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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of the ECREA Journalism Studies Section and 26th International Conference of Communication (CICOM) at University of Navarra, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
These Proceedings gather the research works presented to the Conference “Diversity of Journalisms: Shaping Complex Media Landscapes”, held in Pamplona (Spain), the 4th and 5th of July, 2011. This event was co-organised by ECREA Journalism Studies Section and the School of Communication of the University of Navarra. In the case of ECREA Journalism Studies Full information abot the conference at: http://www.journalismstudies.es/pamplona2011
CALL FOR PAPERS International Journalism Conference
Journalism Department, Faculty of Mass Communication, Ahram Canadian University (ACU) is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the international journalism conference ‘International Journalism and Decision-Making: Who Is In Charge?’ in Egypt, 15−16 April 2020.
International Journal of Communication| Report: 2012 and the Next Big Thing
The International Journal of Communication (IJoC) continues its successful progress, more than fulfilling the hopes that we had when we launched the journal in 2007. One of our goals was to demonstrate that an online-only, open access, Creative Commons licensed publication could manifest the highest standards of scholarly publishing. We believe that we have succeeded in meeting this goal, as evidenced by the growing number of submissions, the quality of the work that we publish, the generous cooperation of literally scores of colleagues around the world who assist us by reviewing articles, the large numbers of readers who visit our site, and, certainly not least, by the decision of the major social science indexing services-Thompson Reuters, EBSCO, and Elsevier, among others-to index our content. In brief, our numbers speak for themselves: IJoC has received submissions from 69 countries. For 2012, the top countries of origin are the United States (45%), India (8%), Spain (3%), China (2%), South Korea (2%), Germany (2%), Iran (2%), and the Netherlands (2%). Other countries from which we have received multiple submissions include Australia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The number of IJoC visitors and registered users has steadily increased. At the end of our first year, we had 1,481 registered users. This number has increased each year of publication-to 2,404 by the
Future of Journalism.pdf
The international symposium Communication in the Millennium has been organized since 2003 by scholars in Turkey and the United States, and each year the symposium organizers have noticed increasing interest in this academic event. Because of this interest, the cofounders and the organization committee of this symposium decided to form an association where both countries' scholars are represented.
What Makes Journalism “Excellent”? Criteria Identified by Judges in Two Leading Awards Programs
Canadian Journal of Communication, 2006
What does "excellence" mean in journalism? The literature reveals no universally agreed set of standards, and awards guidelines are often unclear. We interviewed judges in two leading Canadian print journalism awards programs, using a sequence of open-ended and ranking questions to probe their criteria of excellence in a way calculated to elicit not just the standards they felt should be applied but the standards they actually did apply. Judges mentioned a wide variety of criteria, including the social importance and impact of works of journalism. But only two values were affirmed consistently: writing style and reporting rigour.
NEWSREEL - New Skills for the Next Generation of Journalists - Research Report
2018
This report is the result of the first phase of the project “New skills by the next generation of journalists” funded by Erasmus+. The project is embedded in the action type “Strategic partnerships for higher education” and will run for three years until August 2020. Based on the results of our study and the work of other media scholars and professionals we believe, that knowledge of the fields of data journalism, collaborative journalism, innovative business models and journalism ethics will be essential for future journalists. Mastering any of these fields includes the need to observe trends critically, and decide what skills are important to secure journalistic standards and press freedom and what tools might be helpful for journalism to evolve further. Against this background, this report was set up to gain insight into the status quo of innovation in journalism and academic journalism education in four European countries with a focus on data journalism, collaborative journalism, innovative business models and ethical challenges of the digital public sphere. The project team consists of journalism and media scholars from the University of Pécs (Hungary), the Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism (Germany), the Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (Portugal) and the University of Bucharest (Romania). Interviews with 25 journalism educators and 21 leading journalists working in at least in one of our four fields from Romania, Hungary, Germany and Portugal were conducted between February and May 2018. Our benchmarking research has shown that journalism education as well as the progress of journalism regarding our four fields is quite different in the four countries, but there are also many similarities. For each of the four participating countries our research design included (1) an analysis of the curricula of six selected journalism programmes at public and private universities and universities of applied sciences, (2) in-depth interviews with representatives from the six chosen programmes, and (3) in-depth interviews with five to six journalists who are experienced at least in one of our four fields. The interviews were conducted between February and May 2018. In the coming phases of our project we will develop teaching materials for the above mentioned four fields. These courses will then be given at the participating universities and institutes as a pilot teaching activity. In the final phase of our project in 2020 an international cross-border investigative project based on data journalism techniques and involving students from all four participating institutions will be organised. In addition, a glossary of key terms and a teacher’s guide will be developed. All educational materials produced by the project will be made openly and freely accessible through open licenses via the project’s website http://newsreel.pte.hu/ in English.
International Association for Media and Communication Research IAMCR 2016 Audience Section
Currently journalism faces challenges with a range of versatile tenets.
Research Methodologies Applied to Journalism: A study of the papers presented in
SBPJor (2003-2007)
Brazilian Journalism Research, 2016
In this article we analyze the 509 papers that have been presented at conferences from the Brazilian Association of Researchers in Journalism (SBPJor) between 2003 and 2007. The analysis was made from four reference categories: 1) types of research, 2) formal standardization, 3) kind of methodological matrices and 4) level of training of authors. The goal is to identify the level of professionalization of specialized journalism studies, highlighting the types of research and manuals, theoretical influences and predominant methodological matrices. Among the main results, we note the predominance of doctor authors and of empirical research. We also note the lack of suitability for formal standardization. RESUMO-Neste artigo analisamos os 509 trabalhos que foram apresentados em congressos da Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores em Jornalismo (SBPJor) entre 2003 e 2007. As análises foram feitas a partir de quatro categorias de referência: 1) tipos de pesquisa, 2) padronização formal, 3) tipo de matrizes metodológicas e 4) nível de formação dos (as) autores (as). O objetivo é identificar o nível de profissionalização dos estudos especializados em jornalismo, destacando os tipos de pesquisa e de manuais, as influências teóricas e as matrizes metodológicas predominantes. Dentre os principais resultados, ressaltamos a predominância de autores doutores e de pesquisas empíricas. Observamos também a falta de adequação à padronização formal.
diversityof
Conference proceedings (cicom+ecrea
Ramón Salaverría(ed)
84-8081-082-3 ISBN
(
journalisms
Diversity of Journalisms.
Proceedings of the ECREA Journalism Studies Section and
26th International Conference of Communication (CICOM)
at University of Navarra, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Ramón Salaverría (ed.)
2
Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra
Carretera del Sadar s/n
31080 Pamplona (SPAIN)
http://www.unav.es/servicio/publicaciones/
Cover design: María Egúzkiza
Production: Publicón - Grupo Ulzama
Conference web address: http://www.journalismstudies.eu/pamplona2010
These Proceedings have been published with the help of the research project “Evolución de los cibermedios
españoles en el marco de la convergencia. Multiplataforma e integración periodística” [The Development
of Spanish Cybermedia in the Convergence Context: Multiplatforms and Journalistic Integration] (ref.:
CSO2009-13713-C05-03), funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain).
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of the ECREA Journalism Studies Section and 26th International
Conference of Communication (CICOM) at University of Navarra, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011, edited by
Ramón Salaverría, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported License.
ISBN: 84-8081-082-3
Published in Pamplona, June 2011
3
Index
Presentation ........................................................................................................ 8
Papers (sorted by main author’s surname) ....................................................... 11
News Continuity in On-Air and Online Broadcasts on General-Interest
Radio Stations in Spain: Analyzing the Three Main Midday News
Stories in the 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 Seasons
Avelino Amoedo, María del Pilar Martínez-Costa & Elsa Moreno ..................... 11
Towards Converging Media Structures?
Bernd Blöbaum, Eva Kanthack & Hannah Middendorf ..................................... 24
Maps of the Technologies Available in the Phases of the
Communication Process
María Ángeles Cabrera González, Pedro Antonio Rojo Villada & Ana
Isabel Bernal Triviño........................................................................................... 41
Follow-Up of Two Main Spanish Political Figures During a Month of
Campaigning Prior to Local Elections in May, 2011, Using NostrackerSystem
Francisco Campos Freire & María Dolores Fernandes del Pozo ...................... 59
News Games and Mobile Journalism: A Proposal for a Theoretical
Rapprochement
Milton Cappelletti Júnior .................................................................................... 72
The News Production Process about the U.S. Embassy Cables: How
‘The Guardian’, ‘The New York Times’ and ‘El País’ Covered and
Released the Documents Provided by WikiLeaks
Miguel Carvajal, José Alberto García Avilés & José Luis González Esteban ... 83
4
Getting Personal: Personification vs. Data-Journalism as an
International Trend in Reporting about Wikileaks
Andrea Czepek ................................................................................................... 94
Narratology of (online) news
Javier Díaz Noci ............................................................................................... 109
iPad Journalism with the Eyes of Editorial Staff and Readers
Merja Drake ...................................................................................................... 128
Mass Media and Multimedia Convergence: A Research Proposal for
Evaluation of Online Newspapers
Manuel de la Fuente, Germán Llorca, Lluís Codina & Javier Díaz Noci ......... 137
Changing Relations in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 2005-2010: A
Comparison of Coverage and Mutual Representation in Aruban,
Curaçaoan and Dutch Newspapers
Birgit G. H. Kreykenbohm ................................................................................ 152
The Journalistic Message within the Convergence Framework: A Case
Study Analysis of Hypertextual News Stories in Quality Online Media
Ainara Larrondo, Javier Díaz Noci & Irati Agirreazkuenaga ............................ 164
Balance as a Source of Misinformation. A Study of the Coverage of the
Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change in the Spanish Press
Bienvenido León ............................................................................................... 182
The Diversity of Scholarship on Journalism. How Journalism Journals
Reflect Theories, Methods, and Topics of Journalism Research – a
Content Analysis (2008–2009)
Martin Löffelholz & Liane Rothenberger .......................................................... 197
5
Media and Journalists in Twitter: Corporatizing the Personal and
Personalizing the Professional (Preliminary Analysis)
Alberto López-Hermida Russo & Cecilia Claro Montes ................................... 211
A Multifaceted Study of Online News Diversity: Issues and Methods
Emmanuel Marty, Nikos Smyrnaios & Franck Rebillard .................................. 228
The Growing Impact of Video in Online News Genres
Samuel Negredo .............................................................................................. 243
Updating a Traditional Role? The AFP News Agency Confronted by the
Diversity of Challenges in the Digital Era
Jérémie Nicey ................................................................................................... 254
Content Analysis applied to Digital Media: A Comparison of News in
‘The Guardian’, ‘Clarín’, and ‘Asahi Simbun’
Javier Odriozola & Guillermo López................................................................. 261
European Representations of the Basque Sovereignist Plan
Cristina Perales, Ludivine Thouverez & Laura Filardo .................................... 270
Making Sense Out of Newspaper Humour – The Swine Flu Pandemic in
Portugal
Gonçalo Pereira Rosa ...................................................................................... 281
Online News Comments: A Sense of Community from an Ethical and
Legal Perspective
Carlos Ruiz, Javier Díaz Noci, Pere Masip, Josep Lluís Micó, David
Domingo & Koldo Meso.................................................................................... 299
Audience Participation Motivated by Media Politics: First Data About a
Newly Introduced Participatory TV Channel in Germany
Annika Sehl & Michael Steinbrecher ................................................................ 315
6
Tradition and Innovation in Online Journalistic Genres
Ana Serrano Tellería ........................................................................................ 338
The Development of Local Online Journalism in South-Western France:
the Case of ‘La Dépêche du Midi’
Nikos Smyrnaios & Franck Bousquet............................................................... 347
Verlagsgruppe Passau, Orkla Media and Mecom – Different Business
Strategies on Polish Press Market
Adam Szynol .................................................................................................... 359
Changing News Formats in Online Newspapers
Panu Uotila ....................................................................................................... 369
Convergence at Dutch Regional Newspapers: An Explorative Study
Marco van Kerkhoven & Piet Bakker ............................................................... 378
Abstracts ......................................................................................................... 390
List of authors ................................................................................................ 454
7
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Presentation
Journalism is undergoing times of change. Since the impact of digital
technologies in media markets around the mid 1990’s, this profession has
experienced fast and often sudden transformations.
This process has brought an increasing complexity to journalism exercise. In
the middle of a pre-existing media scene of newspapers, radio, television and
agencies, a new digital medium arises, mainly represented by the Web and
mobile platforms. Media companies have also undergone a deep
reconfiguration, marked by the redefinition of their traditional business models.
Journalists, the main figures of the information activity, have witnessed how
their profession has evolved in a context of a brisk replacement of technologies
and a new and more interactive relation with the audiences. Finally, the news
content has also experienced its own particular process of transformation, with
the arrival of new multimedia languages.
Briefly, in just a few years, the media landscape has been entirely reconfigured.
And, even though the process is far from being completed, it is certainly
noticeable the emergence of a new journalism with new professional profiles,
where the distinctive feature is, mainly, diversity.
In view of this new scenario, it is quite urgent to reconsider the academic
research on journalism. In order to deal with the growing complexity of media,
new approaches and specific methodologies become necessary. Furthermore,
8
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
it would be definitely essential to do so from an international perspective, thus
different research experiences could enrich one another.
These Proceedings gather the research works presented to the Conference
“Diversity of Journalisms: Shaping Complex Media Landscapes”, held in
Pamplona (Spain), the 4th and 5th of July, 2011. This event was co-organised by
ECREA Journalism Studies Section and the School of Communication of the
University of Navarra. In the case of ECREA Journalism Studies Section, one of
the thematic units of the European Communication Research and Education
Association, this was its second conference, after that one held in Winterthur
(Switzerland), 2009. As for the School of Communication of the University of
Navarra, this convention was the 26th edition of its International Conference of
Communication (CICOM), the most veteran academic congress in the field of
communication among all those hosted in a Spanish speaking country.
The Conference had a successful response. There were 133 papers proposals,
from nearly 30 different countries from all five continents. Due to organisational
purposes and inspired by the idea of reaching a high quality level of academic
contributions, the number of papers accepted for presentations during the
Conference was limited to 80. This selection was made by 30 international
reviewers, with a recognized experience as researchers in the field of
journalism and communication.
This volume is structured in three main parts: ‘Papers’, ‘Abstracts’ and a final
‘List of authors’.
The first part gathers 28 full text papers, submitted by authors to the
Conference organisation before the deadline established for reception of full
original texts. Papers are arranged alphabetically according to the last name of
first author.
The Abstracts section is a compilation of the 80 paper proposals that had a
positive evaluation by the international reviewers which collaborated in the
selection process. Papers are sorted in alphabetical order according to last
name of first author.
Finally, there is a list of contributors, which mentions all authors that submitted a
paper, either individually or collectively, together with their academic filiations
and the panel where the paper was scheduled to be presented. The reader will
notice how in certain cases, the papers’ mentions are followed by the
observation ‘resigned’; this note indicates that, days before the Conference, the
author of such paper informed the organisation about his/her intention of not
attending the event. Due to the particular difficulties of the editing process of
these Proceedings, which have been published days before the Conference, it
was impossible to remove those works that were finally non-presented.
9
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
On behalf of the Management Team of ECREA Journalism Studies section, I
wish to thank, first of all, the School of Communication of the University of
Navarra, for its valuable support to the organisation of this international event.
We are also very grateful for the collaboration of ECREA which, through its
academic networks, made possible the diffusion of the call for proposals for this
event and favoured its significant international response. We would also like to
give recognition to the generous and disinterested participation of the keynote
speakers of the different plenary panels: Aidan White, journalist and former
General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (1987-2011);
professor Maxwell McCombs, Jesse H. Jones Chair in Communications
(University of Texas at Austin, USA); Howard Tumber, editor of Journalism.
Theory, Practice and Criticism (SAGE Publications); Concha Edo, editor of
Text&Visual Media (Spanish Journalistic Society - SEP); Larry Gross, editor of
the International Journal of Communication and president of the International
Communication Association (ICA) in 2011-2012 (University of Southern
California); and Ana Azurmendi, editor of Comunicación y Sociedad (School of
Communication, University of Navarra).
Lastly, we would also like to express our thanks to two public institutions: the
Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, which sponsored the Conference
through the research project “Evolución de los cibermedios en el marco de la
convergencia. Multiplataforma e integración periodística” [The Development of
Spanish Cybermedia in the Convergence Context: Multiplatforms and
Journalistic Integration] (ref.: CSO2009-13713-C05-03); and the Pamplona City
Council, for the reception which was offered to the participants.
Ramón Salaverría, PhD
Chair of the ECREA Journalism Studies Section
10
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Papers
News Continuity in On-Air and Online Broadcasts on GeneralInterest Radio Stations in Spain: Analyzing the Three Main
Midday News Stories in the 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 Seasons
Avelino Amoedo, María del Pilar Martínez-Costa, Elsa Moreno
University of Navarra, Spain
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolving status of the three main news
stories in the on-air and online broadcasts of general-interest radio stations in Spain
(SER, COPE, Onda Cero, Punto Radio and Radio Nacional) between 12:00 and 14:00
(the hourly new bulletins at 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00) during the 2008–2009 and 2009–
2010 broadcasting seasons. The websites were monitored in several time-periods, and
contents were analyzed in terms of news information and narrative development.
Hence, the synergies and divergences in editorial criteria across both platforms,
whereby news headlines and stories are selected, may be deduced, and the
informational role of general-interest radio redefined in the context of digital
convergence.
Keywords: radio journalism, on-air and online broadcasting, radio news, news
continuity, general-interest radio on the internet, talk-radio in Spain, radio newscasts
Introduction
Given the need to render the production and narration of daily and hourly news and
current affairs contents compatible, the informational status of both on-air and online
general-interest radio broadcasting has changed in the context of digital convergence.
As the catalyst of digital development, the internet may enable radio to ensure
information is updated, enrich news broadcasting, and facilitate the provision of more
personalized contents, as well as prompting further dialogue with specific listenerships
that have a particular interest in the distinctive way in which news is narrated and
analyzed on radio.
11
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Digital convergence involves its own model of production, narration, participation and
programming, which alters the established journalistic procedures followed in radio
newsrooms. With regard to general-interest radio, the commitment to provide listeners
with up-to-date news and a summary of ongoing current affairs via hourly bulletins and
information programs is complemented by additional journalistic work on the web.
In line with the position outlined in previous research1, the purpose of this paper is offer
an in-depth account of the similarities and differences between the journalistic
procedures followed in on-air and online broadcasting formats. This approach may
enable the definition of convergent editorial criteria common to both2.
Thus, following the methodological approach of content analysis, two aspects of online
and on-air broadcasting have been selected from the midday time-slot (12:00–14:00)
for comparative study: a) the evolution of the three main news stories in terms of
topics; and b) the use of multimedia and hypertextual resources in the narrative
development of those stories – in particular, the use of sound resources, the defining
feature of radio communication. The radio samples were taken on 24 April 2009 and 26
March 2010: 30 online entries and 30 on-air broadcasts; a total of 60 samples in all.
The midday time-slot (12:00–14:00) was chosen for the purposes of comparative
analysis because it is the time-segment in which the morning news and current affairs
contents produced and broadcast by general-interest radio stations in Spain are
evaluated in terms of news value. Therefore, the temporal criteria framed by the
scheduling of information programs have been followed: the hourly news bulletins at
12:00 and 13:00, and the main midday current affairs program at 14:00 (“Hora 14” on
Cadena SER, “La palestra” on COPE, “Noticias mediodía” on Onda Cero, “Primera
plana” on Punto Radio and “14 Horas” on Radio Nacional).
The overall objective of this paper is to describe to what extent the internet may
function as an additional axis to traditional on-air broadcasting in terms of the provision
of news continuity. At the same time, the questions of whether general-interest radio
stations in Spain are progressing towards an integrated editorial model of common
criteria with regard to information updates, a commitment to simultaneous broadcasting
and online publication, as well as the narrative development of both, are also
addressed.
1
The overarching purpose of this research, which was begun in 2006, was to assess the online visibility of Spanish
general-interest radio stations (SER, COPE, Onda Cero, Punto Radio and Radio Nacional), and to offer an in-depth
quantitative and qualitative account of the communications strategy adopted on the web, as well as exploring the
relationship between the station’s on-air and online formats. See Amoedo, Moreno & Martínez-Costa (2010);
Martínez-Costa, Moreno & Amoedo (2010); and Moreno, Martínez-Costa & Amoedo (2010).
2
The context of this paper is the 2009–2011 R&D project, Evolución de los cibermedios españoles en el marco de la
convergencia. Multiplataforma e integración periodística [The Development of Spanish Cybermedia in the
Convergence Context: Multiplatforms and Journalistic Integration] (CSO2009-13713-C05-03), a research project
funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Government of Spain); the aim is to define the informational and
narrative criteria of production, broadcasting and audience interaction in the current multimedia and multiplatform
model.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
News continuity on general-interest radio in Spain
Traditional news programs on general-interest radio stations are framed by the criteria
of topicality and broadcast periodicity, and punctuated by the news and programming
time-segments in the morning (06:00–12:00), midday (12:00–14:00), afternoon/evening
(14:00–20:00), night (20:00–24:00) and late-night (00:00–06:00). Hence, news and
current affairs programming is structured by the principle of news continuity; and, in
turn, shapes and bolsters the continuity of the programming schedule as a whole
(Moreno, 2005: 90-91)3.
News and current affairs comprise the main contents underlying the programming
model followed by general-interest radio stations in Spain. In recent years, such radio
stations have designed and implemented an online news information strategy that
enriches traditional on-air radio broadcasts by offering further news and analysis in line
with the evolution in the social prevalence of the internet and its emerging status as a
standard source of news information4.
The newsrooms in general-interest radio stations in Spain provide hourly news bulletins
and a main news and current affairs program over the course of the morning schedule.
A morning magazine program is also broadcast, including news and current affairs as
well as entertainment and cultural contents. Given close collaboration between the
magazine program’s production team and the radio station’s newsroom, the
programming flexibility of the morning schedule enables broadcasters to offer updated
news bulletins and current affairs information5.
News continuity is an established programming strategy at general-interest radio
stations in Spain; its production is shaped by the information techniques and
procedures followed by the newsroom editorial team. However, the development of
online radio broadcasting in recent years has modified the ways in which news content
is produced: the newsroom is now responsible for producing and broadcasting such
content in both on-air and online formats.
As online strategies have been folded into everyday newsroom procedures, the
websites of general-interest radio stations in Spain have re-asserted their commitment
to news provision and continuity. News and current affairs analysis, a staple content of
traditional on-air broadcasting, is one of the primary purposes of the communication
strategy designed and implemented on the internet (Amoedo, Moreno and MartínezCosta, 2010). Thus, the ability of general-interest radio as such to fulfil its
communicative function in society is dependent on the further development of an online
news strategy.
Over time, general-interest radio stations in Spain have made significant changes to
improve the provision of news and other current affairs contents on the internet. All the
3 Moreno, E. (2005). Las ‘radios’ y los modelos de programación radiofónica. Comunicación y Sociedad, XVIII (1), 9091.
4 Moreno, E., Martínez-Costa, P. & Amoedo, A. (2009). Radio and the Web: Communication Strategies of Spanish
Radio Networks on the Web (2006-2008). Observatorio (OBS) Journal, 10, 121-137.
5
Moreno, E., Martínez-Costa, M.P., & Amoedo, A. (2010, October). Morning Magazine Programs on Online Spanish
Talk Radio Stations: Synergy and Complementarity in Contents and Services between Traditional and Online
rd
Programming (2009/2010). Paper presented at the 3 European Communication Conference (ECREA 2010),
Hamburg, Germany.
13
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
stations show signs of development in terms of the production of news and current
affairs contents, in line with the editorial criteria shaped by the principle of news
continuity.
The concerns outlined above raise a number of questions regarding the production and
programming of online contents. Newsrooms ought to refine further the coordination of
on-air and online news continuity; there would appear to be a twofold commitment to
the production, broadcasting and updating of news and current affairs contents both
on-air and online: the principle of news continuity is reflected in the periodicity of news
bulletins in traditional on-air broadcasting and in ongoing updates of online contents.
The commitment to topicality and the use of in-house production
Current affairs topics relating to Spanish politics, economics and society comprised the
basis for the selection, production and broadcast of the three main news stories in the
samples taken for this study, amounting to more than 90% of the news broadcast on
the internet and in the on-air news bulletin at 14:00. This trend was noted in previous
research carried out by the authors of this study6. Such news topics held the top three
positions in on-air news headlines and on radio station webpages during the timesegment sampled.
Table 1: Topics of the three main news headlines in the principal news broadcasts on general-interest
radio stations in Spain (14.00), 24 April 2009 and 26 March 2010
No. of news stories
%
Economics
7
2.3%
Politics
21
70%
Society
2
6.7%
Culture
-
-
Technology
-
-
Sports
-
-
30
100%
Total
Source: by the authors
6
Amoedo, A., Martínez-Costa, M.P. & Moreno, E. (2009, October). Radio y red: estrategia informativa de las
cadenas generalistas españolas (2008). Paper presented at the XXIV Congreso Internacional de Comunicación
(CICOM), IMAGEing Reality, School of Communication, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
14
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
With regard to the geographical setting of the top three news stories, national news
was most prevalent, comprising more than 90% of news broadcast in the on-air bulletin
at 14:00.
