Trends in Cultural Journalism

Various studies report that cultural journalism increasingly focuses on service and entertainment instead of serious arts coverage. The press prioritizes popular culture over traditional high arts to a growing extent. However, this shift in journalistic attention does not necessarily signify a straightforward decline in aesthetic standards, as popular cultural forms like film have developed along the lines of high art principles in the past decades. This article charts trends in American, Dutch, French, and German film journalism between 1955 and 2005. It demonstrates that coverage is typified by a serious aesthetic approach from the 1970s onwards. The principles of art are seen to steer journalists’ attention to an important degree: the review remains the predominant journalistic genre, and newspapers devote more attention to films by prestigious directors than strictly commercial moviemakers. As such, film’s prominence in the press does not seem to indicate a decline in serious cultural journalism but rather a revaluation of a popular cultural form.     

Intellectual-run-newspapers versus Statesman-run-newspapers

The purpose of this paper is to explicate two competing journalistic paradigms in China in the pre-reform era. The time frame is from the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 to the launching of the reform and open policy in 1978. A common view is that during that period the Chinese government, under the leadership of Chairman Mao, adopted the Soviet press model, in which media were tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and journalism was overwhelmingly dominated by the principles of a party press. In this paper, however, I argue that two journalistic paradigms operated simultaneously during that period: while the CCP and the government tried to impose the principle of statesman-run-newspapers, some journalists tried to maintain a tradition of intellectual-run-newspapers. The differences between the two paradigms regarding the role of the media, journalistic identity, levels of autonomy, narrative style, historical origin and others are discussed. The paper concludes that although intellectual-run-newspapers faced severe crackdowns, the inspirational force of the paradigm never became extinct. More importantly, it has been a continued influence on critical-minded journalists in China today.     

PREFERENCE,PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE

Many studies reveal that quality journalistic writing in the form of well-written feature stories is one of the few true journalistic tools that help newspapers in their struggle against declining readership. In Slovenia, however, there is little acknowledgement of this. Academic research illustrates that readers want well-written sophisticated feature stories, but they are offered poorly written elementary feature stories. One of the reasons for this discrepancy might be the tradition of the latter in Slovene press; besides few practising journalists are familiar with the theory of journalistic forms, and most of them are not aware of the advantages of quality, sophisticated feature stories. Feature stories are undervalued in Slovene press to such an extent that as a genre they are rarely examined in commercial readership surveys. Thus, the readers’ preference for them remains vague and ambiguous. Such surveys do not help the newspaper publishers determine what kind of articles their readers really want and in what form/genre they want them.     

Taking sides: Analyzing news of the US September 11 incident in the Chinese and Taiwanese press

This study examines news reports of the US September 11 incidents in the Chinese and Taiwanese press. In the Chinese press, the party newspaper (People's Daily) and the new mass‐appeal tabloid (Nanfang Daily) were studied. In the Taiwanese press, the traditional top circulation newspaper (United Daily) and the emerging pro‐Taiwan independent newspaper (Liberty Times) were chosen. Based upon a content analysis of news reports, supplemented with Chinese and Taiwanese government documents, the study found that the Chinese and Taiwanese press tended to report the incident along with the government stances and each represented its own side even after the economic reform and ruling party shift. However, the mass‐appeal tabloid in China moved slightly toward the pattern found in capitalist countries, without violating the government policy severely. The pro‐Taiwan independent newspaper showed more loyalty to the ruling party, but both Taiwanese newspapers covered diverse topics apart from the government stance. To what degree did the press follow the government stances? This study provided the preliminary answer that business interests might influence the press not to follow completely the government stances.     

