News with Views: Postobjectivism and Emergent Alternative Journalistic Practices in America's Corporate News Media (original) (raw)

Changing practices of journalism

2011

Those who consider democracy as a fundamental principle for society have to monitor carefully the status of journalism. As we trust our elected politicians to represent us and our core interests in policy-related issues, we also attribute journalists a core position within that process. Journalism provides the necessary information to citizens to form opinions and to take decisions. Journalism is therefore a key element in democratic societies since journalists have the moral and ethical duty to provide correct and relevant information, and to analyze factual information in context within a critical perspective. In that perspective, the media as representatives of the Fourth Estate, have the obligation to monitor public affairs and to make sure that political or business elites do not cross the borders of their power. In addition to these tasks and functions, as Peter Dahlgren succinctly adds, the democratic role of journalism should even go beyond the information provision and watchdog function: 'It must also touch us, inspire us and nourish our daily democratic horizons' (Dahlgren 2009: 146). In recent years, the journalistic field was challenged by a number of critical developments, among which the ongoing diffusion of interactive technologies, digitization of messages and convergence of media formats are clearly some of the most crucial ones. According to new media proponents, interactive media applications clearly democratize representation by making it a more direct relationship: as citizens gain access to inexpensive communication technologies the gatekeeping monopoly once enjoyed by editors and broadcasters is waning (Gurevitz et al. 2009; Coleman 2005). The Internet has indeed shifted communication to a much more personalized level, and both media and politicians are forced to address more channels in order to compete for the attention of a more fragmented audience, as well as target their messages to more fragmented groups than ever before. Therefore, the new media applications could be called the Fifth Estate, since they possess several key distinctive and important characteristics such as the ability to support institutions and individuals to enhance their 'communicative power' with opportunities to network within and beyond various institutional arenas, and the provision of capabilities that enable the creation of networks of individuals which have a public, social benefit (e.g. through social networking websites) (Dutton 2008). At the same time, however, although there are major changes in the consumption of news and information (Meijer 2006; Mindich 2004; Jenkins 2006), a large majority of the public in many European countries still counts on traditional and professional media for information on political, cultural, economic and societal issues. Indeed, the Internet may have admitted an impressive number of alternative information channels, and the public may have been attributed with more access than ever before to participate in the news production cycle, but traditional journalists in traditional news media still keep their role as main gatekeepers (Domingo et al. 2008). Dynamics of Journalistic Professionalization: Who Are the Professional Journalists Then and Now? Any observer of recent developments and challenges in the media sphere, who keeps a detached and

The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered

2016

This collection of original essays brings a dramatically different perspective to bear on the contemporary "crisis of journalism." Rather than seeing technological and economic change as the primary causes of current anxieties, The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered draws attention to the role played by the cultural commitments of journalism itself. Linking these professional ethics to the democratic aspirations of the broader societies in which journalists ply their craft, it examines how the new technologies are being shaped to sustain value commitments rather than undermining them. Recent technological change and the economic upheaval it has produced are coded by social meanings. It is this cultural framework that actually transforms these "objective" changes into a crisis. The book argues that cultural codes not only trigger sharp anxiety about technological and economic changes, but provide pathways to control them, so that the democratic practices of independent journalism can be sustained in new forms. jeffrey c. alexander is a leading social theorist who helped create the contemporary field of cultural sociology. He has written and edited dozens of books, among them The Meanings of Social Life, Trauma: A Social Theory, Performance and Power, The Civil Sphere, The Dark Side of Modernity, and Obama Power (with Bernadette Jaworsky). His books and articles have won various national and international awards. elizabeth butler breese is a sociologist who works with highgrowth technology and education companies. She has published media, public sphere, and celebrity research in several sociology and communications journals and has been called on to comment on social media trends in The New York Times, Wired, and AdAge. She is currently Marketing Director at Panorama Education. maría luengo is Associate Professor of Journalism at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, where she teaches and conducts research in the areas of media theory and journalism. Her work interprets developments at the nexus of social trends and movements, gender, migration, and journalistic culture and practice. She has published widely in the fields of journalism and media studies and co-authored Periodismo social (Social Journalism) with Juana Gallego (Síntesis 2014). Her research has appeared in Journalism Studies, Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Communication & Society, and Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, among others.