Table 2: Geographical setting of the three main news headlines in the principal news broadcasts on
general-interest radio stations in Spain (14.00), 24 April 2009 and 26 March 2010
No. of news stories
%
Spain
28
93.3%
International
2
6.7%
Total
30
100
Source: by the authors
Politics, economics and society were also the most prevalent topics in the news stories
sampled from the radio station webpages. Online accounts of economic topics were
more extensive than the equivalent news broadcast on the main news program. In
most cases, however, it should be noted that the focus of such economic news
comprised political assessments of the unemployment figures.
On the other hand, sports featured prominently in the three main news stories
published on the Radiotelevisión Española website. Moreover, society news was more
prevalent among the three main online news stories than in on-air broadcasts.
Table 3: Topics of the three main news headlines on the webpages of general-interest radio stations in
Spain (14.00), 24 April 2009 and 26 March 2010
No. of news stories
%
Economics
7
23.30%
Politics
14
46.70%
Society
7
23.30%
Culture
-
-
Technology
-
-
Sports
2
6.70%
Total
30
100%
Source: by the authors
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
With regard to the geographical setting of the top three news stories published on radio
station webpages, national news was most prevalent, amounting to more than 90% of
the total.
Table 4: Geographical setting of the three main news headlines on the webpages of general-interest radio
stations in Spain (14.00), 24 April 2009 and 26 March 2010
No. of news stories
%
Spain
27
90%
International
3
10%
Total
30
100
Source: by the authors
News agencies comprised the primary sources of news stories broadcast in the bulletin
at 14:00. Of the total number of news stories sampled from the 14:00 news bulletin,
only two (by Cadena COPE) may be regarded as originating from in-house production
– that is, one news story for each day of research sampling.
Table 5: Sources of the three main news headlines in the principal news broadcasts on general-interest
radio stations in Spain (14.00), 24 April 2009 and 26 March 2010
No. of news stories
%
News agencies
28
93.3%
In-house
2
6.7%
Total
30
100%
Source: by the authors
Finally, with regard to online news, stories sourced from news agencies feature most
prominently: 73.3% of the samples taken at 14:00. The news agencies supplied the
text of these news stories; the topics of such stories were selected by the radio station
newsrooms, which is reflected in the online broadcast of interviews and sound-bites
(see further discussion in section 4 below). That eight news stories available at 14:00
were the outcome of in-house production should be noted; of the stations sampled,
only the content of the Punto Radio website was wholly outsourced to news agencies.
Table 6: Sources of the three main news headlines on the webpages of general-interest radio stations in
Spain (14.00), 24 April 2009 and 26 March 2010
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
No. of news stories
%
News agencies
22
73.3%
In-house
8
26.7%
Total
30
100%
Source: by the authors
To sum up, current affairs topics relating to politics, economics and society comprised
the three main news stories in the 14:00 bulletins, as well as on the homepages of
general-interest radio stations in Spain. The principal geographical setting for such
stories in both formats was Spain. With regard to the sources of the samples taken,
news agencies are most prevalent, although a higher number of news stories produced
in-house were observed on radio station homepages.
The evolution of such on-air and online news broadcasts is explored in greater detail
below, in terms of regularity of updates (section 3) and the narrative development of
news stories (section 4).
The regularity of news updates
An emerging, coherent news strategy for both on-air and online broadcasts may be
traced in relation to most of the radio stations sampled for this study, which reflects the
commitment to news continuity that characterizes general-interest radio as such. As
detailed below, SER, COPE, Onda Cero and Radio Nacional offer listeners the same
headline news story in the 12:00–14:00 time-slot. Nevertheless, the online updating of
information is very limited given the potential for instantaneous and simultaneous
multimedia broadcast afforded by the internet. Midday news bulletins and programs
continue to set the pace in terms of updating, summarizing and analyzing the current
affairs narrative.
Table 7 below discloses that there is a general concurrence of headline news between
the on-air news bulletin and the radio station’s online format. In the case of Cadena
SER, such overlap was exact; it was partial for other radio stations, and non-existent for
COPE.
Table 7: Concurrence of on-air and online headline news
Time
Date/Station
SER
12:00
13:00
14:00
24/4//09
26/3/10
24/4//09
26/3/10
24/4//09
26/3/10
X
X
X
X
X
X
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
COPE
Onda Cero
X
X
Punto Radio
X
X
RNE
X
X
X
X
Source: by the authors
On Cadena SER, only the main news story was the same at 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00 on
24 April 2009 and 26 March 2010; the perspective and development of the other two top
stories were different in the on-air and online formats. Greater concurrence might be
noted at 14:007, the time at which the morning news and current affairs contents
broadcast by general-interest radio are summarized and evaluated in terms of news
value. The updating of online news is determined by the news production schedule of
on-air broadcasting. Indeed, the second and third stories on the internet are close
copies with respect to sources, comments recorded and links to previous news stories
concerning the same issues.
This news strategy is also evident on COPE, which has adopted a similar approach to
topic selection8. Traditional on-air broadcasting is regarded as the means of
communicating up-to-date news, whereas the internet is seen as a platform highlighting
news produced in-house by the radio station or on other digital media9.
Radio Nacional and Rtve.es are also working towards a coherent news strategy for both
on-air and online broadcasting. In addition to the main news headline, this concurrence
occasionally extends to the second news story10. However, the updating of online news
is limited. The inclusion of a sports news story in the top three news headlines, as well
as live coverage of both major and regular public events, distinguishes Rtve.es from
other radio stations.
7
The following headlines from 24 April 2009 are illustrative in this regard: “The scandalous possibility of 4 million
unemployed is now a reality” (on-air) and “4,010,700 unemployed” (online); “Feijóo has called for an agreement
between PP and PSOE on Cadena SER to address the Gurtel corruption case” (on-air) and “Feijóo expresses his
concern regarding how Camps’s honour has been called into question” (online). The same phenomenon was
observed with respect to the top three news stories on 26 March 2010: “Jaume Matas has been Stripped of his
passport” (on-air) and “The judge strips Matas of his passport and the prosecutor asks that he be sent to prison, on
remand of 3 million euros” (on-line); the second news story on-air (“Zapatero is about to return from Brussels
following the EU agreement on to bail out Greece”) is linked to the third online news story (“Zapatero and Von
Rompuy agree on EU proposals for the G20”).
8
The samples from 24 April 2009 are even clearer in this regard. The two main news stories on COPE consisted of
the Minister of Finance’s assessment of the unemployment figures and the opinion of Mariano Rajoy, the leader of
the opposition. The main news headlines on 26 March 2010 were as follows: “The prosecutor asks that Matas be
sent to prison, on remand of 3 million euros”; a statement by Ignacio Peláez “If the accused and corrupt go
unpunished, they’ll have Garzón to thank for it”; and the statement made by the Euro MP for the Partido Popular,
Jaime Mayor Oreja, on COPE’s morning magazine program, “La mañana”: “The turht can never be uncomfortable
for my party”.
9
See, for example, the abovementioned statement by Jaime Mayor Oreja on 26 March 2010; or the headline, “How
Zapatero bought the unions’ silence” on 24 April 2009, which was taken from the newspaper, Expansión.
10
For instance, the heading “Zapatero is sure that Sarkozy speaks well of him” on 24 April 2009; and the news
stories “Coucil of Europe Summit in Brussels, financial aid” and “Almunia: I hope the bail our mechanism for Greece
will not have to be used” on 26 March 2010.
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Like Radio Nacional, Onda Cero also shows greater correspondence between the top
three news stories in terms of on-air and online broadcasts, at least for the samples
taken on 24 April 2009. In addition to the headline news story11, there was a direct link to
the other two main news stories. In contrast, only the first news stories in the 12:00
bulletin and on the main news program on 26 March 2010 were matched by those on
the webpage.
Finally, the informational synergy between Punto Radio’s on-air and online formats first
emerged in the 2009–2010 season, when the radio station linked up with the news
published on abc.es, a newspaper that also belongs to the Vocento media group. The
samples taken on 24 April 2009 differ from those taken 26 March 2010 insofar as
listeners were offered the same headline story both on-air and online, and there was a
greater overlap in terms of information regarding to unemployment figures and related
commentary.
The narrative development of news stories
From a narrative perspective, online information is presented in expressive texts – in
particular, the news story. By contrast, on-air broadcasting enables the presentation of
descriptive, narrative and argumentative texts, such as reports, commentaries and, in
some cases, interviews. Thus, on-air broadcasting encompasses a wider variety of
radio genres, whereas the online format is limited to the genre of news story, which is
conditioned by the features of written journalism texts.
The use of audio is much more prevalent in on-air broadcasting; the use of sound-files
on radio station webpages is much more selective, and they are generally updated
much less frequently. The 2009–2010 season saw a slight rise in the use of
photographs and videos on radio station websites, but such resources remain relatively
untapped because radio stations have not yet established production procedures
involving such elements.
Each radio station has adapted the developments outlined above in different ways.
All the samples from Cadena SER exhibit the use of a wide variety of information
genres as well as the inclusion of sound resources. The news story and the news
report are the most common genres in the 12:00 bulletin. The 13:00 and 14:00 bulletins
were introduced with a commentary because the newsreader at those times is the
producer of the main midday news program. An increase in the use of audio-files was
observed in the 2009–2010 season. Over the course of the morning, live news reports
are added to sound-bites and other recordings. At 12:00 and 13:00, sound is included
on the basis of topicality and the pacing of newsroom production; whereas, given the
nature of the news program, the sound-files are re-broadcast at 14:00 in a
contextualized compilation of the main news stories of the day.
11
The official figures for unemployment and their assessment.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
On the Cadena SER webpage, the news is presented in text form, with each story
being linked to at least three previously published news stories or files. The multimedia
strategy improved in the second season studied: in 2008–2009, only one in three of the
news stories presented online had a linked audio-file; in 2009–2010, this figure had
risen to two in three; there was a parallel increase in the use of photographs, although
the use of video remains exceptional, unless the news story was produced in-house.
News stories and reports are the most prevalent genres of news broadcast by COPE,
and include sound-bites and other recordings in at least two in every three of samples
taken. As is the case for almost all the radio stations analyzed here, the news program
beginning at 14:00 opens with a commentary segment. As regards its online format,
COPE gives equal weight to audio-files and photographs. Video was more prevalent in
the 2008–2009 season, before the most recent change in the design and management
of the website.
Radio Nacional provides news stories and some news reports at 12:00 and 13:00, and
the 14:00 bulletin begins with a brief commentary. In general, the texts are slightly
longer than those offered by other radio stations, and there are no significant
differences between the two seasons studied here. There is extensive use of sound
resources: some news stories include three recorded statements as well as a live
report. Links to interviews broadcast on-air are posted on the website. The webpage
also includes photographs and videos produced by Televisión Española. There was an
increase in the number of videos linked to the top three news stories in the 2009–2010
season, as well as other documents and links; the latter are tagged clearly to facilitate
user access.
The broadcasts on Onda Cero include news stories and reports, including sound-bites
and live links, which are updated on-air at 12:00 and 13:00. There is a commentary in
the bulletin at 14:00, and a compilation of the main morning audio-extracts. The online
news items include sound-files, photographs and – very occasionally – videos. There
was an increase in such documents and links in the 2009–2010 season.
Finally, Punto Radio would appear to pursue a similar on-air strategy: the preeminent
radio genres used are the news story and the news report, with sound-bites and other
recorded statements, as well as interviews in the 14:00 program to develop the main
news story of the day. However, there is no multimedia approach or synergy between
on-air sound production and broadcast and the online presentation of news: the
webpage style is text-based, supplemented in the 2009–2010 season with
photographs, documents and other related links.
The graphics below depict the on-air presentation of news and synergies in the use of
audio resources between the on-air and online radio formats.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Graph I: Radio genres used on-air
2010-III-26
18
16
14
12
Commentaries
10
Interviews
News Report
8
News Story
6
4
2
0
SER
COPE
RNE
OC
Punto Radio
Source: Author’s own
Graph II: Audio resources on-air and on the web
2010-III-26
25
20
15
Web sounds
On-air sounds
10
5
0
SER
COPE
RNE
OC
Source: Author’s own
21
Punto Radio
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Conclusions
This comparative analysis of the main news and current affairs contents broadcast onair and published online by general-interest radio stations in Spain (as sampled on 24
April 2009 and 26 March 2010) discloses that there is a coordinated, though not
identical, information strategy across both platforms. Traditional radio production is
conditioned by urgency, proximity and brevity, whereas the internet is configured by the
topicality of major news stories, multimedia narrative and content complementarity.
News continuity is effected on both platforms because of the established journalistic
procedures followed in radio station newsrooms. Each radio station has designed a
communications strategy based on its newsroom’s production potential and in line with
the business structures of the audiovisual media groups to which the station belongs.
The selection of news topics, the use of sources and the rate at which information is
updated are gradually becoming more coordinated and coherent, although each is
adapted to the distinctive features of the two different platforms.
The trend with regard to the topics of the top three news stories both on-air and online
as traced in previous research in this regard remains unchanged: politics, economics
and society.
In relation to sources, in-house production is more common in on-air broadcasting, in
audio-files and live reports. A higher proportion of news contents supplied by news
agencies is evident in online radio formats.
There appears to be a common approach to news production and broadcasting, above
all in relation to ongoing coverage and development of the headline news story,
although this does not extend to all news contents in a general way. Online information
is updated less frequently, and the potential for simultaneous and instantaneous
broadcasting afforded by the multimedia platform remains untapped. Midday news
bulletins and programs continue to set the pace in terms of the updating, compilation
and analysis of current affairs contents: the on-air broadcast of topics tends to precede
online presentation.
More differences emerge in narrative terms, as narrative communication is conditioned
by the distinctive features of each platform. On-air broadcasting enables greater variety
in the use of radio genres as such (news story, news report, commentary, interview),
whereas online information is presented in expressive written texts, especially the news
story. Sound resources are more commonly used in on-air broadcasting, and are
produced and updated on the hour. Such resources are made available and updated
less frequently on the internet. A slight increase in the use of photographs and videos
on radio station webpages has been noted, but their role as news resources remains
very limited.
In light of the analysis presented above, it may be concluded that the internet functions
as an additional axis to traditional on-air broadcasting in terms of the provision of news
continuity. Moreover, the online development of news contents has prompted an
improvement in the design and range of contents on offer to meet the programming
objectives of general-interest radio as such, and is regarded as a key strategic
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
component in ensuring that such radio stations continue to fulfil their communicative
remit in society.
Acknowledgement
This research is being carried out in the context of the 2009–2011 R&D project,
Evolución de los cibermedios españoles en el marco de la convergencia.
Multiplataforma e integración periodística [The Development of Spanish Cybermedia in
the Convergence Context: Multiplatforms and Journalistic Integration] (CSO200913713-C05-03), a research project funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation
(Government of Spain).
References
Amoedo, A., Martínez-Costa, M.P. & Moreno, E. (October 2009). Radio y red:
estrategia informativa de las cadenas generalistas españolas (2008). Paper presented
at the XXIV Congreso Internacional de Comunicación (CICOM), IMAGEing Reality,
School of Communication, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
Amoedo, A., Moreno, E. & Martínez-Costa, M.P. (November 2010). La radio
generalista española en la red (2006-2010): propuesta de un método de análisis. In
Universidad del País Vasco (Ed.), II Congreso Internacional Ciberperiodismo y Web
2.0. Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco.
Martínez-Costa, M.P., Moreno, E. & Amoedo, A. (November 2010). La narration
radiophonique face à une nouvelle mutation. Paper presented at the conference, Radio
et narration: le réenchantement?, ORM-Université Catholique de Louvain-GRERPreCom, Brussels, Belgium.
Moreno, E., Martínez-Costa, M.P. & Amoedo, A. (October 2010). Morning Magazine
Programs on Online Spanish Talk Radio Stations: Synergy and Complementarity in
Contents and Services between Traditional and Online Programming (2009–2010).
Paper presented at the 3rd European Communication Conference (ECREA 2010),
Hamburg, Germany.
Moreno, E., Martínez-Costa, P. & Amoedo, A. (2009). Radio and the Web:
Communication Strategies of Spanish Radio Networks on the Web (2006–2008).
Observatorio (OBS) Journal, 10, 121-137.
Moreno, E. (2005). Las ‘radios’ y los modelos de programación radiofónica.
Comunicación y Sociedad, XVIII (1), 61-111.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Towards Converging Media Structures?
Bernd Blöbaum, Eva Kanthack and Hannah Middendorf
Department of Communication, University of Muenster, Germany
Abstract
While the term diversity, which today is often used to characterize the emerging media
landscape, is evident in spheres of journalism such as content or audiences, the paper
asks whether the same applies to the structure of media organisations. Therefore,
selected findings of a three-year research project on journalism in Germany which
analyzes the change of journalistic organisations, roles and programs since 1990 will
be presented as well as the research design.
To answer the research question 15 journalists working at leading mass media
newsrooms in Germany were observed for one week each. These observations were
followed by in-depth interviews. All types of media were covered: Print, broadcast and
online journalists described the structure of the editorial offices including the processes
of communication, decision making and coordination.
The findings reveal that new forms of organisation dominate German editorial
departments: 80 percent of the interviewees underlined that decisions concerning what
to publish in which form were made at a newsdesk. This result applied to all different
types of media.
Thus, as for the structure of journalistic organisations changes of the media landscape
did not lead to diversity. During the last 20 years the structure and organisation of news
production happened to be similar throughout different types of media. Hence, the
paper emphasises that change does not necessarily mean diversity: instead,
convergence processes with regard to the structure of editorial offices are a striking
result generated by the research project. Additionally, an increasing cooperation and
collaboration of staff as well as the exchange of media content between the print,
broadcast and online departments of a media company could further be examined –
results that also show convergence developments.
Introduction
Enabling processes of opinion formation, editorial diversity is an important prerequisite
for modern democracies (Rager & Weber, 1992; Weiß 2002). Editorial diversity is,
however, not reduced to media content but also to media structures. In general terms
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
this paper asks whether the structures of media organizations are characterized by
diversity or rather convergence. Since diversity is considered as one central criterion
for assessing media quality, research in this field is highly relevant (McQuail, 1992,
1995). By focusing on media organizations instead of content, this paper provides an
additional value to the field of diversity research.
The following findings are part of a three-year research project on journalism and
change in Germany. In accordance with Blöbaum’s heuristic of journalistic
organizations, roles and programs (1994), the study not only examined media
organizations (meso level) but also journalists (micro level) and media content. With its
triangulation of methods – the study employed four different methodological
approaches – the project comprises a sophisticated research design. Combining the
element of change with that of diversity; the paper analyses more precisely whether
alterations to the structure of media organizations have resulted in greater structural
diversity or whether these transformations have rather entailed similar developments
and thereby convergence. In other words: Does change foster diversity or similarity?
Furthermore, the paper presents findings about journalists’ opinions on the structural
transformation within the journalistic system.
The debate about editorial diversity is closely linked to the dualism of media: On the
one hand, mass media are economic organizations striving for profit maximization. On
the other hand, media are supposed to serve the so-called public interest. However,
not all content that might be popular and thus ensure economic revenue incorporates a
diversity of perspectives and experiences – a necessary condition for citizens to
participate in the political process (Blöbaum, 1992; Croteau & Hoynes, 2006, pp. 3336) As to the question of how to ensure media diversity, two opposing positions have
evolved. According to the free market approach, diversity is achieved through a free
market, rendering government regulation superfluous. In contrast, proponents of the
public policy model criticize that market deregulation has given way to unprecedented
levels of ownership concentration, causing a decrease in diversity of choice and access
(Iosofides, 1999).
In chapter 2 the theoretical framework of the paper is presented. The sociological
theory of social systems provides the theoretical reference for the research project.
Two subchapters that further elaborate on the ideas of journalism and change as well
as journalism and diversity are followed by chapter 3, which discusses the complex
methodological design. In chapter 4 selected findings are interpreted against the
backdrop of the question of media diversity. These include results on the introduction of
newsdesks and crossmedia cooperation. Finally, a conclusion sums up the most
striking results.
Theoretical Framework
The sociological theory of social systems provides the theoretical reference for the
research project “Change in Journalism”. The theoretical model is considerably inspired
by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1995a, 1997). Several scholars in
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
communication studies and journalism research draw our attention to the necessity of
developing theories which are able to explain journalism as a social phenomenon of
modern society (Singer, 2006; Zelizer, 2004).
The aims of this approach are:
Firstly, to describe the function of journalism in society and to explain
journalism’s relationship with other systems (macro-level: journalism and
society).
Secondly, to describe the internal structure of journalism. Therefore, this theory
is also a theory of journalistic organizations, explaining the elements journalism
is comprised of and how these elements relate to each other (meso level:
internal structure of the journalistic system).
And thirdly, this model includes the level of action and communication of the
actors in their role as journalists (micro-level).
This approach contains two further advantages relevant to the research project. Since
systems theory describes the dynamics and progression of journalism it is convenient
for conceiving potential changes. In addition, it identifies system-specific boundaries,
enabling us to distinguish between journalism and non-journalism.
Journalism and Society (macro-level)
In order to cope with its increasing complexity, modern society has delegated individual
functions to specialized social systems. This process is called the functional
differentiation of society. While the overall aim of social systems is to reduce
complexity, social systems themselves are separate from each other and can be
characterized by the exclusive function(s) they fulfil for society (Scholl & Görke, 2006,
p. 647; Weischenberg, 1992, pp. 429-430; Kneer & Nassehi, 1993, p. 40).
This research project understands journalism as one social system besides others
such as politics or economics. Since the 17th century, journalism has evolved as an
autonomous social system and its essential function is information dissemination for
public communication (Blöbaum, 2004, p. 205).
Social systems constitute their identity by delineating themselves from their
environments (Kneer & Nassehi, 1993, p. 38; Kohring, 2004, p. 190). In order to
differentiate which elements belong to a system and which ones to its environment,
social systems have developed system-specific binary codes. For journalism, the code
is information/non-information (Blöbaum, 2004, p. 206; Luhmann, 1995b, p. 17).
Every system has created a specific “expert role” which is complementary to the role of
a layman. In journalism the profession of the journalist has developed vis-à-vis the
recipients. Besides its function, code and role, each system bears a specific form of
organization. In journalism we can identify two types of organization: firstly, mass
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
media like newspapers or television and secondly, the editorial office (Blöbaum, 1994,
pp. 285-288).
Table 1: The System of Journalism
Function
Information exchange for public communication
Binary Code
Information/Non-information
- Professional Role: Journalist
Roles
- Client Role: Recipient
Organizations
Mass Media, Editorial Offices
The Structure of Journalism (meso level)
The journalism system comprises three structural elements12:
journalistic organizations: Mass media as well as editorial offices form the
structure of journalism at an organizational level. Journalistic organizations
allow the journalistic system to operationalize its tasks permanently (Blöbaum,
1994, pp. 285-288; Blöbaum, 2004, pp. 207-209).
journalistic roles: Journalists work in professional roles for which they are
prepared in the course of their practical education and which are continually
practiced and reinforced in vocational socialization.
journalistic programs (manuals): Besides organizations and roles, journalistic
programs are specifically designed for the production and processing of
information (Blöbaum, 1994, pp. 277-284).
In modern European societies, these structural elements differentiated in the 19th and
at the beginning of the 20th century in order to adapt to profound changes in society
(Blöbaum, 1994, 2004).
Journalism and Change
The presentation of the structural elements of the journalistic system stresses the
dynamics of the model and offers opportunities to analyse change theoretically and
12
For the purpose of the research project, all three structural elements were analysed. For the following paper,
however, only the organizational level is relevant.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
empirically. Looking back at the history of journalism, we can realize that the main form
of change has been differentiation13, i.e. new structural elements are emerging
continuously. The aim of this alteration is to enable journalism to cope with an
increasing complexity of society (Blöbaum, 1994, 2004).
To describe changes in journalism it is necessary to take a closer look at the term
“change”. In social sciences there is no consensus as to how to outline social change
theoretically and empirically (Alexander & Colomy, 1990). “These terms (social
“change” and “modernity”; BB/EK/HM) enjoy wide usage in contemporary sociology
and are general and inclusive, they seem preferable to more specific terms such as
“evolution”, “progress”, “differentiation”, or even “development”, many of which evoke
more specific mechanisms, processes, and directions of change” (Haferkamp &
Smelser, 1992, p. 1). In accordance to the wide range of definitions used for this term,
there is a broad variety of theoretical approaches to the concept, including for instance
determinist and structuralist approaches (Booth, 2003).
Change means more than the alteration of an object between two moments of
measurement. In journalism the closing down of a newspaper or the start of a new
broadcast magazine merely stand for little modifications in the journalistic system – but
they do not indicate a profound change of journalism.
