), in preventing corruption practices. Firstly, the characteristics of the «global corruption» phenomenon are outlined. The experience of implementing digital technologies in the corruption countermeasures has been analysed that revealed problems and prospective trends in the development of digital anti-corruption mechanisms at the supra-national level of governance. Digital tools for detecting and tracking of transnational corruption schemes were described in the framework of international journalistic investigations or anti-corruption control technologies in the European Union. One of key factors preventing the effective application of AI against the transnational corruption is the lack of the consolidated international regulatory regime for data evaluation. However, AI is ambivalent for both fighting corruption and creation new corruption pathways. Arguments in support of the distributed ledger technologies as the promising corruption-preventing techniques are provided. The study discloses factors inhibiting the scaling of the implementation of blockchain or smart contracts as mechanisms of reducing the risks of corruption. The need to develop international standards for the use of AI technologies in the fight against corruption practices is emphasized. The creation of a transnational structure with appropriate rule-making and control powers in this area becomes extremely important.

The German Data Journalist in 2021

ABSTRACT Data journalists have become established in online newsrooms. Previously considered tech-savvy journalistic outsiders, they have repeatedly been described as their own closed community which has only recently gained severe attention and importance due to heavy data-driven reporting (e.g., COVID-19, investigative journalism, climate crisis). This is particularly true for data journalists in Germany who have repeatedly received worldwide attention (e.g., cum ex, Panama papers). Taking on a perspective of re-negotiated journalistic boundaries, this study sets out to describe this influential journalistic sub group and presents a most-representative quantitative survey among N = 102 data journalists in Germany. Results indicate that data journalists in Germany are everything but journalistic outsiders in that they share strong journalistic backgrounds, high formal education, and long-lasting journalistic employment. Daily routines less often include large projects but regular translations of ready-made data into journalistic value. Thereby, data journalists in Germany enjoy large degrees of autonomy and perceive themselves as scrutinizers and adversaries of political leaders by means of factual information and analyses. Conclusions are drawn for journalistic curricula and the urgent need for a negotiation around quality norms and standards in a rapidly institutionalizing field that is data journalism.

The case for a media and communications public participation court

ABSTRACT This comment looks at the current controversies surrounding the strategic use of libel law to silence and intimidate investigative journalists. Much of the problem flows the cost of litigation in defamation. The comment proposes a model for reform based on the streamlined procedure used in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, in which recoverable costs are subject to a cap. The comment argues that such a model for reform is more likely to be effective in addressing the current concerns than the Government's anti-SLAPP proposals.

Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground by Susan McKay

Reviewed by: Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground by Susan McKay Chris Arthur Susan McKay Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground Belfast. The Blackstaff Press. 2021. 346 pages. war photographer Robert Capa famously said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough." The outstanding quality of the word-pictures drawn in Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground relies on the author's practice of getting close enough to people to see the detail of their lives, rather than presenting us with distant generalizations. But proximity alone would not guarantee a book of this caliber. For that, you also need the author's skill as an empathic listener and lucid writer. Susan McKay expertly coaxes a variety of voices to tell their stories and presents these to readers with impressive clarity. The book is based on interviews conducted between 2019 and 2021. McKay traveled all over Northern Ireland to take soundings from one sector of the country's populace. She wanted to get a sense of how Protestants think of themselves and what they want, in the context of a milieu where old allegiances have been strained by the legacy of the Troubles, Brexit, the pandemic, renewed worries about a possible united Ireland, and loss of faith in politicians caused by the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal. (The Renewable Heat Incentive scandal was a shockingly mismanaged green-energy scheme that lost a colossal amount of public money and ultimately led to the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly—the devolved legislature for Northern Ireland. An account of what happened—uncovering political and administrative incompetence and duplicity on a scale that's hard to credit—is given in Sam McBride's masterpiece of investigative journalism, Burned: The Inside Story of the "Cash-for-Ash" Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite [2019].) Northern Protestants shows the poverty of those simplifying stereotypes that are too often the currency of media reports. Commentators who lack McKay's skills, and her intrepid determination to seek out enlightening face-to-face encounters, tend to present Northern Ireland in crudely dualistic terms: Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist versus Catholic-Nationalist-Republican. The impression given is that within each tribal bloc there is an obdurate uniformity of opinion. McKay repeatedly demonstrates how fatuous such a picture is. "Northern Protestant" is far from being a homogeneous singularity. Thinking within this group is neither fixed nor predictable. Her book, together with its older sibling, Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People (published in 2000, with a new edition brought out last year to coincide with the second volume's appearance), provides a sensitive mapping of how Protestant mind-sets have changed, and responded to change, over the last several decades. The books compile a record of the raw oral literature of the moment. Susan McKay offers an always sympathetic, often surprising, but not uncritical portrait of her people. The books have more than local relevance. Reading them at this juncture in European history gives a particular edge to her insights about the impact of violence. She talks to many survivors, relatives, and descendants of those killed and maimed in Ulster's thirty years of sectarian conflict. Long after the immediate lethality of terrorist bombings and shootings, lives are still disfigured by these acts of savagery. Over 3,500 people lost their lives in Northern Ireland's Troubles. This is a tiny number compared to casualties in Ukraine. It is terrible to think how far into the future this war will cast its blighting shadows. As millions of distraught, displaced, bereaved, and injured people struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives, one hopes that those who listen to, record, and tell their stories will be as skillful in this art as Susan McKay is. She provides a master class in how to listen and has a fine sense of when to put people's own words on the page, when to paraphrase, what is best juxtaposed with what, when the author herself needs to comment and when to stand back. As a result, readers receive a powerful sense of the variety of ways, some admirable, some decidedly not, in which individuals cope—or fail to cope—with challenging, often desperate circumstances. We...

