The study “Visual representations of community in scholastic photojournalism: A thematic analysis of award-winning photographs from the national scholastic press association’s photo of the year contest” by Leslie Klein from University of Georgia looked at the understudied aspect of photojournalism: student photojournalists. It did so by analyzing qualitatively 229 photographs from the National Scholastic Press Association’s Photo of the Year Contest.
Student photojournalism plays a role in the construction of the collective memory of the school and the winners in student photojournalism competitions are conferred cultural capital even if the actual monetary rewards are modest if not nonexistent. However, the awards themselves may guide (both in student photojournalism and professional photojournalism) the photos to be of certain style in order to win awards and thus reduce the diversity of the photos,
The data for the study was taken from Photo of the Year individual award winners and honorable mentions from National Scholastic Press Association. The photos were available from 2009 onwards along with judges’ comments. Both news and feature photos were analyzed.
The most common theme in the photos was connection. This includes photos where people support each other in grief or cheer their sports team. It was notable that even photos about tragedies chose to showcase connection and community instead of the tragedy itself. Similarly, collaboration was a theme – the students were more likely to be pictured working together than by themselves.
Finally, citizenship was a consistent theme from 2009 to 2022, with the students being shown as citizens of their local communities and of the nation as a whole. All these themes differ from what is rewarded and newsworthy in professional photojournalism: the latter show much more photos showing bad news, adversity and despair.
In conclusion, the author speculates that the preponderance of positive themes may indicate that there might be pressure on the students only to cover positive aspects of the school, meaning self-censorship when covering negative aspects. All in all, student photography differed from professional photography in that the news valued that were central were different – for example, timeliness was the most central value for professional photojournalism but not for student photojournalism.
The article “Visual representations of community in scholastic photojournalism: A thematic analysis of award-winning photographs from the national scholastic press association’s photo of the year contest” by Leslie Klein is in Journalism (free abstract).
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]]>The study “‘Softballs’ for ‘Hardballs’: The congenial political interview on right-wing partisan TV news outlets” by Marianna Patrona from Hellenic Army Academy used a conversation-analytic approach to analyze political interviewing of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon in right-wing media.
According to the author, the public watchdog role of the media is played out especially in the context of political news interviewing. Most of the research on the topic has focused on adversarial interviewing, where politicians are held accountable by the media taking the role of an inquisitor.
Collaborative and deferential interviewing has been explored less, and this article seeks to fill that gap in the research. The context here is the surge of right-wing populism and the increasingly legitimated political and discursive bias in news channels.
The data for the analysis comes from four political interviews in Fox News and GB News, from the U.S. and Great Britain, respectively. GB News has been considered the counterpart of Fox and the interviews were hosted by Nigel Farage.
According to the analysis, the interviews in GB took the form of a friendly chat, as demonstrated by numerous agreements in speech, both in extended form and through interjections of agreement like “yeah/yes” and demonstrations of active listening “hmm, mm”. Farage also allows Trump to talk about his golf course and other topics of his liking without interruption, even if they were not asked about.
Similarly, Farage allows Bannon to have lengthy monologues on the supposed corruption of the British mainstream media. There is a marked lack of disagreement and adversarialness, which may stem from the role of the host as both an interviewer and a right-wing political whose politics are in line with the subjects.
The Trump interview on Fox News similarly was friendly in tone – although the interviewer Sean Hannity did sometimes interrupt or steer the conversation, but only to face-saving topics for the interviewee, where he was allowed to address claims against him and explain them in detail. Here, the style can be characterized as “softball questioning for image repair”.
In conclusion, the analysis has shown congenial interviewing strategies on allied news channels. The marked lack of adversarial questioning replicated conversational dynamics of friendly conversation. The changes present evidence for a paradigm shift from adversarial questioning and from the task of accountability in journalism.
The article “‘Softballs’ for ‘Hardballs’: The congenial political interview on right-wing partisan TV news outlets” by Marianna Patrona is in Journalism. (free abstract).
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]]>This is a guest post by Edwin Nfor, a doctoral student in University of Jyväskylä.
The study “(Pragmatic) collaboration for progress or threat to autonomy? African news discourses about Chinese technology in Nigeria and Ghana” by Dennis Nguyen , Bei Wang and Bruce Mutsvairo from the Utrecht University, The Netherlands studied the multifaceted portrayal of China in African media, particularly its role in digital technology development.
