“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.     

All Things Cultured: An Analysis of Popular Culture Coverage on National Public Radio's All Things Considered

National Public Radio's flagship news program All Things Considered has long been known for its sophisticated style of political and cultural news coverage. In past years the program has increased the number and types of popular culture stories covered to reflect the changing interests of listeners. This content analysis found that coverage of popular culture significantly increased in relation to the more traditional “high” culture stories, such as opera and art. The results suggest that All Things Considered is working to bring more popular culture coverage to the program while not losing focus on its traditional style of news coverage.     

Neutralizing Protest: The Construction of War,Chaos, and National Identity through US Television News on Abortion-Related Protest, 1991

This paper examines how US TV news on abortion-related protest forecloses possibilities for democracy and political action. Representing abortion-related activism as a battle, news segments portray activists, correspondents, and viewers as villains, witnesses, and victims in a tale of a nation decimated by civil war. While activists describe their work militaristically, the news's war is not the war that activists describe. News discourse represents activists as threatening the American family/community/nation. Applying Hannah Arendt's and Mary Douglas's work shows how the news eclipses public spheres by mapping a pollution narrative onto those who threaten myths of national homogeneity and proper citizenship.     

The Active Citizen's Information Media Repertoire: An Exploration of Community News Habits During the Digital Age

Digital technologies have reconfigured how active community members know about local news. Sampling one Midwest community's most engaged citizens—collectively, a “community of practice”—this research formalizes one emerging media-information repertoire around the issue of homelessness. Components of this repertoire include motivations, structuring conditions, norms of usage, and perceived consequences for media-source selection. Commenting, sharing, and other information exchange become “acts of news” for individuals involved in communities of practice. Through shared information-exchange practices, citizens can not only advocate their social causes but also reinvigorate their own affiliations to the community of practice and to the city itself. The use of this media repertoire by these individuals reconstitutes and amplifies their role in the pursuit of fostering a civil society focused on homelessness. The findings illuminate the process of how community activists work as an informal organizational form and, as a result, build a stronger commitment to civic action.     

ELIMINATION OF IDEAS AND PROFESSIONAL SOCIALISATION

This article investigates and interprets social and cultural production and reproduction as we turn our attention to an important part of routinised practice in the newsroom: the early newsroom meetings. These meetings are essential sites for the building of the craft ethos and professional vision. Our aim is to study how this building of expertise takes place at meetings with a particular focus on the decision-making process concerning ideas for new news stories. In order to do this, we perform linguistic analysis of news production practices, as we investigate how the journalists' ideas for potential news stories are eliminated by the editor at the daily newsroom meetings. The elimination of ideas for news stories are not just eliminations; they are also corrections of culturally undesirable behaviour producing and reproducing the proper perception of an important object of knowledge—what constitutes “a good news story”—in this community of practice.     

Domesticating patriarchy: hegemonic masculinity and television's "Mr. Mom"

This essay examines television news treatments of stay-at-home dads (Mr. Moms)during the late 1990s and argues that these news accounts represent a challenge to more traditional masculine identities depicted in media. While offering a nominal challenge, however, these representations reinscribe significant aspects of patriarchal privilege within domestic space. Through a combination of discursive strategies compatible with the commercial needs of contemporary media organizations, television news programs' Mr. Moms operate ideologically to legitimate domesticity and nurturance as appropriately masculine. In so doing, they challenge some traditional notions about men while further solidifying a connection between these men and heterosexuality in the context of mainstream television news representations of middle-class family life in the contemporary United States. This process of legitimating nurturance and domesticity also and concurrently reverses the genders long articulated to particular advertising target segments within the commodity broadcast audience. This representational process reifies and naturalizes the class specificity of these Mr. Moms while it fuels television's continual need to produce and satisfy new audience niches in order to survive and compete in the media environment of today.     

Contesting Communities

This introductory article to the combined special issue of Journalism Studies and Journalism Practice provides an overview of some of the key contemporary approaches to studying journalism and social order. It argues the need to step beyond a functionalist framework when considering the news media’s central role in shaping social connections, community and cohesion. To advance our understandings of social order, our paper suggests a greater emphasis of the significance of journalism’s relationship to the wider social sphere along with three other key considerations, including (1) a critical focus on the relationship between media, politics and social order, especially in defining and/or negotiating “anti-social” practices and social disintegration; (2) a more refined focus on the “imagined” and geographic boundaries of news audiences in digital spaces; and (3) the changing relationship to norms and conventions of journalism practice from trust and legitimacy to the role of journalists as arbiters and connectors across social spaces.     

