Whose News? Whose Values?

As user-generated content (UGC) and citizen-driven forms of journalism have risen to prominence alongside professional media production, they have presented a challenge to traditional journalistic values and processes. This study examines that challenge from the perspective of the creators and consumers of citizen-driven news content, exploring their perceptions of citizen journalism and the professional tenets of good journalism. Through a nationally representative survey of US adults, this study finds that citizen journalism consumers hold more positive attitudes toward citizen journalism, but do not show a significant identification with professional journalistic values, while general news consumption is positively related with affirmation of professional journalistic values. Compared with consumption, content creation plays a relatively insignificant role in predicting attitudes toward citizen journalism and the professional tenets of good journalism. Implications for understanding the changing perspectives of news creators and consumers are discussed.     

Chinese journalists' views of user-generated content producers and journalism: a case study of the boundary work of journalism

This article examines how journalists defend their boundaries and epistemic authority in the face of the challenges from user-generated content (UGC). It investigates the issue through exploring 51 Chinese journalists’ views of UGC producers and journalism. The interviews reveal that in this case study, Chinese journalists’ commitment to their social identity as ‘people of work units’ (danwei ren), i.e. their identity is defined by the employment relationship between journalists and news organisations, forms the ground of demarcating the boundaries between journalists and UGC producers. As a result, this group of Chinese journalists reinforces their conventional journalistic norms and identity as ‘organisational men/women’ and keeps old-fashioned journalism alive. In the meantime, however, they are aware of changes in the environment within which they practice, and therefore they reflect on their work and (re-)define what journalism is in order to adapt to the changes. This case study shows that the boundary work of Chinese journalists interviewed in the study and their understanding of boundaries are contextually bound. The boundary work of journalism is not only about defence but also about adaptation. It offers a perspective for understanding both continuity and change in the transformation of Chinese journalism as well as the boundaries of journalism in general.     

“Trust Me,I’m a Sub-editor”

In this paper, I focus on one particular player in the newspaper production process, i.e. the sub-editor. I analysed the sub-editing process through participant observation in newsrooms in the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands. Looking at both the sub-editors at work (think-aloud protocol) as well as the articles in various stages of production, and informed by (retrospective) interviews, I have compiled a list of six of the sub-editor’s “production values”. These values guide sub-editors whenever they intervene, and help them to transform a news story into an appealing, correct and credible newspaper article. I took the lead from Östgaard’s “factors influencing the flow of news”, but also from Galtung and Ruge’s “news values” which help reporters to determine which “events” are transitioned into “news”. In doing so, I go beyond the limitations of previous research, in which the types of interventions carried out in the sub-editing stage of newswriting were categorised. By identifying the guidelines driving the alterations made by the sub-editor, I aim to move one step closer towards uncovering the intricacies of the sub-editing process. Moreover, I demonstrate how “the rewrite men” add journalistic value to their newspapers, as perhaps their brand’s strongest ambassadors.     

FLOURISHING BUT RESTRAINED

Research concerning user participation in online news has demonstrated that news websites offer a wide range of participatory features, but largely permit users only to comment on already-published material. This longitudinal analysis of Sweden's four major mainstream national news websites focuses on front-page news items to investigate to what extent user participation has increased over time and whether the participatory features present allow users to exert control over key journalistic processes. Its findings indicate that user participation has increased rapidly in regard to processes peripheral to news journalism, but also that users have to a minor extent begun over time to perform work previously reserved for professional journalists.     

The Emergence of a News Website Ecosystem: An Exploratory Study of Hespress

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the emergence of a news ecosystem, focusing on Hespress, Morocco’s first, largest, and most popular news website and its current economic success. My analysis investigates Hespress’s emergence and growth into a significant source for news content, reaching an unprecedented number of readers in Morocco and abroad. This paper argues that the success of Hespress’s business model is grounded in a particularly well-developed understanding of social media, the changing habits of digital readers, and a strategic combination of investigative reporting and curated user-generated content. My findings, then, show how Hespress used a strategy that can serve as a sustainable revenue model which was diversified to include other sources of revenue such as e-commerce, branded events, and native advertising, combined with distribution strategies that rely heavily on social and other digital platforms.     

Where Old (Gatekeepers) Meets New (Media)

An examination of reader comments published in newspapers shows how journalists shape online content for print. A content analysis of printed comments and interviews with journalists who choose them reveal how gatekeeping constructs a hybrid site of participatory journalism that is similar to but distinct from letters to the editor. Unlike letters, anonymity was the norm. Smaller newspapers predictably printed a larger percentage of comments. But publications of all sizes edited comments, sometimes heavily, before printing them. In selecting comments for newspapers, journalists juggle the immediacy and informality of online conversation with such print standards as context, civility, and readability.     

