Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies

Changing sourcing practices

2019-06-24T11:16:43+00:00

With the rise of social media, media professionals have got more information sources than ever before. An interesting phenomenon is the use of social media posts with politicalcontentas political news sources intraditional media in Croatia.

This article explores the use of Facebook posts as political information source in eight news media.Its main objective is to contribute to the understanding of the impact of social media on news production and journalistic practices and the implications for the relationship between the source, journalists and news consumers in news production cycle.

The results show how this new practice has brought novelties and changes in news sourcing techniques, influencedthe public agenda and impactedthe use of Facebook by political actors. Oneof ourmain findings shows that sourcing Facebook posts shiftspower balance from journalist towards the source. The article concludes that although journalistic practice has changed with the use of social media, elite sources are still dominant.

Internally Restricted and Externally Free: Professional Freedom of Journalists in Kerala

2023-03-15T04:59:03+00:00

The professional freedom journalists enjoy in their field has got the capacity to decide the quality of content they produce. The freedom of journalists evolved as an independent area of research only in the last decades of 20th C. The present study seeks to map the professional freedom of journalists in Kerala, a state in India, well known for its high development indices, 100 percent literacy, and increased rate of media penetration. The Professional Freedom Index is developed taking cues from the Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, and Noam Chomsky’s five filters of media theorized in the propaganda model. The professional freedom (PF) is conceived to have two components: internal professional freedom (IPF) and external professional freedom (EPF) with five contributing factors each. A survey of 541 journalists across the state shows that they are restricted more by self-regulating organizations than by the external factors as they enjoy more external professional freedom.

What is Fair?: How journalists’ dual identity, resource conservation, and power dynamics shape pay secrecy culture in the media industry

2023-08-03T05:15:33+00:00

The gradual decline of the news industry in recent decades has resulted in an ongoing problem of low salaries for journalists. This situation has placed significant strain on journalists, compelling them to accept inadequate pay despite working long hours and facing high occupational risks. Pay secrecy is believed to be a possible contributing factor to the issue of low wages and income disparities within the news industry. However, this matter has not received the necessary attention from journalists and news organizations. Hence, a study was conducted, employing textual analysis of metajournalistic discourses on U.S. journalism trade publications. The findings revealed compelling evidence, indicating that the culture of pay secrecy plays a significant role in contributing to the problem of inadequate remuneration and salary gaps among journalists. Additionally, the research reveals how journalists' dual identity influences their tendency to engage in loss aversion, as they seek to protect valuable resources such as job security, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. The existing power dynamics within news organizations further diminish journalists' bargaining power, allowing the company's pay secrecy policy to remain unchallenged.

Peace and Propaganda: How Amhara and Tigray Televisions Frame the Amhara-Qemant Conflict?

2024-07-26T12:12:01+00:00

Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic country, severely affected by violent interethnic conflicts, which disturbed people’s lives for the last quarter of a century. This study examined the framing of conflict news coverage by the Amhara Television (ATV) and Tigray Television (TTV), related to the Amhara and Qemant conflict. The framing typologies, the attributed sources, and the role of the two television companies in reference to the peace/war journalism frame are assessed. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques are employed. The news content is examined quantitatively to answer frame and source related questions. The study found that ATV primarily applies the attribution of responsibility frame. TTV on its part was found to focus on conflict frame. Both stations highlight government officials and common people as their source of news over other sources, ATV and TTV respectively. In relation to their role, ATV were preaching peace, while the majority of TTV’s stories was fueling the conflict. The qualitative data reveals that both ATV and TTV were aspiring to resolve the conflict. Apart from solving the conflict, the media companies covered the conflict to benefit their respective groups. The two media news reports prove the presence of ideological and proxy war in media messages.

N/A Overcoming the Peace Journalism paradox

2021-10-07T21:13:25+00:00

Peace Journalism, originally proposed by Johan Galtung as a set of ideational distinctions in representations of conflict, has served as the organising principle for both scholarly research and practical application. Much of the latter has come through media development aid, generally taking the form of professional training courses for editors and reporters. The effectiveness of such schemes depends on activating and galvanising journalistic agency, to change the content of reporting. This highlights a paradox: Peace Journalism is the policy response to Galtung’s landmark 1965 essay, published with Mari Holmboe Ruge, ‘The Structure of Foreign News’, which, instead, attributed the chief influences on news content to the political economy of media. This article presents and considers two sets of data. One comes from interviews with 16 alumni of Peace Journalism training courses, in which they disclose which aspects proved most readily applicable in their work. The other is based on a survey of 55 articles from The Peace Journalist, a biannual magazine published by the Global Peace Journalism Center at Park University, Missouri, which, between them, report on training courses in 33 countries over ten years. It shows which aspects of Peace Journalism are most often emphasised in such initiatives, and in what kind of conflict contexts. The two data sets are then compared and cross-referenced to show how both trainers and trainees are overcoming the Peace Journalism paradox.

