News Journalism Research Articles

Journal news and editor's choice article for November 2024

Journal news and editor's choice article for November 2024

Media politics in Japan: News journalism between interdependence, integrity, and influence

AbstractAlthough Japan is generally considered a liberal democracy with a free press, concerns about media independence have repeatedly been raised. The World Press Freedom Index ranks Japan last among G7 nations. One of the major reasons for its performance lies in a deep-rooted entanglement of the mainstream media with the political establishment, which is said to promote a climate of self-censorship and impede courageous, critical journalism. While the government-approved reporters’ clubs (“kisha clubs”) are often cited as lying at the heart of the problem, there are other relevant structural and historically grown factors hindering the improvement of press freedom: Despite theoretical constitutional protection, media governance in Japan does not provide an adequate framework for journalistic independence; furthermore, revolving door politics, editorial interventions and informal arrangements are well-established practices inside the sphere of media and politics. Nevertheless, there have been those critical moments when the mainstream media, in fact, influenced the course of politics. Setting out from the present condition of media democracy in Japan, this article traces back the historical roots of the seemingly firmly ingrained relationship between journalism and the state. Thereby, it portrays the ambivalent interdependence between the media and politics, and the dilemmatic tension between journalistic integrity, economic interests, and political influence. Finally, it explains why the current hegemony of the legacy media in the public sphere may eventually face a silent, but profound transformation in light of digitization and advancements in artificial intelligence.

What’s a news media brand worth? Investigating the effect of cognitive brand representations on recipients’ quality assessment of news articles

News recipients evaluate the quality of journalistic news articles based on the article’s journalistic quality and its media brand. We argue that differentiating a news media’s brand identity from recipients’ cognitive associations with the brand offers a valuable perspective to understand quality evaluations in a more detailed way. We, therefore, specify the effect of media brands on the quality evaluation by including consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) as a mediator and investigate this mediation effect for five quality dimensions and a global quality measure. Based on a two (high vs low quality) x three (quality brand vs tabloid brand vs control group) between-subject experiment with 469 German respondents, we conducted structural equation modeling to investigate the direct effects of media brands on recipients’ quality assessment of news articles and the mediating effect via CBBE. We found mediation effects of the media brand via CBBE on all quality dimensions and the global measure. In addition, two direct media brand effects with opposite effect directions than expected could be identified. All results are discussed concerning further theory development and practical implications.

Strategi Media JPNN.Com dalam Upaya Menyeimbangkan Churnalism dan Jurnalisme dalam Pemberitaan

The digital era has an impact on changing new work patterns in journalism, "Churnalism" is a new journalism that occurs as a consequence of the development of digital technology in the modern era. Churnalism is the simplicity of the way to obtain journalistic news content caused by technological advances. Churnalism threatens the quality of news in the digital era. JPNN.com is a news media that was established in 2008, experiencing a transition from the print media era to digital media. This research focuses on finding out and understanding JPNN.com media strategies in balancing Churnalism and journalism. This research is a qualitative research with a descriptive analysis approach, aiming to understand the process of Churnalism practice JPNN.com and understand their strategies in an effort to balance Churnalism and journalism. The results of this study show that JPNN.com has its own strategy in balancing Churnalism and journalism, namely a combination strategy, combining the practice of Churnalism with conventional journalism practices. The implementation of the combination strategy is carried out in six stages, including: First, journalists select potential news materials from online sources. Second, journalists research news materials to ensure the validity of the news. Third, journalists confirm with the source. Fourth, journalists combine Churnalism and conventional journalism in the reporting process. Fifth, the editor maintains the Gatekeeper function through news selection. Sixth, the editorial management conducts news every day.