It emphasizes the importance of understanding African perspectives on Chinese technology initiatives and advocates for empirical studies in this area. The African media landscape, diverse and evolving, increasingly values press freedom and independent voices, influenced by rapid political and economic changes across the continent.
Methodologically, the study adopts a critical comparative view of journalistic traditions in media discourse analysis. It considers news media discourses as aggregators of communication on specific topics and explores the concept of “discourse cultures,” which connect cultural patterns with social practices and political norms, shaping media discourses within specific socio-cultural and political frameworks.
An Afrocentric approach is advocated for analyzing technology discourses in African media, acknowledging Africans as active participants and challenging misrepresentations. The study focuses on news framing analysis, examining how African media portray China’s technological role, the associated benefits and risks, and the dominant actors in these discourses.
Empirical analysis is conducted on Nigerian and Ghanaian news media, revealing various emphasis frames in China-related technology coverage. Topics such as developmental collaboration, cybersecurity, education initiatives, and geopolitical competition with the West are prominent. Huawei emerges as a significant actor, particularly in education and technology transfer initiatives.
The sentiment in technology news about China is predominantly positive, although nuances exist. The coverage fluctuates over time, influenced by geopolitical events and domestic developments. Risks and ethical challenges of digital technology are addressed to a limited extent, with cybersecurity concerns being the most discussed issue.
Key actors in media discourses include local politicians, governmental organizations, and foreign technology companies, with Huawei being the most frequently mentioned. The analysis underscores the complexity of African perspectives on China’s technological involvement, with nuanced views shaped by cultural, political, and economic factors.
The findings suggest that Nigerian and Ghanaian news media offer a multifaceted view of China and digital technology, fluctuating between local, regional, and global trajectories. China is acknowledged as a vital technology power, setting global trends and providing alternatives to Western innovation, with Huawei playing multiple roles in technology transfer, education, development, and commerce across Africa.
However, the perception of China is not exclusively positive, with coverage touching upon allegations of espionage, clashes with Western governments, and concerns of dependence on Chinese investments as a risk to autonomy.
The study suggests that Ghanaian news tends to hold a more positive stance on collaboration with China, possibly influenced by News Ghana’s policy of amplifying Chinese perspectives for Ghanaian audiences. In contrast, the sampled Nigerian news appears more critical, reflecting an inherent ambiguity in assessments: China is welcomed for specific technological development projects but viewed critically regarding loans and debt, positioning the country simultaneously as an inspiration, a partner, and a potential risk.
The findings also indicate that most benefits of Sino-African collaborations are linked to economic growth and developmental progress, with ICT, AI, and other emerging digital technology trends considered key components in addressing inequality, raising living standards, and creating wealth. However, risks and ethical challenges of digital technology are rarely discussed, with cybersecurity issues, privacy risks, and disinformation through digital media being the most mentioned concerns.
Overall, the study provides valuable insights into African news discourses on China’s technology role, highlighting the nuanced and complex nature of African perspectives. It emphasizes the importance of considering contextual differences and challenges Eurocentric or Sinocentric analyses. It suggests that could expand the sample of African news outlets, incorporate ethnographic field research, and employ fine-grained framing analysis for a comprehensive understanding of African media discourses on Chinese technology initiatives.
The article “(Pragmatic) collaboration for progress or threat to autonomy? African news discourses about Chinese technology in Nigeria and Ghana” by Dennis Nguyen , Bei Wang and Bruce Mutsvairo is in Global Media and China, (open access).
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]]>Here is a list of all academic peer-reviewed articles, reports and other papers published in February 2024 about journalism research. The bolded titles have JRN articles written about the studies.
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The study “The impact of using person-centered language to reference stigmatized groups in news coverage” by Caroline Murray, Anita Varma and Natalie Jomini Stroud from University of Texas at Austin studied whether using person-centered language (such as “person with substance abuse disorder) rather than stigmatizing terms (such as “drug abuser”) improved trust towards journalism.
Past scholarship has shown that journalism has the tendency to perpetuate negative stereotypes. As journalistic organizations seek to find remedies, which likely will require systemic changes, a simple partial remedy would be the use of person-centered language, rather than disorder-first language.
Despite the positive intentions, person-centered language is not entirely without controversy. Some disability advocates opt for “identity first” language, where the shared ‘disorder’ or feature is proudly presented in front due to the shared culture of the people who share the disorder or feature. This is famously the case of deaf identity.
