Citizen News Podcasts and Journalistic Role Conceptions in the United States and South Korea

This study, drawing on journalistic role conceptions and media systems theory, investigates the different perceptions of news users in the United States and South Korea toward citizen-run news podcasts. The findings reveal that Americans view citizen podcasts performing the role of interpreters of social issues more than other journalistic roles, while Koreans display a perception that the most important role of citizen podcasts is critical commentator against the government and businesses. The study also finds that Korean news users’ trust in citizen podcasts is significantly higher than that of Americans. The present study concludes that citizen podcasts play an alternative role in Korean journalism, while they complement professional journalism in the United States.     

Negotiating Journalistic Professionalism

South Korea's OhmyNews reports unique consequences of citizen reporting and participation. While many citizen news operations have come and gone, OhmyNews has been remarkably successful and has become one of the most powerful news sites in its country. This case study explores the concept of journalistic professionalism among OhmyNews citizen journalists and assesses whether perceptions of their journalistic work align with Singer's dimensions of professionalism (i.e., cognitive, normative and evaluative dimensions). We then compare these perceptions to those of professional journalists within the organization and integrate them into journalistic role conceptions. Findings show that both groups work through collaboration, checks and balances, and a negotiation of autonomy. Both benefit from the partnership and share similarities, rather than differences, in their effort to remain sustainable in contemporary media culture.     

Journalists’ Use of Knowledge in an Online World

There has been little empirical study of the extent to which journalists are drawing on and applying academic research and systematic knowledge, or of their sourcing routines and habits in this regard. This paper examines data from an original online survey conducted in fall 2015 with working journalists (N?=?1,118). Over all, about half reported drawing on research studies frequently in their stories, and journalists expressed strong support for the idea that research can improve story quality. A multivariate analysis finds that knowledge usage is more likely to take place among journalists with some forms of academic and statistical training, with a national audience and with more coverage specialization in science-related topics. Political and television journalists are less likely to use expert knowledge.     

A National Survey on the Professional Role Conceptions of Journalists in Kenya

The professional role conceptions of journalists have for many years remained a central strand in journalism studies. The present research investigates the professional role conceptions that Kenyan journalists perceive to be the most important in their work. Similarly, the professional role they consider the most important is further analyzed in relation to demographics (age, gender, education, contract type, media type, and media ownership). Findings from a national survey of 504 Kenyan journalists indicate that “providing citizens with information” is the most important role (61.3 percent), followed by “advocate for social change” (51.7 percent). The other major roles include to “support official policies” (46.9 percent), “motivate people to participate in civic activities” (45.6 percent), and “act as watchdog of government” (35.3 percent). The most important role—providing citizens with information—is backed across all demographics with a strong mean of 4.4 on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (“not important at all”) to 5 (“extremely important”). However, the difference of means across all the analyzed demographics are not statistically significant.     

LOSING THEIR “MOJO”?

Mobile journalism, whereby a single reporter must write, shoot, and edit their own news stories, is a rapidly growing trend among local television news organizations in the United States and around the world. Using qualitative case study methodology, specifically in-depth interviews and observation, this study compares “mobile journalists” with journalists working within a traditional television news crew, in which a reporter concentrates on the writing and interviewing aspects of newsgathering and a videographer concentrates on the audio/video production. The research looked at four aspects of “professionalization” found in the sociology of professions literature; expert knowledge, professional autonomy, routinization, and encroachment from outside organizations. Findings suggest that the mobile journalists in this study have less specialized expert knowledge. Also, though the mobile journalists felt that working outside a crew gave them greater autonomy, their increased use of work routines suggests they have given up some control to organizational needs. Additionally, there is evidence that these mobile journalists have allowed some encroachment by other professionals, specifically public relations professionals, in order to accomplish their work tasks within specified deadlines with limited time and resources.     

Identity(ies) Explored: How Journalists’ Self-conceptions Influence Small-town News

Existing literature on community journalism suggests it is worthwhile to theoretically and conceptually examine journalists in small towns. These reporters and editors always wear multiple hats, including news worker, community member, and booster. Therefore, drawing on newsroom observations and interviews, and applying the interpretive lenses of sociology and identity theory, this study examines the self-perceived identities of weekly newspaper news workers, and how those identities influence their news production. Findings across three organizations show that for these journalists, professional identity is intertwined with personal identity as a church member or baseball coach. Simply put, these journalists see themselves as members of the community that their newspaper covers. Their interactions with friends and neighbors are also interactions with sources – and with advertisers. This sense of personal connection further serves as a key motivation to produce meaningful news for their communities, which the author suggests has served as a safeguard to declines in readership for many small-town weekly newspapers.     