Model Komunikasi Persuasif Pada Pengikut Akun Instagram @infogarut Dalam Pemberitaan Citizen Journalism

Social media as an interactive platform for citizen journalism is increasingly important in the growing internet era. The focus of the research is the Instagram account @infogarut, as a citizen journalism platform in Garut. The purpose of this research is to find out how persuasive communication on @infogarut account followers related to citizen journalism news in the central route and peripheral route. This research method uses descriptive method with qualitative approach. The theory used is persuasive communication theory with the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) model. Data collection techniques were carried out through interviews, observation of literature study and documentation. The results showed that the central route creates respondents who are involved and check facts and analyze information in depth before forming an opinion or taking action. The peripheral route in turn creates respondents who are more passive readers and only receive information without detailed analysis. The @infogarut account is known for providing the latest facts and information about Garut. This study provides insight into how citizen journalism on social media, especially Instagram, can influence the way people interact and react to information.

Brash weeklies, silent broadsheets, and alarmed YouTubers

In Japan, major newspapers often report transgressions of powerful figures in understated ways or ignore them entirely. Outside media such as weeklies have limited access to interview sources about the country’s elites. However, precisely because of their marginal status, outside media have little restraint to expose transgressions of the powerful by turning leaks from those with access to sources into scoops. In summer of 2023, in a series of scoops, Shukan Bunshun, Japan’s popular weekly, targeted Kihara Seiji, a member of the House of Representatives and close aide to Prime Minister Kishida Fumio. At the core of the weekly magazine’s exposé was Kihara and his associates’ suspected interference in the reinvestigation in 2018 where his wife was questioned as a person of interest for the death of her ex-husband in 2006. The scoops were virtually ignored for months by the major media but spread by pundits on social media platforms such as YouTube and captivated their audience. By focusing on the gap in media coverage of Kihara jiken (incident) and the roles of social media pundits, I contemplate news journalism and co-production of high-profile scandals in Japan.

Still a Boy’s Club: Women Journalists & Political News Coverage

ABSTRACT We investigate the level of gender parity in political news reporting at the New York Times. We apply a media sociology approach to examine how gender stereotypes, women in media leadership, and women in political leadership interact to affect the extent to which women journalists appear in bylines about domestic and foreign affairs news. We leverage an original data collection of nearly 3,000 news articles published from 2007–2020. We find several key results. First, women are more likely to appear in bylines about domestic political news than foreign affairs news. Second, we find that during Jill Abramson’s tenure as executive editor the number of women writing about politics increased. Third, as the proportion of women in the U.S. Congress rises, more women appear in story bylines about political news. Fourth, while more women write about political news now compared to the past, most political news stories still have men as authors. Our findings show slow but steady improvement in the gender diversity of political news journalists.

‘But it’s really about …’

This article examines the Norwegian media coverage of and public debate about a series of anti-Muslim demonstrations in which Qur’ans were burned in Sweden and Norway over the Easter of 2022. Conceptualizing Qur’an burnings and the ensuing riots in Sweden and Norway as a media event, the article explores how different actors manage, negotiate, and use the mediated attention constituting such an event. The empirical material consists of all articles published by ten selected Norwegian newspapers between 14 and 30 April 2022, as well as interviews with seven journalists from these newspapers. A key point the article makes is that news journalists are mindful of how they cover and frame such an event. They take steps to ensure that their coverage accords with professional journalistic standards. The analysis shows, however, that the media coverage is complex and multi-layered, and that news journalists’ managing strategies only influence a small part of the total coverage and debate. A media event is by its nature discursive, and the article discusses how the event’s ‘real meaning’ is contested as various actors within and outside the media reframe it to fit already established discourses.