In the case of autism, the opinions are more mixed – with some advocating for identity-first language (“autistic person”) and others rejecting it in favor of person-centered language (“person with autism”). Nevertheless, in some cases, person-centered language is seen as a positive remedy against stereotypes and called for by academics, although sometimes the real world effects are questioned, such as is the case with homelessness.
Person-centered language was also advocated for by a journalistic guide published by the Marshall Project in 2021, but due to the pushback from many people with disabilities, they no longer stipulate it as a default and emphasizes personal preferences – but there remains scant empirical research on the impact of either language variant that this study addresses.
The study by the authors was a 3 (group: substance use disorder, homelessness, disability) × 2 (stigmatizing terms or person-centered terms) between-subjects experiment. The participants were recruited CloudResearch and organizational outreach, for a total of 339 U.S.-based participants. The sample included 90 people with a disability, 114 people who had experienced homelessness, and 135 people in recovery from substance use disorder.
Most of the participants were white, over eighty percent, with males and females roughly evenly split. Some respondents were removed from the analysis due to providing the same answers for contradictory questions or for spending too little or too much time on the survey etc.. The total was the aforementioned 339.
The news articles used as the stimuli in the study were based on real articles by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Fast Company, and WWMT-TV in Michigan. The articles varied on whether person-centered language was used or not.
The stigmatizing term for substance abuse was “drug abuser(s)” while the person-centered term was “[person/people] with substance use disorder”. For homelessness, they were “homeless person/the homeless” and “person/people without housing”. In disability, they were “disabled person/the disabled” and “person/people with disabilities”.
The measures were trust in the news article (fair, tells the whole story, can be trusted), trust in the journalist (I would trust this journalist to tell my story, I would feel comfortable sharing my personal experiences with this journalist). There were also measures on representation and collective public self esteem measuring how people affected by the term felt about the article.
First of all, the authors found out that the participants overwhelmingly preferred the person-centered language over stigmatizing terms. The participants trusted the news articles using person-centered terms marginally more, but there was no impact on trust towards the journalist.
There was also no difference in how represented the participants felt based on language used (apart from the substance abuse group), but there was higher collective public self esteem coming with person-centered language. However, there was no difference in the intention to engage.
The authors speculate on why the substance abuse group felt more represented, but we at the JRN speculate that the terms there contrasted the strongest, with the stigmatizing term being clearly pejorative, unlike in the other two.
Trust was marginally, but nevertheless improved with person-centered language, which was one of the main findings along with the fact that the person-centered language supported stronger collective public self esteem.
The article “The impact of using person-centered language to reference stigmatized groups in news coverage” by Caroline Murray, Anita Varma and Natalie Jomini Stroud is in Journalism. (open access).
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]]>The study “News media heeding call to reduce reporting names of mass shooters” by Thomas J. Hrach from The University of Memphis looked at whether the news media has heeded the demand to not report the names of mass shooters.
The issue of reporting the names of mass shooters is contentious. On the one hand, news media generally seek to present as much information as thoroughly as is concisely possible, but on the other hand, the public, lawmakers and victims’ rights advocates seek to argue that this may create a “contagion effect” and encourage more mass shootings.
The previous literature on the issue has centered on three topics. First is the research on media’s procedures and routines. Second is the research on the causes of mass shootings and the contagion effect. Third is research on how the media frames the coverage of mass shootings.
The research questions were as follows, straight from the study:
“RQ1:
Is there a connection between the number of people killed in U.S. mass shootings from 1999 to 2021 to the number of news articles where the perpetrator’s name is used within a week of the shooting?
RQ2:
Has the number of news articles where the perpetrators’ name is used within a week of a U.S. mass shooting changed in any period from 1999 to 2021?
RQ3:
Is there a connection between the number of news articles where the perpetrators’ name is used within a week of a U.S. mass shooting and whether perpetrators die in the attack?”
The method was that a list of mass shootings was compiled from available archives, with three deadlies (as defined by people killed) shootings were chosen for each year of analysis from 1999 to 2021. Then, the names of the perpetrators were searched from Newsbank. The units of analysis, finally, were single news articles (N=62249).