Professional intervention and organizational incorporation: examining journalistic use of microblogs in two Chinese newsrooms

Existing research has widely accounted the influence of microblogs on traditional news production, but less attention has been paid to how microblogs are socially constructed in newsrooms. Taking the social constructivist approach, this study explored the professional and organizational construction of journalistic use of microblogs. We conducted 33 in-depth interviews with news workers at two local newspapers in China and a textual analysis of their microblog posts. We found that Chinese news workers heavily stressed professional values and journalistic authority, which set limits to information appropriation and self-expression on microblogs. Production culture, organization policy, and organization culture were also found to shape journalistic use of microblogs. The highly censored press environment restricted both organizational and individual use of microblogs, but sometimes motivated news workers to seek extra value on microblogs.     

Poll Reporting and Journalistic Paradigm: A Study of Popularity Poll Coverage in Hong Kong Newspapers

Opinion polling has become a common feature in news and public discourse in Hong Kong. This study examines how local newspapers cover popularity polls about the government and its leaders. It is hypothesized that newspapers adhering to different journalistic paradigms would cover such popularity polls differently in terms of the inclusion of methodological information, use of news sources, emphasis on negative versus positive results, treatment of polls conducted by different entities, and use of visual means of representations. A content analysis was conducted on four newspapers which represent the professionalism, populism, and propaganda paradigms, respectively. The results show that there are both similarities and differences in the poll coverage of the newspapers, with the differences mostly corresponding to the differences in journalistic paradigms. The results also point to a number of phenomena about news media in Hong Kong and poll reporting in general.     

How to play the game of intellectual property rights in China: the impact of party affiliation and media location on the use of media frames

This paper explores the dynamic between media and social-political forces through a content analysis of Chinese media coverage of intellectual property rights (IPRs) since China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. We examined how media attributes, such as party affiliation and media location, have influenced the use of media frames. Three media frames were extracted from previous studies: (1) national interest; (2) cost and benefit; and (3) legal/contractual. Our results demonstrate that both media attributes exert significant influence on the use of media frames in IPRs coverage: the closer a news organization is affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, the more likely it would adopt a national interest frame. Moreover, national press and party newspapers are more likely to adopt the national interest frame in covering IPRs-related issues; whereas, regional/popular and professional press are more likely to report the IPRs-related issues from economic and legal perspectives.     

The bad guy is one of us: framing comparison between the US and Korean newspapers and blogs about the Virginia Tech shooting

This study examines cross-national and cross-media differences in framing, particularly regarding the salience of collectivistic storytelling, based on the US and Korean newspapers and blogs about the Virginia Tech campus shooting incident. Although collectivistic storytelling is a common practice of news domestication, the degree of its salience is affected by a nation's orientation toward collectivism. Cross-media level of difference also exists because journalistic perspectives and the public's interpretation of those perspectives, as reflected in newspapers and blogs, are different. Findings indicate that while there are some consistent framing patterns, the degree of collectivism was different between the two nations and between the two media.     

论地方报业数字化转型战略——以河北省为例

本文通过对河北省1家省级报纸、11家市级报纸的报业数字多媒体应用情况的问卷调查结果进行汇总,分析研究河北报业数字化现状,并以该省为例,探寻地方报业数字转型战略的发展方向,为地方新闻网站的建设提出较为可行的解决方案。     

Public perceptions of newspapers’ political positions: A perceptual map of Hong Kong newspapers

This study demonstrates for the first time that a newspaper's political orientation is a principal factor used by readers to locate its position in the marketplace. The findings have concrete implications for editors and publishers in Southeast Asia, where newspapers are often aligned with political organizations. The study uses data collected in Hong Kong to create a perceptual map of Hong Kong newspapers. In Hong Kong, there are 25 dailies serving a population of 6 million. Newspaper readership is high. The newspapers span the political spectrum from ultra‐left to ultra‐right. When data were collected for this study, some newspapers were controlled by the Kuomintang of Taiwan, others by the Chinese Communist Party of the People's Republic of China. This study selected eight newspapers whose political orientations had been clearly established by previous research. Some 990 respondents estimated the distance between 28 pairs of newspapers. These ‘perception data’ were pure similarity/dissimilarity measures. Factor analysis and multidimensional scaling both reveal a clear political dimension to the resultant perceptual maps. The study also includes an overview of the contemporary partisan press in Hong Kong.     