USING CITIZENS FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM

Hyperlocal journalism is thriving. This article describes the case of a Belgian regional newspaper experimenting with citizen journalism and user-generated content (UGC) for hyperlocal news coverage. For each municipality of the region, an online news page has been created where all citizen contributions are published side by side with professional stories on local community news and events. The fact that the UGC is not separated from the professional articles makes it an interesting case to examine commonalities and differences between both types of community reporting. The findings, based on a content analysis of 474 news items, suggest that the newspaper seems to use citizen volunteers primarily as a means to outsource the “soft”, “good” and “small” news coverage of local community life, while preserving the “hard” and “bad” news provision as the exclusive domain of professional journalists. Further, the study's findings support previous research indicating that (1) local community journalism is characterised by a mix of crime reporting and news coverage of fires and accidents, on the one hand, and positive human-interest stories about social club activities, cultural events, health and sports, and school life, on the other; and that (2) citizen journalists tend to rely heavily on first-hand witnessing and personal experience due to a general lack of access to official sources of information.     

THE THIRST TO BE FIRST

This article explores the growth and character of breaking news on two 24-hour news channels in the United Kingdom, Sky News and BBC News 24. Our purpose is to examine, in detail, the nature and role of breaking news and, more generally, its impact on the quality of television news journalism. We draw upon a series of content analyses of news programming conducted in 2004, 2005/6 and 2007, and compare the elements of a breaking news item with more conventional forms of news. Our findings indicate that “breaking news” has become an increasingly important part of the 24-hour news culture. This growth means that the typical breaking news item is becoming increasingly predictable and routine. Moreover, by most measures, breaking news items are less well informed and feature less independent reporting than conventional news items. As a consequence, we argue, the decision to cover more breaking news stories impoverishes the quality of journalism.     

Taking our Pictures

This qualitative research project explores the specific ways in which 12 traditional television, print and internet news organizations in the United States integrated user-generated visual content into news coverage over the course of an ordinary week, June 8–14, 2014. Framed from a cultural materialist perspective, we found that user-generated visual content constituted a minimal part of the print, broadcast and online news coverage. Based on our research, we suggest that traditional media outlets marginalized the use of citizen photojournalism in an effort to control news production, maintain their influence and power, and to reinforce the reliance on ideological notions of accurate, responsible and relevant journalism.     

略论"说"新闻的几点误区

随着新闻传播由传者中心向受众中心的全面转移,电视新闻节目的"播音员"逐渐变为了"主持人","播"新闻逐渐变为"说"新闻。然而,在主持人向受众靠近的过程中,这种"说"也不同程度地存在着几点误区。由此,我们有必要思考"说"的规范。     

Reframing Reporting of Childhood Sexual Exploitation

This article explores three national and local journalists’ experiences of reporting on child sexual exploitation by so-called “Asian street grooming gangs” in UK towns and cities, with a particular emphasis on journalists framing journalists. In response to coverage of a series of cases, journalists have been accused by academics, policymakers and rival media organizations of fixating on perpetrators’ ethnicity and creating distorted, racist media frames. Few, if any, studies have garnered practitioners’ perspectives on how framing occurs, so we interview three prominent journalists who have covered such cases in order to deepen our understanding of the processes and causative factors behind particular editorial angles. While offering only a snapshot view, our findings reveal these individual journalists to be caught at the nexus of a range of factors that impact upon their work, both internally and externally driven.     

“HAVE THEY GOT NEWS FOR US?”

The BBC elicits and uses a number of different types of audience material, but the corporation has most wholeheartedly embraced what we call Audience Content (eyewitness footage or photos, accounts of experiences, and story tip-offs). Indeed, when the term user-generated content (UGC) is used by BBC news journalists it usually denotes only this kind of material. Audience material is often described by commentators and practitioners as having revolutionised journalism by disrupting the traditional relationships between producers and consumers of the news. In the main journalists and editors see material from the audience as just another news source, a formulation which is perpetuated by the institutional frameworks set up to elicit and process audience material as well as the content of the corporation's UGC training. Our data suggest that, with the exception of some marginal collaborative projects, rather than changing the way most news journalists at the BBC work, audience material is firmly embedded within the long-standing routines of traditional journalism practice.     

Engaged Journalism and News Work: A Sociotechnical Analysis of Organizational Dynamics and Professional Challenges

ABSTRACT

Building upon the sociotechnical perspective presented by Lewis and Westlund (2015, “Actors, Actants, Audiences, and Activities in Cross-media News Work: A Matrix and a Research Agenda.” Digital Journalism 3 (1): 19–37. doi:10.1080/21670811.2014.927986), this study examines organizational dynamics, technological affordances and professional challenges of engaged journalism practices by analyzing how Hearken, one of the most celebrated audience engagement companies, and its tools and services are being implemented in 15 U.S. news organizations. This framework identifies Hearken and organizations like it as important “external actors” providing technological “actants” that are shaping how newsrooms report the news by providing ways for audiences to be brought into producing the news, particularly during the earlier phases of the reporting process. Based on in-depth interviews, we find that nearly every news organization in our sample reports some measure of success by using Hearken for involving audience members throughout the production of news. At the same time, we also identify how this implementation is significantly shaped by organizational imperatives and the models particular organizations create for producing audience-centric news work. Ultimately, this study presents a partial update to the decades-long literature on participatory journalism by suggesting that engaged journalism practices actually create opportunities for meaningful audience involvement.     