Davids versus Goliaths: Pharma and academia threats to individual scientists and clinicians

Background We previously described experiences of clinicians who published adverse drug reaction reports. We now report on threats and intimidations leveled against clinicians and scientists who received publicly documented threats after communicating safety, efficacy, or data integrity findings contrary to corporate interests. Methods Data on threats and intimidations were obtained from transcripts of governmental hearings or agencies, university-affiliated reports, media interviews, and investigative journalism articles. Content and timing of threats and intimidation, subsequent harms, numbers of persons seriously injured or who died from individual toxicities, financial payments from sponsors related to safety, efficacy, or data integrity concerns, and civil settlements and criminal findings were evaluated. Findings Twenty-six individuals who communicated safety, efficacy, or data integrity concerns were targets of threats and intimidation from corporate employees (twenty-three individuals) or regulatory personnel (three). Seventeen individuals identified instances where pharmaceutical sponsors submitted fraudulent data in support of regulatory approval of a drug or device. Scientist and clinician communications were followed by drug/device withdrawals (fourteen drugs/devices), black box warnings (six drugs), withdrawal of a sponsor’s application for regulatory approval (one device), and delay of approval of a sponsor’s application for regulatory approval (one drug). Actions mainly occurred after persons communicated with pharmaceutical employees (fourteen). Intimidation efforts by corporate personnel included threats of lawsuits (eighteen individuals), hiring private investigators (nine), and public disparagement at conferences (eleven). Related intimidation efforts carried out by academia or regulatory agency superiors included threats of: loss of positions (six), loss of grant funding (two), delays in decisions regarding tenure (two); or reassignment to a low-level position (one). Academic harms included lost: hospital or university appointments (nine and six, respectively), grant funding (two), chairperson title of an international clinical trial group (one), and journal editorial board position (one). Corporate harms included payment of $1 million to defense attorneys in three cases filed against clinicians. Interpretation Threats and intimidation carried out by corporate employees and/or academic supervisors followed public communication of concerns regarding patient safety, drug efficacy, or data integrity, including instances where sponsors were identified as having submitted fraudulent data to regulatory or government agencies. Consideration should be given to filing criminal charges against pharmaceutical executives who are discovered by scientists or clinicians to have knowingly submitted fraudulent data to regulatory or governmental agencies, rather than causing the scientists and clinicians who submit such reports to risk losing their reputations and occupations.

Imaginaries of omniscience: Automating intelligence in the US Department of Defense.