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.     

国外档案学研究的"情感转向"

"情感转向"是当前国外档案学研究领域出现的一种新的研究取向。情感理论被引入档案学领域,并得到进一步的发展和阐释。档案学者运用情感理论分析档案现象,提出情感价值作为档案鉴定标准以及情感公正、不可能的档案想象和想象的档案等观点。研究者还从实践层面分析了社群档案与情感体验、情感与离散档案问题处理以及档案与情感创伤等特定情境中的档案与情感问题。透过情感角度来观察和思考社会中的档案现象,"情感转向"为档案学领域提供了一个新的研究视角。     

EARwitness Testimony: Applying Listener Perspectives to Developing a Working Concept of “Localism” in Broadcast Radio

Ever since the introduction of new technologies such as satellite, Internet and cable radio, the concept of “local” has been at the center of a debate in the radio industry. Ownership consolidation has led to concerns about the loss of “local identity.” Broadcast radio news providers are operating under the assumption that the geographical location of the origin of news plays an increasingly smaller role. Through an Internet survey of 485 radio listeners nationwide, this study re-defines the concept of “local” as applied to broadcast radio and confirms the value of each station's physical connection to the area it serves.     

Critical Discourse Analysis of CNN International's Coverage of Africa

This study compared the newsgathering goals of gatekeepers with public attitudes regarding the coverage of Africa by CNN International (CNNI). A critical discourse analysis was based on interviews with CNNI news producers and executives, and 6 focus groups of Ugandan viewers that were conducted in 2004 and 2008. Results show not only dissonance, but also a disconnection between CNNI news producers and Ugandan viewers' perceptions of the network and of their 2 major local stations. The network was the main source of international news in 2004 in Uganda but its appeal diminished by 2008. Viewers considered its coverage largely biased and ill-motivated towards Africa. CNNI was regarded more favorably than local television (UBC and WBS) news in quality and depth of news content in 2004 than in 2008. This love-hate relationship for CNNI and the other local television networks is discussed in detail.     

Effects of Local-Market Radio Ownership Concentration on Radio Localism,the Public Interest,and Listener Opinions and Use of Local Radio

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and ensuing radio ownership consolidation are often blamed for harming radio localism and the public interest. The present research sought to determine effects of local-market radio ownership concentration on listener opinions and use of radio—potentially indicative of stations' localism and public service—by surveying listeners in markets categorized by ownership concentration. Findings suggest concentration does not strongly influence perceptions; however, overall results indicate potentially negative consequences from local and national consolidation on amounts of local music, news, and public-service programming; live-local programming; and station responsiveness.     

Innovating Radio News: Effects of Background Music Complexity on Processing and Enjoyment

In one experiment, listeners hear radio news delivered by a male or female anchor with either no background music or with music of differing complexity. Memory for and enjoyment of the news are assessed. Findings suggest that adding a simple beat makes the news more memorable and enjoyable, whereas highly complex music hinders both message processing and enjoyment. Anchor voice determines the results for moderate complexity. A second experiment further explores anchor voice and message processing and, together, the two experiments suggest that both pitch and number of auditory structural features should be considered when enhancing radio news with music.     

“You Don't Understand,This is a New War!” Analysis of Hate Speech in News Web Sites' Comments

Because news websites' comments have become an important space of spreading hate speech, this article tries to contribute to uncovering the characteristics of Internet hate speech by combining discourse analyses of comments on Slovenian news websites with online in-depth interviews with producers of hate speech comments, researching their values, beliefs, and motives for production. Producers of hate speech use different strategies, mostly rearticulating the meaning of news items. The producers either are organized or act on their own initiative. The main motive of soldiers and believers is the mission; they share characteristics of an authoritarian personality. The key motives of the players are thrill and fun. The watchdogs are motivated by drawing attention to social injustice. The last two groups share the characteristics of a libertarian personality.     

The Portrayal of Public Relations in the News Media

This study explored the meanings and connotations of public relations in news stories carried by major newspapers and network television. The findings suggest that the term public relations was primarily used to suggest image building, reputation management, and persuasion efforts. News story interpretations of public relations terms were likely to refer to publicity, image, campaigns of persuasion, and marketing efforts to promote an organization's claims. The results reveal that negative connotations of public relations prevail in journalists' stories discussing the practice of public relations. The results imply that public relations practitioners trying to pitch their clients' stories need to understand how journalists will likely perceive the stories' news value. Two-way communication should begin with media relations via an understanding of journalists' viewpoints.     