试析列宁社会主义建设时期的新闻思想与政策实践——为纪念列宁150周年诞辰而作

本文将列宁新闻思想的形成发展分为建党、夺权和社会主义建设三个阶段。建党时期的重点是提出通过办报来建党,夺权时期的贡献是建构党报的党性原则,社会主义建设时期是本文的重点。在社会主义建设时期,列宁提出新时期报刊的性质与功能、社会主义出版自由政策、社会主义新闻宣传工作业务指导方针、无线电广播特点功能和共产国际报刊工作的原则与策略。本文对列宁发展马克思主义新闻学的理论贡献作了深入分析,并就加强对列宁新闻思想的学习和研究提出几点建议。     

论当代中国新闻学科层面几个主要概念之间的关系

在当代中国新闻学研究的学科层面,实际存在着多种名称或概念(有些准确,有些模糊),诸如新闻学、党报理论、中国特色社会主义新闻学、马克思主义新闻观(新闻学)等,它们之间互相联系,但又互有区别。最基本的关系是:党报理论是中国特色新闻学的核心内容,马克思主义新闻观是中国特色新闻学的理论立场和基本方法。因而,中国特色社会主义新闻学,就是以中国新闻现象、新闻活动特别是以"党媒"新闻宣传活动、新闻舆论活动为主要研究对象,以马克思主义为基本立场、观点和方法,以党报(党媒)理论为核心内容的新闻学。其中的"中国特色"是当代中国新闻学的特征描述,"社会主义"则是当代中国新闻学性质定位。中国特色社会主义新闻学与新闻学在研究对象、研究目的、研究的价值取向上虽有相同之处,但重点有所不同。     

First and second-level agenda-setting in the 2014 Indian general election: a time-series analysis of party-media relation

The role of the press as a political watchdog is crucial to the functioning of democracy. Especially in the run-up to elections, voters depend on the media's presentation of parties and candidates to make informed, responsible choices at the ballot box. But who, then, influences the news media? Empirical evidence in the United States and Europe suggests that political party campaigns and election coverage in the news media are interconnected and influence each other. This study tests whether such agenda-setting effects between party campaigns and the media also take place in the general elections in the world's largest democracy, India. India's western-type political system has a distinct media system characterized by high competition, diversification, non-consolidation and formal and informal ties between the media, commercial interests and political actors. Content analysis and Granger's causality test of newspaper coverage (N?=?716) and party campaign messages (N?=?458) found that agenda-setting effects do occur in India, but are largely bi-directional. We also found an overwhelming focus of both newspapers’ election coverage and of all major party campaigns on one single candidate, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Narendra Modi. This, we argue, is a result of the broader trends that have shaped Indian politics in recent years. The significant correlations and non-significant causal effects between party campaign and media coverage also indicate a trade-off situation between political power negotiation and political balance in the press.     