This paper suggests using the term “change” in the field of journalism only for those
changes that indicate an empirical transition to the structure of the journalistic system
described above. Not the actual process of change, however, is self-revealing, but only
its results. Hence, a description of change is always based on inferences drawn from
the analysis of its consequences (Dwyer & Minnegal, 2010, p. 631). Moreover, it is
necessary to acknowledge that the observation of structural transformation does not
automatically include discovering the various reasons that lead to this substantial
change.
The outlined theoretical approach provides a highly consistent model of journalism,
capable of systematizing the alteration and diversification of journalism’s boundaries.
Furthermore, combining a theoretical model with empirical journalism research, the
theory is compatible for empiricism while providing guidelines for empirical research in
the field of journalism. Journalism research is often reduced to journalist research. This
approach, however, constructs journalism as a social system and thus does not reduce
changes in journalism to individual actors (Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, 2009).
Journalism and Diversity
The term diversity is characterized by a variety of definitions. Yet, one difference with
regard to the implications of the term is particularly obvious: Does diversity simply
13
It is important to bear in mind, though, that – as Alexander points out – “not all social change is differentiation”
(1990, p. 1).
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
define an abundance of media channels or does journalistic diversity rather imply a
plurality of opinions and information? (Rager & Weber, 1992; Iosifides, 1999).
The debate about diversity is closely connected to the janus-faced characteristic of
media. On the one hand, media organizations are profit-oriented economic
organizations. On the other hand, mass media serve a public interest. They are a
necessary precondition for modern democracies and enable the citizenship to
participate in the political process (Weiß, 2002; Fabris, 2004). The theoretical concept
behind the demand for media diversity is pluralism. According to the pluralistic model,
the broad range of interests and opinions prevalent in society are equal and need to be
articulated for which mass media provide an arena (Rager & Weber, 1992, p. 357).
In “Western” liberal societies, diversity is one of several quality criteria14 for assessing
media performance with regard to its public service (Fabris, 2004; McQuail, 1992). The
concept presupposes that “the more the different channels of public communication
there are, carrying the maximum variety of (changing) content to the greatest variety of
audiences, the better” (McQuail, 1995, p. 247). As for the question how to reach
editorial diversity, there exist two opposing positions (Iosofides, 1999; Blöbaum, 1992).
According to the free market approach, market competition ensures equality of
information access and expression as well as information plurality. Diversification of
media outlets and establishment of new TV programmes or newspaper titles
supposedly guarantee a variety of media content. On the contrary, proponents of the
public policy approach criticize that deregulated markets result in media monopolies
and a concentration of media ownership, which in turn jeopardize journalistic diversity
(Rager & Weber, 1992; Martin, 2008; Iosofides, 1999). As a matter of fact, empirical
studies suggest that the presence of newspaper monopolies leads to a decrease in
editorial diversity (Martin, 2008). The public school of thought thus stresses the
importance of government regulation for securing information diversity and opinion
plurality (Iosofides, 1999).
In contrast to many other studies, this paper does not examine the diversity of editorial
content but rather the diversity of editorial organizations. How are media organizations
structured? Do they have a newsdesk or do they prefer the traditional version of a
newsroom with separate editorial sections? If a journalistic organization has a diverse
internal structure, this will help foster the diversity of its content (Blöbaum, 1992).
Therefore, it is relevant not only to analyse the diversity of media output but also of its
organizational structure.
Concept of Research
The analysis of stability and change in journalism requires a period of time long enough
to identify significant differences between certain times of measurement. Designed as a
14
McQuail stresses that there exists no single set of standards for the media since these are rooted historically and
culturally. Nevertheless, the set he presents includes the most commonly accepted ideas (McQuail, 1995, p. 245)
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
long-term study, the selected period of analysis starts in 1990 and reaches until 2008,
allowing statements about change over the last two decades.
In order to analyse the development of journalism, research focused on a certain field
of journalism, namely news journalism or information-oriented journalism, respectively.
In addition to the long-term perspective, focus was further laid on a broad range of
units of analysis. The sample includes several types of mass media, i.e. newspapers,
TV and radio programmes as well as online media. It also takes into account the
variance of media so that the sample is comprised of both national and regional
newspapers, both private and public TV and radio stations as well as two websites. In
total, the sample consisted of 15 media organizations.
Table 2: Sample
Print
TV
Radio
Online
national
regional
private
public
private
public
Süddeutsche
Zeitung
Kölner
Stadtanzeiger
RTL
ARD
RPR1
WDR2
Bild Zeitung
Westfälische
Nachrichten
Spiegel
ntv
Deutschlandfunk
Spiegel
online
netzeitung
Zeit
taz
In order to answer a number of research questions about journalistic organizations,
content and actors, the empirical research resolves around a triangulation of four
methods: content analysis, in-depth interviews, observation and online survey. Since
this paper focuses only on organizations, data generated by content analysis are not
relevant.
15 journalists from the media mentioned above were observed for one week each to
examine the work routines, coordination and decision-making processes and
communication activities in various newsrooms. The observation was followed by indepth interviews, providing insights into journalists’ opinions on change in journalism. A
standardized online survey finally generated results on, for instance, work routines,
audience orientation as well as perceived alterations in journalism.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Figure 1: Research Design
c o nte nt a na lysis
o nline surve y
in-d e p th inte rvie ws
o b se rva tio n
Tria ng ula tio n o f Me tho d s
Re se a rc h p e rio d : 1990-2008
Findings: Diversity and Convergence
To analyse new developments within the media landscape it is important to underline
that in journalism the typical form of organization is the editorial office (newsroom)
where content is collected, selected, edited and conveyed (Meier, 2007; García Avilés,
Meier, Kaltenbrunner, Carvajal, & Kraus, 2009). In Germany newsrooms are
traditionally arranged according to topic areas, e.g. politics, economics, sports, and
culture. The research project shows that this structure has experienced profound
changes within the last 20 years. The development of modern newsroom models is a
main element within the transformation of journalism (Meier, 2007).
Newsdesk
The findings reveal that in the majority of newsrooms the new newsdesk concept was
established: 80 per cent of the interviewees underline that decisions concerning what
to publish in which form were made at a newsdesk. The interviewees describe the
newsdesk as a “planning and management instrument” (J6, regional newspaper), a
“coordinating entity” (ebd.), a “service facility for the newsroom” (J8, private TV), and
an “information control centre” (J5, national newspaper). Furthermore, during the last
20 years the structure and organisation of news production happened to be similar
among different types of media – due to the implementation of a newsdesk: a
development that reflects convergence processes. According to the interviewees, the
implementation became necessary because of several reasons: firstly, due to a
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
growing need of coordination – “What is done where, when and in which form?” (J6,
regional newspaper), and secondly out of a necessity for improved communication and
to reduce costs: “The newsdesk became more and more important because of the
growing need for coordination. We cannot spend the money as we want. We have strict
budgets that can only be fulfilled through coordination” (J8, private TV).
The model of newsdesk often comes along with the implementation of open and large
newsrooms, a trend that can also be found in the majority of the observed German
editorial departments. This new type of newsroom leads to a change of autonomy.
“Working in an open newsroom and not shielded by book shelves anymore, entails a
change in autonomy.” (J6, regional newspaper) The evaluation of this lack of
segmentation is ambivalent. One journalist describes the situation as follows: “The
good thing is that everyone overhears everything. The bad thing is that everyone
overhears everything. It’s both.” (J7, regional newspaper)
Furthermore, the traditional differentiation between diverse subject areas e. g. politics,
culture and sports, experienced a restructuring in all kinds of German media
newsrooms. “With the implementation of a newsdesk traditional walls between
separate departments were dismantled drastically” (J7, regional newspaper). This
process was confirmed by more than 90 per cent of the participants of the online
survey, in which they confirm a shift towards teamwork beyond the different
departments. This decrease in segmentation further illustrates the trend toward
converging work routines.
Two thirds of the journalists questioned rate this development as an improvement. At
the same time another journalist explains that a rethinking was necessary. It was and
still is a long process from individual work to teamwork: “A subject area was a closed
cosmos that contributed to its section of the newspaper. That cosmos was dismantled
in favour of teams and everyone has to have the whole newspaper in mind” (J1,
national newspaper).
The implementation and understanding of the concepts of newsdesk, newsroom and
teambuilding differ in the numerous newsrooms observed, a finding that complies with
Meier’s results (2007, pp. 204, 209). Moreover, there are still traditional news
environments, so that nowadays there exists a range of organizational structures within
the social system of journalism that should not be neglected. A comparison of
newsroom activities and communication actions in traditional and converged
newsrooms allows for a better understanding of the current developments.
Newsroom Activities and Communication Actions
The change of the organizational structure of news production has led to changes in
work routines and journalists’ role conceptions (Quandt & Singer 2009). The
observation of news workers in traditional news environments and in converged
newsrooms shows significant differences. In modern newsrooms following the
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
newsdesk model journalists have to perform more actions – and each particular action
is shorter than in traditional editorial departments.
Table 3: Duration of actions
< 10sec
< 1 min
< 5 min
< 10 min
20%
53%
22%
7%
48%
38%
12%
1%
traditional
(n=1845)
newsdesk
(n=1712)
There has been an intensification and increase in work routines. 48% of all actions in
modern newsrooms take up less than 10 seconds. In traditional news departments only
20% of all actions were shorter than 10 seconds. On the contrary, actions that take up
1 minute or more happen far more often in offices without newsdesks. The permanent
managing of topics and the growing necessity to coordinate the entire output alter the
craft of journalists.
Communication is the dominant action in all types of news organizations, 37% of all
actions are communication. Journalists working in converged newsrooms experience
an intensification of communication. Within the old forms of news production and news
management 64% of communicative actions were up to 1 minute. At modern news
desks 54% of communication actions took less than 10 seconds. Modernized
newsrooms are characterized by a much closer sequence of actions.
If we only consider the communication actions and compare the two different types of
organisation, it becomes obvious that a newsdesk journalist performs shorter
communication actions than a journalist in a traditional editorial department.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Figure 2: Communication actions
t r a dit iona l
n= 5 1 8
n e w sde sk
n= 3 8 2
Although the alteration of the organizational structure of labour in the core of the news
production leads to significant changes of routines, speed and actions, journalists have
an overall positive view on modernized newsrooms. An online survey among journalists
of all media in the sample shows that 45% of the journalists consider the installation of
a newsdesk as a positive element; only 8% judge this modification as a loss.
These results support findings from Singer (2004, 2006), who came to the conclusion
that journalists generally support the idea of integrated newsrooms, being less
satisfied, though, with certain aspects of convergent content production.
Crossmedia
Besides newsdesk and newsroom the third keyword within the transformation of
journalism in Germany is crossmedia. But can crossmedia strategies also be found in
the observed editorial departments? To answer this question it is important to
understand how crossmedia is defined in Germany: the term describes an increasing
cooperation and collaboration of staff as well as the exchange of media content
between print and online as well as between broadcast and online departments of a
media company that before worked separately. The different platforms are merged at a
newsdesk so that journalistic material can be re-used for different media products
(Meier, 2007). It further means that one editorial department works for different media
platforms; e. g. newspaper staff write for online also and provide video content.
A striking result of the research project is that the journalists think in crossmedia terms,
a finding that shows structural convergence. The implementation in the newsrooms
observed, however, varies. Crossmedia ranges from little cooperation to the attempt of
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
full integration. Most of the interviewees describe crossmedia work as the future of
journalism and they are convinced that they will increasingly work for diverse media
types. At the same time these statements show that so far in Germany most of the
newsrooms have not fully introduced a crossmedia strategy.
This impression was confirmed by the observation and interviews. Within the German
TV stations ARD and N-TV, for example, TV and online departments cooperate but do
not work crossmedially. “We cross-reference our products and we show 100 seconds
news-spots online, which are short versions of the Tagesschau.” (J10, public TV) In
contrast, the private TV channel RTL strives for full integration of TV and online. The
station’s own journalism school focuses on teaching crossmedia techniques (J8,
private TV), stressing the importance of crossmedia as a future-oriented strategy.
Young journalists have to be able to work for TV and online at the same time.
With regard to radio, editorial offices often provide information for the website since
there is no separate team responsible only for online news. Generating news for the
internet is therefore part of radio journalists’ daily work. At private radio RPR1, for
instance, information is simply copied from the news system onto the internet. The
public WDR2 radio “recycles” its news as podcasts. Additionally, more detailed
information is provided online.
There is a close collaboration between newspaper and online departments, but in most
cases journalists still work in two different newsrooms (e.g. national: Spiegel, Die Zeit,
SZ, taz and regional: WN). The regional newspaper WN, however, is an example of
more advanced crossmedia cooperation. A print journalist attends an event and
collects not only information but also video material. Back at the editorial office he or
she provides both the newspaper as well as the website with news and cuts the video
for the newspapers’ website. This is not as easy as it may sound. A journalist
emphasizes the challenge of editing information for different kinds of media. Vocal and
TV coaching are a necessary condition for successful crossmedia news production.
(J7, regional newspaper) A colleague also stresses the difficulty between different
media-specific routines and cultures. This problem can be described as a consequence
of diverging mindsets: “For an online journalist information is important only for about
one hour. Decisions in print media, however, are made for a long period of time. To
merge these ideals and to think in both dimensions is a lot more difficult than one might
think.” (J6, regional newspaper) Furthermore, there is a lot of debate as to how much
print material one can (re-)use for the media’s website. Providing too much material
online could have a negative impact on the newspaper’s circulation. (J4, national
newspaper)
One can conclude that in Germany there is a lot of cooperation between the different
editorial sections. However, this development has not resulted in a convergence like in
the deregulated U.S. media market where one finds multimedia organizations that
provide print, TV, radio and online media with news.
The current changes in the structure of journalistic organizations characterized by the
keywords newsdesk, newsroom and crossmedia also bring about a change in the
journalistic role conception. On the one hand, increasing crossmedia working
procedures entail that one journalist works as an all-rounder contributing for example to
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
newspapers and online, a development that implies convergence, not diversity. One
journalist predicts the mixture of the role of TV, radio and print journalist as the
following: “That is multimedia. I wanted to become a newspaper journalist and not work
for TV or radio. […] The decision was which media to work for. Now you are going to
work for all of them at the same time.” (J7, regional newspaper) On the other hand, the
newsdesk concept generates a differentiation of journalistic roles: 1) coordinating roles
that work at the newsdesk and – complementary – 2) information producing roles that
contribute information to the newsdesk. Thus, it is a striking result that nowadays there
are different forces that have an effect on the structure of journalism: those that merge
and those that differentiate.
How Do Journalists Evaluate These Changes?
Data from the in-depth-interviews and the observation highlight an evolutionary process
as to the structure of journalism. How do journalists reflect on this process? What
changes do they perceive since 1990? And how do they evaluate these
transformations?
In the context of this paper one major trend is worthwhile mentioning: the
transformation of important resources for journalistic work. Data from the online survey
show a change of working conditions. 59% of the journalists mention that working
hours have increased since 1990. Although the amount of work load has not changed,
most journalists witness a decrease in the number of journalists during the last 20
years. The compression of journalistic work is not only an effect of converging news
environments but affects the whole journalistic profession.
Looking at certain aspects of everyday routines, 41% of the journalists say they have to
spend more time sitting and communicating in various meetings compared to the two
decades before. Today, journalists spend less time doing research. 54% state the time
devoted to research has decreased in the last years.
Figure 3: Change of resources
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Although the change of resources is regarded critically, journalists are highly positive
about the implementation of the newsdesk concept. Almost half of the interviewees
appreciate the restructuring of the editorial department whereas only 8% consider it a
loss. Another 19% have not introduced the newsroom concept but rather work in
traditional offices.
Table 4: Evaluation of the newsdesk concept
Percentage
benefit
44,6
both benefit and loss
18,7
loss
7,9
not implemented
19,3
Conclusion
The study of journalism and change in Germany reveals that there is an area of news
production that is not only evolving towards greater diversity: The implementation of a
newsdesk as the strategic coordination centre of a media organization is a main
development prevalent in all different types of media. Thus, as for the structure of
journalistic organizations, changes in the media landscape have not only led to
diversity. Rather, during the last 20 years the structure and organization of news
production happened to be similar. Hence, this paper emphasizes that change does
not necessarily entail diversity: instead, convergence processes with regard to the
structure of editorial offices are a striking result generated by the research project.
Working at newsdesks is developing into a characteristic handcraft, characterized by a
closer sequence of actions and a division of labour.
Employing a variety of methods, it is possible to identify both convergence as well as
diversity. On the one hand, the decline of role differentiation in favour of journalists
working in crossmedia structures reflects a converging development. On the other
hand, role differentiation into coordinating and information generating journalists
caused by newsdesks is increasing. Both developments can be seen as an
evolutionary process of journalism. The changes within the architectural structure of
editorial departments are a further expression of an evolution within the journalistic
system.
With regard to a theory of journalism, convergence and diversity are two sides of one
coin: the structure of journalism is undergoing a process of evolution. This evolution is
not affecting the role of journalism in society – but it changes its structure step by step.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Acknowledgement
This research was made possible by grants from the German Research Foundation
(DFG)
End Note
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Prof. Dr. Bernd
Blöbaum, Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft, Bispinghof 9-14, 48143 Muenster,
Germany. Email: [email protected]
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Maps of the Technologies Available in the Phases of the
Communication Process
María Ángeles Cabrera González*, Pedro Antonio Rojo Villada**, Ana Isabel Bernal
Triviño*
* University of Málaga, Spain
** University of Murcia, Spain
Abstract
Information technologies are a major source of diversity in journalism. Not only
because of the different media that arise, but the new dynamics of work and
introduction new of requirements imposed on expressive journalistic message (design,
writing...) The social context of globalization and new technologies have led to other
forms production, distribution and reception of information, three phases which divide
the process of journalistic communication.
Every day new devices and tools are added to those mentioned above in exponential
growth that sometimes appears to cause an excess of choices and opportunities that
journalists and the audience don´t know yet.
More specifically, the aim of this paper is to categorize new technologies in the
journalist work determine the impact they have had on each phase and the role these
new technologies play. In ours study we use a descriptive and exploratory approach to
structure the new technologies.
This list of technologies arises from two perspectives: from the media and from the
audience. In the phase of production we examine the impact of information technology
in pre-production, production and postproduction; in analyzing the distribution channels
-transmission technologies and formats; and finally, at the reception -performing a
registration of new portable devices or new media.
Introduction
Through out history the technology has been in the "center" of the development of the
media (Chisholm, 2010:4). Besides the positive considerations of this phenomenon,
some authors claim that new technologies have caused a "dramatic transformation" in
the media industry (Holt, Perren, 2009:101), and even that technology is responsible,
"partly or totally" for a"devaluation of journalistic standards" (Tsui, 2009:54). We agree
with Likes (2010:187) arguing that when compared with the changing technology,
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
"content" remains the core of journalism. But surely, content will be conditioned by the
technology at the time of its production, distribution and reception (Cabrera, 2010).
Technological diversity allows sharing digital content between different media, static or
portable. The new devices (PDAs, smart phones, tablets, e-readers ...) have developed
many applications and tools that bring new experiences to journalism. The numerous
and changing thechnological possibilities make it very difficult to understand the effect
they will have on each phase of journalist communication process. The proliferation of
media began long time ago with the first experiences of telematic, such as videotext,
the cd-newspaper, the paper by fax, or teletext. It helps to understand the trend of
technological evolution that promotes the use of specific possibilities over others that
have been forgotten. Today, technological diversity may lead again to the selection of
one or few devices specifically for the production, distribition and reception of news
content. Meanwhile, the technological galaxy is the object of our attention. We see it as
nebula, thats needs exploration and study for a better understanding of its impact and
potential.
Recent technological advances affect the work of journalists, while imposing other
ways of bringing information to the public, allowing users to integrate in to the
communication process as producers and consumers (Couldry, 2009:447; Zhang ,
2008; Yu, Wang, Liu, Niu, 2009:93-103), thus reiterating the idea of "pantallization" of
society (screening effect) exposed by Rodriguez de las Heras (1991:49). The value of
"use" by the audience becomes more important than the technology itself (Warschauer,
2003:11). The important thing is not so much the function, but why and when people
choose to embrace and integrate the technology into their life (Katz & Sugiyama,
2006:322). The society seeks "compensation" or "bonus" inmediately (Gordon, 2011),
and develops trend "now", the “now-ism”, hipertasking, so journalists should learn new
communications technologies and be fexible to adapt them.
Although the diversity of current technologies hinders the knowledge of its qualities and
the actual solutions they provide to journalists and users, this paper presents the effort
to organize this realm by describing, classifying, and graphic visualization.
Method
In order to deep the current view of technological developments it´s necessary to
identify their common features. Despite certain differences, similarities in question
facilitate the integration of technological developments into the various phases of
communication process. However, this approach has two limitations. First, we are
unable to perform a comprehensive technical categorization due to constant
innovations taking place in this field, not only in terms of tools or devices, but also
software applications that add new functionality to these tools (which also is renewed
constantly). Second, although the approach of this work involves establishing an order
in the profusion of new technologies, the fact that they are integrated at various stages
of production of journalistic content prevents unilateral systematisation. This situation
raises the inability to make a taxonomy for its exclusionary nature.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
The focus of this study is exploratory and descriptive in nature, since publications
located by researchers do not reflect the global picture of technological landscape and
its effects on the process of journalistic communication. Only one previous research
project on the digital convergence of media in Spain pointed out the tendency to use
common technologies in different phases of the communication process as a result of
technological convergence undertaken by some media (Cabrera, 2010: 161-162).
Results
Given the difficulty of establishing an accurate picture of this realm, we opted the
simulation and comparison of our object of study with the metaphor of the galaxy.
References to the phenomenon of technological breakthrough in the media using
background astronomical concepts was found in the "Gutenberg Galaxy" by McLuhan
(1993), through the "Constellation Internet" Castells (1998), or " bit-bang " concept
announced by Newsweek and based on Negroponte´s idea of the bit (quoted in
Marcos Alvarez, 1999:171).
In the spatial map that we propose (See. Figure 1) the core of our technological system
(like the solar system) would be news, information, which is irradiated by other media.
Until now, like the planets, the primary media at the beginning of our century were
newspapers, radio, television and the Internet, each defined by its own language. All
these media gravitate in the same orbit, the digital orbit . In this orbit there is the
Internet world, to which we add three new devices that share the same language in the
broadcast content, so its nature is very similar. Hence they are considered as "satellite"
type devices: computers, smartphones, tablets and e-readers. Applications and specific
tools that invite to consume content in these media appear next to each device, like
stars. Different devices can be grouped by common characteristics so that each core
completes forming a system of new devices, that are born and die regularly. The
rotation and translation of each planet correspond to the phases of production and
distribution, respectively. While the rotation brings a change of orientation of the planet,
this activity is similar to the change that the news event undergoes from occurring until
the transformation experienced in the production stages to be turned into news in a
complete cycle with established norms repeated with each news event. Translational
motion in turn, adjusts the positions of objects in space, which could be related to the
distribution work itself, insofar as it transfers the information from a sender to a
receiver.
The map of the technological system is completed with the technologies that affect
each phase of the communication process (See Figure 2). Some of them are present in
more than one or in all phases, because some devices have developed applications
that serve both for production and distribution and reception of the news content.
The influence of new technologies in the production, distribution and reception must be
appraised on the basis of two of its most notable consequences: the convergence and
multiplatform distribution.
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Production technologies
The new technologies used for the production of information are trying to respond to
the concept of digital convergence. Since the mid 70's this concept refers to bringing
together information technologies and telecommunication (Winseck, 1998) and has a
strong focus on technology (De Sola Pool, 1983). Also, convergence is defined as the
integration of Internet with other media such as television (Thompson, 1999); as well as
the disappearance of boundaries between traditional media; and the confluence of
media platforms that allow single media to distribute their content through the internet,
mobile phone, television… (Pavlik, 1996).
However, the process of digital convergence is conditional. According to Deuze (2004)
there is no single model of convergence common to all media. Both Quinn (2005:2930) and Huang (2004:73) agree to refer in their definition of convergence to the
importance of creating news content that is distributed through various media.
In the production phase of journalistic content technology affects the tasks of data
collection, writing and editing of content. This is the stage where, in practice, according
to Mitchelstein and Boczkowski (2010), journalists experience great tension between
"tradition and change."
Technologies that increase contact with sources such as email, social networks or
blogs has been incorporated in preproduction sub-phase for data collection, as well as
to promote contact with the audience as sources and witnesses of news. Another
group of technologies is based on the use of Internet as a source of documentation and
information through access to databases and newspaper archives online, video
libraries, search engines ... However, the audience (due to the extension of the concept
of Web 2.0) participates in the production of information not only as a source but as a
producer of content through the use of email, discussion forums, surveys, social
networking ... In addition, through direct channels the media itself encourage its users
to produce news, send proposals or participate in other alternatives where the user
performs tasks similar to the environmental journalism with their information and / or
review of text or graphics. These activities can not be a substitute to professional
journalism.
