Journalistic Storytelling Research Articles

Reporting on Europe’s Migration ‘Crisis’ for BBC Radio 4: Journalists and the Geopolitics of Storytelling

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to critical and popular geopolitics by exploring the production of BBC Radio 4’s reportage on Europe’s migration ‘crisis’. It draws on original interviews conducted with journalists, producers, editors, and senior commissioners at the BBC to uncover the thought-processes and practices that lie behind its diverse coverage. The paper identifies the professional codes that govern BBC journalists and documents the strategies of storytelling journalists employ to try and secure listener engagement and spark their geographical imaginations. It highlights the power and agency of journalists to construct geopolitical scripts on migration, but also points to creative room for journalists to inflect broadcasts with personal styles of witnessing and reporting. The journalists interviewed emerge as thoughtful and self-reflexive geopolitical ‘agents’ who are aware of their representational power and recognise the tension between objective and impartial BBC reportage and critical issues of emotion, positionality, and situated knowledge. Overall, the paper answers calls for more ‘peopled’ accounts of geopolitics and highlights the importance of investigating the production and practice of journalistic storytelling.

Journalistic Storytelling for Social Justice: A CDA of Global News Coverage of the Otodo Gbame Forced Evictions in Nigeria

ABSTRACT Despite the growing discourse on forced evictions around the world, very limited scholarship has explored the constitution, replication and/or transformation of a discourse of urban development and forced evictions in journalistic work. This study investigates the global news coverage of state-sanctioned forced evictions of Otodo Gbame community in Lagos, Nigeria—with specific attention to journalistic discursive construction of urban development and the reproduction of hierarchies of worth in journalistic work. Critical discourse analysis of 17 journalistic texts published online by national and foreign news media organisations during the Otodo Gbame forced evictions (November 2016–April 2017) revealed journalists positioned Otodo Gbame residents at the bottom of a hierarchical social order and as victims of an unfortunate circumstance without transforming that discourse into possibilities for social and environmental justice. Journalists prioritised institutional voices, used passive construction and detached expressive mode to downplay the social implications of state-sanctioned forced evictions, and reproduced hierarchies of worth in journalism and broader society. Considering journalism plays a crucial role in the social construction of reality, this study offers insights and directions for journalistic role expansion and the transformation of conceived journalistic roles into meaningful practice.

From Niche Narrative to Audio Blockbusters

From Niche Narrative to Audio Blockbusters

Making events: How anticipatory infrastructures produce shared temporalities

Anticipatory infrastructures assemble sensors that are ready to detect, networks primed to share data, scientists prepared to confirm events, and news organizations poised to tell stories. This article explains how public time is articulated through sensor-mediated communications by examining two anticipatory infrastructures. Each infrastructure uses similar earthquake data to detect, report on, and convene material publics around earthquakes in Southern California. They are integral to structuring rhythms, coordinating syncronizations, setting deadlines, and making events timely, meaningful, and actionable, yet their governance lives in no one place. Instead, they emerge from an assemblage of sensors, networks, devices, algorithms, people, data, organizations, professional practices, and normative theories of the public. By comparing two different anticipatory infrastructures, we show how imagined publics, forms of journalistic storytelling, representations of earthquake events, and system maintenance can convene different public temporalities. We identify four dynamics involved in making these variable temporalities in material publics: how human-machine relations organize time, how professional norms of timeliness collide, how publics are anticipated by infrastructures, and how sensor infrastructures are maintained or decay over time.