The data showed that the number of casualties correlated positively with the mentions of the name of the shooter in all years from 1999 to 2021. Thus, the answer t RQ1 is yes. In answering RQ2, it was first found out that there was no difference from 1999 to 2021, but looking closer, there was a decline from 2012 to 2021 – so the answer is also yes – declined from 2012 to 2021 and projected to continue to decline.
However, perpetrators dying in the attack did not mean fewer news articles, thus the answer to RQ3 is no – there is no correlation.
In conclusion, the research showed that there was indeed a strong correlation with the number of people killed and the mentions of the names of the shooters throughout the time period. It seemed that 2012 was a turning point year when news media started to heed the call to avoid mentioning the names of the shooters, as starting from then the mentions have declined. One such campaign was the #NoNoteriety campaign from parents of two people killed in Aurora, Colorado, who demanded that no names or photos of shooters be used.
The article “News media heeding call to reduce reporting names of mass shooters” by Thomas J. Hrach is in Newspaper Research Journal. (free abstract).
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]]>The study “What is populism anyway? Newspaper representations of populism in Spain and Italy between emptiness and political partisanship” by Carlo Berti, Arantxa Capdevila, and Carlota M. Moragas-Fernández, all from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, looked at the journalistic construction of populism within the polarized pluralist media system in South Europe.
There are debates about what populism is, in fact, with claims that it is either a thin-centred ideology, a political signifier, or simply a communication style. Nevertheless, several political parties have been identified as populist, both from the Left and the Right.
While academics debate, the research on how news media uses the concept of populism remains scarce – and this study is one to address this scarcity. Some recent research indicates that journalists tend to identify the Far Right as populist, but this research has focused on media in the liberal and democratic corporatist models of journalism, as per the classification by Hallin and Mancini (2004) that is prevalent in Northern Europe and the US.
Little research has been conducted on the polarized pluralist media prevalent in Southern Europe. This study analyzes the use of the concept of populism in Spain and Italy, both of which are in the polarized pluralist model and also that have populist forces not belonging to the Far Right.
There were four research questions, straight from the study: “RQ1: How is populism constructed and used in the news media in two countries belonging to the polarized pluralist model of journalism? RQ2: Are there major differences in the construction of populism in news media with different editorial lines and political orientations?
RQ3: Is there a degree of politicization of the concept of populism in a journalistic model characterized by weak professionalization and high political parallelism?
RQ4: What are the similarities and differences between the use of the concept of populism in the polarized pluralist model, and in other models of journalism?”
To answer these questions, the authors analyzed the media coverage of two recent national elections, in November 2019 in Spain and September 2022 in Italy. From each country, a sample of three newspapers was chosen. The Spanish newspapers were El País (liberal and centre-left), elDiario.es (left-wing, progressive), and La Razón (right-wing, conservative). From Italy, Il Corriere della Sera (liberal, centre), Il Fatto Quotidiano (close to the ideas of the Five Star Movement), and Il Giornale (right-wing, conservative).
Next, all articles containing the root populis* in the original languages and all the variations were downloaded. The authors focused on sentences, not entire articles, and the final sample had 455 articles (253 for Spain, 202 for Italy) and 588 units of analysis.
Negative connotations of populism were common, consistent with previous studies such as Bale et al., 2011; Hatakka and Herkman, 2022; Thornborrow et al., 2021. Positive connotations were rare. However, there were a number of instances which were neither positive nor negative. This, according to the authors should be considered together with the finding that populism lacks a link to a particular political orientation.
Thus, with populism not being linked to specific parties, the concept remains “empty” or “vague”. However, when a political orientation is linked to populism, the link is mainly to the Right, but the right-wing newspapers La Razón and Il Giornale associate it with the left or equally with both.
The defining features of the use of populism then are the emptiness and political partisanship. It is not always with a specific content, and often appears as a generic and vague term. It appears often as a “floating signifier” (De Cleen et al., 2018)., but is often, but not exclusively, linked to the far right.
In conclusion, the combination of vagueness and negativity to the concept of populism. The partisan media uses the concept to attack political opponents, with the negative connotation so strong that countering the claim often takes the form of attacking the definition rather than trying to define the concept positively. The use of empty label has consequences, as the media has framing power.
The article “What is populism anyway? Newspaper representations of populism in Spain and Italy between emptiness and political partisanship” by Carlo Berti, Arantxa Capdevila, and Carlota M. Moragas-Fernández is in Journalism. (free abstract).