In the production and postproduction sub-phases, journalists use tape recorders,
cameras and video, PDAs, mobile devices or smartphones, laptops, along with
publishing programs. Among these, mobile devices are evolving so rapidly that they
include more and more technological possibilities, further facilitating the work of
journalists, so called mobile journalism. On the other hand, laptops and tablets (even
more recent development) allow more easy editing, additional memory capacity and
quality of audiovisual content and layout or design of information. Therefore, for direct
data collection on the scene, journalists have new tools that allow them to take
pictures, videos and sounds with cameras, camcorders and mobile devices, to send
them to the media or to broadcast live by mobile devices, laptops, PDAs or tablets with
an Internet connection. The transmission of information in real time using tools like
Twitter and other social networks already implemented in mobile devices, PDAs,
tablets ... promotes the production of information almost immediately, making
information available to be heard and forwarded to other contacts and friends. The
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
power of social networks is so great that an American newspaper, Rockville Central,
has closed its online version in order to focus its news coverage only on Facebook
(Huffingtonpost.com, 2011).
At the stage of postproduction, the technology allows to the audience to participate
directly in the production and distribution process by subscribing to RSS, where they
can access content produced and forward it to their contacts expanding distribution
capabilities of content.
Also, new technological possibilities are incorporated into the routines of reporting
affecting the content and journalistic genres. The used of mobile phone to make videos
and send them as news, has led to so-called "mobi news" (Erjavec & Kovacic, 2009),
whose authors may be both journalists and the audience.
The technology becomes a promoter of new information genres and facilitates other
forms of conspicuous consumption. Some research consider tablets like iPad or
Singles Kindle as a suitable format for the production and consumption of reportages
and more extensive information genres (Nieman Lab, 2010).
Distribution
Digital Convergence was initiated in the production phase and we discussed this
process in the previous section. Digital convergence has its origin in the desire of the
media to present their content on as many channels and formats as possible (Fidler,
1997; Pavlik 1998 and Cabrera, 2010: 161-162). However, the process of technological
convergence in the distribution phase is still a question, at futher development.
Although some authors believe that the Internet is not only a media but also "a
distribution system" (Chisholm, 2010:4), we are in climax of evolution and development
of this cosmic reality (following the metaphor of the galaxy technology). Existing
devices, channels, routes, ... media, all of them are there, occupying space and giving
life to the digital technology system. However, integrated solutions for disfusion of
multiplatform distribution content (based on specific developments of convergence to
satisfy the audience and the media) are still scarce. The multiplicity of formats requires
a greater convergence in this sense, to unify and create standards that are compatible
for any format (Lopez, Pereira & Limia, 2010:324)
Technologies for the distribution of information were developed in the media, in the
different formats and channels (now they are able to share digital content and promote
it to new venues like social networks). The distribution platform is a solution for different
media, formats and channels that allows the same message to be transmitted by the
largest possible number of media to reach their target.
The most important technological advances with regard to distribution are the new
channels of transmission and access to information: the remote routes through wireless
technology that allows the access to content from anywhere, and access transmission
technologies to mobile phones. By developing these technologies, content is
distributed now through tools that are not media, but only information channels, such
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
as browsers, specific applications to navigation on the online media, or podcasting, the
automatic and timely way of distribution of information to more loyal users of the media.
Social networks are other tools that are becoming increasingly popular to distribute
information by media. Through social networks, the news are shared and discussed by
the audience, thus bringing it to non-regular users of the media. The simultaneous
development of new applications for mobile devices, such as providing quick and easy
access to Twitter , resulted in further growth of this network (Arceneaux & Schmitz,
2010:275), which therefore has become Twitter a suitable tool for the transmission of
information content.
The new possibilities of multiplatform distribution affect both information professionals
and the audience. The journalists should know the different formats through which
information can reach the audience, and tailor the message to the characteristics of
each new channel of distribution and reception format. The possibilities and
development routes regarding the ways and means of information disfusión remain
numerous and inimaginable, such as the ability to use video games to news distribution
(Bogost, Ferrari, Schweizer, 2010). Regarding the audience, new ways of spreading,
as the RSS, are considered a "prelude to an imminent and a logical consequence of
democratic access to the network" (ABC, 2010).
Reception
The large groups that make up the new reception devices cluster are threefold:
smartphones, tablets, and e-book. They all have had an impact on key media issues
(Meier, 2011). According to Busswood (2010: 3) they should be considered
complementary formulas that provide opportunities for "growth and expansion."
Today, there are over 4.6 billion mobile phones worldwide (Gartner, 2010).
Smartphones integrate the capabilities of the "mobile phone" with common
characteristics associated with personal computers (Becker and Arnold, 2010:13).
They are considered technological, though not conceptual, precedents of tablets,
whose roots go back to ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt (Carroll, 2009:4). More recently,
Fidler (1997:327) considered tablets (called flat panel) as the first mobile newspaper in
the technological evolution, due to the "mediamorphosis" media. The tablets can be
considered as a device "Cross over" that integrates the functionality of PDAs, ereaders, smartphones and notebook (Meier, 2011:80). The e-book or e-reader is a
device that uses electronic paper technology. Some of its drawbacks are cost and lack
of compatible standards in its formats, which discourages consumption (Henderson,
2009:166), in addition to the monochrome screen; though it has an advantage that it
can be read well even if it is affected by the brightness of the sun (Kaye and Quinn,
2010:168).
In 2010 over 18 million of tablets have been sold, of which 83% are iPad (IDC, 2011),
and some 12.8 million of e-readers. Sales of the latter increased by 325% in 2009
(IDC, 2011). However, but for iPad these devices suffer from drop in sales and a loss
interest (Change Wave Research, 2011). In 2011, the tablets have proliferated with
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
similar characteristics to iPad, such as the Apple Galaxy Tab, ,which was denounced
by Apple for plagiarizing their design, or tablets of RIM, HP, Nokia, Blackberry ...
competing on price and performance with technology which only a year befote had
introduced itself as very innovative.
The strengths of these devices focus mainly on two issues. First, the fact that
smartphones, tablets and e-readers based visualization of their screens on two
different technologies. In smartphones and tablets various predominate LCD (Liquid
Crystal Display) flat panel displays. E'reader used the E-ink, that allows creating in
short time rolling screen surfaces (Jacko, Sears, 2003:200). Second one is the
operating system for smartphones and tablets. For now, the most used operating
system is Symbian, but it is expected that by 2014 the Android system will gain its
market share (See Figure 3). As specific markets boosted the sales of electronic books
such as Amazon Kindle (Gordon, Alonso, Martin, 2010), we can expect the creation of
market applications for smartphones and tablets to "strengthen" the trend of meeting
needs of consumption instantaneous by the users (Gordon, 2011). Application
development provides a better understanding of users preferences (Flew, 2011:10) and
encourage the purchase of tablets (InStats, 2011), which translates into revenue for the
company and greater garanties of demand for this device (Lawson, 2010:33).
Recent studies show that iPad has some weaknesses in relation to applications of the
media because their formats are similar to traditional print media (Square Eye, 2011) or
the cost in the production of these applications (Bercovici, 2010). So far two business
models have been realized : one more restrictive, and another more open. The first one
was introduced on by Apple in iPad, it includes a total redistribution of the gains made
from application downloads. The criticism of the newspaper industry (ENPA, 2011)
forced to create a new subscription service in which the media can get 100% of its
sales (Guardian, 2011). However, some journalistic news have been developed
uniquely for the Apple tablet, based on brand or images of companies, such as social
Flipboard magazine and The Daily (Apple Insider, 2011).
The iPad may be "setting" new standards in reading (Gordon, 2011) which creates a
spread in the market for users who demand only devices suitable for reading in good
quality, with a monochrome screen, and those who read occasionally, so they want
their device to provide a high quality screen color and allow browsing and watching
videos. These qualities are trying to join in the traditional e-readers, in addition to the
development of new proposals such as IMOD (Mirasol display) or Liquavista (Mitchell,
2011).
The downside of the new business models is that, despite the big demand and the
promise of rapid benefits, they generate low profit. However, companies are aware that
a presence on multiple platforms is a must (Bell, 2005, p. 43). In this context, the media
have adopted divergent strategies regarding their presence on the multiple-platforms
market. Thus, some media have decided to benefit from the winning over client loyalty
opportunities whiches the Internet offers. The feedback which is returned by the
information systems is then integrated in the business process to improve services and
customers' satisfaction. This conventional-digital mixed model makes it difficult to
determine the cost structure and the prices of the services provided by the companies,
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
which, in turn, causes the necessity to consider a variety of contents in the light of the
demands and needs of the multiple platforms end users (Hughes, 2001, p. 7).
Discussion
The evolution of technologies that affect each phase of the communication process
(production, distribution and reception) mentioned in this work is now in the climax of its
development and expansion. Every day, new features, applications and devices that
are appearing and in some cases they replace previous ones (cf. Table 1). Fortunately,
the media have realized that their future depends on the presence of their message in
the new venue. Hence the effort to incorporate technological innovations into their work
routines and a need (still undetected by many) to claim from the companies to develop
applications that allow the media to reach to their audience in the most efficient way.
The Multiple presence of information (or distribution platform) requires joint efforts by
media and companies to create information solutions tailored to each device, and
consumer habits of the audience.
The journalist produces his information by various tools that technology can and should
unite in a single device adapted to the professional and creative needs of the reporter.
Audiences accustomed to receiving information through
more and more
comprehensive, interactive and easy to handle devices that are changing their
consumption habits towards more demanding and selective.
Despite the diversity of solutions and receiving devices, the plurality of information is in
danger of fail, because there are no technological developments that favor the
presence of all media in the new platforms. So far only a few privileged media are
present on the new receiving devices at high cost and without guarantee of profitability
and efficiency of investment.
As for the receiving devices, we detected similarities for users, such as the
instantaneous consumption and demand for multitasking devices, that consolidate the
screens´s society and portable media as a trend for the future.
Finally, with regard to technological innovations in the coming years, we expect to see
more effective implementation of new applications and operating systems for
smartphones and tablets, which together with a decrease in monochrome e-readers,
foster the search for technological solutions focused on the visualization of screens and
new variants besides e-paper.
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Acknowledgement
This research was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Proyecto de I+D+i
CS02009-13713-C05-02. “Evolución de los cibermedios españoles en el marco de la
convergencia. Distribución y tecnología”.
End Note
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to María Ángeles Cabrera
González, Department of Journalism, Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Teatinos
s/n, 29071 Málaga (Spain), e-mail: [email protected]
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Appendix
Technology Galaxy Map
Map tech production, distribution and reception
Use of operating systems
Receiving devices developed by different companies
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Technology Galaxy Map
Figure 1. Map of the technology system.
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Map tech production, distribution and reception
Figure 2. Map of the production, distribution and reception.
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Use of operating systems
Figure 3. Graphic about the use of operating systems.
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Receiving devices developed by different companies
Table 1. Receiving devices developed by different companies
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Follow-Up of Two Main Spanish Political Figures During a
Month of Campaigning Prior to Local Elections in May, 2011,
Using Nostracker-System
Francisco Campos Freire, María Dolores Fernandes del Pozo
Novos Medios Research Group, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Abstract
This paper presents a monitoring study of the two main Spanish political figures, the
President Mr. José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero and Opposition Leader Mr. Mariano Rajoy
Brey, carried out using the online reputation management tool Nostracker, during a
month of campaigning prior to local elections in May, 2011.
Nostracker is an automatic system that researches and evaluates online reputation.
This intelligent tool performs follow-up and management of contents published on
internet; social networks, blogs and mass media platforms. It has been designed,
created and registered by three researchers from the Faculty of Science &
Communication, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
The principal use of this new system is to automatically monitor, classify and research
certain objects (such as brands, personalities or current day figures) from Social Media
(blogs and social networks) and online mass media. It allows us to identify objects and
track internet conversations, define each actor, learn about temporal evolution and
establish ranking according to network presence.
Research carried out through Nostracker enables us to measure the repercussion of
new self-communicating mass media (social and personal networks) on agenda setting
and framing as well as relationship marketing. There is a clear difference between
conventional media and personal and social networks although they have a common
starting point, where the former tend to be a more institutionalized version of the latter.
Results were obtained after screening nearly 20,000 blogs from a local and a national
network, with 5,000 users from popular social networks (Twitter) and about 100 online
media, which include the main Spanish online newspapers.
Keywords: Social Media, Internet, Online Reputation, Public Opinion, Politics
Introduction: why Social Media are worth studying
The modern study of public opinion, which Walter Lippman started in the early 20th
Century, after publishing Public Opinion (1922), changed many of its implications when
other fellow scholars such as J. Habermas and P. Lazarsfeld began to consider the
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effects of the media on the public, even though they did not find a specific name at the
time, to refer to the effects of the media upon public opinion.
When Professor Maxwell McCombs and Professor Donald Shaw published the Chapel
Hill study in 1968, they actually built the new pillars of contemporary media and opinion
research by mentioning the term ‘agenda-setting’ for the very first time. A new research
field was born with this concept, which intended to explore the effects of the media on
the public agenda. This basically meant that these early researchers intended to
measure the amount of power that the main stream media (MSM) had over the
salience of topics debated by the public sphere.
Extensive research on this topic has been done since the agenda-setting theory was
first defined, although media scenario has substantially changed over the years
towards a more fragmented reality, where a broader media offer fights for smaller
portions of audience. The Internet has undoubtedly brought about this change by
offering new communication possibilities and by transforming the traditional role of
consumers. Denis McQuail explains that such change has moved the concept of
audience towards a much more active agent.
“The rise of online media expands the range of media use and undermines the
established notions of audience. The changing socio-cultural climate and the evolving
media structure affect the questions about the audience. Not only does the changing
reality of media use alter the goals of audience research, it also asks for reconceptualisation of the audience concept that has probably exceeded its useful
lifespan. Diversification and relocation of supply and reception coupled with interactivity
have caused a significant shift in the balance of power affecting choice and response”.
(2009:12)
This new reality has forced research to adapt itself to the new variables, which at the
same time means that agenda-setting no longer refers only to its original meaning, but
has enlarged itself to include all the different consequences that arise from the
revolution of the new media and the Internet. One such new nuance is the effect that
the agenda-setting theory has on public images of politicians, and not just on their
political agendas. Professor M. McCombs' comment upon reviewing this new age of
influences is:
“More recently, agenda-setting theory has encompassed public opinion about political
candidates and other public figures, especially the images that the public holds of these
individuals and the contributions of the mass media to those public images. This larger
agenda of topics –public figures as well as public issues– marks an important
theoretical expansion from the beginning of the communication process, what topics
the media and the public are paying attention to and regard as important, to a
subsequent stage, how the media and public perceive and understand the details of
these topics. This second stage in turn, is the opening gambit for mapping the
consequences of the media´s agenda-setting role for attitudes, opinions and
behaviours”. (2004:xii)
Our main goal in this study is to contribute to the mapping of the new ‘agenda-setting
role’ for political opinions on the digital spectrum. Therefore, in order to understand
political discussion and the building of public images in the Internet, it is essential to
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analyze the characteristics and power of the Social Media. In the last ten years, its role
has become more and more relevant to all professionals working in the ‘Community’
and has changed the role of Internet users from consumers of content to producers
and distributors of information. Castells explains such change as arising from the
possibility of creating new personal communication networks:
Next to this, the Internet is revolutionizing communication thanks to its ability to
collapse the mass media. The horizontal character of this communication, from citizen
to citizen, means that I can create my own system of communication on the Internet,
where I can say whatever I want, and communicate it. For the first time, the possibility
for mass communication exists without the influence of the mass media. (2005:227, our
translation from Spanish)
Therefore, in order to understand the full relevance of this new scenario in relation to
political information, the first step is to understand the impact of social media on our
society.
The role of Social Media in Spain
One of the biggest problems of carrying out research on the Internet is that there is still
a lack of accurate data on use of the Net and Social Media in each country. In the case
of Spain, data from 2010 shows that 64.2% of households have Internet (Fundación
Telefónica report, 2010) connection, and that 70% of Internet users are members of
one of the four most popular social networks: Facebook, Tuenti, You Tube and Twitter
(IAB, 2010), which leads us to believe that Social Media play a prominent role in the
lives of Spanish Internet surfers.
Three main Internet agents: blogs, social networks and online media were therefore
chosen for our study.
Blogs were the early developers of interaction on the World Wide Web. They were the
ones to expand the notion of the user as a producer and as a disseminator of content.
Popularity of use of blogs has resulted in the creation of a parallel information sphere,
where individual opinions have a new freeway of expression. The importance of blogs
is nowadays linked to the degree of credibility that Internet users give to them. Serra
has noticed this fact and explains it as follows:
“As different studies and empirical data show –especially Sifry’s study of the ‘State of
the Blogosphere’ or, more recently, the “State of the Live Web”-, blogs have moved
from the stage in which they exclusively commented, referred to and cited news and
opinions of the MSM, and more and more start to refer to each other. The blogosphere
has become a media sphere itself, with a certain degree of autonomy and with
increasing popularity in terms of news and information search, up to the point that the
audience no longer tend to be able to distinguish between blogs and online MSM”.
(2009:315. Our translation from Portuguese)
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The ability to create and disseminate opinion makes blogs crucial while trying to
understand the building of political images and opinions.
On the other hand, Social Networks are the other main agents in the new digital
communication context. As we saw in the case of Spain, Internet users increasingly
use Social Networks in their daily digital routines, and as in the case of blogs, their
ability to expand individual opinion makes them essential for the study of political
opinion.
Finally, online media are the third element that we have studied, for they share the
same scenario as the Social Media but they represent the traditional agenda-setting
role of their fellow off-line versions.
The Nostracker System
A key problem while doing research on the Internet is the vast amount of information
available and the current absence of reliable methodology to systematically collect data
and successfully process it. To address this problem, Francisco Campos Freire,
Manuel Gago Mariño and Ana López Cepeda, researchers from the University of
Santiago de Compostela, have created and registered Nostracker, a reputation
management system that automatically monitors, classifies and researches certain
objects (such as brands, personalities or current day figures) in the Social Media (blogs
and social networks) and in the online mass media. Nostracker is able to identify
objects and traces of Internet conversations, define each actor, learn about temporal
evolution and establish ranking lists in function of presence in network (Campos,
Fernandes, 2011).
The Nostracker system is a model that is still evolving, and its goal is to integrate all the
Iberian Peninsula and Latin American blogosphere through all the Spanish and
Portuguese media ecosystem (online media, blogs and social networks) and also
through the Latin American blogosphere. For this reason, there are two Nostracker
systems working currently in Ecuador and Argentina to integrate the blogospheres of
the Andean and Mercosur area.
Nostracker enables us to measure the repercussion of new self-communicating mass
media (social and personal networks) on agenda-setting and framing as well as
relationship marketing. To achieve this level of analysis, the methodology used in all
the Nostracker research projects is very similar.
Firstly, we need to define the ‘objects’ that are going to be analyzed, i.e.; the topic,
brand or person that needs to be monitored. The first step is to give the object a name
that will identify it, in order to write the so-called ‘defining terms’ of that object. This
shall include all the possible ways of writing the name of the object and all its possible
variants (see Figure 1), and furthermore, writing the tags for that object.
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Nome (Name):
Presidente de España
Nos campos Termos e Tags separar por comas
presidente de españa, presidente de espana, zapatero, rodríguez zapatero,
etc.
Termos
definidores de
obxecto (Defining
terms):
españa, política, gobierno, psoe
Tags de obxecto
(Object tags):
Figure1. Creating an ‘object’ for Nostracker
After having defined the object, the system automatically screens, posts, tweets and
news that are published on a daily basis by a number of pre-selected ‘actors’ and
‘media’, in search of the ‘defining terms’ that we have previously described.
The common database that the system analyzes is comprised of a) actors which
include around 20,000 blogs and 5,000 Twitter profiles, and b) the media –another
common database, comprised of the 100 Spanish online media. The blogs and Twitter
profiles have been carefully selected, and represent the most active ‘actors’ in the
Spanish cyber-communication world.
Once the system collects the information of all the actors and media that have
published some news, post or tweet, it presents the results as two types of graphs. The
first type of graph presents two chronological graphs: one for the results found in blogs
and social networks (Twitter) and one for the results found in online media (Graph 1).
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Graph 1: Nostracker results from blogs and social media, and results from online
media.
The second type of graph divides the results into negative and positive (Graph 2). But
prior to showing such division, one needs to manually classify each of the results found
due to their qualitative value.
Graph 2: Nostracker qualitative results after manual classification into positive and
negative results.
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The study: context and results
The traditional power of the media on information flow is beginning to decrease,
undermined by the new cyber-communication sphere that is developing throughout the
Social Media. Thus, the agenda-setting process is now in a constant state of flux, due
to the amount of micro-conversations that take place in blogs and social networks, and
therefore this new phenomena needs to be mapped in order to understand the full
implications of this shift in public opinion sources.
Previous studies carried out with Nostracker (Campos et al.2010) have shown that the
MSM agenda is quite different from the micro-media and the social media agenda
when analyzing news such as natural disasters. In this study we intend to find out
whether such distortion of the traditional agenda-setting process affects political issues,
and particularly the public image of politicians, in the same way.
The context of this study: Spain’s political situation
In our study we have monitored the presence of the President of Spain, Mr. José Luís
Rodríguez Zapatero, and the presence of the Opposition Leader, Mr. Mariano Rajoy
Brey, in conversations held in the micro-media and in the news during a month of
campaigning prior to the local elections on May 22nd, 2011.
These are the two main political figures in Spain, and the result of the local elections
will probably show the trend for the general elections results scheduled for 2012.
The media at this moment are paying close attention to decisions taken in both parties,
as the general political situation in Spain is considered to be ‘Bad’ by 37.5% of the
population, and ‘Very bad’ by 29.7% of them. Furthermore, it seems that voters will not
be motivated by a change in the Government; because 51.2% of the people think that
the Spanish political situation in a year’s time will be the same while 22.9% think it will
be worse (CIS, 2011).
Data from the same study, the CIS Barometer published in March 2011, shows that
Spaniards view the future of the national economic situation pessimistically and 40.0%
of the surveyed participants think that Spain’s general economic situation is bad, and
almost the same number of people (42.7%) thinks that it will not change in a year’s
time.
One must also take into account the current political polarization in Spain, where the
political debate has been rather hostile since the elections of 2004 in which President
Zapatero came into power. Sampedro and Seoane observed the following for the precampaigning period of the 2008 elections:
These debating lines, typical of the centuries-old confrontation in Spanish politics, were
contrasted with TV debates in which [the political figures] accused each other of
deception and of lying to the voters. With almost no questions from the moderator, this
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kind of message may have had the only effect of reinforcing the pre-existing attitudes in
the PP and PSOE followers. And they could have possibly mobilized the indecisive to
prevent the opponent’s victory. Regardless of who won the TV debates (although the
media said it was Zapatero), the two political forces not only consolidated their voters,
but they also increased them. (2009:131)
This radicalization of the political discourse was also present on the Internet, mainly
through You Tube videos and other social platforms related to one or the other party.
Such presence on the Internet was said to help the political parties to interact with the
average voters, but its real use turned out to be oriented towards the stimulation of the
participation of their own followers (Sampedro & Seoane, 2009:133).
For all of the above reasons, it is essential to study the evolution of the presence of
President J.L. Rodríguez Zapatero and Opposition Leader M. Rajoy Brey, in order to
find out if there is an active response on the Web to the political agenda and the
polarized discourse prior to the local elections in 2011.
Results obtained in the study
This research project was carried out between the 3rd of March 2011 and the 3rd of April
2011. In this time span, Nostracker registered 1,800 results for President Zapatero (
Graph 3) and 594 results for Opposition Leader Rajoy (Graph 4).
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Graph 3: Quantitative results obtained for President José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero
between 3rd March, 2011, and 3rd April, 2011.
Graph 4: Quantitative results obtained for Opposition Leader Mariano Rajoy Brey
between 3rd March, 2011 and 3rd April, 2011.
This difference in the number of results between both political figures is understandable
if we take into account two factors:
- The fact that the President always has a greater presence in the media, due to the
public relevance of his position.
- The announcement that President Zapatero made on the 2nd of April saying he would
not be the candidate in the upcoming general national elections in 2012, a major
political item of news.
In as far as the evolution of the presence of President Zapatero in social media and in
online media, there is a small difference between his presence in the online media and
his presence in the social media, which is usually lower, but in general terms both
agendas tend to follow the same trends.
The only exception to this trend takes place on the 26th of March, the day on which
President Zapatero met the representatives of the forty-two most important companies
in Spain. Repercussion in the social media was not the same despite the subsequent
debate on the MSM around this very same topic on the following days, which means
that this issue was not included in the social-media agenda and, thus, that in this
particular case MSM agenda did not impose its topics to social networks and blogs.
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On the other hand, the presence of the opposition leader Rajoy shows a similar
evolution pattern, with a lower presence in the social media than in the online media.
Despite the above, we can observe two significant phenomena in this graph.
One is on the 11th of March, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004,
where Mr. Mariano Rajoy had more presence in the online media than in the social
media. This shows that even though the political agenda imposed itself on the MSM
and online media agenda, through public acts to commemorate the victims, the social
media did not register the same relative amount of traffic on that topic.
