Journalism

Canberra.


The first paper session at ANZCA 2010 starts with a presentation by Tim Marjoribanks, whose interest is in media representations of Sudanese people in Australia. He begins by pointing to the societal context of debates over discrimination against African Australians; the Australian Human Rights Commission reported on this recently and found evidence of discrimination and resultant social exclusion across many aspects of their lives. Negative representations in the mainstream media were partly blamed for this, too. The experiences of Sudanese people living in Australia have been especially highlighted in this context, especially also as they are the largest groups of humanitarian arrivals from Africa into Australia.

Canberra.


After yesterday's CCI Symposium, I've made the trip down to frosty Canberra for this year's ANZCA conference. We start this morning with the first conference keynote, by John Durham Peters, who begins by considering democracy as a political category - for a very long time, it has been seen as an impossible and preposterous, so for it to be seen as a sine qua non is remarkable.

There are various obstacles to democracy, of course: chiefly, scale and human nature. For the ancient Greeks, democracy had to be small - even Athens was seen as too large, and democracy was thought to be able to be workable only if all participants were able to get to know one another personally. For Plato, the ideal number of citizens for a functioning democracy was precisely 5040, in fact. At the same time, small size was also seen as making democracy unsustainable. So, democracy was seen as most workable where citizens could meet one another in political assemblies.

With the Internet Turning 40 and International Communication Association conferences completed, I'm briefly back in Brisbane, before setting off for the Australia/New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) conference in Canberra next week (hopefully with a recharged audio recorder!).

In the meantime, here's a quick update on some new publications I've been involved in - a number of my recent book chapters on a range of topics have now been published:

First, with a chapter on "News Blogs and Citizen Journalism" in e-Journalism: New Media and News Media I'm introducing my work on gatewatching and citizen journalism to an Indian readership - the book was edited by Kiran Prasad, who was my office mate at the University of Leeds while I was there in 2007 to do some research for the produsage book, and was published by B.R. Publishing in Delhi. I don't think the publisher actually has a Website - but there's a good overview of the collection at Cyberjournalist, and it also includes contact details for BR Publishing.

Singapore.


The day at ICA 2010 ends with the ICA Presidential Address by Barbie Zelitzer, who will focus on journalism studies as a component of the overall discipline of communication research, at a time when both journalism and the discipline face significant challenges. Journalism's centrality to communication is embedded in communication's historical narratives - while parts of communication date back to rhetoric and other fields, there is a strong affinity between journalism and communication. Both were projects born in and of modernity; journalism pursues truth and offers criticism and rationality as key elements, champions reason and free choice, and is committed to progress, democracy, and individuality.

Singapore.


The next speaker at ICA 2010 is C.W. Anderson, whose interest is in debates over the US shield law for journalists. Can we see a process of professional boundary maintenance in this (protecting definitions of who is and isn't a journalist)? The shield law debate emerged from questions about what legal protections were available to journalists who were suppoenaed to release information gathered from confidential sources; the law would protect journalists and their sources and grant them immunity from particular forms of prosecution.

Singapore.


The next speaker at ICA 2010 is Salim Al-Habash (?), presenting on behalf of the paper's actual authors. He begins by noting the large number of blogs now in existence; some 44% of online news users have their pages customised to include news sites; 75% of Americans get news via email and social network sites; 51% share their news in this way, and 52% get news from their followers on social network sites. We can also categorise types of blogging: founder/manager (single-authored blogs); hybrid sites (volunteers, part-timers, outside participation); and open sites (overseen by administrators).

Singapore.


OK, after my break from proceedings I'm back for my final ICA 2010 session today, which starts with Donna Stephens. She begins with the view that one of the functions of the media is the civic exchange of ideas - orchestrated for example through the letters to the editor pages. Today, blogs have taken over some of that role, and enabled a more instant form of feedback and conversation - however, they are also different: more anonymous, better controllable by the poster, and more immediate.

Also, few people write letters to the editor, while opinion exchange through blogs may happen at a greater volume or continue for longer than in the mainstream media. Blogs no longer follow the media agenda, too, but occasionally set it as well. But what is the difference in content between the two? This study compared letters to the editor to an Arkansas newspaper with comments on the general blog of another statewide newspaper, in each case relating to an (at first secret) $300,000 bonus payment for the University of Central Arkansas president Lu Hardin, and the events following these revelations through to Hardin's resignation.

Singapore.


The second paper in this ICA 2010 session is by Wolfgang Donsbach, who begins by outlining three broad traditions of journalism: the subjective tradition (pursuing individual goals), the public service tradition, and the commercial tradition. Each can be characterised along a number of criteria (goals, dominant relationships, prototypes, dominant values, dominant content, and the journalist's role).

In his view, the public service tradition - selecting relevant and verified information - is the crucial one for journalism, but it is now under threat: from within the media, through the tabloidisation of content (increasing levels of pop politics, personalisation, scandalisation and sensationalism, negativity) and the attendant changes in format (growing emotionalisation, fragmentation and sound bites, a race to maximise audience reach, and bottom line pressures on journalists). Journalists increasingly complain about bottom line pressures and about how frequently their content is changed by others after filing, for example.

Singapore.


I'm afraid in the battle between lunch and the second plenary, lunch won out, so I'm skipping Ien Ang's keynote at ICA 2010, and jumping right to the first of the post-lunch sessions. I may miss some of those as well as I've got a few meetings in the afternoon, but we'll see how we go. We start the afternoon with a paper by Wiebke Loosen from the fabulous Hans-Bredow-Institut in Hamburg, whose interest is in the relationship between journalism and its audiences. One of the key issues here is the change in the sender/receiver relationship - always a complicated and paradoxical relationship (journalism provides a service and needs an audience, but that audience plays a subordinate role - journalists are often oriented more towards their colleagues than towards audiences).

Singapore.


The next speaker at ICA 2010 is Matthew Weber, who shifts our focus to online news and begins by noting the gradual decline of the traditional print news community and the rise of online news usage. Newspaper organisations - the news industry - form a community made up of individual populations of professionals, which compete with one another for users; within this, in turn, there are individual news organisations pursuing specific corporate strategies.

What effect does such strategy have over time? Strategic change can increase the likelihood of survival during periods of disruption; interorganisational linkages can provide economic and reputational benefits, and increase legitimacy; hyperlinks between organisations can be instrumental in this. News organisations make strategic choices on how to link and whom to link to; at times of change, this is a question especially of how to deal with new entrants.