The current reanimation of artificial intelligence includes a resurgence of investment in automating military intelligence on the part of the US Department of Defense. A series of programs set forth a technopolitical imaginary of fully integrated, comprehensive and real-time 'situational awareness' across US theaters of operation. Locating this imaginary within the history of 'closed world' discourse, I offer a critical reading of dominant scholarship within military circles that sets out the military's cybernetic model of situational awareness in the form of the widely referenced Observe, Orient, Decide, Act or OODA Loop. I argue that the loop's promise of dynamic homeostasis is held in place by the enduring premise of objectivist knowledge, enabled through a war apparatus that treats the contingencies and ambiguities of relations on the ground as noise from which a stable and unambiguous signal can be extracted. In contrast, recent challenges to the closed-world imaginary, based on critical scholarship and investigative journalism, suggest that the aspiration to closure is an engine for the continued destructiveness of US interventions and the associated regeneration of enmity. To challenge these technopolitics of violence we need a radically different kind of situational awareness, one that recognizes the place of ignorance in perpetuating the project of militarism. Only that kind of awareness can inform the public debate required to re-envision a future place for the US in the world, founded in alternative investments in demilitarization and commitments to our collective security.

Media and endemic corruption in Nigeria: A scrutiny of the role of the print media in the war against corruption

The media are the bedrock of any democratic system acting as a connection between the government and the people via its publications. This study thus examined the role of the press, especially newspapers, in covering endemic corruption as well as the challenges faced along the way, using Nigeria as a microcosm for Africa. Social Responsibility Theory (SRT) and media content analysis were used to analyse data collated from 200 corruption and anti-corruption related reports from Premium Times and Vanguard Newspapers published in six months, January to June 2017 and isolated cases in 2019, 2018, 2020, and 2021. The newspapers were identified via purposive sampling and have received awards for investigative reporting. Their headlines and content were reviewed to determine whether the reports were investigative or interpretative journalism within the months and years under review. Findings revealed that print media in Nigeria have been reporting on corruption and government fraud, however, their reportage has been more interpretative than investigative. The press tried exposing corrupt practices in government but was also confronted with challenges such as the curtailment of free speech, intimidation, assassination, and weak laws, hampering the war against corruption. The study recommended that media houses focus on investigative reporting, which is imperative for a democratic state. The press must alsoadvocate autonomy, security, strengthening of current legislation for open access to information, implementation of punitive measures against uncovered corrupt officials and other government support in the fight against corruption. Media and the government must collaborate in the interest of societal growth.

Evaluation of investigative reports on electronic websites in the Kurdistan Region

The subject of this study is )Evaluation of investigative reports on electronic websites in the Kurdistan region(, which is a current and important topic in media science, and it has become a valuable asset for the media since then. The research objective is to identify the level of knowledge of investigative reports, as well as the validity of the published reports. In those publications, in addition to the goals that the reports tried to achieve and present, and to what extent it was able to carry out the process of excavation and deepening the reports. The presenter explains a brief overview of the history of investigative media. Then the concepts, definitions and features of investigative journalism were pointed out, and investigative reports were revealed in the field of definitions, features and importance. Finally, the research theory presented by the researcher, which described the reality of investigative journalism on websites. The research is of the descriptive research type. It used a survey method that is compatible with the research path. It also used a content analysis method to achieve the research objectives in the aftermath of the research process. The study concluded that the investigative reports were prepared in the manner of investigative scientific planning, relying on evidence and information based on evidence.

Shameless normalization as a result of media control: The case of Austria

Far-right populist parties instrumentalize the media and intervene into processes of mediatization in significantly different ways, depending on socio-political contexts, their position of power, their role in government or opposition and – related to the latter – their specific access to media. In this paper, I focus on one of the many ways propagandistic tools are employed to control the relevant agenda and information being disseminated by both traditional media and online, in other words ‘message control’. Message control illustrates one of many steps of normalization of far-right agenda. The concept of ‘message control’ emerged from the specific propaganda tool developed by the former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his followers and implies launching and thus controlling select information via weekly press conferences, briefings, personal conversations, back-ground conversations ( Hintergrundgespräche), and text messages, and to financially subsidize only those media that reported favorably about the activities of Kurz’s government. Thus, a new media logic based on favoritism, nepotism, and clientelism was established and normalized. This stands in contrast to Trumpism, which delegitimized all investigative journalism without explicitly attempting to control it. Former US President Donald Trump constitutes rather a prime example of Löwenthal and Guterman’, as he instrumentalized far-right and extreme-right media channels (such as Breitbart or Fox News) and extensively used Twitter to spread systematic disinformation.