Gatecheckers at the Visual News Stream

Over the past 65 years, scholars have reframed the original model of gatekeeping to reflect the changing dynamics of news creation, distribution, and curation. In recent years, communication technologies have opened digital news gates to a proliferation of images captured by professionals and amateurs alike. Anyone with a camera or cell phone can shoot and distribute photographs and videos on the internet. Social media facilitates audience-to-audience sharing through tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat. This stream of visuals, along with the ease with which citizen journalists, bloggers, and tweeters can create and publish content, has changed the gatekeeping process. Few scholars, however, have addressed the impact that visuals have on the gatekeeping model, which was developed using text and broadcast stories. To address the changing role of the visual journalist and the audience, the authors conducted two studies. First, qualitative elite interviews with key visual decision-makers in Europe and the US provided questions for further exploration in the second study—an online cross-sectional survey of visual journalists who belong to three leading US organizations. The questions in this quantitative survey were also influenced by Shoemaker and Reese's hierarchy of influences and Bennett's multigated model. Findings indicate changes in the way visual journalists conceptualize their role and that of the audience. Based on these changes, this article proposes a new model of visual gatekeeping—the twenty-first-century visual news stream where “gatecheckers” select, verify, and curate visuals but no longer solely control their distribution the way traditional gatekeepers did.     

Not Good Enough?

An increasing flow of amateur images of global crises presents challenges and opportunities for mainstream news media. Furthermore, many news organizations now solicit eyewitness reports for near-instant upload to Web editions. Yet, there is a lack of empirical research on amateur images in the regular news flow, in particular in newspapers. Thus, this case study examines the general frequency of amateur content, the gatekeeping process and the opinions of editors making decisions about images for publication in the online and print editions of four Swedish newspapers. Our findings, based on quantitative content analyses and interviews, indicate that a majority of the content falls in the hard-news category in contrast to findings in previous research about user-generated text content. Moreover, it appears regularly but in small numbers in a tabloid-content daily and a regional paper but hardly ever in broadsheet-content papers, and that opinions in the newsroom about amateur images vary from a lack of interest to a stated need for them in the regular news coverage. The low impact of amateur content may be due to the gatekeeping process and professional standards of photography, as well as a lack of audience interest and difficulties in implementing new structures in the newsrooms. In sum, the findings disprove predictions in the literature of a near-paradigmatic rise of amateur content in the mainstream news media.     

网络报纸资源及其开发利用

目前全国超过273种报纸已上网供阅览。图书馆界面临如何开发利用这一 重要的信息资源的新课题。     

Elemental Forms

This paper considers the way the nineteenth-century newspaper was oriented towards information. Despite their political differences, nineteenth-century newspapers were often discussed as if they were universal, with a paper for every segment of society. My argument is that this apparent universality, where the newspaper was figured as a print genre potentially open to all, laid the foundations for the emergence of the popular press. The paper is in two parts. The first considers the nineteenth-century newspaper as a genre, arguing that its periodicity enabled it to serve as a perfect medium, passing on content derived from elsewhere. The second explores the way information was conceived in the period. By looking at the way the newspaper drew upon, represented, and distributed information, it is possible to understand how it functioned as material media. In conclusion, I look at the way the nineteenth-century newspaper is changed through digitization today. When scholars access nineteenth-century newspapers through digital resources, they engage with a different material media that, in turn, reconfigures the source material. Such encounters foreground the importance of genre while providing new opportunities for its study.     

Growth,development and performance of the Philippine and Brazilian telecommunications sectors: A contextual analysis

The direct determinants of an industrial sector's success is usually taken to be ownership, market structure, and the regulatory structure in place. However, Mody (1987) has noted that frequently the performance of communication technology has more to do with economic, political and cultural contextual factors than with technical efficiencies. In the light of this observation, this comparitive case study seeks to assess the importance of the contextual forces that have influenced the development of the telecommunication sectors in the Philippines and Brazil.     

Faculty Library Committees

No abstract available for this article.     

新闻传播研究的探索创新之作——评陈绚《数字化时代的新闻理论与实践》

《数字化时代的新闻理论与实践》一书以全球性网络新闻为背景 ,以中国互联网新闻传播研究为主线 ,对相关的理论和实践问题进行系统整合。作者以全新的资料、专业学者的笔触、创见性的阐述 ,丰富了新闻传播研究的内涵 ,充实了新闻学研究中的这一新领域。该书具有较高的理论价值。