Does China's outward focused journalism engage a constructive approach? A qualitative content analysis of Xinhua News Agency's English news

This study examines the rationalisation of the news frames of currency-related international economic interaction by analysing news articles from the ‘China Focus’ column in China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency. Thematic analysis of the main themes in the news articles shows dominant positive coverage of China’s economic development. Using qualitative content analysis, it also investigates the breeding of the ‘emergence’ of constructive journalism practices in China. It finds that Xinhua prioritises the frames of referring to solutions to the conflict and problem and mentioning the social and economic stability, sustainability, and prosperous development. The frames of moral judgement, conflict and its formation, and human interest are less applied in news articles. It bears elements of constructive journalism, but still needs efforts to make a clear division from positive journalism and Party journalism.     

Metadata as a machine for feeling in Germaine Greer’s archive

ABSTRACT

What happens when a human coder meets a machine one? This article explores this question with reference to the archive of Professor Germaine Greer: Australian-born feminist, performer, scholar, and professional controversialist. It does so by staging two very different data encounters with the 70,000-word finding aid for the print journalism series, a key component of Greer’s archive. The first encounter is archivist’s creation of the finding aid; the second, archivist and literary scholar’s interpretation of this archival metadata using sentiment analysis. Interrogating these activities side-by-side opens up a productive middle ground between humanities scholars and computer technicians, between historians and archivists, between the hand made and the machine made.

This article argues that sentiment analysis offers a new and highly productive method of interrogating archival metadata, and that, as a method which privileges emotive understandings of content, it is particularly appropriate to the study of feminist archives like Greer’s. It also argues that these kinds of detailed finding aids are new datasets that reward analysis in their own right, and particularly when considered in dialogue with—rather than simply used as straightforward navigational tools for—the ‘original’ archival content.     

The Uses of History in a Hospital Library

This article highlights the contribution that historical information can make to the depth and interest of current medical practice and scholarship. Included are some suggested historical resources that may help shed light on a project's medical and scientific antecedents.     

JOURNALISTS IN THE MAKING

Rapid change in the news industry and the prevalence of layoffs, buyouts, and closings have led many newsworkers to experience job insecurity and worry about their long-term futures in journalism. Our research uses a case study of employees at an independently owned media company in the United States to explore the various ways newsworkers respond to this culture of job insecurity and how their responses affect efforts to change news practices. Findings demonstrate that those who believe their jobs are at risk are unlikely to change their practices and even some who perceive job security are reticent to initiate change. As a result, the culture of job insecurity in the news industry has a limiting effect on changes to journalism practice.     

WHO NEEDS OR DELIVERS DIVERSITY TRAINING?

This article engages with key questions concerning diversity training issues and trends related to media professionals in contemporary Europe. It draws on interviews with 68 senior journalists and media professionals working in six Member States of the European Union. The study on which this article is based included interview questions on four aspects of ethno-cultural diversity in European media (content, recruitment, newsmaking and training), for which interviewees were asked to comment generally and in respect of their own media organisations. This particular article focuses on responses given to questions about diversity training. On the whole, our research finds considerable variation across Member States in terms of opportunities provided for diversity training yet also that interviewees (in the main) are broadly supportive of it, if somewhat hesitant about its implementation and likely effects.

For a full explanation of the methodology of the research project, please see the introduction in this themed section: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2012.740213.     

NEWS ACCURACY IN SWITZERLAND AND ITALY

Nearly 80 years of accuracy research in the United States has documented that the press frequently errs, but empirical study about news accuracy elsewhere in the world is absent. This article presents an accuracy audit of Swiss and Italian daily regional newspapers. Replicating US research, the study offers a trans-Atlantic perspective of news accuracy. To compare newspaper accuracy in Switzerland and Italy to longitudinal accuracy research in the United States, the study followed closely the methodology pioneered by Charnley (1936) and adapted by Maier (2005). News sources found factual inaccuracy in 60 percent of Swiss newspaper stories they reviewed, compared to 48 percent of US and 52 percent of Italian newspapers examined. The results show that newspaper inaccuracy—and its corrosive effect on media credibility—transcends national borders and journalism cultures. Nowadays, digitization offers new ways of implementing correction policies. Media organizations need, however, to adapt to these changes and to adapt their structures in particular to new forms of participative and interactive two-way communication.     

CHICANA/O STUDENT JOURNALISTS MAP OUT A CHICANA/O JOURNALISM PRACTICE

Research documenting the media under-representation of people of color indicates that unless journalists re-imagine the way they report on communities of color, those growing segments may be left without a stake in the “public imaginary.” In this paper, I suggest that journalism educators turn their attention to Chicano/a student journalists in order to begin the process of re-envisioning newsgathering and writing in ways that more accurately depict and inform Latino/a communities. Driven by a collaboration between myself and undergraduate student producers of Venceremos, a bilingual Chicano/a student publication at a western state university, this paper builds a case for why these student journalists are an important source of knowledge and inspiration for journalism educators concerned with improving mainstream coverage of diverse communities. The essay also summarizes my association with the Venceremos staff in order to model how journalism educators can team up with alternative student journalists and it demarcates traits that typify their evolving Chicano/a journalism practice.     

COZY JOURNALISM

In recent years applications like CoveritLive have diffused with great speed throughout online newsrooms. Such technologies create an interface where audience participation and journalistic reporting potentially merge into a text-production system marked by a high degree of immediacy and interactivity. This paper investigates the consequences of such practices for the professional ideology of journalism. What norms and ideals do journalists who initiate and partake in such practices adhere to? To what degree does their practice conflict with traditional ideals of journalistic reporting? The paper analyses the “live” coverage of football matches in the two most popular Norwegian online newspapers, VG Nett and dagbladet.no. The findings suggest that the merger of audience participation and immediacy creates conflicts of ideals for the journalists involved, and that ideals of subjectivity and social cohesion are promoted by such practices of journalism.     

JOURNALISM EMBRACING ADVERTISING AS TRADITIONAL JOURNALISM DISCOURSE BECOMES MARGINAL

The border between journalism and marketing communication is diminishing and media such as television and magazines are especially vulnerable to the colonisation of traditional journalistic genres by promotional information. From the point of view of audience perception, grouping certain media channels or discourses into “journalistic” and others into “promotional” or “mixed” would provide a certain level of predictability, as well as a basis for their judgement of information. However, we argue here that category confusion takes place even inside sub-sectors of niche magazines. The objective of this international comparative research is to analyse the editorial ideologies and discursive practices concerning the hybridisation of media discourse in one media sector: the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events (MICE) sub-sector of niche magazines. Can these magazines be identified as “journalistic”, “advert” or “mixed” oriented media? The empirical research is focused on the production process (the implementation of editorial principles) in key MICE magazines mainly in European countries.     

THE PROMISE OF COMPUTATIONAL JOURNALISM

Computational journalism involves the application of software and technologies to the activities of journalism, and it draws from the fields of computer science, the social sciences, and media and communications. New technologies may enhance the traditional aims of journalism, or may initiate greater interaction between journalists and information and communication technology (ICT) specialists. The enhanced use of computing in news production is related in particular to three factors: larger government datasets becoming more widely available; the increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous nature of software; and the developing digital economy. Drawing upon international examples, this paper argues that computational journalism techniques may provide new foundations for original investigative journalism and increase the scope for new forms of interaction with readers. Computational journalism provides a major opportunity to enhance the production of original investigative journalism, and to attract and retain readers online.