Fake News

Much has been written about the alleged “crisis” of journalism, with narratives of cultural pessimism centred on the decline of legacy news media, and print media in particular. Whilst factually accurate in parts, such narratives offer an incomplete picture not just of how journalism is declining, but also evolving as it transitions in the digital age. This paper is funded by a major Australian Research Council-study of “Journalism beyond the crisis”, a project which seeks to evaluate the emerging assemblage of journalistic forms, practices, and uses in a transnationally comparative study across four different countries. The present study is a first step in investigating how journalists perceive their roles at a time in which the legitimacy of factual accounts of current events is increasingly put into question. To do so, it draws on in-depth interviews with senior journalists based in London and Sydney, providing topical insights into how these practitioners understand their role in an era of “fake news”. The findings indicate that journalists are particularly concerned about a decrease of public trust in the media, and urge colleagues to adapt more rigorous fact-checking techniques – particularly at times when the role of journalism as a “watchdog” over society appears to be most crucial.     

Acting on Behalf of Objects? Conservators’ Reflections on Their Professional Role

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to give insight into conservators' reflections about their practice and professional role. Ecclesiastical art from and in churches is an example where a variety of claims can be present and trigger diverse approaches to conservation and restoration. In this study we approached ecclesiastical art as a gateway to insight into conservator-colleagues' experiences and their views on decision-making, prevailing ethical boundaries, and the conservator's professional role. To gain access to the practitioners' own words and reasoning, in-depth interviews with seven conservators were chosen as a method. The interviews were analysed using a variant of qualitative analysis with an ideal of a theory-free starting point and by taking a constructivist and inductive approach. Through coding, themes and theories emerged from the data, which gave insight into a Norwegian status quo of practice, three emerging categories or topics caught our special interest and are described and discussed in this paper. The category, Conservation is a narrow path, gives an account of internal and external restrictions in the field. Internalised ethical restrictions and financial limitations are most often determining factors for conservator's decisions. The second category, Acting on behalf of objects, shows that conservators tend to feel obliged to the objects rather than to stakeholders. They understand their roles as defenders and mediators of the object. Conservators' potentially emotional closeness to the object is discussed. The experts should have the strongest voice, refers to the fact that stakeholders' opinions are only sparingly involved in decision-making among the interviewed conservators. Instead, projections of possible interests of stakeholders are often part of the conservators' basis for decision-making. However, external preconditions, as the mandates given by authorities, and financial issues play a role in the rather top-down nature of communication and decision-making. In light of (recent) claims for more people-based decision-making there seems to be a gap between theory and practice. Nonetheless, the authors argue that the conservator's engagement for and with the material object still is a necessary point of departure for conservation endeavors.     

How Journalists “Realize” Facts

The degree to which journalists realize their most basic societal role and provide fact-based accounts has been a point of contestation between several camps. While adherents to the notion of the social construction of reality have infused scholarly discourse with far-reaching doubts about journalists' ability to report facts, emphasizing the arbitrariness of their practices, pragmatic theorists of knowledge and realists, a minority among journalism scholars, have distinguished between practices more and less conducive to the goal of truth. The current paper presents findings from an exploratory study conducted in Israel, in which news-gathering practices are directly observed at controversy-laden press conferences. This arena avails a thorough observation of journalist–source exchanges, without breaching the principle of source confidentiality. The practices observed are juxtaposed against the news products, alongside reporters' own comments on their work and reasoning. We suggest that a pragmatic conception of knowledge among journalists is compatible with observable practices such as reporters' questioning tactics and choices of interrogative emphases, more so than journalistic notions of realism and the social construction of reality.     

Establishing a New Clinical Informationist Role in an Academic Health Sciences Center

The concept of clinical informationists is not new, but has recently been gaining more widespread acceptance across the United States. This article describes the lessons and challenges learned from starting a new clinical informationist service targeted to internal medicine residents in a large academic medical center. Lessons included the need for becoming immersed in evidence-based practice fundamentals; becoming comfortable with the pace, realities, and topics encountered during clinical rounds; and needing organizational commitment to both the evidence-based practice paradigm and clinical informationist role. Challenges included adapting to organizational culture, resident burnout, and perceptions of information overload.     