Knowing in Journalistic Practice

This article reports the outcomes of an ethnographic study in a public broadcasting company exploring on-the-job learning and knowing in journalistic practice. We use practice perspective and social learning theory to study how knowing in everyday work is achieved within journalists’ communities of practice and in relation to other practices around journalism. A year-long study involved analysis of 19 on-site observations, 25 interviews, over 30 textual company based documents and over 120 photos. We found that journalists’ communities of practice are actively negotiating a shared understanding of good practice. At the same time, individual journalists are relatively free to choose how they use this collective knowledge resource, enabling a creative tension between shared understanding of good practice and individual performances of that practice. Journalists are also responsive to ongoing and anticipated future changes within the practices they align with—practices that are reported about, journalistic practices of other public broadcasting companies and practices of the audience. We, therefore, argue for an understanding of journalistic practice as open-ended and performative, rather than fixed and routine.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Cultural departments in newspapers are reported to be encountering increasing pressures towards the production of news and more “journalistic” expression. However, journalistic values do not fit unproblematically into the dualistic professionalism of cultural journalism. The article elaborates an insight into the practice of arts journalism as an act of framing between the epistemic paradigms of journalistic and aesthetic tradition. The traditions are inspected as Bourdieusian fields, and the boundary-crossing between the fields is clarified by close-reading texts with deviations from the typical framings, accompanied by social tensions and indignation among the actors of the artistic field. By investigating the reconciliation between the two epistemic frames of cultural journalism, the journalistic and the aesthetic paradigm, certain restrictions between the generalist and specialist role-shifts can be found. This distinctive boundary between the fields leads into the question about how the newsworthiness of culture could be defined without losing the sensitivity to the characteristics of arts and culture, operated by their own logic.     

辛亥革命时期报业的崛起及其精神引领

基于对辛亥革命前后20年间全国创办报纸的统计和办报活动的调查分析,以表格形式展现报纸创办的基本信息。并对当时报纸的编辑技术、经费与广告、发行模式等进行介绍,阐述报纸宣传对政府的影响以及对民众精神的引领,总结辛亥时期报业的兴盛与重要作用。     

中美新闻传统的起源与转折——以王韬、富兰克林为中心的考察

王韬与富兰克林的报刊活动,首先基于谋生获利的需要,因此,他们的报刊实践有其商业逻辑。但由于不同的社会场域,王韬办报有其干预政治的现实考量,富兰克林则力图在商业与政治之间保持微妙的平衡,这也是中美早期新闻业的基本写照。以此为出发点,本文试图从源头上分析,中国的新闻业缘何素来与政治亦步亦趋,而美国的新闻传统虽然诸多反复,但商业化作为一个基本的线索始终存在。     

Perpetual development journalism? Balance and framing in the 2006 Singapore election coverage

This study sought to determine if Singapore's press model has evolved beyond the development model to take on characteristics of other press models. It examined balance and framing in election coverage in the Straits Times, Singapore's dominant English newspaper, over 16 days before the 2006 Singapore General Election. As expected under the development model, and contrary to expectations under the social responsibility model, we found coverage of the competing parties lacked balance, as indicated by more coverage with a more favorable tone for the ruling People's Action Party. In framing, we found game frames predominated over issue frames, as predicted by media intrusion theory, in which commercial media favor competitive aspects of campaigns as a result of following commercial journalistic values. This finding contradicts the expectation that development journalism would likely have more issue frames, since it emphasizes issues and policies, and suggests that some commercial journalistic imperatives outweigh development model imperatives in the Singapore press.     

THE CHALLENGES OF SURVEYING PUBLIC OPINION IN AN EMERGING DEMOCRACY

Based on interviews with political party officials and journalistsas well as a content analysis of election poll stories, thispaper discusses opinion polling in Ghana's emerging democracy.Highlighted in the discussion are the relevance of surveyingpublic opinion in a neo-democracy and the journalistic reportingof poll results. The paper describes the surveying of publicopinion in a political climate in transition from long historicalexperience of authoritarianism and dictatorship including aperiod of a ‘culture of silence’, to freedom ofexpression, as a challenge. In an examination of local ‘polls’conducted by newspapers during the 1996 presidential and parliamentaryelections, it characterizes those exercises as unscientificand inaccurate. Technical details about surveys were mostlymissing in the stories, suggesting lack of poll reporting knowledgeamong journalists as a major challenge. There is an attemptto address these challenges for the purpose of strengtheningthe enabling role of political polling and journalistic reportingof poll results in Ghana's new democracy. Adequate responsesto these challenges would, it is proposed, contribute to a scientificand an objective assessment of issues in political decision–makingincluding measuring voter support for political parties andcandidates.