The second significant phenomenon in Graph 4 is the high peak on the 31st of March, a
day in which both social and online media registered equal interest on the statement
made by Ex-President Mr. José María Aznar, relating Mr. Rajoy’s personality and his
Galician origin. The debate around the negative connotations in the statement that
referred to Mr. Rajoy’s origin continued in the social media on the following days as
shown in the graph, even though it was a spontaneous comment that was surely not on
these politicians’ agenda. Another topic that contributed to this peak, and that was part
of the Partido Popular’s agenda, was the proposal of PP’s member Mr.Ramón Luis
Valcárcel to change the current Spanish Social Security system towards a co-payment
model of Social Security. This really had an important impact on the Spanish social
media.
In as far as the qualitative results obtained after individually analyzing each of the
results for both political figures studied in this project, the first thing that we can
observe is that, even though President Zapatero has a greater presence in the Net,
there are more negative opinions and news about him than positive ones along the
whole period of time studied (Graph 5). The only exception is again on the 26th of
March, in which the President got more positive presence in relation to his meeting with
the most prominent Spanish entrepreneurs.
Graph 5: Qualitative results obtained for President Mr. José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero
between 3rd March, 2011, and the 3rd April, 2011.
For Opposition Leader, Mariano Rajoy, the qualitative results are different, as he gets
more positive than negative results during the same period of time, despite his lower
presence in the actors traced by Nostracker (Graph 6).
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Graph 6: Qualitative results obtained for Opposition Leader Mr. Mariano Rajoy Brey
between 3rd March, 2011, and 3rd April, 2011.
The only remarkable exception starts on the 29th of March and continues until the 3rd of
April, a period in which Mr. Rajoy obtains more negative than positive results. This is
basically due to the debate around his aptitudes as leader of the opposition party and
was a consequence of the comment that the Ex-President Aznar made about his
personality and his Galician origins.
Conclusions
This paper, as we have previously mentioned, intends to be part of the mapping
process of public opinion behaviour on the Internet. Even though our previous
experiences had shown that the agenda-setting process for social media could be
different from the agenda-setting power of the traditional MSM, this research shows
that such difference does not yet apply to political issues.
The small divergences that we have found tend to be related to topics that are not
strictly linked to political agenda, and are more related to anecdotes or opinions about
the suitability of the attitudes and behaviours of Spanish politicians. Thus, we can say
that, even if political agenda may not be affected, public image of politicians is a
popular issue in the conversations that take place in the Spanish micro-media.
There are various challenges for the future. First of all, there is a strict need to develop
efficient software and research models that allow us to systematically collect and
classify data in a reliable way. Our model, for example, is in process of change, and we
are in search of new intelligent semantic systems that will help us to study the
qualitative data linked to each category (actors and media). This kind information is
vital to study the evolution of public image on the social media.
Another important challenge related to the previous one is the access to social and
online media profiles. Nostracker tracks around 5,000 public Twitter profiles, but there
are many others that are not accessible yet, for example. Our work is to carefully
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identify public data available on the media (social or not) to guarantee the credibility of
this kind of research, but always respecting users’ privacy above all.
Tracing the evolution of the social-media’s agenda setting process is probably the most
important challenge for the future. It is not only a matter of understanding the division
between the media agenda and the social media agenda, it is also about studying this
evolution referred to in different kinds of issues. They may evolve together in the future,
but at this moment it seems that certain types of information are more likely to become
popular in the social media than others.
Finally, working with the Internet, in constant change, implies being aware of the global
changes concerning the uses and possibilities of digital communication. The study of
the Web of the Future, the Web 3.0, is crucial to foresee the evolution of the media in
general and the social media in particular. The revolution of the press towards the
building of new platforms of content is part of this process, and should be kept in mind
to analyze the future balance of power over the information.
End Note
Correspondence should be addressed to Francisco Campos Freire / Mª Dolores
Fernandes del Pozo, Facultade de Ciencias da Comunicación, Avda de Castelao s/n
Campus
Norte
15782.
E-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected]
References
Campos, F., & Fernandes, M.D., (2011) Presencia de la traducción e interpretación en
los servicios públicos en Internet: Presentación de un nuevo sistema de gestión y
seguimiento del contenido online y su aplicación a la TISP. In Valero, C. (eds.)
Traducción e Interpretación en los Servicios Públicos en un mundo INTERcoNEcTado/
Public Service Interpreting and Translation in the Wild Wired World/ Actas IV Congreso
Internacional de Traducción e Interpretación en los Servicios Públicos. (pp.41-49).
Campos, F., López, A. & Gago, M., (2010) Desarrollo de una nueva herramienta de
análisis y gestión de la conversación de los medos sociales. In Instituto Tecnológico y
de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (eds.) Virtualis. México D.F. (pp. 21-33).
Castells, M., (1999) Internet y la Sociedad de la Red. In De Moraes, D. (coord.) (2005).
Por otra comunicación. Los media, globalización cultural y poder. (pp.203-228).
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2.864.
Fundación Telefónica (2010) La Sociedad de la Información en España 2010.
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Interactive Advertising Bureau (2010) doi: http://www.iabspain.net/blog/?p=51
McCombs, M., (2004). Setting the Agenda, The Mass Media and Public Opinion.
McQuail, D., (2009) Decline and fall of the audience concept. The rise of social action
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Media: Communication Research on the Social Construction of Reality.
Lippman, W. (1922) Public Opinion. New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Sampedro,V. & Seoane, F., (2009) Las elecciones generales españolas de 2008:
“Bipolarización antagónica” fomentada por intereses político-mediáticos y las nuevas
tecnologías. In Revista de Sociología y Política, 17(34): 129-135.
Serra, P. (2009) Os blogs e a questao do agendamento. In Flores, J.M. & Esteve, F.
(eds.) Periodismo Web 2.0, pp. 313-324.
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News Games and Mobile Journalism: A Proposal for a
Theoretical Rapprochement
Milton Cappelletti Júnior
Master Student of “Communication Research Programme” at Universidad de Vigo,
Pontevedra, Spain
Abstract
With the development of the game industry and its growing importance to the
entertainment industry, most media companies are starting to use the games as a new
way to inform and entertain your audience, especially through online platforms, which
led to the emergence of the newsgames concept, the format in which video games are
produced and used to explain current information in a ludic way, putting complex
information into context and allowing greater interactivity through the use of the
practical elements of journalism applied to game design. This ludic-information can
also be found in the core of Mobile Journalism, owing to the fact that it finds here the
technological support to adapt itself to the user context and its ubiquity, being strongly
linked to the user's identity and their everyday social interactions within primary groups.
Thus, this paper seeks to establish the coordinates of a theoretical rapprochement
between the Newsgames and Mobile Journalism, aiming to establish relationships that
enable the development of common practices to suit the changing needs of the public
to contemporary media compounds.
Keywords: News
Technologies.
Games,
Mobile
Journalism,
Contemporary
Communication
Introduction
The development of the new technologies in communication resulted in the
development and shaping of a new culture that values real-time data and ubiquitous
and more playful and entertained information. You can also add the multiple media
platforms that value mobility and the diversity of formats and informational contents.
Both the development of technological standards and a strong social base in relation to
daily use, portability and individual identity have made mobile phone the ideal device
for bringing together many of the uses that characterize the Information Society,
making it a congregator device of digital devices and laying the foundation for the true
integration of features and services that forms the basis of the mediation process of the
mobile telephony.
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Mobile telephony has been a significant transformative impact on the consumption of
leisure, in the management of individual identity and even in channeling social
responses.
In this context, it arises the newsgames, news-based games that make up a new way
to transmit information in an area little explored by Journalism. This new format allows
greater interactivity with the content, while reporting as well as entertain. Media
companies and media groups have begun to identify in this format new business
opportunities and start developing specific information products in these constraints.
From this relationship between newsgames and mobility, this study aims to find
common elements to the concepts of Journalism and Mobile Newsgames, so as to
allow a theoretical approach between their characteristics and practices. This approach
will be taken from the literature review of various authors of the area and will focus
primarily on three important aspects: the mobile infotainment, the culture of mobility as
a criterion for newsworthiness and ludic-información as a new model of production and
distribution of news on Internet.
From the analysis of these parameters, it will be proposed practices that bring their
properties into a new product press: the newsgames adapted for the mobile
environment.
Newsgames as journalistic format
According to Deda and Zagalo (2010), the newsgames are games based on journalistic
facts that constitute a new way of transmitting an event embedded in the field of
gaming. This tool intends to use playable platforms for journalism, more specifically, to
show certain aspects of news reporting that should create awareness at the time of
being known by readers. (Gutierrez, 2010)
The expressive potential of this tool is to join a game to a narrative, giving the sense of
creating a player, which connotes a strategy created to attract gamers to the world of
journalism and strengthening the link between video games and the media. The news
is seen as the thread of the plot of the game and requires a more active stance of the
player-reader.
According to Seabra (2009), the information in the narratives of the games is not
always explicit and clear, like a newspaper headline, or a descriptive manner, but has a
more appealing appearance, and that "the more involved person is with the
information, the easier it will be to remember it"(Seabra, 2009).
Although the concept of Newsgames has appeared recently, this adaptation of the
availability of information content in a rich sensory way was originated almost a century
ago, when the researcher Jon Burton said "the medias have a long tradition of offering
its readers puzzles and games like crosswords that first appeared in the New York
World Newspaper in 1913” (Burton, 2005, apud Lima Jr, 2008).
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The first experience of newsgames was made in 2003, when the Gonzalo Frasca, a
former Uruguayan journalist and academic researcher of technologies related to video
games, led a team of developers and created one of the first name games: "September
12th", which tried to raise public awareness after the attack on the Twin Towers on
September 11, 2001.
The Spanish newspaper El País was also responsible for the publication of one of the
first newsgames - the Play Madrid - on the terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004. A few
days after the tragedy, the game was already available on the website of the
newspaper. Then it came the game “Food Import Folly” by The New York Times
Newspaper, about the lack of control over food imports in the U.S.
Another prominent example is “Prime Minister Forever”, a game that allows players to
assume the role of a political candidate in the presidential elections in Australia. To
succeed, players must become familiar with a simplified version of the Australian
political system. While the player manages his own campaign, he has to obey the
electoral rules governed by the game during the season. The player is free in the
actions they perform, but not in the rules to be enforced.
Even in the political issue, the CNN news network launched in 2007 the “Presidential
Pong”, a game in which you can play ping-pong with the candidates for the presidential
election that year. Each candidate has his skills developed in accordance with the
outcome of the election campaign in the real world. In 2009, Wired magazine also
created a video game to understand the actions of Somali pirates on merchant ships in
the waters of the Indian Ocean, called "Cutthroat Capitalism ". In this game, the reader
could become a pirate, capture a ship and negotiate the ransom.
It’s also important to notice that many commercial games use current information or
historical facts as background for his narratives, such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein,
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Rome: Total War,
etc. . Historical references or current events are experienced through the visual
elements embodied in the game and in his own argument.
According to Treanor and Mateas (2009), some features are common to all the
newsgames, regardless of their gender: created in response to a current event, release
date close enough to the event to keep it relevant, able to be understood in a couple of
minutes, intent to influence the player to a particular viewpoint (persuasive), and the
identification of a problem and often the involving of a solution rhetorically
communicated through images, sound and game.
Another important feature points Silva (1999) when he says that virtual games allow
users to interact in various aspects at the same time, such as memory (visual, auditory,
kinesthetic), the temporal and spatial orientation (in two and three dimensions) ,
sensory-motor coordination (wide and thin), auditory perception, visual perception
(size, color, detail, shape, position, handedness, complementation), logicalmathematical, linguistic expression (oral and written), the planning and organization.
The Newsgames propose a subversion of the issue and availability of traditional news
(Seabra, 2009). The new proposal also subverts the traditional narrative of the games,
to establish a new paradigm for storytelling in video games: it opens the possibility for
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players to create their own games, in real time, according to their affinities and
interests. The experience of reading news has been extended to a fun activity, going
beyond the simple desire to learn (Almeida, 2009).
However, there are authors who do not accept Newsgames as journalistic format.
Nolan (2003) argues that there are "important differences between the objectives,
structure and ethics of online games and narratives ". She asserts that "the idea of
rewards and sanctions [in games] is obviously a problem for journalism that values
information as an end and not as means." Deak (2007) says that the tools developed
for video games can be alienating features, but can also be used for education or
journalism. For Andrade (2008), the newsgames should be seen only as emulators of
news and journalism as a form of construction, which should be considered in the
effects of production, circulation and reception.
Mobile Journalism
The mobile journalism seems to be a trend that will gradually go rooting in the
newsrooms of newspapers in order to keep their digital editions fed with news stories
immediately. Stephen Quinn (2002) in his book "Knowledge management in the digital
newsroom " tackles the theme in the chapter "Mobile Journalism" in which discusses
the use of mobile technologies in the context of journalism through "virtual pressroom
"where journalists were able to develop their reports from outside writing with the ability
to send material from the place where the incident happened.
In 2005 it began to appear the word "Mojo" (acronym for Mobile Journalist) at the
Gannett Newspaper Agency in the United States to designate the emerging activity of
some reporters of The News-Press Agency who used laptops, cameras and digital
recorders, as well of broadband connections to produce and publish stories on the
move directly from the premises and centrally. In 2007, the news agency Reuters, in
collaboration with Nokia, started some experiences with the mobile journalism, followed
by several media groups in the world.
Editor & Publisher Magazine has released an extensive report on the introduction of
this type of journalism in the U.S. local press. Among the benefits identified in the
report include: increased closeness between journalists and the community where they
live and reporting, immediacy, and increased on-line information material.
Since the beginning of XXI century, the proliferation of wireless technology (Wi-Fi,
WiMax, Bluetooth, 3G4G2) and advanced digital wireless technologies (cell phones,
smartphones, palmtops, laptops, tablet PCs, digital cameras and the like ) can be
perceived, resurrecting the discussion on the current nature of contemporary
journalism. Earlier this immediacy was focused primarily on providing news, while now
seen an expansion of possibilities to the complementarity of information through video,
audio and photos with high-speed networks such as Wi-Fi and the third generation
(3G) which allows uploading and downloading large files, as well as web browsing.
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It was observed that there is a change in the traditional criteria of newsworthiness and
production routines of online and offline newsrooms with the inclusion of new criteria,
such as localism and the instantaneously (Da Silva, 2007, 2008a, 2008b) in the running
towards reporting before, with the velocity induced by the continuous production flow of
the post-mass functions of the new media (Lemos, 2007), represented by the Internet. "
This is a new development in journalism that adds new information to the news story in
a building that combines immediacy and location through the mobile communication
devices (Schneider, 2007).
The emergence of multiple platforms tend to reinforce this feature of "live" to the facts,
through the use of tools such as microblogging, moblogs, and stream channels as
Ustream, Justin.tv, Kyte.tv, Cover It Live, Mogulus Live Broadcast, Flixwagon, among
others. According to Da Silva (2008), moblogs and microblogging represent the
movement towards new formats for journalism both in relation to the demand for
production as in the dissemination and receipt of content.
Schneider (2007) notes that the mobile production can be intensified especially in the
citizen journalism, taking into account that mobile technologies such as digital cameras
and mobile phones are in the hands of many people around the world. For him, video
coverage in real time (streaming) through the mobile means the strengthening of
participatory journalism to citizens without reliance on the media in the process.
To Santaella (2008), mobile communication (mobile phones, PDAs, smartphones,
notebooks) is the fifth generation of communication technology development, preceded
by the fourth generation - networks telecomputing (cyberculture, Portatel, personal
computers), the third generation - culture medium (cable TV, fax, video recorder,
walkman), the second generation - electro-electronic (radio, television), and the first
generation - electro-mechanical (photo, telegraph, press , Film).
Castells (1999) in the 90’s defended the existence of a "network society" with
information technology originated in the 1970's with the miniaturization and a series of
inventions that have made computers more portable and more powerful, which later
provided the rise of mobile digital technology, resulting in a "mobile network society"
(Castells, 1999).
According Schneider (2007), the prospects for development are outlined by the double
convergence of mobile Internet (access to digital media) and TV (video streaming and
TV news in real time). The convergence of mobile device with digital radio (streaming
audio) is certainly more technologically accessible than the TV, but it is still under study
and development as a business initiative depends on the success of digital radio and
audio content distribution via phone (MP3).
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Conceptual relationships
1. Mobile Infotainment
The term Infotainment comes from a neologism resulted by the union of the words
information and entertainment, and came during the 1980's, gaining notoriety in late
1990 and was used internationally by professionals and academia. It refers to the
specialty of journalism and editorial only directed to information and entertainment. Its
articulation and reproduction are associated with many social and cultural
responsibilities. Its editorial content is attached to the seriousness, lightness, accuracy
and ethics, reporting data in all genres of journalism, while entertaining and distracting
the reader.
The infotainment sees the information as an enjoyable experience, working as a safety
valve that can relieve stress and promote relaxation as a form of leisure time.
Currently, this is the kind of journalism that comes closest to the wishes of society and
therefore information is consolidated by providing news that fit these characteristics,
which both inform and be accessible to everyone.
It should, however, take into account two factors, as we said Aguado and Martinez
(2009): firstly, mobile devices physical conditions (size and screen terminal, interface
type, autonomy) impose a limited attention conditions and specific perception and
interaction. Second, conditions of use are also imposed by the limited time
(displacement related to portability, etc.). In addition, there is also the competition with
other external factors of attention (disruption of the environment) over long periods of
time.
Consequently, unlike the mobile entertainment social interaction (SMS and Chat), the
mobile entertainment related to informational content such as newsgames are
represented by small formats, subject to fragmentation, storage, retrieval and
serialization usable for short periods of time (no more than 20-30 minutes) and linked
to posting and management of downtime.
Otherwise the mobile infotainment horizon specifically includes the combined
possibilities of Internet, TV and game consoles (videos, pictures, blogs, series, songs,
ringtones, games, etc.) together with the other leisure uses associated to the
production and distribution of infotainment contents.
2 The culture of mobility as a criterion for newsworthiness
Mobility and ubiquity are two representative elements about the role that mobile
technologies currently represent in different informational formats, such as
newsgames. The results of this cross results in the emergence of various operating
and reporting practices more consistent with the urban space and the navigation
through cyberspace. To Santaella (2008), we need to rethink this relationship, having
the urban space as a result of mobility established and driven by mobile devices.
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Mobile technology forces us to reconsider the legibility of space and how people
rediscover the everyday space, because when the movement of the city and human
mobility - both technologically mediated - cross each other, multiple specialties can be
melted in the threshold of a hypermobility era (Santaella, 2008 apud Da Silva, 2008).
Historically, human societies always faced barriers to communication such as distance
and movement (Geser, 2004). Technological developments in communication
throughout history have focused primarily on solving the problem of distance (Aguado
& Martínez, 2009); the mobile phone had a decisive impact on the problem of motion.
Because of it, it was possible the evolution from a interlocal communication to a trans
communication (Geser, 2004), where connectivity no longer depends on the place, but
on the person, and where accessibility is no longer discontinuous, but continuous.
Thus, the mobile devices have become an indispensable complement to the social
subject.
Lemos (2008) said that in contemporary cybercities there is a close relationship
between mass media functions (such as press, radio and TV) and digital media with
new post-mass functions (Internet and its various tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts,
P2P networks, social networks, and phones with multiple features.) The evolution of
city-communication binomial accompanies the development of communication
technologies.
It’s important to remember that the relationship between journalism and mobility is not
established in recent times. However, its most consistent characteristic, since the
wireless telegraph, is no doubt nowadays because of a set of mobile devices that are
truly significant structure for the news story from a distance. The changes appear not
only from a technical point of view, but from the perspective of practices that redefine
the way we communicate and circulate information in our society.
You can add to this relationship between journalism and mobility new ways to deal with
urban space as far as portability, mobility, ubiquitous and mobile journalism become
factors induced by mobile technologies and geolocation processes.
Such journalistic practices related to these technologies pose new challenges in the
field of communication studies and cyberculture; the appropriation of these tools
provide an increase in the range of possibilities for the analysis of objects constructed
in the vicinity of "mobile network society " (Castells, 2006). This is the space where the
newsgames would be involved.
Lemos (2008) divided mobility into two levels: physical/spacial (transport) and
virtual/informational (media). The newsgames, therefore, will fit in this context named
by Santaella (2008) "culture of mobility" as an advanced variant of cyberculture caused
by mobile technologies characterized by portability and personalization.
Therefore, the newsgames in the context of mobile communication impose a new
dynamic to the journalistic process especially for the impasse between online and
traditional journalism because of the new way in which the contents are produced and
distributed. More to read headlines or updates from moblogs and microblogs, mobile
newsgames would deepen the knowledge on a subject as the individual moves on the
urban space, implying another different degree of involvement with journalistic content.
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The instantaniedad is no longer the only value in the consumption of information, which
expands into horizontal information. Thus, Santaella’s culture of mobility (2008) is
finally incorporated in the journalism, making room for new parameters regarding the
interpretation of their specific medium in the presence of post-mass functions
increasingly taking up more space.
This context can even trace back to the appropriation of technology by journalists
seeking the application of physical mobility and information within the process of
production and distribution of contents to the audience.
3. The ludic-information and the new model of production and dissemination of news
on Internet
According to Seabra (2009), the term ludic-information means “the use of playful
elements in the narrative of the story to attract user attention for the information
available in video game media. The newsgames, therefore, inform and educate having
fun, having ludic-information as a substrate and not limited to the mere reproduction of
virtual reality as a hobby.
In the new directions of the Online Journalism, the newsgames bring an innovative
approach in which the news is formatted differently through ludic-informations,
subverting the traditional notion of an inverted pyramid used on Web pages that,
according to Palacios (2003), work with access links to various inverted pyramids.
Salaverría (1999) had already noticed that the technique of the inverted pyramid does
not stand more alone in cyberspace.
Seabra (2009) suggested in his studies about newsgames a tetrad to explain the new
value added by them to the way we produce and disseminate news on Internet. In this
model, newsgames perform four main functions: extension - interactivity in ludic and
horizontal supports and networks of nano-audience of readers/news producers;
subversion – journalism of nano-social agenda with playfulness inherent to the medium
as opposition to the traditional journalism; recovery - recover the playful essence of the
relationship between reader/user and information content; obsolescence - deepens the
story and presents new aspects of a news event.
Seabra (2009) notes that it’s not a mere news remediation (alternative form of
distribution and consumption) – it’s a new form of production, circulation and
consumption of news media through ludic-informations. In relation to the six
characteristics of online journalism proposed by Palacios (2003), Seabra (2009) added
another one: the playfulness inherent in the media, whose differential (for fun or
entertainment) assured newsgames unique factor when compared to other media
genres (information and interpretive opinion) and other forms of production, circulation
and consumption of news on the Web.
In the narrative of ludic-informative newsgames, games not only communicate
messages, but also simulate experiences. Although they are often thought just as a
leisure activity, newsgames can also become rhetorical tools.
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According to a study by the Poynter Company cited by Seabra (2009), the general
retention rate of information including multimedia elements is 50%, while in the
newsgames this rate varies from 70 to 80%. The research indicates that newsgames
can be an important ally to attract a generation of readers who have long threatened to
abandon the use of newspapers. Finally, the study confirms that the news in
cyberspace should be viewed as the beginning of something and not an end in itself,
increasing the hypertext nature of the Web.
Although ludic-information is still considered as mere entertainment, it’s important to
keep architecting other formats, such as newsgames, that can provide a wider range of
news content in various devices. The ludic-information in newsgames, especially
applied to mobile devices, can emulate information, entertain and generate knowledge
for their readers/players.
Conclusions
The mobile Internet runs towards an integration of the latest technological equipment
that enables digital distribution of bulletins, products or specialized news services. The
combination of improved handsets, with more features and affordability are factors that
will make the mobile phones mass medias whose applications go beyond personperson communication.
In this context, newsgames applied to mobile environments congregate a number of
advantages from the standpoint of communications for journalism, such as mobile
infotainment, mobility as a criterion for newsworthiness and ludic-information. These
elements imply in the planning of new communication models that best fit with the new
needs of the public and with the information contents.
This merge would also imply in a challenge to some media groups and organizations.
Capabilities and standards will be required to produce informational products with
representation and interest (selection, writing and editing news and current content)
and others that are more in the field of marketing (packaging, work on the format,
management and coordination resources).
As Aguado and Martinez (2009) said that the specificity of mobile devices and, in
particular, its strong links to identity and daily immediate availability make them a
catalyst for new forms of media consumption and a powerful element of reinforcement
on consumption of other content or media, acting as a meta-narrative cohesiver
associated with lifestyles and needs, including information and entertainment.