Coverage of the research documents with top altmetric attention scores in online news

PurposeThis paper investigates the news coverage of research documents with the top Altmetric attention score (AAS) using a descriptive and explorative approach.Design/methodology/approachA dataset comprising 1,000 articles with high AAS was retrieved from Altmetric.com. The DOIs of these articles were then used to retrieve citation data from Dimensions. Data collection was finalized on February 11, 2024, and separate Excel files were merged using SPSS. The research included subject analysis and conducted correlation and Mann–Whitney U statistical tests.FindingsThe study reveals that the highest number of articles with high AAS were published in 2020. News post correlation with citation count is stronger than with AAS score. From the top AAS documents, titles of those with the highest news post counts include public concern keywords, and their subjects were primarily biomedical and clinical sciences. While no significant difference exists between multidisciplinary and specialty journal news posts, there is an increase in the variety of news sources in 2020 and 2021. Documents on biomedical and clinical sciences receive the most attention primarily from US-based news outlets, and many of the news outlets covering top AAS documents do not have specific subject orientations.Practical implicationsResearchers and journal editors should prioritize factors influencing research news coverage, including subjects, writing styles, and publication sources. Science writers should expand their coverage to include academic publications from subject areas beyond biomedical and clinical sciences. They can also consider diverse publication sources, such as preprints.Originality/valueThis study offers insights into the news coverage of top social-attention academic articles and is among the first to analyze the news coverage of academic publications.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2022-0666

Subjectivity conditioned by narrative form: A narratological approach to emotion in narrative journalism

In recent years, media researchers have displayed an increased interest in emotion as an element of the content in both news journalism and narrative journalism. These studies lack a theoretical definition of emotion and do not usually specify what characterizes narrative journalism more than it being “not objective” and, consequently, not similar to conventional journalism. In practice, they identify emotion through frames of personalization or explicit expressions of feelings and evaluations. However, narrative journalism integrates implicitly conveyed emotion. To enable a broader understanding of the function of emotion in narrative journalism, this article gives examples of and analyzes how emotion and the related concept subjectivity is used and discussed in two different fields of research: social sciences-influenced journalism studies and literature-influenced studies. The dualistic view on journalism as either subjective or objective is questioned when narrative journalism (also known as reportage or literary journalism) is placed in a professional context, where the genre is based on its own tradition and represents its own form of knowledge, due to its main characteristic: a narrative form. Finally, the article demonstrates how tools drawn from narratology can illuminate diverse storytelling techniques that transmit emotion implicitly rather than explicitly.

Navigating the dynamic terrain: A comprehensive analysis of journalism in Pakistan

The landscape of journalism in Pakistan is a dynamic interplay of historical legacies, political pressures, cultural influences, and technological advancements. From its origins in print media during the colonial era to the digital revolution of the 21st century, Pakistani journalism has navigated through challenges of censorship, political interference, and commercialization while upholding principles of truth and accountability. This research article conducts a comprehensive examination of the current state of news coverage and journalism in Pakistan, delving into its historical evolution, regulatory frameworks, technological advancements, and socio-political contexts. Through in-depth interviews and thematic analysis, the study uncovers the pervasive influence of political actors on news coverage, the impact of media ownership concentration on journalistic independence, and the role of social and cultural factors in shaping news discourse. The findings highlight challenges including censorship, intimidation, and commercial imperatives, while also identifying opportunities for innovation, resilience, and advocacy within the media industry. Ultimately, the research underscores the urgent need to safeguard press freedom, promote media pluralism, and uphold ethical journalism to foster a vibrant and democratic media landscape in Pakistan.

Kearifan Lokal: Respon Masyarakat Minang terhadap Penjualan Rendang Non-Halal

Padang restaurants are synonymous with providing halal food. Padang Restaurant's rejection of selling pork rendang is a strong background for this research. Padang customs are based on ABS-SBK (Basandi Syara-Syara Basandi Kitabullah Adat). This study aims to describe and analyze the response of the Minang community to a Padang restaurant that sells pork rendang. This research uses mixed methods. Quantitative techniques to collect primary data through questionnaires, and qualitative-descriptive techniques to collect secondary data and its analysis. Secondary data comes from news stories, journals, and scientific research results. Respondents' answers about the identity and opinions of Padang Restaurants that sell non-halal products are arranged in the form of a Likert scale. Respondents were Minang people totaling 75 people. Respondents strongly disagreed that a Padang Restaurant sells pork rendang, even though the Padang Restaurant includes information on the non-halal product. The reason for refusing the sale of rendang using pork, aside from being identical to Minang, which has the ABS-SBK principle, is also due to the use of Minang attributes. The Minang people still hold tightly to their customs which make Islamic teachings part of their values, including in terms of food. The researcher suggests conducting research related to the need for regulation on the inclusion of the Padang Restaurant label which is synonymous with halal food products.

