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Negotiating Journalism. Core Values and Cultural Diversities
Abstract and Figures
Press freedom and freedom of speech are corner stones of journalism. When respected, journalism may contribute to a free flow of transparent and pluralistic information for citizens to be well informed. yet, journalism's values and working methods, as well as journalists themselves, are challenged, pressured and threatened. This research anthology examines journalistic core values and how they are perceived and renegotiated in Bangladesh, Norway and Tunisia - and one chapter includes Colombia. IN exploring views on journalism's values and press freedom transnationally, the comparative chapters (Part II), discuss and reflect on what journalism is. The case studies that close the book (Part III) offer empirical examples of journalism's role in transitional periods and at times of ideological conflicts. This anthology's aim is to contribute to local and global discussions on journalism and its core values in cultural diversities. Nordicom: http://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publikationer/negotiating-journalism
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Misinformation has always existed, though research suggests that their prevalence has increased in recent years in different forms (post-truth and alternative facts, for instance). Experts claim that it is now a global phenomenon regardless of their financial condition or advanced technology. Given this, it is no surprise that media and communication scholars have devoted increasing attention to investigating questions such as who the creators of misinformation are, how misinformation is disseminated, why misinformation is created and propagated, and which media platforms are used to disseminate misinformation. However, the recent research about misinformation is focused mainly on Western perspectives. We know a little from underdeveloped countries' context, especially where the freedom of expression is in poor condition, the state of democracy follows a backsliding trend. One such country is Bangladesh. Against this background, this study investigates patterns of misinformation in both social and mainstream media in the country. Previous studies have been reviewed to understand the theoretical perspectives on misinformation, and theories such as motivated partisan reasoning, the human decision-making process, online echo chambers, and filter bubbles have been applied. The study has been conducted mainly a descriptive analysis based on the fact check reports done by BD FactCheck during 2020. The study also investigated how people interact with political and non-political issues such as health and medicare, law, crime, and education. The results suggest that the politicians, both mainstream and social media are the active actors in disseminating misinformation. Also, there is a significant amount of misinformation related to political issues.
When President Trump used “shithole” to describe several countries in discussion of immigration, news organizations faced violating journalistic norms against profanity to use his precise language. Evaluation of 2,469 stories containing “shithole” in 70 large newspaper websites over a 15-day period found all news organizations used the term at least once. It was most used in three types of articles—stories about the meeting in Congressional leaders reported hearing Trump use the word, issues of public policy and politics, and evaluation of Trump. Analysis showed the influences of news values, journalistic norms, and organizational practices on use of profanity.
The Islamic parties and their activists in Bangladesh have launched a
massive propaganda against the liberal and secular writers/bloggers/
journalists/artistes and progressive intellectuals through their digital
means of communications for quite a long time. They openly term
these progressive people as atheists and threat to kill them as their
holy responsibility for the sake of Islam in Bangladesh via social
media. Apart from this, these Islamist groups are very much critical
of the ShahBagh Movement and the Ganojagoron Mancho (Stage
for People’s Uprising)—a platform of bloggers and online activists
in Bangladesh—that has initiated a social movement for the capital
punishment to the war criminals of Bangladesh in 1971 since February
5th 2013. The brutal killings of bloggers Ahmed Rajib Haider, Dr. Avijit
Roy and Wasiqur Rahman within a short space of time indicates that
it becomes common practice of these Islamist groups who felt offended
by the writings, posts or statements of those ‘atheists’ or non-believers
and inspired to carry out such heinous acts to save holy religion, Islam.
This paper will try to examine what is the political economy of these
extreme Islamists in Bangladesh? Why, when and how these groups
are using Islam for their political interest openly via different social
media? In fine, what is their political motive behind these extreme
criminal activities of their Islamisation process in Bangladesh?