Why collective resilience in journalism matters: A call to action in global media development

2021-10-07T21:07:07+00:00

The pandemic, a rise in online and offline antipress violence, and the global economic downturn have exacerbated precarity for journalists working around the world. Resilience is a key social attribute for confronting tragedies, massive dislocation, and the alteration of everyday life across the world. Thus, our research analyzed 18 media development implementing organizations' websites and documentation for media support and assistance work focused resilience. Though resilience was a frequently used term among many of the websites that we analyzed, in most cases – from organizational visions to programs – the work often focused on community resilience, not journalists, in dealing with disruptions from issues such as disasters, health crises, economic downturns, conflicts, or government failure. Based on previous research and our findings, we suggest three tactics for building resilience: community networks, professional networks and emotional coping skills. We then propose ways to prioritize resilience in development programs.

Influencing Factors of ‘Local’ Conflict Journalism and Implications for Media Development – A Critical Appraisal

2021-09-01T14:39:10+00:00

When conflicts emerge the media often become, intended or not, key actors. It is through the media that every party within a conflict attempts to convey its own narrative, contributing to a complex reality that affects journalists’ work in many different ways. This discussion paper aims at reflecting on Bläsi’s (2004) factors of influence on conflict coverage in the context of media development in Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic. Developed from a Western standpoint on foreign reporters covering armed conflicts, we propose to adapt this model to ‘local’ contexts in order to provide a more holistic analysis of journalism in conflict settings, but also to propose entry points for constructive coordination among multiple media development actors. In this article, we discuss the audience dimension; the pressure put through lobbies; the journalists’ personal features; the situation on-site; structural factors referring to the broader media and information system; and the political climate. We strive to offer a critique so as to adapt to the relevance of ‘local’ journalists living and reporting in conflict-affected areas, in which media development assistance often takes place, in opposition to international foreign correspondents that are deployed to cover far-away violent conflicts.

Transforming Journalism in Vietnam

2021-10-07T20:58:38+00:00

This paper examines the development of journalism in Vietnam by exploring documentation from two media aid projects carried out by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) from 1993 until 2007. The project documents contain fieldnotes, evaluations, and reflections from the trainers that were recruited from Swedish media houses to conduct training in Vietnam. A qualitative document analysis was utilized to examine the content with a conceptual framework built on notions of comparative media systems, global media ethics, and the salience of social connections in Vietnam. The findings explore how the Swedish media aid intervened in the Vietnamese media by contributing to a technological transition of journalism although the training in newsroom management and media ethics were challenged by conflicting journalism ideology and social norms. The paper contributes to the existing research on media development, reflections on media aid, and the development of Vietnamese journalism by benefiting from project documents that provide first-hand information from a period when Vietnamese journalism underwent a dramatic transition towards the digitalized media system existing today.

Explaining contemporary media development practice

2021-11-29T02:30:23+00:00

The academic study of media development as a field of practice and international cooperation has received quite some impetus in the last couple of years. Theory-building in this research field, however, seems to be stagnating. The explanatory power of established theories such as modernization, dependency or participation appears limited in the light of recent empirical findings that point to increasing `bureaucratization´ and `proceduralization´ in the media development sector. Against this background, this paper sets out to find an analytical model that adequately grasps the logics guiding the work of media development’s various actors – from donors to intermediary organizations to local NGOs. Theoretical input from organizational institutionalism seems to offer a promising perspective for characterizing the institutional logics that shape (yet do not determine) media development practice. On this basis, the paper proposes an analytical framework that allows to categorize media development actors’ beliefs and practices between the poles of social transformation logics and managerial logics.

Why collective resilience in journalism matters: A call to action in global media development

2022-02-14T16:48:23+00:00

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, global economic downturn, anti-press violence and worsening situation of labor precarity for journalists around the world has led to increased stress, trauma and burnout in the profession that raises questions at the heart of media sustainability and approaches to media development in a global context. Our study builds on the conceptual framework of professional and collective resilience research to analyze the content of media development work on publicly facing websites of a census of implementing organizations represented on the Center for International Media Assistance website (N = 18). Our findings suggest that donors and other sponsors of media development work should consider

making resilience a core component of global programs in support of media democracy and journalism. Though programmatic agendas in global media development are crowded with multiple goals in response to complex problems, we believe that resilience should be prioritized. This work cannot be done without a nuanced analysis of local causes of emotional distress as well as local understandings of emotional labor and repair. Working with journalists’ support organizations and employers in conducting diagnoses, identifying suitable actions, and promoting sustainable practices is imperative. Recommendations and actions need to be sensitive to local conditions, demands, and opportunities. While immediate remediation actions are important, it also is important to keep attention on long-term, structural matters that cause emotional distress.

Keep calm and make GIFs

2022-09-29T02:17:46+00:00

The early stages of the global covid-19 pandemic threw into relief the communication skills of governments and their leaders. Aotearoa New Zealand was known for its exceptional communication response and elimination of the virus in this initial phase. Much of the praise was attributed to the communication skills of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. However, this study focuses on the work of Siouxsie Wiles and Toby Morris, a science communication collaboration that aided public understanding in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world.