Journal News and Editor's Choice Article for May 2024

Journal News and Editor's Choice Article for May 2024

What News Is Shared Where and How: A Multi-Platform Analysis of News Shared During the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections

News journalism has evolved from traditional print media to social media, with a large proportion of readers consuming their news via digital means. Through an analysis of over 1.3 million posts across three social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit) pertaining to the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections, this analysis examines the difference in sharing patterns for four types of news sites—Real News, Local News, Low Credibility News, and Pink Slime. Through Platform-Based Analysis, this study observes that users across all platforms share Real and Local News sequentially, and Real News and Low Credibility News sequentially. Through News Type-Based Analysis, this study establishes a Relative Engagement metric, demonstrating a widely varied engagement among the news types. Real News receive the least engagement (defined as the ratio of number of likes a post has vs. the number of followers of the page), while users engage with Pink Slime news the most. Furthermore, this study finds that the sharing of automated local news reporting sites (Pink Slime sites) are divided on political lines. Finally, through a User-Based Analysis, this study finds that automated bot users share a larger proportion of Pink Slime and Low Credibility News, while human users generally share content relating to local communities.

Unravelling clickbait news as viral journalism in Malaysia: Its phenomenon and impacts

Clickbait has been widely employed by news journalists as a strategy of viral journalism aimed at grabbing attention and generating high click-through rates. It is common for news journalists to imitate the tactics used by media influencers. However, the true cost of this practice remains unknown, especially in the context of journalism as a professional field, because clickbait is often associated with sensationalised headlines aimed at enticing readers. This research aims to examine the prevalence of clickbait practices as a form of viral journalism among journalists in Malaysia and investigate their impact on the media landscape. A qualitative approach was employed, involving interviews with 10 experienced journalists. The collected data was analysed using thematic analysis. Several themes emerged from the analysis: 1) Technological adaptation, 2) Shifts in Writing Style, 3) News Organisation’s Sustainability, and 4) Catering to Reader Demands. The findings reveal that journalists could not afford to ignore the trend as they would be unable to compete in the news market. It also shows that clickbait news is predominantly focused on soft news topics, amidst changing technology and reader interests. The study also reveals themes related to 1) Blurring boundaries between sensationalism and media ethics, and 2) News credibility and future news sense. The clickbait phenomenon has forced mainstream news outlets to pivot away from hard news coverage to maintain relevance. The emphasis on clickbait and entertainment-driven news may overshadow the importance of hard news, which typically covers significant events that provide a deeper understanding of the country’s current affairs. Nonetheless, some journalists emphasise the potential risks of excessive sensationalism, which can lead to misleading information as well as undermine the professionalism and credibility of journalism. This study underscores the importance of striking a balance between practising media ethics in writing and reporting news while remaining highly competitive in the online environment.

Lexical, Grammatical and Stylistic Features of the Sports News Journalism (Based on the Material of the English Language).

The article presents an analysis of English-language sports news journalism from the point of view of the implementation of lexical-grammatical and stylistic means of speech expressiveness in the texts. The research is conducted on the material of modern American journalism presented in the Internet and is focused on the search for the most frequent and active stylistic means that allow to reveal the mechanisms of influence of information material on the consumer, whose impression of the provided information is formed depending on the degree of accuracy of transmission and emotional presentation of the material. The article includes a theoretical section, which is devoted to the specifics of sports discourse in general, its functions, the main means of conveying the expressiveness of the text, as well as the research part, which includes the analysis of the main lexical-grammatical and stylistic means, statistics of their use and linguistic features, supported by many examples. The main result of the research has been the conclusion that stylistic means of expressiveness account for about 50% of all existing techniques. The most active are metonymy and epithets. Grammatical means are represented to a much lesser extent.