This article summarises findings from a research project on the digitisation of Norwegian newsrooms, analysing trends in the industry and changes in user-habits. Findings suggest that most journalists are positive about the digitisation of the newsroom but fear that cutbacks in staff will prevent them from exploiting the potential of the new technology. They also fear that too much focus on technical skills will leave less space for critical journalism. Findings also suggest a correlation between resources used to develop the online edition and the perceived ethical standards of the content. More online journalism leads to a higher degree of scepticism among the readers. There are two different justifications for using resources on the online edition. Some newspaper executives hope to use the online edition to recruit new readers to the paper edition while another group hopes to develop the breadth of market service through a portfolio of publishing platforms.
This article reports key findings from a comparative survey of the role perceptions, epistemological orientations and ethical views of 1800 journalists from 18 countries. The results show that detachment, non-involvement, providing political information and monitoring the government are considered essential journalistic functions around the globe. Impartiality, the reliability and factualness of information, as well as adherence to universal ethical principles are also valued worldwide, though their perceived importance varies across countries. Various aspects of interventionism, objectivism and the importance of separating facts from opinion, on the other hand, seem to play out differently around the globe. Western journalists are generally less supportive of any active promotion of particular values, ideas and social change, and they adhere more to universal principles in their ethical decisions. Journalists from non-western contexts, on the other hand, tend to be more interventionist in their role perceptions and more flexible in their ethical views.
Western-liberal discourses of power and the social practices associated with them are proving inadequate to the task of creating a peaceful, just, and sustainable social order. Having recognized this, progressive scholars and social reformers have begun articulating alternative discourses of power, along with alternative models of social practice. Together, these efforts can be interpreted as a project of discourse intervention - an effort to change our social reality by altering the discourses that help constitute it. In order to advance this project, this paper deconstructs the dominant Western-liberal discourse of power, clarifies elements of an alternative discourse of power, and presents a case study of an alternative discourse community and the alternative models of social practice that it is constructing.
The history of journalism in elective democracies around the world has been described as the emergence of a professional identity of journalists with claims to an exclusive role and status in society, based on and at times fiercely defended by their occupational ideology. Although the conceptualization of journalism as a professional ideology can be traced throughout the literature on journalism studies, scholars tend to take the building blocks of such an ideology more or less for granted. In this article the ideal-typical values of journalism’s ideology are operationalized and investigated in terms of how these values are challenged or changed in the context of current cultural and technological developments. It is argued that multiculturalism and multimedia are similar and poignant examples of such developments. If the professional identity of journalists can be seen as kept together by the social cement of an occupational ideology of journalism, the analysis in this article shows how journalism in the self-perceptions of journalists has come to mean much more than its modernist bias of telling people what they need to know.
The newspapermen studied believe they may mitigate such continual pressures as deadlines, possible libel suits, and anticipated reprimands of superiors by being able to claim that their work is "objective." This article examines three factors which help a newsman to define an "objective fact": form, content, and interorganizational relationships. It shows that in discussing content and interorganizational relationships, the newsman can only invoke his news judgment; however, he can claim objectivity by citing procedures he has followed which exemplify the formal attributes of a news history or a newspaper. For instance, the newsman can suggest that he quoted other people instead of offering his own opinions. The article suggests that "objectivity" may be seen as a strategic ritual protecting newspapermen from the risks of their trade. It asks whether other professions might not also use the term "objectivity" in the same way.
Since the nineteenth century, the theory of objectivity has been considered a cornerstone principle of journalism. However, during the last decades of the twentieth century, both communication scholars and practitioners increasingly began to contest the main notions embedded in it. As many authors have shown, no other concept has stimulated as much controversy as the concept of objectivity. But, unfortunately, most debates about it have proved to be, not only endless, but inconclusive. Interestingly enough, despite frequent statements by academics and journalists that the paradigm of objectivity is exhausted, when it comes to setting up professional criteria in public debates, this concept inevitably reappears—sometimes in an implicit way—once and again. This proves that it still remains firmly entrenched. This article delves deep into the philosophical underpinnings of the theory of objectivity, namely its positivist presumptions stemming from the empiricist tradition. More specifically, I have attempted to argue that: (1) objectivity is not only an impossible ideal, but rather an ill-conceived question, based upon the mistaken premises of positivism; (2) the concept of objectivity has partly managed to replace a more fundamental one, that of truth, thus becoming confusing and fallacious.