Listening to Europe's migration ‘crisis’: The discursive, affective and imaginative responses of audiences to BBC Radio 4 broadcasts

AbstractWhilst geography has a long tradition of examining geopolitical discourses and imaginaries in media and popular culture, audiences remain understudied. A preoccupation with the site of representation is coupled with a disciplinary bias towards analysing visual media and culture, which obscures alternative ways of knowing, representing and engaging in the world. This paper redresses these imbalances by exploring radio and its capacity to shape audiences' geographical imaginations. An innovative ‘playlist‐diary’ method is used to reveal how listeners hear, interpret and imagine BBC Radio 4 broadcasts on Europe's migration ‘crisis’ between 2014 and 2019; a novel approach which answers calls for geographers to engage with sounds and methodologies of listening, and better understand audience responses to journalistic storytelling on migration. The paper makes a significant conceptual contribution to the field by illustrating how listeners hear broadcasts in discursive, affective and imaginative registers, and by identifying the pivotal role of refugee voices and stories in forging a politics of recognition; that is to say, how and under what conditions radio journalism collapses discourses of ‘us’ and ‘them’, expands imaginative communities of belonging, and leads to instances of identification and connection between listeners and refugees. It therefore pushes beyond research that focuses on discursive and affective invitations in media by uncovering how radio shapes audiences' geographical imaginations around migration and regulates fields of perceptibility, recognition and relatability with people on the move.

Attitudinal Effects of Data Visualizations and Illustrations in Data Stories.

Journalism has become more data-driven and inherently visual in recent years. Photographs, illustrations, infographics, data visualizations, and general images help convey complex topics to a wide audience. The way that visual artifacts influence how readers form an opinion beyond the text is an important issue to research, but there are few works about this topic. In this context, we research the persuasive, emotional and memorable dimensions of data visualizations and illustrations in journalistic storytelling for long-form articles. We conducted a user study and compared the effects which data visualizations and illustrations have on changing attitude towards a presented topic. While visual representations are usually studied along one dimension, in this experimental study, we explore the effects on readers' attitudes along three: persuasion, emotion, and information retention. By comparing different versions of the same article, we observe how attitudes differ based on the visual stimuli present, and how they are perceived when combined. Results indicate that the narrative using only data visualization elicits a stronger emotional impact than illustration-only visual support, as well as a significant change in the initial attitude about the topic. Our findings contribute to a growing body of literature on how visual artifacts may be used to inform and influence public opinion and debate. We present ideas for future work to generalize the results beyond the domain studied, the water crisis.

Empathy With Muslim Victims of Discrimination: Can Personalization and Emotionalization in News Reporting Pave the Way?

Hate crimes against Muslims in the United States have been on the rise since 2016 (FBI, 2022), discouraging this group’s participation in public life. Most Americans, therefore, encounter Muslims only via media representations. We investigated if two journalistic storytelling devices can kindle in white non-Muslim Americans empathy and supportive attitudes toward Muslim women who are victims of discrimination. Indeed, personalization and emotionalization of news stories increased empathy for Muslim victims among participants with high Muslim prejudice. Gender differences moderated the effect of emotionalization, with women participants reporting more empathy and willingness to help victims than men.

Radio geopolitics: Imaginative geographies of Europe's migration ‘crisis’ on BBC Radio 4

Geographers have examined the history, materiality, and geopolitics of radio but there has been relatively little interest in contemporary radio broadcasting and its capacity to shape geographical imaginations. This is surprising given the ubiquity and popularity of radio, and its enduring role in communicating global news and current affairs to mass audiences. This article reflects on the power of media to represent people and places, and regulate imagined communities of identity and belonging by exploring how BBC Radio 4 constructs imaginative geographies of forced migration to, and refugee settlement in, Europe between January 2014 and March 2019. It joins recent efforts in geography to engage in methodologies of listening through a thematic analysis of 172 radio broadcasts that reveals two contrasting imaginative geographies of migration: first, a geopolitical imaginary of ‘crisis’, exemplified in news broadcasts, that reports from a top-down, state-centric perspective and is articulated by ‘expert’ voices, principally politicians; and second, a place-based, immersive, multi-sensory imaginary, exemplified in ‘feature’ programmes, that explores personal stories and experiences ‘on the ground’, and is articulated by multiple voices, most notably refugees. Radio 4 emerges as a diverse and contradictory space of journalistic storytelling which invites multiple ways of listening to, understanding, and imagining people on the move. By focusing on Radio 4 and the audible story of Europe's migration ‘crisis’, the article demonstrates how imaginative geographies are constructed through sounds and the spoken word, and evidences radio's imaginative, discursive, and sonic power.