The Role of Language in a Journalistic Interpretive Community

Drawing on anniversary-edition articles and interviews with journalists at Jakarta Post, Indonesia’s largest English-language news outlet, we argue that language of publication directly informs the narratives a journalistic interpretive community [Zelizer, Barbie. 1993. “Journalists as Interpretive Communities.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10: 219–237] develops to position itself as a news authority. Analysis showed that associations with English as a foreign language in Indonesia influenced stories of the newspaper’s professional values and practice, and the ways it conceptualized readership. The study contributes to the growing body of literature that examines intersections of journalism and language—in this case, English as a language of publication in a global context.     

Hier 1st 1212: Operation Annie,World War II Allied Psychological Warfare,and the Capture of the Rhineland

This study concerns an American-operated clandestine short-wave radio station that broadcast as both a strategic and tactical station during the Battle of the Bulge in Germany. Operation Annie's strategic mission was to generate distrust for the Nazi leadership among troops and increase their reliance on news reports emanating from the station. Her tactical mission was to then use her reputation for truthfulness to lure listeners into a military ambush known today as the Saar Pocket, thus facilitating the capture of the Rhineland. This research reviews the development of Operation Annie and its missions and evaluates the station's success as a model of effective wartime propaganda.     

准确理解新闻的“整体真实”

新闻真实始终是新闻实践中、新闻学研究中的一个核心问题。整体真实与具体真实是当代中国新闻理论研究中的一对重要范畴,其中,理论上较难理解的、实践中较难实现的是新闻的整体真实。整体真实,既是一种新闻真实观,同时也是新闻真实实现的方法论。新闻的整体真实,不是传统上所理解的关于目标报道领域全部事实的真实报道,而是新闻意义上的整体真实,宏观上是指新闻要呈现出目标报道领域新闻事实的整体图景,微观上是指具体新闻要反映具体新闻事实的整体面目。实现新闻的整体真实,需要实事求是的精神与方法,需要客观、全面反映目标报道领域不同性质、不同类型的新闻事实,需要新兴媒介环境中所有相关新闻传播主体间的有机互动,需要形成针对复杂新闻事实的过程性报道机制。自然,更需要国家提供相关法律政策的有效保障,需要社会创造实现新闻整体真实的宽松环境。     

Practice of Hypertext

Despite scholarly research inconsistencies in conceptualizations of hypertext, there seems to be a consensus among scholars from different epistemological grounds that hypertextuality as a communication potential refers to the interconnectivity and interlayering of textual parts in an extended nonlinear chain of integrated content that enables innovation in practices within the triad journalist–text–reader. However, within this rather large area of research, media and journalism scholars have paid minimal attention to hypertext as practice despite hypertext raising many questions regarding the processes and relations of news making. In this paper the author attempts to fill this research gap and to investigate how hypertext shapes different phases of online news making, that is, gathering, selecting, and assessing information, and how these processes influence journalist–source–audience relations. This study thus provides analysis of data gathered through participant observation in the online departments of two leading Slovenian print media organizations, Delo and Dnevnik, and in-depth interviews with their online journalists and editors. The analysis indicated that (1) lack of reasoning and a conservative mind-set prevail among online staffers when conceptualizing hypertext; (2) the normalization of hypertextual news making is subordinated to speed and timeliness in news delivery; and (3) nurtured journalist–source–audience relations bring little to strengthen the social relevance of news. These results confirmed hypertext as a commodity rather than emphasizing its public character. The practice of hypertext at the two Slovenian newspapers indicates a phenomenon that could be labelled as journalistic deskilling in online news making.     

Mediating Frida: Negotiating Discourses of Latina/o Authenticity in Global Media Representations of Ethnic Identity

This article analyzes the discourses of Latina/o identity embedded in the movie Frida, the Latino news coverage about the film, and an on-line chat stream about the film. Comparing the identity discourses circulated by the movie's producers, Latina/o journalists, and Latina/o audiences when discussing the film shows how different communities negotiate the meanings of ethnic identity. The study concludes that the discourses of ethnic identity circulated through the movie, news coverage, and chat stream disrupt notions of Latina/o ethnic identity as a stable and commodifiable demographic category.