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]]>Here is a list of all academic peer-reviewed articles, reports and other papers published in January 2024 about journalism research. The bolded titles have JRN articles written about the studies.
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The study “Avoiding News is Hard Work, or is it? A Closer Look at the Work of News Avoidance among Frequent and Infrequent Consumers of News” by Stephanie Edgerly from Northwestern University explored the experiences of both frequent and infrequent news consumers when avoiding news.
News avoidance is an interesting concept in today’s world, when opportunities to consume news are everywhere yet many people still consume news only a little or even not at all. These people are often referred to as news avoiders.
In addition, there is a growing percentage of people who self-report avoiding news – worldwide 36% sometimes or often avoid news, up from 28% in 2017. However, some other studies have found that those who “often” or “sometimes” avoid news consume quite a bit of news nevertheless.
This study sheds more light on the reasons for news avoidance by conducting 45 qualitative interviews on people from the US State of Illinois. They were asked about their experiences with news avoidance and whether they found it difficult or easy. It was found out that news avoidance was difficult for others and easy for others.
The interviewees were classified as frequent and infrequent news users. For infrequent news users, For infrequent users, news avoidance plays a common part in their lives, but often they have quite extensive routines to avoid news on the media they consume. However, many also expressed that it is quite easy to avoid news – as they do not encounter them on social media feeds or discuss it with acquaintances.
For some others, avoidance was more deliberate and required planning. For example, the 61-year old Janet had extensive knowledge of TV schedules so she could avoid news but receive weather forecasts that she was interested in. She muted and unmuted the television in accordance to whether the content was of interest and found other things to do.
For infrequent users, news avoidance was still not absolute. They would not seek the news, but the news would appear on feeds and other places. Some others expressed that news were simply impossible to avoid.
Among frequent users, the group was split evenly by those who said it was easy and those who said it was difficult. Those who said it was easy did it mostly for the reasons involving their own mental health and emotional state – usually there was a tipping point, then break, then they would get back to news.
The ones who found it difficult pointed to the ubiquitous nature of news to make a case why avoidance was difficult. For this group, certain spaces and situations, such as social media sites, were central to their lives. Identity was a second factor – many frequent users considered it a patriotic duty to stay informed, so avoidance would have contrasted with it.
In conclusion, the author states that news avoidance is first about controllability, and second, embedded in larger patterns of media use that vary between individuals. Third, she concluded that even when easy, it required work – either managing social connections or identity work.
The article “Avoiding News is Hard Work, or is it? A Closer Look at the Work of News Avoidance among Frequent and Infrequent Consumers of News” by Stephanie Edgerly is in Journalism Studies. (free abstract).
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]]>The study “Mob Censorship Revisited: Questions, Findings, and Challenges” by Silvio Waisbord from George Washington University looked at the issue of mob censorship and digital harassment against journalists by reviewing studies on the issue.
There is often a power discrepancy in mob censorship, as the parties behind the targeting of journalists tend to be the political elite or other parties with vast technological means, while journalists targeted tend to be isolated and lonely. There is also the issue of “intersectionality of harassment” – minority and women journalists tend to be targeted more, which may in turn even affect representation in newsrooms.
Even among various forms of violence and harassment against journalists, mob censorship has been considered a “game changer” as the attacks are pervasive and may occur at any time. It occurs at the same time as digital visibility is even more important for journalists – but so too, is the importance of safety.
The effects are both system-wide and personal. As mentioned, minority journalists may opt to stay out of the field or silence themselves, and personally, journalists are forced to take measures against it such as filtering their messages and blocking and muting accounts.
Responses vary between countries, between organizations, and between individuals. Overall, the responses by news corporations and digital organizations have been slow. In some countries, there are “connective responses” that go beyond the individual, as shown in the study by Kantola and Harju (2023).
The various articles in this issue of Digital Journalism address the issue in places like the UK or Latin America, showing how journalists seek to form support networks against mob censorship and harassment. In militaristic societies, journalists may mention their military service or other forms legitimacy to maintain their professional, patriotic image.
In conclusion, the issue in Digital Journalism offers numerous viewpoints on the issue, and the article in question concludes that the issue needs to be seen as a collective, social problem to develop effective countermeasures.
The article “Mob Censorship Revisited: Questions, Findings, and Challenges” by Silvio Waisbord is in Digital Journalism. (open access).
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