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The News Production Process about the U.S. Embassy Cables:
How ‘The Guardian’, ‘The New York Times’ and ‘El País’
Covered and Released the Documents Provided by WikiLeaks
Miguel Carvajal, José Alberto García Avilés, José Luis González Esteban
Journalism Department, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Spain
Abstract
In November 2010, WikiLeaks provided 250,000 diplomatic documents to five news
organisations throughout the world. The United States diplomatic cables leak (also
known as “Cablegate”) has sparked the debate about the journalistic nature of
WikiLeaks and about transparency and free speech. However, it is a great opportunity
to see how the press covered and reported the documents by analysing the strategies
and practices of three newspapers. It also provides comparative material to establish
differences not only between newspapers, but also countries, media cultures and
journalists. The methodology uses comparative data gathered from each newspaper
through questions that address the main aspects of the news production process: the
agenda of negotiations with Julian Assange (founder of WikiLeaks); the publication
schedule; decision making and the ethics about the publication of compromising
cables; how the staff was managed and coordinated, and what types of guidelines
were given; the ombudsman policy regarding the publication of the cables; etc. This
paper describes how three major news media organise their news production in a
situation that is different from the regular daily basis. This case gives us an excellent
opportunity to analyse how different editors drew up a plan for the publication of one of
the most important leaks in the recent history of public opinion.
Keywords: WikiLeaks, news, reporting, production, sources, comparative
The News Production Process about the U.S. Embassy Cables
The publication of the U.S. Embassy cables in five newspapers throughout the World is
a milestone in the modern history of journalism. The global coordination, the impact on
public opinion and the tecnological conditions make this case the Watergate of the 21st
century. It is even more important because this leak is taking place in challenging times
for the newspaper industry. The financial crisis, combined with the birth of a new
ecosystem of new media models, challenges the traditional media monopoly within
public opinion. In this context, the leak of U.S. Embassy cables was provided by one of
those new organisations—WikiLeaks. These circumstances are enough to make this a
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historical case that deserves a more in-depth study. This paper shapes a first
comparative research about the process related to the news production in several
countries using the same leak. WikiLeaks had already distributed documents, but the
cache of U.S. Embassy cables documents make this an exemplary case due to its
reach, the process and the material leaked.
This paper primarily addresses the process of dealing with the source, managing a
team of journalists, publishing the documents, and the ethical and legal issues involved
at three of the five news organisations that were given the U.S. Embassy documents
by WikiLeaks. The research questions that guide this study are: a) how the news
production process is conducted concurrently at three newspapers with the same leak,
and b) what are the main legal and ethical issues shaped by the editors of those three
newspapers.
The empirical dimension of the paper is grounded in the qualitative analysis of the
articles written by editors, journalists and reporters from the three newspapers, as well
as other key meetings with them, such as chats with audiences and conferences. The
data analysis findings suggest that this is the first time that several global news
organisations have worked together, that they dealt with WikiLeaks primarily as a
source, that they have different approaches to the ethics of transparency, and that they
have devoted the best of their teams to report on the U.S. Embassy documents. The
news organisations that were analysed are The Guardian, The New York Times and El
País. The selection is due to the language focus, but the aim is to expand it to Der
Spiegel and Le Monde in future research.
Dealing with the source
The WikiLeaks launch into the global audience began with a meeting in June 2010
between The Guardian's Nick Davies and Julian Assange. Davies had sought out
Assange after reading his early accounts about a massive leak of diplomatic
documents. He wanted to convince Assange that this story would have a greater
impact if he was willing to work together with newspapers. A unique collaboration was
initially established between three media outlets (The Guardian, The New York Times
and Der Spiegel) and the WikiLeaks organisation. “We have had the cables many
weeks,” explained Rusbridger (2010b) to his readers in November 2010. “NYT had
them fewer weeks. El Pais and Le Monde joined more recently.”
Assange was, “at the best of times, difficult to contact, switching mobile phones, email
addresses and encrypted chat rooms as often as he changed his location” (Rusbridger,
2011). WikiLeaks had, to some extent, different goals than The Guardian. Rusbridger
(2010b) argues, “I hope WikiLeaks would acknowledge that we brought something to
the party in our ability to search, contextualise, verify, explain etc.”
The New York Times negotiation with the source has two different stages: the first one
was for the military dispatches, and the second one was for the U.S. Embassy Cables.
The first one took place in June, when The New York Times sent Eric Schmitt (of the
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Washington bureau) to attend the first meeting with the source. His initial assignment
was to ‘to get a sense of the material’ (Keller, 2011). Eric Schmitt was in charge of
calibrating the material and dealing with Julian Assange. Eric Schmitt, David Leigh
(The Guardian), Nick Daves (The Guardian) and John Goetz (Der Spiegel) worked
together to organise and sort the material.
On November the 1st they obtained the diplomatic cables after certain disputes with
Julian Assange, and he threatened to contact his lawyers. The New York Times wasn’t
the leader of the negotiations with the source. The Guardian editors were the ones who
were contacted by Assange to lead the group of media. So they spontaneously
coordinated the work during those initial days. In October, when WikiLeaks gave The
Guardian its third cache about the diplomatic relations between the U.S. and other
countries, Assange imposed a new condition: not to share the material with The New
York Times. He was actually open to the idea of talking with other American news
organisations.
As Bill Keller said, The New York Times was never asked to sign anything or to pay
anything. The only major condition was certain “embargoes” for publishing the material.
They assumed Assange was familiar with the benefits of such embargoes, which are
commonplace in journalism, in generating suspense and amplifying a story (Keller,
2011). The main condition was temporary: they could not write anything until WikiLeaks
posted the documents on its website. In November, once The New York Times had the
diplomatic cables, Assange threatened them, asking “Tell me, are you in contact with
your legal counsel? You had better be.”
The first contact between Julian Assange and Javier Moreno, the executive editor of El
País, took place in November via phone. “Assange phoned me, with a gasped voice. It
was a brief call, surprisingly for me. He talked slowly and he thought twice all he was
saying with a deep and serious voice” (Moreno, 2010a). In that first conversation,
Assange told to Moreno he was willing to share 250,000 U.S. Embassy cables with El
País (the last count was at 251,288). According to Moreno, El País was invited to this
international coalition of news organisations because it was considered to be a
reference in Spanish speaking countries and a leading newspaper in Spain (2010b).
Two days later, they resumed their phone conversation about the range of documents
and the implications of the leak. “It was at that point when I started realising the
enormous consequences for the U.S. administration, its reputation, allies, adversaries,
for the future of journalism and even more for the debate about freedom in western
democracies” (Moreno, 2010a). After those conversations, several meetings took place
in Switzerland between El Pais´ Vicente Jimenez, assistant executive editor, Jan
Martínez Ahrens, vice executive editor, and Julian Assange. The first face to face
contact between Javier Moreno and Assange took place in the middle of December
2010 in London. It was a set of short meetings aimed at making the leak as accurate as
possible. They agreed on the publication schedule and on omitting names and possible
information that could endanger national security or put lives at risk in countries with
the death penalty. Javier Moreno participated in several online chats with audiences.
He said that “they were not formally asked by Assange to pay for the documents, and
that if that were the case, the newspaper would never have accepted” (2010a).
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Team work
The Guardian brought the journalistic skills and expertise required to figure out what
was important, and the resources and commitment to deal responsibly with highly
sensitive material. David Leigh, The Guardian's investigations editor, spent the summer
of 2010 reading through the material. In September, about forty Guardian reporters
worked exclusively on the cables, led by the deputy editor responsible for news, Ian
Katz. Several teams were established in The Guardian's London offices to make sense
of the vast store of information. Journalists were allocated the appropriate resources to
cover this story and not leave the documents festering on WikiLeaks. A considerable
degree of expertise was needed to work with the complex databases and the large
amount of raw material (an estimated 300 million words), as well as the ability to
publish outside the reach of any individual jurisdiction (Wilson, 2010).
In the first days of June, Schmitt, from NYT's Washington bureau, worked at The
Guardian´s facilities to analyse and confirm that material was genuine. In London, he
led the The New York Times´ efforts with the material, “how to organise and study such
a voluminous cache of information; how to securely transport, store and share it; how
journalists from three very different publications would work together without
compromising their independence” (Keller, 2010). At that point, there was no clue
about the diplomatic cables. In fact, Assange was holding those back to see how the
venture with established media worked out. Ian Fisher, a deputy foreign editor, was the
main coordinator in processing the embassy cables. He met Julian Assange in
November and he coordinated the team to lead the reports. Dean Baquet, Washington
bureau chief, was the leader who negotiated with the White House. David E. Sanger,
chief Washington correspondent, was responsible for aligning the documents in
relation with the U.S. government international policy.
El País assigned thirty of its best journalists to work on the U.S. Embassy Cables,
coordinated with the coalition of news organisations. They launched an online tool to
collect all the news and reports on the issue (www.elpais.com/documentossecretos). It
was the first time this newspaper published something of the sort. The executive editor
was directly responsible for managing this team. “The team work required in a
newsroom is even more important with these types of documents” (2010b). To dissect
and analyse the information, they organised the material into 150 topics. Some
expertise journalists were assigned to address chats and questions from the audience.
Soledad Gallego-Díaz, Buenos Aires correspondent, was one of those journalists
assigned to analyse the Spanish focus on the cables and the relations between the
U.S. Government and South American countries. “We have been analysing the
documents with ethical and professionals criteria" (Gallego-Díaz, 2010).
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Data mining and IT tools
The Guardian´s coverage of the Embassy Cables was a rather traditional journalistic
operation, using data analysis and visualization skills that had not been seen in
newsrooms until recently (Jenkins, 2010a). As described by Rusbridger (2011),
journalists at The Guardian built a search engine that could make sense of the data.
Then, the editor brought in foreign correspondents and analysts with detailed
knowledge of the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts. The final stage of the journalistic work was
“to introduce a redaction process so that nothing we published could imperil any
vulnerable sources or compromise active special operations. All this took a great deal
of time, effort, resource and stamina,” says Rusbridger (2011). Making sense of the
files was not easy. Once redacted, the documents were shared among the five
newspapers and sent to WikiLeaks, who adopted all their redactions.
Scott Shane, national security reporter at The New York Times, was assigned to redact
all the cables and avoid that any secret or confidential information would endanger
national security, such as passages or names that they had previously decided to omit.
The New York Times team worked in London during the first weeks of November to
calibrate and sort the material into computer databases. By doing so, they were now
able to take a first look inside the documents using key search terms that facilitated
document analysis.
Editors at El País also designed a database to display the documents more quickly and
efficiently. In its website, El País published some of the U.S. Embassy documents
related to Spanish politics. In order to understand some of the 10,000 cables that
mentioned Spain and the 3,600 documents from the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, they
used all their visualisation skills to make the codes as understandable as possible. The
team classified and explained the terminology to readers. El País´ online strategy was
also coordinated in via its Facebook and Twitter accounts, making it easier to read and
follow. They also launched their own social network, Eskup, for tracking news reports
about the leak written by other international media outlets.
Publishing the documents
On 28 November 2010, The Guardian’s website launched an interactive guide aimed at
helping users discover what had been revealed in the leak of 250,000 U.S. diplomatic
cables by rolling the mouse over a map in order to find key stories and a selection of
original documents by country, subject or people.
“The challenge from WikiLeaks for media in general was not a comfortable one,”
argues Rusbridger (2011). The website's initial instinct was to publish more or less
everything, and members of WikiLeaks “were at first deeply suspicious of any contact
between their colleagues on the newspapers and any kind of officialdom. Talking to the
State Department, Pentagon or White House was fraught territory in terms of keeping
the relationship with WikiLeaks on an even keel. By the time of the Cablegate
publication, Assange himself, conscious of the risks of causing unintentional harm to
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dissidents or other sources, offered to speak to the State Department – an offer that
was rejected” (Rusbridger, 2011).
The depth of the redaction process and the relatively limited extent of publication of
actual cables were overlooked by many commentators. According to Rusbridger
(2011), only 2,000 of the 250,000 cables have been published and, six months after the
first publication, no one has been able to demonstrate any damage to life or security.
The Guardian editors withheld certain parts of some documents: “We decided early on
that we should have someone who would read all the cables we wanted to use with an
eye solely to sources. Not stories, sources. There are other stories which were, on the
face of them, extremely interesting – but some of these were little more than diplomatic
gossip. We used news judgements, the expertise of our specialists… and we spoke to
our lawyers” (Rusbridger, 2010b). Each of the five papers appointed someone to spot
anything that could place anyone in jeopardy. All the reporting teams worked
separately, so there was form of five-layer security in place.
Rusbridger (2010b) did not agree with the notion of releasing all the files, but he was
pleased with the form in which they were released “after much independent careful
consideration by senior journalists on five different newspapers.” The project showed
the possibilities for collaboration between The Guardian, The New York Times, Der
Spiegel, Le Monde and El País. News organisations made a free choice of what
material would be used and published. “The only agreement was to agree a rough
schedule so that we didn't all go off in different directions,” admitted Rusbridger
(2010a).
It´s worth mentioning that The New York Times editors asked the government to
provide some input before publishing the documents. The New York Times met with
top national agencies once they received the embassy cables in November. The U.S.
Government was concerned about certain types of documents regarding national
security and military bases. They never prohibited the reports, but they were unhappy
about the leak.
To Bill Keller, “the documents provide texture, nuance and drama on foreign policy”
(2010). “They deepen and correct your understanding of how things unfold; they raise
or lower your estimation of world leaders,” said Keller. They were aware of the risk
posed by those releases. Danielle Rhoades Ha, the communications director of The
New York Times Company, said that they believed their decision to publish “was
responsible journalism, legal, and important to a democratic society” (The Lede, 2010).
On 28 November 2010, The New York Times website published some of the
documents and reports under the name of State’s Secrets. They also published a note
that included the following: "The Times believes that the documents serve an important
public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of
American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match" (2010). That was the
main reasoning given by the editors to the audience. The main objective of the NYT
was to provide readers with an analysis. For them, "to ignore this material would be to
deny its own readers the careful reporting and thoughtful analysis they expect when
this kind of information becomes public" (2010).
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The New York Times´ State´s Secrets is also a topic page under which the newspaper
collects all the news and reporting about the U.S. Embassy Cables. According to the
site´s abstract, it "provides an unprecedented look at bargaining by embassies, candid
views of foreign leaders and assessments of threats." It also includes a selection from
the cache with cables organised by country and topic. Following the ethics of
transparency, they also used The Lede15, a blog published by some of The New York
Times’ journalists, where they tracked global reaction to the leak of American
diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks. Robert Mackey, The Lede´s editor, writes:
“[…] my colleague David Sanger —who has written about what the cables tell us about
diplomatic attempts to deal with Iran’s nuclear program and the possible collapse of
North Korea— explained that readers who assume that The Times had the power to
conceal these documents from public view are incorrect.” WikiLeaks was going to
publish the documents anyway, so “whether or not The Times published stories about
this, these documents were coming out. They had been leaked out to WikiLeaks,
WikiLeaks was posting them. So it was a question of whether we were putting them in
context or not, not a question of whether we were revealing them” (Mackey 2010).
Ethics and legal issues
The Guardian’s editors grappled with the ethical issues involved in the overall decision
to publish. They argued that the rational assessment of new forms of transparency
“should accompany the inevitable questioning of how the U.S. classification system
could have allowed the private musings of kings, presidents and dissidents to have
been so easily read by whoever it was that decided to pass them on to WikiLeaks, in
the first place” (Rusbridger, 2011).
Rusbridger (2010b) considered the leaks to be embarrassing, more than damaging, for
the U.S. government, and that “U.S. diplomats are obviously going to have to regain
trust and convince their sources that they can speak safely.”
According to Jenkins (2010b), two backup checks were applied. The U.S. government
was told in advance of the topics covered, and feedback was invited in return, which
was considered. Details of "redactions" were then shared with the other four media
outlets that received the material and then sent to WikiLeaks so it would establish,
voluntarily, a common standard.
The Guardian´s editors acknowledged that the U.S. State Department knew of the leak
several months in advance and had ample time to alert staff at sensitive locations
(Jenkins, 2010b). On 29 November 2010, Alan Rusbridger assured his readers that the
British prime minister had not seen any details of the publication in advance.
15
The Lede is a blog that remixes national and international news stories, adding information gleaned from the Web
or gathered through original reporting to supplement articles in The New York Times and draw readers in to the
global conversation about the news taking place online. Readers are encouraged to take part in the blogging by
using the comments threads to suggest links to relevant material elsewhere on the Web or by submitting
eyewitness accounts, photographs or video of news event
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In the UK, many journalists acknowledged the public value of the material that was
published. “To judge from the response we had from countries without the benefit of a
free press, there was a considerable thirst for the information in the cables – a hunger
for knowledge which contrasted with the occasional knowing yawns from metropolitan
sophisticates who insisted that the cables told us nothing new. This could be the
opportunity to draw up a score sheet of the upsides and drawbacks of forced
transparency,” said Rusbridger, (2011).
According to Keller, The New York Times knew that because of “the range of the
material and the very nature of diplomacy, the embassy cables were bound to be more
explosive than the War Logs” (Keller, 2011). So they decided to send the Washington
bureau chief to the White House on November 19th. Two days later, the night before
Thanksgiving, they met with representatives from the State Department, the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence, the C.I.A, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the
Pentagon and, of course, the White House. “The meeting was off the record, but it is
fair to say the mood was tense. Scott Shane, one reporter who participated in the
meeting, describe ‘and undertone of suppressed outrage and frustration,” wrote Keller
(2011). The main concerns of the Administration chiefs was the importance of
protecting individuals and to withhold some sensitive information about American
programmes as well as information originating from candid comments by and about
foreign officials, including heads of state.
The New York Times shared with the five news organisations its policy on reporting
classified information. "The Times has taken care to exclude, in its articles and in
supplementary material, in print and online, information that would endager confidential
informants or compromise national security" (2010, Note to the readers). As Bill Keller
argues, “the tension between a newspaper’s obligation to inform and the government’s
responsibility to protect is hardly new.” The New York Times took out a competitive
insurance policy before reporting on those documents.
In June 2010, once the NYT started working on the raw material from the first leak,
they began to notice unexplained suspicious activities in their emails, so they consulted
their lawyers. Their lawyers assured them that reporting on secret documents could be
done within the law. They knew that they had to work with an enormous moral and
ethical obligation because they were certain that the government could do anything to
impede their work. For that reason, at the beginning, they took great care in their work
and decided to omit any materials could put lives at risk (Keller, 2011). "We excise
material that might lead terrorists to unsecured weapons material, compromise
intelligence-gathering programs aimed at hostile countries, or disclose information
about capabilities of American weapons that could be helpful to an enemy" (2011, note
the readers).
El Páis followed The New York Times´ policy about keeping some names and
confidential information away from the public. Javier Moreno, the executive editor of El
Páis, insisted in several meetings that “they were informed by the U.S. Government
that publishing some data would endanger thousands of human lives and undermine
hundreds of ongoing diplomatic deals that were necessary in the war against terrorism
and could weaken U.S. international policies and policies of other friendly nations”
(2010a).
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In February 2011, the five editors of the news organisations involved in the leak met in
Madrid. They concluded that free and total transparency could be dangerous, yet they
decided to carry out that role. “This process has been undertaken with the strong
condition of not putting lives at risk, such as protected unidentified sources that could
be threatened if their names were revealed. All the media outlets have made an effort
to avoid publishing certain events that could be a risk for the security of many
countries, such as the United States in particular, since it was more exposed with the
leak” (Jiménez y Caño, 2010).
Conclusions
This paper describes differences and similarities in the news production process when
an international leak occurs. It focuses its attention more broadly, considering the role
that editors—not just journalists— play managing their teams, struggling with legal and
ethical issues and improving the quality of their investigations. This study describes the
news production process by examining every document, article and chat that mention
how the various news organisations have worked. The five news organisations and
their main editors face a new challenge that has never been seen in the world of news.
It provides an opportunity to identify the diversity of journalistic practices and
journalistic values in this constantly changing media system environment.
Newspapers can adapt to the changing technological environment, but WikiLeaks, born
in this new ecosystem, will always be a source, just as these newspapers have proven.
Perhaps the New York Times´ enduring culture of transparency can be found in the
overall approach undertaken by the three newspapers. However, The Guardian has led
this coalition to a point that perhaps no other newspaper could ever do. Its role as the
initial contact with the source, as well as its extensive team of journalists and its
abilities in the use of databases have led The Guardian to be the main driver of this
coalition. On another hand, El País has carried out a lower profile role in the coalition,
although it has also made the most of computer resources and social networks.
The U.S. Embassy´s cache of leaked cables has been an excellent opportunity for
newspapers to promote a culture of transparency with readers. They have explained
their work, participated in chats, and they have published several books describing how
they processed this historic leak.
While this is not a conclusive study and many different approaches should be taken,
the news production process and the coordination of several newspapers from multiple
countries and cultures are exemplary. In that sense, the focus on only three of the five
newspapers obscures a wider opportunity to analyse journalistic practices when a leak
occurs in a global situation.
This work leaves several unanswered questions that will require further research. The
research for this paper was done in the period of a few months and with only three of
the news organisations involved in the leak of U.S. Embassy cables. More in depth
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studies should be completed about Le Monde and Der Spiegel to verify whether these
findings hold true in other circumstances.
This work is a preliminary study to foster a more comprehensive analysis of journalistic
practices and to address the concept of diversity related to contemporary journalism in
a comprehensive and international way.
References
Jenkins, S. (2010a) “What effect has the internet had on journalism?”, The Guardian,
28th November 2010; Available from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/20/what-effect-internet-on-journalism
(Consulted 13/04/2011)
Jenkins, S. (2010b) “U.S. embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the
powerful from embarrassment”, The Guardian, 28th November 2010; Available from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/20/what-effect-internet-on-journalism
(Consulted 13/04/2011)
Katz, I. (2011) “Pioneering WikiLeaks collaboration ended in distrust and legal threats”,
The Guardian, 5 February 2011; Available from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/05/wikileaks-collaboration-distrust-legalthreats (Consulted 13/04/2011)
Keller, B. (2011). "The Times’s Dealings With Julian Assange" [Internet]. The New York
Times, Consulted 2011 February 21]; Available from
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileakst.html?_r=1&ref=wikileaks
Leigh, D.; Harding, L. (2011) WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's war on secrecy,
Guardian Books, London.
Rusbridger, A. (2010a) Video Interview, The Guardian, 29th November 2010; Available
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co-ndROXMog (Consulted 15/04/2011)
Rusbridger, A. (2010b) “U.S. Embassy Cables: Live Q and A with Alan Rusbridger”,
The Guardian, 29 November 2010; Available from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/us-embassy-cables-rusbridger-wikileaks
(Consulted 15/04/2011)
Rusbridger, A. (2011) “WikiLeaks The Guardians role in the biggest leak in the history
of the world”, The Guardian, 28th January 2011; Available from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/28/wikileaks-julian-assange-alan-rusbridger
(Consulted 22/04/2011)
Shirki, C. (2011) “WikiLeaks has created a new media landscape”, The Guardian, 4
February 2011; Available from
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/04/wikileaks-created-new-medialandscape (Consulted 13/04/2011)
Wilson, A. (2010) “The truth out of context is always less than the truth you need”, The
Guardian, 23rd December 2010; Available from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/dec/23/wikileaksdecontexualised-truth (Consulted 18/02/2011).
Elola, J. (2011), “WikiLeaks no es un nuevo periodismo, es un síntoma de los últimos
años en Internet”, El País, 23 February 2011 (Consulted 8/04/2011)
Gallego-Díaz, S. (2010) ‘Entrevista digital sobre los papeles del Departamento de
Estado’, El País, 30 November 2010; Available from
http://www.elpais.com/edigitales/entrevista.html?id=7440# (Consulted 12/04/2011)
Jiménez, V.; Caño, A. (2010) ‘La mayor filtración de la historia deja al descubierto los
secretos de la política exterior norteamericana’, El País, 28 November 2010, available
at
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/mayor/filtracion/historia/deja/descubierto/s
ecretos/politica/exterior/EE/UU/elpepuint/20101128elpepuint_25/Tes (Consulted
4/01/2011)
Moreno, J. (2010a) “Lo que de verdad ocultan los gobiernos”, El País, 19 December
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218elpepuint_23/Tes (Consulted 16/04/2011)
Moreno, J. (2010b) ‘Entrevista digital sobre los papeles del Departamento de Estado’,
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10/04/2011)
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[Internet]. The New York Times. 2010 Nov 29 [cited 2011 Abr 27]; Available from:
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Mackey, R. (2010), Updates on Leak of U.S. Cables, Day 10 - NYTimes.com [Internet].
[cited 2011 Abr 28]; Available from:
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Getting Personal: Personification vs. Data-Journalism as an
International Trend in Reporting about Wikileaks
Andrea Czepek
Jade University of Applied Sciences Wilhelmshaven, Germany
Abstract
Data-journalism has been hailed as a new trend in reporting, but the case of WikiLeaks
shows that due to economic, political and media-related conditions, personification and
scandalization prevail in journalism. Instead of investigating into the large amount of
information WikiLeaks has made available, most mainstream-media soon focused on
the hunt for WikiLeaks’ representative Julian Assange, while they largely ignored the
content of the published material itself.