Data Stories of Water: Studying the Communicative Role of Data Visualizations within Long‐form Journalism

AbstractWe present a methodology for making sense of the communicative role of data visualizations in journalistic storytelling and share findings from surveying water‐related data stories. Data stories are a genre of long‐form journalism that integrate text, data visualization, and other visual expressions (e.g., photographs, illustrations, videos) for the purpose of data‐driven storytelling. In the last decade, a considerable number of data stories about a wide range of topics have been published worldwide. Authors use a variety of techniques to make complex phenomena comprehensible and use visualizations as communicative devices that shape the understanding of a given topic. Despite the popularity of data stories, we, as scholars, still lack a methodological framework for assessing the communicative role of visualizations in data stories. To this extent, we draw from data journalism, visual culture, and multimodality studies to propose an interpretative framework in six stages. The process begins with the analysis of content blocks and framing elements and ends with the identification of dimensions, patterns, and relationships between textual and visual elements. The framework is put to the test by analyzing 17 data stories about water‐related issues. Our observations from the survey illustrate how data visualizations can shape the framing of complex topics.

Radio and the anti-geopolitical ear: imaginative geographies of a Syrian family’s migration to Europe on BBC Radio 4

ABSTRACT This paper examines imaginative geographies of forced migration and refugee settlement in a BBC radio series that follows and gives voice to a Syrian family as they journey to Europe. Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 2015 and 2017, the episodes have since been repackaged as a podcast on BBC Sounds. The paper answers Horton’s (2019) call for greater engagement with media and popular culture by foregrounding radio as an understudied medium with the capacity to shape listeners’ geographical imaginations. It explores how this series, presented by Manveen Rana, broke new ground through its journalistic-ethnographic form, eyewitness reporting and amplification of refugee voices, and analyses how two imaginative geographies of journey and settlement are constructed through sounds and the spoken word. The paper concludes by theorising radio as a slow medium and demonstrating how Rana’s journalism pushes beyond Toal’s (1996, p. 171) ‘anti-geopolitical eye’ to evidence an anti-geopolitical ear: that is to say, Rana encourages a way of listening to Europe’s migration ‘crisis’ that disrupts discursive framings of refugees as ‘victims’ or ‘threats’ by recasting the family as tangible and relatable human beings. This finding has significant implications for media reporting on migration and scholarship on journalistic storytelling and the construction of geographical imaginations.

Unravelling Marginality and Masculinity: Exploring the Interplay of Gender and Power in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold

This research paper examines the portrayal of gender prejudice and power structures in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Set in a patriarchal society in Latin America, the story revolves around the murder of Santiago Nasar and the societal norms that perpetuate toxic masculinity and misogyny. Through a blend of magical realism and journalistic storytelling, Marquez critiques the entrenched sexism and the concept of “machismo” in the culture. The paper explores the subordination of female characters, the association of honour with female chastity, and the destructive consequences of lop-sided gender roles. The analysis highlights the marginalized position of women within the narrative and the social structures that contribute to their powerlessness. Furthermore, the paper discusses the resistance of certain female characters, challenging the prevailing norms and offering glimpses of agency and empowerment. Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a powerful critique of gender prejudice and exposes the harmful impact of gender-based social hierarchies.

