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ARTICLE: The hybridity in journalistic cultures

Most comparative research on media systems and journalistic cultures has focused on advanced democracies only. In a new study, researchers analyzed journalistic role performance doing a content analysis for a total of 34 514 print news articles. The study included 19 countries located in Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia. Researchers analyzed … Continued


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ARTICLE: Communities in Israel making sense of extremist violence

How do cultural-level sense-making processes work in a highly conflictual case? Christian Baden and Yossi David, both of The Hebrew University Jerusalem, studied media coverage on Israeli president Reuven Rivlin’s interpretation of two lethal attacks by Jewish extremists on a Palestinian family and the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade in 2015. The authors compared coverage by … Continued


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ARTICLE: Practices of mobile journalism at Hindustan Times

Mobile journalism practices have provided new skills to and have also been time-consuming for journalists, Indian reporters state in a new study. Anoop Kumar and M. Shuaib Mohamed Haneef, both of Pondicherry University, India, gathered qualitative data by observing and interviewing journalists and editors at Hindustan Times, the second biggest English daily newspaper in India. … Continued


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ARTICLE: News photographers are depicted as “sidekicks”

News discourse depicts photojournalists as mere “support staff” for reporters, write Mary Angela Bock, Kyser Lough and Deepa Fadnis, all of University of Texas at Austin. The authors used discourse analysis to pick through the coverage of the dramatic, on-air murder of two journalists working on different sides of the camera. Two American journalists working … Continued


ARTICLE: Journalists’ self-branding on Twitter

Based on a quantitative content analysis, Ulrika Hedman, of University of Gothenburg, examines Swedish journalists’ Twitter account presentations. The focus of the analysis is on how the technological affordances of Twitter shape journalists’ self-branding and whether there are differences between groups of journalists. It seems that Swedish journalists use professional attributes, such as title and workplace, in … Continued


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ARTICLE: Institutional constraints cause varying forms of censorship towards critical journalism

Andrew Kennis of Universidad Iberoamericana, México, studied “whether institutional constraints are more powerful than standardized journalistic norms and practices in determining news content”, also looking at news media independence from poweful corporate and state interests in the United States. The author examines the theoretical tension between two models of media analysis – the indexing and … Continued


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ARTICLE: Most Kenyan journalists enjoy a fair amount of journalistic autonomy

Most Kenyan journalists feel they have freedom to decide what to include in news. Kioko Ireri, of United States International University Africa, conducted a survey in 2012-2013 with 504 Kenyan journalists working in various media, asking about news selection decisions, media freedom and autonomy. 59% of respondents believe there is enough media freedom in Kenya. … Continued



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ARTICLE: The relationships between PR and journalists in Germany

Relationships between journalists and PR practitioners are complex. Thomas Koch, of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Magdalena Obermaier and Claudia Riesmeyer, both of Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, conducted a survey to which 835 journalists and 601 public relations practitioners in Germany responded, looking at how public relations exerts power over journalists. The research studies six bases of … Continued


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ARTICLE: Lifestyle journalists are not all the same

The role conceptions of lifestyle journalists vary according to their specialization, Folker Hanusch, of University of Vienna, writes. The author surveyed 616 Australian lifestyle journalists over how important they saw certain aspects of their work. Hanusch’s study recognizes four professional role conceptions: the “Service Provider”, “Life Coach”, “Community Advocate” and the “Inspiring Entertainer”. Out of … Continued