Based on a comparative content analysis of several European news media in
December 2010, this presentation will show that the emphasis on prominent individuals
and personified, un-political aspects of a story rather than in-depth analysis of
complicated contexts is an international trend. Despite different journalism cultures,
media systems, political and economic conditions, and despite the possibilities the
internet provides (publication of masses of data, crowd-sourcing its evaluation), there is
an internationally homogeneous trend towards superficial, sensational, human-interest
oriented and personified news, rather than a diversity of approaches.
The Internet provides new possibilities for investigative journalism: Masses of data can
be made public anonymously on platforms like WikiLeaks; crowds of people can
analyze masses of data which a few individuals alone could not handle. There are
obvious chances for the democratic role of news media: Grievances can be disclosed
that would otherwise remain obscure, and it becomes harder to hide irregularities.
Aside from political concerns such as disclosure of security-relevant secrets, there are
also difficulties: Data-journalism is resource-intensive. Many skilled investigators are
needed to evaluate and double-check data. Data-evaluation is time-consuming and
defies short-term deadlines. The processes revealed may be considered less
“newsworthy” and more complicated to explain to readers than spectacular crime news.
Complicated data are more difficult to understand and less sensational than
personalized human-interest oriented news. Thus, readers’ immediate attention is
drawn more to the spectacular, conflictual, personified news.
Economic aspects are twofold: Personified news is easier and cheaper to produce
(less effort, time and personnel needed for research; less complicated matter to
understand and analyze). And personified news is more popular, draws more
immediate attention and thus readers and potential advertising revenue.
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Potential political concerns are the revelation of secret data which politicians, powerful
institutions, economic powers etc. had been trying to keep undisclosed may potentially
cause conflict with those powers – which might cause difficulties for a media company.
The media might be tempted to avoid conflict with powerful institutions.
Mostly the economic considerations (more immediate, short-term popularity) and
challenges (lack of resources) lead to personified news in general. The case of
reporting about the Wikileaks disclosures and their front-man Julian Assange shows
that despite different journalism cultures and media systems, mainstream-media
reporting tends to emphasize the personified aspects of a news story and neglect the
deep, complicated analysis.
A content analysis of main news media in five countries (Spain, France, Germany,
Sweden, UK) reporting about WikiLeaks shows that across different media cultures and
media systems, the life-cycle of Wikileaks news in December 2010 was very similar. In
the evaluated countries, the reporting about the content of the data sources as well as
the immediately following emphasis (and discrediting) on the person of Julian Assange
was more pronounced and prevalent than reporting about the complex content of the
data sources.
The differences between media types proved to be greater than the differences
between countries. Television news rely more on showing faces, and the medium is not
suitable for conveying complex matters. Brief event-, conflict and human-interestoriented news bits prevail on television, while a relatively larger proportion of the
newspaper articles in all evaluated countries contained more information about the
content of the documents.
The WikiLeaks-example shows that despite a potential possibility for more diversity due
to more outlets and different media cultures in Europe, similar economic and political
constraints lead to very similar, homogeneous types of reporting – i.e., more
superficial, sensational, personified news rather than the much-hailed and awaited indepth data-reporting.
Background
Media systems in Europe differ with regard to economic conditions, legal and political
frameworks, and their historic, cultural and social backgrounds. On the other hand,
media institutions also share many common conditions internationally today. The news
media analyzed in this study are located in the three different types of media systems
as defined by Hallin and Mancini, the polarized pluralist model (France, Spain), the
democratic corporatist model (Germany, Sweden), and the liberal model (United
Kingdom) (see Hallin and Mancini, 2004; Thomass, 2007; Jakubowicz, 2010). Because
of their different relations between politics and media, it could be expected that
reporting about a common topic could differ widely with regard to how much for
example the government perspective is supported or rejected by the media. However,
one hypothesis of this paper is that there are factors inherent to today’s media and
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journalism which prevail over the system factors with regard to some aspects. For
example, it is expected that while the political model might indeed influence the degree
of cooperation with the governments or other political affiliations, due to economic
constraints and the mechanisms of journalism, the reporting might not be political at all
but rather turn to non-political aspects (such as human interest, sensationalism). In
their recent survey of journalists in 17 countries, Hanitzsch et al. (2010) have found that
journalists perceive professional, procedural and organizational factors as more
influential on their work than political or economic factors – relatively consistently in all
countries examined. Hanitzsch et al. point out that these influences might not reflect
the actual importance of these factors, but just reflect the journalists’ perception.
Interestingly, according to Hanitzsch’s study, the journalism cultures in Spain and
Germany differed significantly, especially with regard to the greater perceived influence
of poltical factors in Spain. This corresponds with Hallin and Mancini’s classification.
However, Hanitzsch’s study already points to structural aspects that journalism in
countries that otherwise differ with regard to their media system might indeed have in
common.
Long-standing studies of news values have shown, for example, that selection criteria
for news follow the logic of the media: Elements of proximity, conflict, human interest
and emotion make an item more “newsworthy” than abstract problems, long-term
developments and complex contexts (e.g. Galtung & Ruge 1965, Schulz 2006).
Schlesinger (1978) already established that there are distinct differences between the
media: Broadcast news follow a different set of rules than newspapers because visuals
dominate. He also emphasized that technical imperatives tend to dominate news
selection on television more than “news judgments”. Expanding this observation to the
internationally comparative study, it is presumed that the necessity for visuals on
television and the technical imperatives lead to greater differences in reporting between
media types than between countries. Golding & Elliott (1979) established that
newsworthiness of an event depended mainly on the factors audience, accessibility,
and fit: Is an event suited to gain and hold the audience’s attention, how many
resources does it require to obtain, and does it fit the routines of production and
previous knowledge? Allern added an important observation to the discussion. The
reasons why news organizations decide to choose news according to the established
news values are based on commercial demands. Those news values that attract a
large audience (meaning paying readers, viewers of advertisements), which put the
media in a competitive position (e.g. exclusivity) and which do not require a lot of
resources, have a higher chance of being reported, because it is in the commercial
interest of the medium (Allern 2002).
Due to waning advertisement revenues, declining circulation and concentration of
media ownership and other economic developments, resources for the production of
media content and independent research have been dramatically reduced in many
countries. The economic pressures do not only limit the possibilities for investigative
research, but also enhance the competition for the attention of audiences. Journalism
is expected to attract larger audiences and fulfill the recipients’ immediate wants such
as entertainment and diversion. This contributes to a focus on personalized, emotional,
entertaining human interest news rather than in-depth, critical, process- and factoriented reporting.
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It has been discussed whether the conflict- and human interest-oriented news values
were applied differently under different cultural, social, economic or political conditions.
Some evidence suggests that the news values are similar at least in democratic
countries; a recent study showed that the classical news values established by Galtung
& Ruge were even prevalent in Mexican newspapers (Schwarz 2006).
One proposition of this paper is that despite different media systems and different
political and cultural contexts in Europe, media-specific factors such as news values,
technological and media-determined factors (e.g. visualization) dominate in shaping
news reporting. Wessler et al. (2008) have found that there might be an emerging
Europeanization of a public sphere around topics that are of European-wide relevance.
Although proximity is a strong news value and news media mostly report about the
relevance of a topic for the home country, there are nevertheless commonalities on the
structural level. It is expected that while there are differences in content and detail,
structurally, news-reporting follows similar patterns. The differences between media
types (television, newspapers) are expected to be greater than the differences between
countries. Due to commercial pressures, there is a homogeneous trend towards
personification rather than focusing on facts, analysis and data. Data journalism is
disregarded by conventional journalism because it defies the traditional news values
and is resource-intensive in obtaining. In addition, it does not fulfill the televisionspecific demands of visualization, thus it is expected that television news will report
even less about documents and complex matters than newspapers.
Another proposition is that despite of the new possibilities that the Internet provides, a
rather superficial, human-interest-oriented reporting prevails. Current computer
technologies and networks make a new type of investigative research possible. For
example, one or more databases can be combined and analyzed using a software, but
also large numbers of volunteer users who help analyzing bits o the data
(crowdsourcing). This way, it is possible to reveal interrelations or details that otherwise
would remain obscure, because the sheer amount of data would be impossible to
evaluate without initial clues (e.g. Gordon 2007, Lorenz 2010). The Guardian
newspaper for example has launched a project to evaluate the expenses of Members
of the British Parliament (The Guardian 2011) for which thousands of readers volunteer
to read through some of the 458 832 pages of documents in order to disclose
irregularities. Such projects are still rare, however, and the Guardian is a unique
example of a newspaper using this method. It is presumed here that mainstream media
still tend to publish news according to the conventional news values: news that attracts
readers’ or viewers’ attention, news that is personified, human interest- and conflict
oriented, and news that is easily obtained and does not involve a lot of resources to
produce. When Wikileaks began to publish the first of over 250 000 documents from
the correspondence between the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassies (the
so-called “diplomatic cables”) on November 30, 2010, the media had the chance to dig
deeper into the material – or to concentrate on the personalized, dramatic, easily
obtained stories around one person representing the organization. Thus, this case was
chosen to examine whether news media in Europe tended to follow the first or second
path and whether the differences between the media types were greater than between
the countries.
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Method
A comparative content analysis of news media in five European countries was
conducted. In France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, 1125 news
items (articles and television news items) mentioning “Wikileaks” between December 1
and December 31, 2010 in two printed newspapers and one public television news
programme per country were analyzed. Variables included, apart from formal criteria:
the form of the item (report, commentary, interview), the acting persons (multiple
values possible), the topic (multiple values), the main country reported about, the frame
of reporting (risks, chances of Wikileaks publications), the bias (e.g. security concerns
vs. freedom of information), the content (.g., opinion statements, document analysis,
actions against Wikileaks etc.), news values (multiple choices), research level
(documents quoted directly, second-hand, no mention of documents), sources used
(e.g. documents, other media, press releases, unconventional media, interviews). 16
Table 1
Country
Media type
Media included in
the sample
Official
cooperation
with Wikileaks
Number of
items
“Wikileaks”
December
2010
France
public tv
TF 1
no
5
France
newspaper
Le Monde
yes
55
France
newspaper
La Libération
partially
65
(host website)
Germany public tv
Tagesschau
(ARD)
no
32
Germany newspaper
Westdeutsche
Allgemeine (WAZ)
no
30
Germany newspaper
Frankfurter
Allgemeine (FAZ)
no
45
Germany news
magazine
Der Spiegel
yes
17
Spain
La 1 (TVE)
no
22
public tv
16
The analysis was conducted by the author herself with the support of three student assistants (Hendrikje Brüning,
Ainhoa Masid, Anna Morgenroth) who are either native or fluent speakers in French, Spanish and Swedish. The
assistants were trained thoroughly with regard to interpreting and applying the variables; a part of the material was
analyzed together with the author and each assistant to ensure reliability. Consistency of the instrument was tested
for by analyzing comparable items (e.g. Guttman-Split-Half-Coefficient 0.663, Spearman-Brown-Coefficient 0.768,
“source”, “research level”). Consistency is seen as acceptable since the items measure similar, but not identical
concepts.
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Spain
newspaper
El País
yes
56
Spain
newspaper
ABC
no
25
Sweden
public tv
SVT
no
46
Sweden
newspaper
Dagens Nyheter
no
146
Sweden
newspaper
Svenska
Dagbladet
no
148
UK
public tv
BBC
no
67
UK
newspaper
The Guardian
yes
266
UK
newspaper
The Times
no
100
Total
1125
For the sample, only quality newspapers were selected (see Table 1). Tabloid papers
and freesheets were disregarded; likewise, only public service news programmes were
selected and no private-commercial television stations. It is expected that tabloids,
freesheets and commercial television programmes emphasize sensationalism and
personification anyway as this is their main rationale and selling proposition, thus, the
results in our context would hardly have been surprising. The more interesting question
seems to be whether even classical quality newspapers and public service news follow
similar rationales with regard to their news selection and presentation. The two
newspapers selected per country included, where applicable, one newspaper that
officially cooperated with Wikileaks (this was the case with The Guardian, Le Monde
and El Pais), therefore, in Germany, the news magazine Der Spiegel as the German
cooperating medium was included in the study. In Sweden, there was no officially
cooperating newspaper.
It was expected that the cooperating newspapers would report more about the content
of the Wikileaks documents than the others; this however could only significantly be
observed in the case of the British Guardian. The cooperating papers did, however,
take a more positive stance towards the publications as such, while some of the other
media were rather critical of the publications and reiterated the security concerns
raised by the governments.
Wikileaks lent itself as a topic to the study because the organization’s publication of
confidential correspondence between U.S. Embassies and the U.S. Department of
State throughout December 2010 and the subsequent arrest of Wikileaks-founder
Julian Assange (on unrelated charges) made the headlines globally. Since each
country the U.S. has diplomatic relations with was mentioned in the documents, the
topic acquired a global dimension. Thus, an analysis of the handling of the subject in
the news media of different countries could reveal whether there are significant
differences in dealing with a subject like that or whether there are similar trends in
different countries due to similar structural conditions under which journalism operates.
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Results
Sources and intensity of research: Close to 30% (333) of the 1125 analyzed news
items were directly based on the documents published by Wikileaks. But almost half of
those (156) were found in the British Guardian alone. The Guardian based 58.6% of its
articles on the original documents. Although the documents were available freely on
the Internet, only a few of the other newspapers bothered to analyze them themselves.
Even those other media which officially cooperated with Wikileaks used only few
documents directly as sources for their publications in December 2010: Le Monde in
23.6% (13), Der Spiegel in 23.5% (4), and El Pais in 33.3% (18) of their articles,
respectively. Surprisingly, two newspapers which had no official cooperation with
Wikileaks used the original documents in more of their articles as sources than some of
the cooperating newspapers did: The British Times (45%) and the Swedish Svenska
Dagbladet (29.1%). The German newspapers WAZ and FAZ completely ignored the
original documents: Only one article in each of the two German newspapers used
original documents as sources. Instead; many newspapers quoted other conventional
media (La Libération 73.8%, Le Monde 56.4%, FAZ 48.9%, Dagens Nyheter 26.7%,
ABC 24%, WAZ 20%; overall average 22.4%), even Le Monde quoted The Guardian
frequently or interviews published in other media. Other frequently used sources were
press releases and press statements (on average in 22.4% of news items). A typical
example is the FAZ publishing a piece by the German news agency dpa summarizing
an article from The Guardian about the content of an embassy cable – neither the news
agency nor the newspaper editors took the time to check the original document on the
Internet, let alone fact check the statement regarding its accuracy.
The lack of original research is remarkable considering that many editors emphasized
the necessity of in-depth research and fact checking by journalists during the
discussion around the Wikileaks publications. Only about 26.9% of all news items dealt
with the original documents, 21.1% reported “second-hand” about the documents and
51.9% did not mention the documents at all (because they reported about the
organization Wikileaks in general or the criminal case against Assange). Most
newspapers showed a similar relation of original, second-hand and no mention of the
documents, with the exception of The Guardian on the one end (56.8% original
documents, 31.2% “no mention of documents”) and the German media on the other
end of the scale (Tagesschau: 0% original documents, 84% no mention; WAZ 0%
original documents, 86.7% no mention; FAZ 4.4% (2) original documents, 68.9% no
mention).
Interviews as a dominant genre on television: A distinct element used mainly by t.v.
news and the news magazine Der Spiegel were interviews. Most t.v. stations and the
news magazine used interviews as main sources for around half of their news items
(Tagesschau 53.1%, La1 (Spain) 45.5%, SVT1 (Sweden) 47.8%, BBC 58.2%). The
average for all media was only 15.9%; in most newspapers, interviews were used in
less than 10% of articles as main source. Again, the differences between the media
types seem to be greater than between countries. The visual media need to show
human faces, so because filming documents is boring, t.v.-journalists interview experts
and witnesses about their views. The BBC dragged everyone from former
ambassadors, ex-consultants of political leaders to celebrity-Wikileaks-supporters in
front of a camera, culminating in nonsensical surveys like one in the small village
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where Assange was supposed to stay on bail, in which passers-by were asked if they
recognized Assange on a photo (which they did not, despite all personalization-efforts
by the media) (BBC, Dec 16). After mid-December, the BBC only carried several
interviews with Assange after his release on bail, then the only other BBC news item
involving Wikileaks is a bizarre piece about Peruvian traditional healers who perform a
punishment ceremony with a photo of Assange (BBC, Dec 30).
As for the format of the news items, the British, German and Swedish public television
and the news magazine Der Spiegel also carried more interviews than the newspapers.
On average, 75.5% of the news items were reports, 12.5% commentary and 9.7%
interviews. The Tagesschau (28.1%), the BBC (55.2%), SVT (13%) and Der Spiegel
(29.4%) carried considerably more interviews than the average, but very few
commentaries. With regard to the format, some cultural differences become apparent:
French and Spanish television news only carried reports, in which often the leading
newspapers were quoted (or read aloud to the viewers), while in the United Kingdom
and Germany experts were interviewed about their opinion on tv.
Commentary, frame and bias: While the public news channels only carried reports
and interviews about Wikileaks related topics, the newspapers also commented on
average in 12.5% of the items on the topic, either in editorials or guest comments. The
German (25.3%) and French newspapers (30%) had an especially high share of
comments among their articles about Wikileaks, which reflects the culture of French
and German journalism and corresponds with the apparent lack of interest in deeper
research of facts.
Regarding the publication of the U.S. Embassy cables, the evaluated media tend to
express security concerns. Only a few articles justify them on freedom of information
grounds – with the exception of the British Guardian. In Sweden, reporting was very
neutral (77% of items), whereas in the UK, The Times was rather critical (23% of
articles argue against Wikileaks because of security concerns), while the Guardian took
a pro-freedom-of-information stance in 63.5% of its Wikileaks-related articles in
December 2010. In Germany, the WAZ expressed security concerns in 63.3% of its
articles and the FAZ in 37.8%. Critical articles in the British newspapers, especially the
Guardian, were usually written by guest commentators (e.g. politicians or former
ambassadors), whereas in the German newspapers WAZ and FAZ, the editors
themselves often took a critical stance.
The conventional media often sided with the concerned politicians and governments,
warning that the publication of sensitive data could be harmful. There seems to be a
perceived competition with internet platforms like Wikileaks; especially the newspapers
which did not officially cooperate with Wikileaks condemned it as irresponsible and
unreliable. Newspaper editors which usually demand freedom of and access to
information at every opportunity suddenly argued against the disclosure of government
documents and readily followed the official government line.
Considering the lack of original research by most media in this study, and considering
as well that Wikileaks did not publish the material all at once, but that many supporters
reviewed and edited the documents before publishing them by and by, the hasty
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disregard for Wikileaks seems to be at odds with the role of journalists as watchdogs of
governments.17
Relating the topic to the home country: Proximity has turned out to be an important
news value, especially when reporting about a global issue. In all countries, the country
most reported about was the home country of the medium: When reporting about the
embassy documents, usually the aspects concerning one’s own government were
picked, or other home related aspects were reported about, such as the suspected
informants in the German government in Germany or Assange’s arrest in the UK. In
France, 45.6% of all news items about Wikileaks dealt mainly with France18, the other
four countries reported on average in only 0.85% of Wikileaks- articles about France (a
few mentions of Sarkozy). In Germany, 32.4% of items were about Germany (average
of the other four about Germany: 1.25%). Spain: 29.3% about Spain (average other
four: 0.45% about Spain). Sweden: 40.7% about Sweden (average other four: 4.55% a little bit higher because of the allegations against Assange were raised in Sweden).
United Kingdom: 31.2% about the UK (average other four about UK: 16.8%, mainly
because Assange was arrested in the UK in December 2010). Given that the Embassy
cables originated from the U.S. Department of State and contained U.S. diplomatic
correspondence, the U.S. were also reported about frequently, but as main country
less than the home countries, on average in 17.8% of the news items. Reporting about
other countries was spread out and remained under 5%.
The observation that the UK and France were the only countries reporting about Africa
in more than 2% of items (UK 4%, France 6.4%)is supporting the proximity-thesis,
reflecting the closer relations to the former colonies. Respectively, Spanish media
reported about Latin America in 6.1% of items (average of the other four about Latin
America: 1.3%). Although the media reported about different countries, the structure is
very similar: Even when reporting about international issues, the relation and relevance
to the home country are very important selection criteria for news in various European
countries.
Conflict, events and emotion: Conflict was the strongest news value characterizing
the reporting about Wikileaks in December 2010 across Europe. An overwhelming
average of 73.1% of all news items in the five countries emphasized some (usually
dichotomous) conflict: between two governments (with regard to the content of the
Embassy documents), between Assange and the U.S. government, between Assange
and the Swedish or British justice system, between Wikileaks-supporters and credit
17
The conventional media also reported several mistakes without checking the facts. For example, several German
media reported that Mike Huckabee, a candidate for the Republican candidacy in the U.S., allegedly demanded that
Julian Assange should be executed. This was false, he had suggested the death penalty for the informant within the
U.S. Forces who leaked the material to Wikileaks, not Assange. A video of his speech was distributed via Youtube so
his original quote could have been easily checked. In another instance, Pakistan media reported that the diplomatic
cables allegedly contained insults of the Pakistan government by Indian officials. This was a fabricated fake; there
was no such cable (which the journalists could have found out on Wikileaks’ website.) It is important to note that
these lapses happened to traditional journalists and editors, not Wikileaks.
18
Each item was only assigned to one (the main) country about which was reported.
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card companies (“cyberwar”), and so forth. With regard to conflict as a main news
value, there were no significant differences, neither between media types nor between
countries. Conflict seems to be a strong news value in journalism in general.
Other strong news values were personification (44% of all items), suspense (34.2%),
emotion (22%) and events (19.9%). On the other hand, more in-depth factors like
consequences were mostly discussed in Swedish newspapers (39.1%), other media
did so in 4% to 16% of items. Analysis was a major trait of only 4.8% of articles, for
which the French newspapers accounted almost exclusively, because Le Monde
published a special issue with philosophical debate about freedom of information in
December. (Several news values could be coded per item.)
Personification of news: Almost a third of all the news items (31%) mentioned
Wikileaks-founder Julian Assange as an acting person, only 8% mentioned other
Wikileaks members and supporters – although Assange himself repeatedly stressed
that Wikileaks consisted of “thousands of volunteers” and indeed other Wikileaks
members emerged when Julian Assange was in custody. Nevertheless, Assange
became the face of Wikileaks, especially on television. In each evaluated country, a
higher percentage of the t.v. news included Assange as an acting person than the
newspaper articles did (see Table 2).
Table 2
Of items in...
mention Assange
Of items in...
mention Assange
France public tv
80%
France newspapers
37.5%
Germany public tv
59.4%
Germany
newspapers
33.3%
Spain public tv
50%
Spain newspapers
30.9%
Sweden public tv
32.6%
Sweden
newspapers
32.6%
UK public tv
31.3%
UK newspapers
26.5%
(Multiple actors were coded per item.)
Other acting persons frequently mentioned were local politicians (politicians from the
media’s country), consistently around the average of 17% of items with a standard
deviation of 3% in all media. Foreign politicians (politicians from other countries) were
frequently mentioned in newspapers, but less often on television (probably because the
content of the documents which dealt with politicians statements were not as often
dealt with on tv). Politicians were either mentioned as part of the Embassy documents,
giving statements about the publications or defending/clarifying disclosures from the
documents.
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Experts (computer experts, political consultants and analysts etc.) were relatively
frequently shown on tv – but only rarely quoted in newspapers. This is another indicator
for the personification on tv news. The medium requires “talking heads”, human faces
that speak, so frequently, experts are interviewed (see Table 3).
Table 3
Of items in...
show expert
Of items in...
show/quote expert
France public tv
20%
France newspapers
4.2%
Germany public tv
31.3%
Germany
newspapers
6.7%
Spain public tv
4.5%
Spain newspapers
1.2%
Sweden public tv
47.8%
Sweden
newspapers
10.5%
UK public tv
29.9%
UK newspapers
0.8%
(Multiple actors were coded per item.)
The development of the news narrative: Despite the large volume of material
published by Wikileaks and the space some newspapers dedicated to publishing and
discussing some of the material, a considerable share of the reporting involving
Wikileaks in December 2010 dealt with the criminal charges against Wikileaks-founder
Julian Assange, which were unrelated to the publications by Wikileaks (France 16%,
Germany 22.6%, Spain 32%, Sweden 19.1%, UK 22.6%). An even higher percentage
of the t.v. news only dealt with the criminal charges against Assange (France 2: 60%,
Tagesschau: 50%, La1 (TVE): 40.9%, SVT1 (Sweden): 32.6%, BBC: 41.8%). Only the
Spanish newspaper ABC had a similar share of news about the charges against
Assange (48%), all other newspapers dedicated between 10% and 20% of their news
about Wikileaks to the criminal case. Television news was focused on the suspenseful
current event, the person that was involved in conflict with the US-government and
some sexually connotated charges rather than the complex matter of analyzing masses
of obscure documents.
Roughly a third of the items mainly contained opinion statements (by politicians,
experts, journalists etc.) (France 29.6%, Germany, 42.7%, Spain 32.4%, Sweden
33.8%, United Kingdom 24%). About another third of the items contained analyses of
the Wikileaks documents, and about a third reported about actions against Wikileaks
and the reactions. A few exceptions: In France (60.8%) and in the UK (44.6%), there
was a higher share of items analyzing the documents; in Germany, there was
considerably less evaluation of the documents (only 8.1% of German items dealt
mainly with the content of the documents).