David O. Dowling, The Gamification of Digital Journalism. Innovation in Journalistic Storytelling

David O. Dowling, The Gamification of Digital Journalism. Innovation in Journalistic Storytelling

The “Humoralist” as Journalistic Jammer: Zondag met Lubach and the Discursive Construction of Investigative Comedy

ABSTRACT This study contributes to ongoing discussions on the societal role of satire as a platform for public debate. To this end, we analysed the metajournalistic discourse surrounding the Dutch television news satire show Zondag met Lubach to assess how it has been received and discussed in the Dutch media landscape. Through an analysis of 64 media appearances (2014–2020) with the host and staff members of the show, we zoom in on how discursive exchanges between Zondag met Lubach and media professionals reflect and shape understandings of the journalistic. Thereby, we distinguish three phases of identity construction for the show. Our findings reveal how Zondag met Lubach entered the Dutch media landscape as a comedic non-journalistic outsider, but has gradually become legitimated as a quasi-insider to the journalistic field, embodying the nuanced role of investigative comedy. We conclude by discussing how the concept of investigative comedy elicits reflection on the epistemic authority of novel incantations of journalistic storytelling, and how it contributes to the expansion of conventional assumptions among satirists and media professionals about what journalism can or should be.

Alternative Media on the Front Lines: Unicorn Riot and Activist Journalism’s New Urgency

ABSTRACT Alternative media has typically defied the status quo both in journalistic practice and in ways that challenge commonly held tenets of press ethics. Unicorn Riot’s alternative coverage of the 2020 social justice protests marked a milestone in decentralized, street-level storytelling shattering norms of both journalistic production and digital modes of publication, in the process renewing public and academic discourse on journalistic principles. This study argues that Unicorn Riot’s unique brand of alternative media can function as a form of activist journalism capable of meeting the urgent needs of the 2020 protests through methods liberated from comparatively restrictive, and in some cases moribund, journalistic storytelling forms and production practices. IndyMedia, a network of alternative news organizations, has faded in visibility given its reliance on free labor and its non-compliance with government entities. Unicorn Riot’s production practice, which relies on hours-long livestreaming video featuring interviews with protesters and community members rather than government officials, prompts reconsideration of digital journalism principles of objectivity and citizen journalism while bringing new meaning to the role of advocacy in activist reporting. Interpretive critical analysis of media texts suggests several core principles of journalism have been preserved, transformed, and/or threatened in the example of Unicorn Riot.

Intimacy and Emotions in Podcast Journalism: A Study of Award-Winning Australian and British Podcasts

ABSTRACT As news podcasts increase in number and popularity, conventions are emerging for how this genre of audio journalism constructs compelling storytelling that takes advantage of the specifics of the medium. This qualitative study examines 11 shortlisted and award-winning journalism podcasts in the 2019 Australian and British Podcast Awards through a narrative journalism framework, with a focus on the use of emotions and techniques to build experiences of intimacy. The analysis is done through the lens of Hilmes soundwork concept to understand both the impact of audio on journalistic storytelling and podcasting as an emerging journalism genre. This study demonstrates that award-winning podcasts feature personalised journalism that is afforded by the intimacy of the audio form. In contrast to journalistic norms of objective, disembodied reporters, podcast journalism uses narrative elements forged around emotions and first-person reporting to build intimate relationships between the journalist and the listener. The study also supports Dowling and Miller’s findings that self-reflexivity and transparency of the reporting process have become “staple ingredients” of podcasting.

Book Review: The Gamification of Digital Journalism: Innovation in Journalistic Storytelling, by David O. Dowling

Book Review: <i>The Gamification of Digital Journalism: Innovation in Journalistic Storytelling</i>, by David O. Dowling

Kada skandinavska krivica (scanguilt) sretne rijaliti - humanitarno-zabavni programski sadržaji i medijska reprodukcija kolonijalne imaginacije "Juga"

This paper examines the humanitarian reality genre in Norway as a form of entertainment, education, and information. Norwegian 'doing-good' entertainment content is explored as representative of particular cultural and historical context, especially due to the popularity, frequency of broadcasting and the specific societal status assigned to this format. An overview and the consideration of the fundamental themes and elements of the genre elaborates on the concepts of 'Scanguilt' and 'regime of goodness', relevant for the interpretation of these programs. Differences in comparison to non-fiction journalistic storytelling are also pertinent. Drawing from Tvedt's thesis on the strategic communication regime, the methods, actors and effects of this genre of entertainment, education and information are seen in a wider spectrum, not limited to the socio-political outcomes apparent only in the Norwegian context. This point of departure enables the move from the consequences to the Norwegian identity and society in the direction of the effects of the media reproduction of coloniality.