Surveillance, Discretion and Governance in Automated Welfare

Several scholarly studies and journalistic investigations have found that automated decision-making in welfare systems burdens claimants by forecasting their behaviour, targeting them for sanctions and surveillance and punishing them without revealing the underlying mechanisms driving such decisions. This article develops an analytical framework combining three areas of concern regarding automation: how it might introduce surveillance and social sorting, how it can entail the loss of human discretion, and how it requires new systems of governance and due process. This framework steers investigations into whether and how automated decision-making welfare systems introduce new harms and burdens for claimants. A case study on automation processes in Germany’s unemployment benefit service’s IT system ALLEGRO applies this approach and finds that this system does allow for broad human discretion and avoids some forms of surveillance, such as risk-assessments from historic data, though it nevertheless increases surveillance of claimants through sharing data with external agencies. The developed framework also suggests that concerns raised in one area – whether loss of human discretion, surveillance, or lack of due process – can be mitigated by attending to the other two areas and urges researchers and policy-makers to attend to the mitigating or reinforcing factors of each concern.

Investigative Journalism in Kazakh-Speaking Mass Media: History and Practice

Although investigative journalism in the field of foreign media is a rather neglected industry, this is not true for the country. If we will talk about democracy, developing freedom of speech, then the investigative jornalism should be a vivid manifestation of it. Taking into account foreign experience, we are obliged to form our own standards. We must remember that this area has great political weight and social significance. The purpose of the article is to review the history of investigative journalism, the value of investi- gative journalism in modern Kazakh-language media, determine its level, analyze the significance of investigative journalism in identifying criminal cases. Scientific and practical significance: this topic has not yet been studied on the territory of the Re- public of Kazakhstan. Since the era of the information society is changing every day, the research from a new perspective is always in demand. The methods of analysis, discussion, review, deduction and induction, forecasting were used for the research. The result of the research is the definition of the place of journalistic investigation in the field of do- mestic media, the specifics of its writing, preparation and rational, productive work. The study provides the significance, value, and relevance of this industry. The value of the research: this article examines theoretical and practical work of foreign scientists, journalists. Journalistic investigation in the newspaper “Egemen Kazakhstan”, which is the main official newspaper of the country, is analyzed. Key words: investigative journalism, mass media, information society, reportage, topic, Egemen Kazakhstan, stylistics.

Современные подходы к исследованию советской и постсоветской экранной культуры. На материале 53-го конгресса ASEEES, США

The article is devoted to the study of the works of researchers from the USA, based on the material of the 53rd Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) International Annual Congress, which belong to various branches of humanitarian knowledge, but directly related to the study of Soviet and modern screen culture in Russia or other countries (Eastern Europe, India, Cuba, etc.) that have experienced its direct or indirect influence. The interest in the research of American representatives of the humanities, whose share in the total number of participants in congresses is very significant, is due to the fact that for decades, full of dramatic trials, to which the cultural ties of the USSR/ Russia and the USA were subjected, the screen cultures of both countries mutually aroused close interest, although its background could be different. Numerous representatives of various branches of the humanities in the USA pay great attention to screen culture per se or as a source of valuable information about other segments of culture, society, politics, history, etc., especially to segments of feature and documentary films, animation, newsreels, television programs of various formats (TV series, information programs, journalistic programs, especially investigative journalism, etc.) and new media (social networks, especially YouTube, streaming). The article concludes with the conclusions obtained, including: the increased interest of the American scientific community in the study of the mechanisms of formation and reproduction of ideology, power in the history of the USSR/Russia; cardinal points of contrast between the social, political, and cultural agendas of modern Russia and the United States (and other foreign countries); search and analysis of crisis phenomena in society, culture, and politics of the USSR/Russia, reflected in the phenomena of screen culture.

Disrupting Investigative Journalism: Moment of Death or Dramatic Rebirth?, Amanda Gearing (2021)

Review of: Disrupting Investigative Journalism: Moment of Death or Dramatic Rebirth?, Amanda Gearing (2021) Oxford: Routledge Focus, 138 pp., ISBN 978-0-36769-001-4, h/bk, $75.99 ISBN 978-1-00313-998-0, e/bk, $26.39