Let the Laser Beam Connect the Dots: Forecasting and Narrating Stock Market Volatility

Forecasting market volatility, especially high-volatility incidents, is a critical issue in financial market research and practice. Business news as an important source of market information is often exploited by artificial intelligence–based volatility forecasting models. Computationally, deep learning architectures, such as recurrent neural networks, on extremely long input sequences remain infeasible because of time complexity and memory limitations. Meanwhile, understanding the inner workings of deep neural networks is challenging because of the largely black box nature of large neural networks. In this work, we address the first challenge by proposing a long- and short-term memory retrieval (LASER) architecture with flexible memory and horizon configurations to forecast market volatility. Then, we tackle the interpretability issue by devising a BEAM algorithm that leverages a large pretrained language model (GPT-2). It generates human-readable narratives verbalizing the evidence leading to the model prediction. Experiments on a Wall Street Journal news data set demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed LASER-BEAM pipeline in predicting high-volatility market scenarios and generating high-quality narratives compared with existing methods in the literature. History: Accepted by Ram Ramesh, Area Editor for Date Science & Machine Learning. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplemental Information ( https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2022.0055 ) as well as from the IJOC GitHub software repository ( https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/2022.0055 ). The complete IJOC Software and Data Repository is available at https://informsjoc.github.io/ .

Dissecting Social Media Journalism: A Comparative Study Across Platforms, Outlets and Countries

ABSTRACT News outlets increasingly position themselves on social media platforms with platform-bound content next to their regular media offerings. At the time of writing, scholarship on studying these novel types of news content remains limited in size and scope. Drawing on recent theoretical insights from the dislocation of news journalism and social media logics, we assess a dataset of Instagram and TikTok posts of public, private and digital-native news outlets from Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom (n = 458). Contrary to previous findings, we conclude that news publishers tend to adapt their content to the specific technological affordances of social media networks and that news-related content prevails, signalling normalisation patterns for how news is produced for and diffused via both platforms.

Political communication as television news: Party-produced news of the Sweden Democrats during the 2022 election campaign

Abstract Political communication has taken new and complex forms within the contemporary hybrid media system. In this article, we examine how political campaigning that draws on television news forms utilises the increasingly blurred boundaries between news journalism and politics online. We assess the digital television news channel Riks, which during the 2022 national election was operated by the Sweden Democrats party and distributed via YouTube. Deploying a mixed-methods approach, we analysed all videos published by Riks four weeks prior to the election. Results show that Riks blends descriptive, interpretative, and outrage genres, and strategically frames the most important political issues of the election campaign in favour of the party’s policies. Hence, the study contributes to political communication scholarship by emphasising how news has become an integral part of strategic party communication, challenging established scholarly conceptualisations of alternative media and hyperpartisan news.

Online discussion threads as promotors of citizen democracy: Current opportunities and challenges for small- and medium-sized media organisations in Finland

Abstract This article focuses on user-generated discussion threads in journalistic online publication platforms. We investigate how journalists can apply deliberative norms to promote a democratically sustainable discussion within the threads. We also examine which opportunities and challenges journalists currently see with such threads in relation to central citizen democracy principles such as user participation and interactivity. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 18 Finnish news journalists and personnel in charge of moderation strategies. The findings show that deliberative norms are used to some degree in discussion-thread moderation, and that such norms are a key factor to promote democratically sustainable discussions in media organisations. The findings also show that threads can be useful tools for promoting citizen democracy due to their participatory features, but that several current challenges affect this, including uncivil user-generated content, limited representativeness among active users, and lacking resources to handle content in smaller media organisations. One main implication is that journalists see a risk of challenges with discussion threads outweighing benefits for democracy.