Entrevistas participativas en diarios digitales: modelos y oportunidades de interactividad

The evolution of participatory interview formats that appeared from 2015 to 2020 in the leading digital newspapers in Spain (El país, El mundo, ABC, AS, El diario.es, and El confidencial), as well as Facebook live because it is a new channel for content distribution via social networks, is analyzed. The content of a sample of more than 300 digital interviews was analyzed, considering the narrative scheme between the interviewee and interviewer, the style that the new format acquires on the Internet, the level of audience participation, and the interconnection of the interviewee with the audience/reader. The levels of interaction and reaction of the audiences were analyzed, as well as the possibility of a new type of journalistic storytelling with different levels of interaction that seeks to achieve audience participation, allowing them to feel part of the dialogue, and to expand other possibilities for participation with the interview. This new format encourages online media to evolve towards more dialogic spaces with their audiences using textual, graphic, or auditory language to build a narrative story that fuels curiosity and arouses interest in participation by the audience/reader. Resumen Se analiza la evolución de los formatos de entrevistas participativas aparecidos desde 2015 a 2020 en las cabeceras digitales de referencia en España (El país, El mundo, ABC, AS, El diario.es, El confidencial), y en Facebook live como canal novedoso de distribución de contenidos en redes sociales. Se analizó el contenido de una muestra de más de 300 entrevistas digitales considerando: esquema narrativo entre entrevistado-entrevistador, estilo del nuevo formato en la Red, nivel de participación de sus audiencias, y la interconexión del entrevistado con su público. Se analizaron los niveles de interacción y reacción de las audiencias, y si existe un nuevo storytelling periodístico con diferentes niveles de interacción que busca hacer partícipe a sus audiencias, permitiendo que se sientan parte del diálogo, y que amplíen otras posibilidades de participación en el escenario de la entrevista. El nuevo marco propicia que los cibermedios evolucionen hacia espacios más dialógicos con sus audiencias utilizando un lenguaje textual, gráfico o auditivo que construyan un relato narrativo, que alimente la curiosidad y suscite el interés de participación de su público/lector.

Using the Responsible Suicide Reporting Model to increase adherence to global media reporting guidelines

Numerous guidelines on responsible reporting of suicide are available to journalists globally, offering advice on best practice regarding approaches and suitability of content. Whilst their advice is compelling and legitimate, their use is uneven at best. With a suicide death every 40 seconds worldwide, it is imperative journalists understand and recognise the best ethical practices in order to report suicide responsibly. To address these shortcomings, the authors present a model for responsible suicide reporting (RSR) that is grounded in news-work and embeds media reporting guidelines within journalistic storytelling practices. The RSR model consists of a typology of suicide narratives and ‘othering’, ethical rules and a standard of moderation. Methodologically, these typologies emerged from analysis of 159 suicide news stories published in 2018–19, with particular focus on adherence and non-adherence to global media reporting guidelines. We posit through the process of producing stories using the RSR model, journalists should interact more effectively with critical risk factors for example, stigmatisation, copycat effects, harmful speculation, highlighted by media reporting guidelines.

Media Evidence and Forensic Journalism

This essay engages with the question of surveillance and evidence by considering the use of media forensics in journalistic storytelling. The use of video evidence and other data derived from surveillance systems to assemble investigative news results in a documentary form of what Thomas Levin (2002) calls surveillant narration—a tendency in cinema to treat surveillance thematically while at the same time incorporating it into the structure of the narration itself. If using surveillance as the structure of journalistic narration seems like a natural fit, it is for its aesthetic effect as much as its evidentiary value. Forensic journalism is emerging as one site where media forensics becomes formalized as a product of popular consumption and sense-making, taking its place alongside forensic-themed reality television and fictional crime dramas like CSI, as much as real forensic investigations and legal proceedings.