坚守与创新:2019年中国新闻传播史研究综述

2019年中国正式进入5G时代,中国新闻传播史研究与传媒发变革时代的发展交相辉映,涌现出一大批新闻传播史研究成果。综观2019年中国新闻传播史研究体现出以下特点:新中国70年、“五四”运动100年,周年性反思特征明显;报刊报人仍是研究重心,报刊阅读史成果涌现;新闻传播教育史研究持续升温;新闻传播思想史研究亮点突出;新闻图史研究继续受到关注;2019年中国新闻传播史研究在坚守与创新中,研究的外延不断拓展发展。     

News You Can Use or News That Moves?

This study investigates how journalists covering international humanitarian crises make decisions regarding what types of information to include in stories. Specifically, the inclusion/exclusion of solutions-oriented information is addressed, since crises represent a key time during which the potential for international engagement is discussed in the mainstream media. Interviews with journalists covering hunger crises in Africa reveal an internal tension between maintaining a neutral, unbiased position and writing in a way that supports engagement and action. Ironically, perhaps, journalists find that including solutions-oriented information amounts to unethical and biased coverage, despite the fact that inclusion of solutions to social problems is an accepted and institutionalized aspect of the US news media’s mandate to the public. Reasons for this seeming contradiction are discussed, and I argue that solutions-oriented information not only can be included without demonstrating bias, but that it ought to be included to support ethical coverage that properly informs citizens about potential paths for political engagement.     

临床医学期刊在健康科普中的作用

随着泛在网络时代的到来,新媒体已成为人们获取健康知识的首要途径;但当前网络健康知识来源芜杂,各种夸大甚至歪曲医学事实的报道层出不穷,健康科普的“含金量”亟须提高。临床医学期刊是权威医学成果发布和交流的重要平台,拥有由作者、审者和编者等众多优秀医学专业工作者组成的专家团队,具有天然的健康科普优势和媒体属性。《协和医学杂志》通过将医学论文科普化、捕捉新闻热点、培养科普人才、充分利用新媒体平台等途径,证明临床医学期刊有责任更有能力在健康科普中发挥重要作用。     

Librarians Promoting Changes in the Health Care Delivery System through Systematic Assessment

Patient engagement in health care decisions largely depends on a patient’s health literacy and the health literacy attributes of the health care organization. Librarians have an established role in connecting patients with health information in the context of their care. However, librarians can play a larger role in helping to make changes in their organization’s health literacy attributes. This article discusses one medical library’s process of leading systematic assessment of their organization’s health literacy attributes. Included in this discussion is the institutional support, timeline, assessment tool, the results for five areas of health literacy, marketing and the event-planning process to disseminate results. The systematic assessment process described employs the Health Literacy Environment of Hospitals and Health Centers document, which provides assessment tools for Print Communication, Oral Communication, Navigation, Technology, and Policies and Protocols.     

影视反哺与出版创新

当前,媒体融合成为文化经济发展中的新常态。影视与出版这两大文化行业之间的合作,逐渐从图书影视化进阶到影视图书化的新阶段,这一转变彰显了影视对出版创新的反哺作用。从媒介视角看,影视反哺是媒体融合时代的一种文化互利;从受众视角看,影视反哺现象的盛行离不开粉丝型受众的参与,粉丝们在情感逻辑的支配下演绎多样化的趣缘传播行为,以强大的传播力和消费力推动影视向图书顺利转化;从产业视角看,影视反哺现象彰显了 IP 经济的发展潜能,出版行业应围绕图书 IP 进行多维度的产业开发,建设以出版文化为基础的产业融合生态,致力于全民阅读的复兴与书香社会的建设。     

Changing the Face of Reference: Adapting Biomedical and Health Information Services for the Classroom,Clinic, and Beyond

This article describes how the reference department at a large academic health sciences library evolved to address the clinical and research information needs of the parent organization without losing its close connections to the classroom and curriculum. Closing the reference desk, moving to on-call and house call models, designing positions such as clinical research librarian and basic biomedical sciences librarian, finding alternative funding to grow the department, providing technology and training to facilitate librarians' work, and developing programming for and taking advice from library clients facilitated efforts to create a relevant presence and solidify the library's place in the university community.