In March 2020, during the initial wave of Covid-19, microbiologist and science communicator Dr Siouxsie Wiles teamed up with cartoonist Toby Morris to help simplify her message and reach a wider audience. Work from their collaboration has been shared globally, translated into dozens of languages and used in press conferences by the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

This case study uses a VUCA framework in a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with Morris and Wiles, and the communications they produced. It asks what characteristics of this collaboration helped people navigate the global VUCA situation of Covid-19 and whether an appropriate counter-VUCA model exists for this communication context.

The VUCA nature of modern protest communication

2022-12-05T01:06:23+00:00

This study covers several revolutions from the past and the present. Previously, the protests' success was ensured by the use of printing, telegraph, and media market innovations, which separated the protest from government control. Today, such technologies provide information and communication proactivity of participants in social networks, which self-organize into structures that strengthen and spread the communication of protest. Social networks enable the realization of the communication potential of each participant based on the organizational model of mass collaboration. It is not characterized by a system-structural organization, which causes difficulties in predicting the processes of social interaction. Each subsequent event depends on the previous one, complicating the establishment of a trend. Such an organizational model creates difficulties for the control of protests by the authorities, as it tends to stochastically from centers of activity, which can be explained from the standpoint of field theory. However, a crowd-based system is also characterized by rational decision-making. Therefore, from the point of view of the authorities, the situation with the development of the protest acquires the characteristics of VUCA, moving beyond possible control

Defining and applying VUCA: the need for illogicality

2022-11-13T20:27:24+00:00

There is no clear definition of VUCA. It describes a non-linear world that is characterized by unpredictability and un-plannability, but it does not offer any strategies for action. Business management in particular (but also the management of political and civil society organizations) faces the challenge of remaining able to act under maximum uncertainty. In this article, I am working out an iterative definition that aims to be practical. I conclude with the presentation of the VUKA Facilitator®, which represents a method with which management can orientate itself and act in a non-linear world.

Mixed messages in a VUCA world: How the New Zealand government drastically altered its COVID-19 crisis communication messages

2022-08-25T04:41:48+00:00

The COVID-19 pandemic typifies a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) situation. Efforts by governments across the globe to prevent the spread of the virus have often been reactive and varied, with inconsistent rates of success. For a time, Aotearoa New Zealand’s government was lauded for its quick and effective elimination response and clear communication strategy, that saw the citizens of the country enjoy months free from the trappings of COVID-19. Yet, when circumstances changed in mid-2021 because the highly transferable Delta variant arrived in the country, the communications of the New Zealand government changed with it. It is against this context that we sought to analyse the two main speeches delivered by Ardern in response to the unfolding Delta situation. The first, delivered on 17 August 2021, maintained the messaging of the previous years – let's eliminate the virus. However, the second speech, delivered on 4 October 2021, shifted to an emphasis on vaccination and living with the virus. Not unsurprisingly the change in messaging prompted some factions of the citizenry to express frustration and hostility towards Ardern and her government because of perceived inconsistencies and ambiguities in the government messaging. More pertinently for this research agenda, our findings highlighted that crisis communication in a VUCA environment needs to maintain as much consistency and accuracy as possible for credibility and trust to be retained.

Leadership in a VUCA context: some foundational considerations

2023-03-05T04:06:17+00:00

While a diverse range of literature offers ideas of potential value for leadership in the context of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), a model of leadership designed specifically to address such a context is lacking. Drawing on aspects of Wilson et al’s framework for building context-sensitive models of leadership, this paper explores the characteristics of VUCA conditions and draws out some foundational considerations this implies for leadership. The analysis suggests a range of leader behaviours, attributes and values that seem particularly salient to leading in a VUCA context, as well as discussing the overarching purpose of VUCA leadership. In sum, the article offers an analysis that identifies some foundational considerations of relevance to how leadership can be ethically and effectively enacted in a VUCA context.

Innovation Awards: VUCA Communication

2023-03-02T05:55:14+00:00

The journalism field is facing increased uncertainty from an ever-shifting digital environment, fragmenting audiences, and failing business models. Innovation has been touted as the only way to remain viable (Pavlik, 2013) and the field now offers a range of professional awards for journalism innovation. This article investigates how the industry is navigating the uncertainty associated with innovation by analysing the judges’ comments from innovation awards. How do judges celebrate innovation, the very thing that contributes to its volatility? By analysing 45 judges’ comments from five Anglo-American awards programmes and one international programme, this article finds that judges consistently praise socially-oriented themes, while technological and digital innovations are celebrated in relation to how well they support traditional journalism principles such as serving the public interest. This suggests that, in an uncertain environment, judges of innovation awards construct innovation in relation to traditional journalism principles. Specifically, judges view socially oriented outcomes that support the traditional imperatives of journalism as the most important when assessing innovative work.