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As expected, most television news (except for the Swedish) dealt relatively in more of
their news items with the more dramatic actions against Wikileaks than newspapers did
(France 2: 80%, Tagesschau: 68.8%, BBC: 46.3%; La 1(TVE) 31.8%, SVT1: 23.9%;
average of all media: 29.3%).
In general, a lot of the news items just stated opinions about the publications or dealt
with the criminal charges against Assange and the so-called “cyberwar” between
credit-card- , internet provider companies and self-proclaimed Wikileaks-supporters.
During the course of December 2010, media attention for Wikileaks-related issues
rapidly dropped in all five countries. More than half of all the items related to Wikileaks
were published in the first week of December, ending with Assange’s arrest on
December 7. There was a small peak in Mid-December when Wikileaks-founder Julian
Assange was released on bail; right after that, in most media the reporting almost
ceased. This occurred despite the fact that in The Guardian and on the Wikileakswebsite, new issues from the Embassy documents continued to be revealed every day
all through December of 2010, several of them of more relevance than the ones
published in the beginning of December. But in most mainstream media, only brief
attention was awarded: to the event of the publication of the documents itself, to the
actions against Wikileaks and some hackers’ reaction to that, and to the accusations
against and the arrest of Julian Assange. With the exception of the Guardian, most
media did not dig deeper into the material or bother to analyze the documents more
intensely, not even those media officially cooperating with Wikileaks.
Instead, the media contributed to a dramatization of the events with the language that
was used as well. Julian Assange was mystified as a “rock star”, “terminator-angel”
(Der Spiegel, Dec 15), “hacker genius”, “free speech martyr” (Times, Dec 21), “new
viking”, “freedom fighter” (FAZ, Dec 17) or demonized as “common enemy” (Guardian,
Dec 9) and “cyber terrorist” (Times, Dec 21). When a group of hackers tried to attack
credit card and internet provider companies as a revenge for impeding Wikileaks (an
attempt that proved to have rather minor effects after all), the action was dramatized as
“cyberwar”. Irrespective of the overall position a newsroom was taking towards
Wikileaks, dramatization occurred in all the media. The media that officially or
otherwise cooperated with Wikileaks dramatized the events by exaggerating their
relevance (in order to advertise their achievements, a finding that is in line with the
observation that exclusivity enhances news values, see Allern 2002). The media which
did not cooperate published only a few of the documents themselves and took a more
critical stance towards Wikileaks dramatized the issue with a negative slant. This was
found in all the examined countries. The differences were greater between the
cooperating and the non- cooperating newspapers than between countries.
Conclusion
Some cultural differences between journalisms in the five countries could be observed.
In line with other studies about journalism and political cultures, there were more
editorial commentaries in the French and German newspapers than in the others while
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the British and Swedish newspapers were more fact-oriented and did more research
into the original documents. The countries and topics reported about differed in detail,
however, on a structural level, there were a lot of commonalities between the media in
the different countries: They reported mainly about the home country and about topics
relating to the home country.
Traditional news values such as conflict, personification, proximity and a focus on
events dominated news selection similarly in all countries. The development of the
news narrative was also very similar in all countries (except for the British newspaper
the Guardian): As the reporting was very event-oriented, the media reported about the
publication of the documents in the beginning of December, but then went on to report
about the sexual offence accusations against Julian Assange and the “cyberwar”
between hackers and credit card companies in the second week of December. Despite
the continued publication of new material, except for the Guardian, the other media
almost completely stopped reporting about the documents in the second half of
December.
Generally, the analysis showed a lack of research on the part of the journalists and no
sign of an emerging “data journalism” in conventional journalism, with some
exceptions. If there were institutions interested in keeping the documents confidential
and burying critical issues in masses of data where they would not be found, the
mechanisms according to which the media function (personification, event-orientation)
would have helped them to divert the public attention.
Differences between media types seem to be more prevalent than differences between
countries. On television, more interviews with experts and commentators were shown,
while there was very little about the content of the documents (except for some flashy
revelations about politicians) and almost no commentary, while the newspapers
generally provided more analysis of the documents and more editorial commentary.
With regard to the frame and bias of the reporting, the affiliation of the newspaper
seems to be more important than the country. Conservative, non-cooperating media
were more critical of Wikileaks and reported less about the documents than more leftwing, cooperating media.
Despite the masses of documents published, the reporting in all countries put a
significant emphasis on the person of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Unanimously,
the journalists emphasized conflict and dramatized the events. Although many
journalists claimed in their comments with regard to the responsibility required when
publishing such documents that professional journalism was needed to select and factcheck the information, in reality, many articles were based on second-hand reports and
press releases, revealing that mostly information that is easily obtained and does not
involve resources is published in the conventional media.
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Narratology of (online) news
Javier Díaz Noci
Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
Abstract
We aim to explain how news in the digital environment are constructed and presented,
applying some related methods to the study of discourse and the message. We will
take into account the different trends of narratology. The methodology consists on
analyzing online newspapers trying to determine which kind of narratology and
thematic recurrence strategies are being used in nowadays news.
If news are nothing but a narration, then items such as voice, narration situation, mood,
time and characters can be analyzed just as it would be done in any other narrative
text. Following Jahn, Bal and other scholars, we will underline the use of descriptive
and narrative forms, levels of narrations and enbedded narrative texts (especially, the
way hypertext extend this capacity), sequence, rhythm (a couple of aspects
hypertextual narrations can modify as well) and frequency. Events, actors, time
(duration, chronology, etc.) and location will be also studied. Most especially, we will try
to deeply distinguish features inherent to online journalism as a media, apart from
these other traditional invariants and features.
We also try to explain which are the structures of the hypertextual news. As professor
Teun van Dijk did in his book News as discourse, we will try to explain if the structures
(macro and microstructures) of news remain the same after all these years and if
hypertextual construction has introduced some kind of changes in this structures. And,
after all, whether all these changes are creating a particular rhetoric of online news.
Finally, we will try to find out whether we can propose a typology of online news (online
cybertexts, using Espen Aarseth’s words) and whether a catalogue of criteria to define
online information genres can be offered as well. International online media are
analyzed: Nytimes.com, Lemonde.fr, Larepubblica.it, Guardian Unlimited Clarín.com
and Asahi Shimbun.jp (English version).
Introduction
The research whose method we are now presenting forms part of a wider project19 that,
in a coordinated way, enquires into how news on Internet (breaking news, at least) is
19
This communication is part of the work carried out in the R+D+I group, Evolución de los cibermedios españoles en
el marco de la convergencia. Análisis del mensaje, CSO2009-13713-C05-04, funded by the Ministry of Science and
Innovation(MICINN).
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prepared, that is, into its characteristics as text (as hypertext if you prefer, as we
explain in another communication) and, at the same time, into what its production
routines are. The second part of this research, which is developed in parallel with the
first, employs ethnographic methods, which are basically structured or semi-structured
interviews focussing on the agents involved in the production strategies of the news
material of online media. All of this without ignoring, as far as possible, the application
of other methods such as non-participatory observation or even surveys, which are not
however always easy to apply20. This tendency certainly involves a change in the focus
on the phenomenon of so-called online journalism, which, as David Domingo shows in
his doctoral thesis and in his book Making Online News, has passed from a first stage,
which placed a certain trust in the possibilities of digital language, to another in which
research is done into how and why news strategy is designed in newsrooms. The two
lines of research are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary, they are complementary,
and in fact both coexist in the abovementioned research group.
With respect to the analysis of the discourse itself – what the distinctive characteristics
of online news stories are, and whether it is possible on this basis to establish some
type of textual typology, prior to any taxonomic discussion about online journalistic
genres – we have employed a strategy of analysis from several points of view: a
content analysis of a classical type in order to determine which themes are present in
these items (samples are analysed in the form of an artificial week, in three waves
separated by periods of six months between them, of 15 Spanish media and 15 foreign
media in different languages); a narratological analysis (the possibility of widening this
with a rhetorical analysis is envisaged, as we shall see); an analysis of thematic and
mythical recurrences; a pragmastylistic analysis; and, especially since we are dealing
with characteristics specific to digital discourse, an analysis of multimedial – in reality,
basically video – and hypertextual elements, which are the subject of another
communication that tries to establish what the grammar of the hyperlink is and to what
point hypertextual structures set out their elements according to certain parameters
(similar or not to the parts of the news story as discourse that was researched in the
1980s by Teun A. van Dijk); and an analysis of interactivity, probably the thorniest
concept of them all. Years ago several works by professor van Dijk analysed news as
discourse. Since then some considerable changes have occurred. For example, the
already mentioned extension of multimedial and hypertextual properties applied to
current news, which is updated and completed insofar as the news flow takes place,
not according to the rhythms of production of the media. The way in which news is
presented is also mutating, very deeply I believe. The discourse still retains many of
the characteristics that van Dijk explored in the 1980s, but others have been
incorporated. Van Dijk himself has always called for multidisciplinary studies and thus,
in his book Handbook of Discourse Analysis, he tried to bring together researchers
from several European universities to present one of the most impressive and complete
analysis of the news story from several points of view, from rhetoric to pragmatics, from
20
In this respect, see the experience of an earlier research group in which I was involved, whose final monograph
reflects the advances and difficulties in the application of these methods for measuring media convergence in Spain
(López and Pereira, 2010).
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phonology to morphology, from argumentation to narrative. We also wish to deal with
some of those perspectives 21.
In other words, and adopting those of George Gerbner in “Mass media discourse:
message system analysis as a component of cultural indications” (in Van Dijk, 1985: 13
and ff.): “The analysis of mass media message system can thus provide a framework in
which comprehensive, coherent, cumulative, and comparative mass-cultural
information can be systematically assembled and periodically reported”. Online
journalism as a social phenomenon, and the production of news stories adapted to the
new media (and needs) is the aim that motivates our research. We are attempting to
determine whether or not the micro and macrostructures correspond to certain
hypertextual structures, and whether these structures are represented in the interface.
If online journalism should be considered as a database structure, we should equally
study how it acts at the level of this interface. And, in the final instance, whether a
specific rhetoric of the online media is being created.
What we will set out here is an analysis of a narratological type in the strict sense,
since (online) news stories are considered as fundamentally narrative texts (Sturgess,
1992; Díaz Noci and Salaverría, 2008).
The fundamental question leading us to undertake this study is: Why study how
journalistic texts are made? And not how journalistic texts should be made. In fact, we
believe that up until now this latter tendency has predominated, which is reflected in the
host of manuals on journalistic newswriting that has been published in Spain and that
answer more to a mandatory conception than to the results of empirical research that
really determines what the distinctive features of news items are. With respect to
theory, there is a tendency to speculate about how journalists should work. The most
advanced research should only reflect on how journalists write, rather than on how they
ought to do so.
Our starting point is, therefore, that convergence in production is creating some
changes of a certain depth in the way in which news stories are written. “Written”
should be understood in a broad sense, that is, how the different (and not only textual)
elements that make up the news are devised and set out.
The principal hypothesis is that changes in the message, due to the application and
development of the specific characteristics of digital language, are taking place in
parallel with changes occurring in newsrooms as a result of the emergence of new
forms of organisation. Concepts like work in collaboration, which, on the other hand,
are already covered by law, or the modularity of news pieces, are crucial in this
respect. By modularity we understand the characteristic that means, firstly, that news
pieces are not conceived for presentation in an isolated way, as occurred up until now
in the news media, even in a necessarily ephemeral form. Instead, the conception of
the modern mass media as a database means that today’s news pieces are the related
news stories of tomorrow, and can besides be recovered in a way that is grouped
according to determinate search criteria by the readers themselves. This means that
21
In a certain way we are continuing the line of research whose theory we set out in part in Chapter 2 of the
Manual de redacción ciberperiodística [Handbook of Online Newswriting].
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newswriting itself must take account of these premises and that one is thus dealing
with pieces that are conceived as nodes to be incorporated into changing structures
and that are, therefore, more a linked and linkable news story rather than a closed
discourse. It is hardly necessary to say that such news pieces can be of many types,
not only textual, and that video has been playing a fundamental role in this respect
since 2006.
The hypothesis is set out in a relational way, because two variables are associated: the
change in organisation implies changes in the presentation of the message, and vice
versa. Whether one is only dealing with a causal relation, or with a mere simple
relation, is what our research, which will continue until the end of 2012, will attempt to
determine.
This is a study that will include different types of research. Prior to the application of the
methods stated here, we carried out a descriptive study of the phenomena of online
journalism in Spain, which benefited from the results of several prior coordinated
studies. The study is intended to be comparative and analytical, based on measuring
different variables. The results will enable us to show our students what news stories
on Internet are and it therefore also has a practical side.
We are thus trying to explain how news stories are constructed and presented in the
digital setting, starting with a narratological study that takes account of different
currents, starting with the great names of the discipline: Vladimir Propp, Mikhail
Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, Gérard Genette or Claude Bremond, and,
more recently and more clearly adscribed to the study of narration, Mieke Bal or
Manfred Jahn.
Similarly, we are attempting to explain, through a study of the narrative elements
present not only in the hypertextual structure of the news as a whole, but also of the
itineraries that join the different nodes and the nodes considered individually, the
mechanisms of cohesion and hypertextual coherence. The Norwegian professor Martin
Engebretsen is a point of reference, since it is to him that we owe the distinction
between intranodal, internodal and structural coherence (Engebretsen, 2000). Although
we are not in agreement on one point: “His [Martin Engebretsen's] focus is more on the
possibilities of hypertextuality and on what online could or should look like, rather than
on actual practice”; we are attempting to do the opposite (Erdal, 2007: 56-57).
Narratology
Narratology is the discipline that analyses the narrative text, “in which a narrative agent
tells a story” (Bal, 2009: 15). Narratological analysis tries to understand both the
content, what is told (the story) and the form in which it is told, the fable. If news
stories, basically and although they can include descriptive or even dialogic elements,
are a narration, then aspects like the voice, the narrative situation, the form, time or the
characters can be analysed and typologised just as they are in any other narrative
expression. Following authors like Mieke Bal or Manfred Jahn, we would also like to
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underline the presence in news stories – especially in hypertextual news stories – of
narrative levels and embedded narrative texts, where in those hypertextual structures it
is possible to determine which narrative lines are principal and which are accessory or
complementary. Sequence (in the case of arboreal structures, combination of
sequences), rhythm, which the hypertextual narration can equally modify, frequency,
types of events, actors, time (duration, chronomogy) and localisation are aspects that
are studied in narratological analyses and there is nothing to prevent them from being
applied to the study of the news.
All these concepts have been taken from the basic bibliography22 such as that of Mieke
Bal (Narratology; first edition 1985, third edition 2006) and Manfred Jahn (Narratology:
A Guide to the Theory of Narrative. English Department, University of Cologne)23.
There are other equally outstanding contributions, such as Theorizing Narrativity by
John Pier and José Ángel García Landa24.
In order to obtain a diagram, which we later made specific in a database in such a way
that these aspects can be systematically gathered in each of the samples of the
abovementioned research project (not merely searching for examples that would
illustrate aspects determined by the analysis), we propose the following:
Narrator
(voice)
Heterodiegetic First person
Homodiegetic
Third person
Authorial omniscience
Selective omniscience (reflector)
Multiselective omniscience
(reflectors)
Neutral omniscience
Space (diegesis)
Distance (related to objectivity)
Focalization (perspective)
Focalizor
Focalized object
Mode
Narration
Embedded
texts
In the same node
In a
Internal
22
A complete repertoire of bibliographical references on narratology, collected by profesor José Ángel García Landa,
can be found at http://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filologia_inglesa/garciala/bibliography.html
23
http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm. Vide http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/
24
Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Especially, Penas Ibáñez, Beatriz: “A pragma-stylistic contribution to
the study of narrativity: Standard versus non-standard narrativities” (p. 211-251), Gerald Prince: “Narrativehood,
narrativeness, narrativity, narratibility” (p. 19-27) and Marie-Laure Ryan: “Transfictinality across media” (p. 385417).
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different External
node
Intermediate Direct speech
forms
Indirect speech
Free indirect
speech
Narrator’s text
Description
Presence of deictics
Dialogism
Heterophony
Heterology
Heteroglosia
Argumentation
References to the reader
Explicit reader
Implicit reader
Events
Actors
Actor/actant-subject
Time
Use of verbal time
Function
Object
Anachronies (external /
internal)
Analepsis
Prolepsis
Sequencial ordering
Situation
Perturbation
Transformation
Resolution
Final situation
Rhythm (anysochronies)
Summary
Scene (presence of the dialogue)
Ellipsis
Slow-down
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Pause
Descriptive
Digressive
Frequency
Relationship between events in the story and in the
fibula
These characteristics have been gathered in such a way that we are able to appreciate
the frequencies and repetition of patterns in a textual corpus.
Author type
Implicit / Explicit
Narrator
Heterodiegetic (First person)
Homodiegetic (Authorial omniscience)
Homodiegetic (Selective omniscience – Reflector)
Homodiegetic (Multiselective omniscience)
Homodiegetic (Neutral omniscience)
Reader
Implicit / Explicit
Self-conscience
Metalepsis
Reflexivity
None
Characters (1)
Active
Passive
Spherical
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Flat
Presented through: External action
Presented through: Speech
Presented through: External appearance
Presented through: Details
Presented through: Scenario
Presented through: Social role
Presented through: Opaque
Type of character
Aggressor
Donor
Magic helper
Mandatary
Hero
False hero
Princess
Space (digesis)
Referential
Descriptive
Dramatic
Structural
Atmospheric
Expressive
Type of story
Mimetic / Diegetic
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Mode
Narration: direct
Narration: Indirect
Narration: Text of the narrator
Description: Presence of deictics
Dialogism: Heterophony
Dialogism: Heterology
Dialogism: Heteroglosia
Argumentation
Modalisation
Equality
Inferiority
Superiority
Alterations: Paralipsis (witholding information, less information than needed)
Alterations: Paralepsis (more information than needed)
Structure (1)
Crisis / Development
Structure (2)
Mono-plot: External journey
Mono-plot: Internal journey
Multi-plot: Convergent stories
Mono-plot: Parallel stories
Three acts:
Introduction
Protasis or presentation of the initial state
Trigger
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Turning point
Development
Second turning point
Ending
Inevitable climax
Unexpected climax
Final situation: Saturation
Final situation: Inversion
Final situation: Stagnation
Final situation: Substitution
Final situation: Suspension
Time
Present
Past
Future
Event
Change
Choice
Confrontation
Situation
Improvement: Task fulfilment
Improvement: Allies
Improvement: Elimination of opponent
Improvement: Negotiation
Improvement: Attack
Improvement: Satisfaction
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Deterioration: Handicap
Deterioration: Duty
Deterioration: Sacrifice
Deterioration: Attack withstood
Deterioration: Punishment withstood
Conflict:
Extrapersonal
Conflict:
Personal
Conflict:
Internal
Frequency
Singularity (an event occurs once and is explained once)
Multiple frequency (event is shown several times)
Repetitive frequency
Iterative frequency (what occurs several times in the story is shown only once)
Zero frequency (certain events are not shown)
Events alluded to
Supposed events
Unknown
Actions
Absence
Prohibition
Infraction
Investigation
Information
Disappointment
Submission
Treason
Fault
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Command
Decision of the hero
Departure
Assignment of a test
Reception of the assistant
Spatial movement
Combat
Score
Victory
Liquidation of the fault
Return
Persecution
Liberation
Arrival in disguise
Fault
Assignment of the task
Achievement
Recognition
The traitor revealed
The hero revealed
Punishment
Wedding
Sequence
Lineal / No lineal
Sequential order
Perturbation
Transformation
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Resolution
Final situation
Direction
Anticipation
Retrospection
In media res
Distance
Internal analepsis
External analepsis
Mixed retrospection
Extention
Complete anachrony
Incomplete anachrony
Anticipation
Achrony
Rhythm
Summary
Scene (presence of dialogue)
Ellipsis
Diminution
Descriptive pause
Digressive pause
As can be seen, we are not dealing with anything novel, although what is new is its
application both to the field of news and to that of online news (in the sense that Espen
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Aarseth gives to the term cybertext, as a specific type of the latter). As a state of the
art, a review of the latest articles on narratology published in the last five years (20072011) in the databases, especially the JCR, gives as its result a considerable number
of articles on novels whose narrative style is different (that is, they seek what is special;
while we, on the contrary, are seeking the norm or the pattern that is repeated in a
determinate group of online texts). (Parker, 2010; Reveley, 2010; Benford, 2010;
Shang, 2010; Warhol-Down, 2010. Becker, 2010). Curiously, there have indeed been
recent analyses of texts, at least in the Anglophone juridical field, that, when
considered carefully, are not formally so different from news reports. And also a certain
number of articles that concentrate on more general aspects of narratology, such as
the event (Zuska, 2009) or the action (Plamondon, 2010), without forgetting others that
investigate the cognitivist currents of this discipline (Fludernik, 2010).
Nonetheless, the works that most interest us are those by Marie-Laure Ryan and her
followers, given that they inquire into narratology in interactive texts. Since it is one of
the most recent articles on the subject, we would draw attention to H. Barbas and Nuno
Correia’s “The making of an interactive digital narrative- Instory”, Euromedia 2009, 354125. Although narratology is common currency in the research and teaching of
audiovisual communication, it is not so common in that of journalism. Beyond the entry
by Robert Dardenne (“Journalism”) in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory,
edited by Manfred Jahn, Marie-Laure Ryan and David Herman (London, New York,
Routledge, 2005), there is barely anything on the specific subject in the international
panorama, although it is worth making a combined reading of that entry and the one on
“Digital narrative”, by Terry Harpold, in the same volume.
The multimedia character of many of these news stories (which contain text,
photographs, videos, maps and infographics) means that we should insist on the
importance of transmedia narrative (Ryan, 2009). For the majority of these concepts,
we would do well in following Bal, but above all Jahn and the Living handbook of
narratology, of the Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology of the University of
Hamburg26, which contains entries by the majority of the relevant authors on this
question (Herman, Fludernik, Pier, Schmidt, Hühn).
Results
After confectioning a database with the main breaking news of seven days chosen
during the month of October, 2010, of daily newspapers all over the world including
New York Times.com, LeMonde.com, Asahi.com (English version), Repubblica.it,
Rue.fr, Publico.pt (Portugal), Gobo.com (Brazil) and BBC News, we are able to present
some preliminary conclusions, because the whole study will include the study of news
samples from these same media in 2011 and 2012 –in order to complete a longitudinal
25
A seminar was dedicated to this type of narratives which was significantly titled “Do we need a new narratology
for Interactive digital storytelling?”, A Workshop onTheory on ICIDS 2009.
26
http://huo.sup.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Main_Page.
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research which could help us to trace a timeline evolution of narrative, if possible, and
eliminate possible distortions due to the time and the dominant news subjects during
the sampling time.
First of all, references to readers are non-existent or implicit. No mention to the reader
appears in any news examined. Such mentions should be found in genres like blogs,
which are sometimes linked to the news examined. When these news are strictly lineal,
the main narration does not contain references to the readers. This is a characteristic
haired from the printed press, and has to do with objectivity and “neutrality” it means,
use of third person as the main narration voice. To this respect, mentions to the author
are equally non existent, with just few exceptions27, when self-references to the
medium (but not to the journalist) appear, which is part of the journalistic style.
Surprisingly, when this kind of mention appeared, a hyperlink to the news related is not
given, which should be interesting (see our paper in this same congress on hypertext
and online news) to enhance digital narrative. When this resource is used, the concept
of authorship (from individual to collective and, in the end, groupal) radically changes.
Autoconcience is very rare, as well, and metatextual references are not present in the
nodal level, but are very frequent if related news links are to be considered.
Story is systematically diegetic, but mimesis is used when a scene construction is
presented through giving voice to the main characters of the plot. In those cases a
mimetic/diegetic story, typical as well in journalistic usages, is offered. Alternation of
voices –in a textual form; in those news analyzed voice or video is not used, but this
kind of digital news pieces are not infrequent-, from third person to first person, and
from indirect style to direct style, is given. Linked to his is another characteristic
systematically repeated in almost 60% of the news studied: characters are introduced
by their words, and 20% through external action. Other resources are scarcely used,
and singularly external description of characters are of little importance in online
journalism, especially in breaking news. Since texts are shorter than in printed press,
such kind of rhetorical characteristics are not developed; facts –data of third persons’
word- are preferred.
Lineal sequences are predominant; inside and outside the hypertextual construction, it
means, intranodal and intermodal coherence I normally lineal, with very few
exceptions. As we explain in our communication devoted to hypertext construction of
the same news items, even supposedly branched structures are not real, since a main
lineal structured is enriched with some related material, complementary to the main
story.
Perturbation and transformation are main sequential ordering (55-45%), the rest is
conclusion; journalism offers serial stories not always concludes when the public
interests relaxes- and online journalism, slave of non-periodical and endlessly renewed
news, does not offer absolutely closed stories; hyperlinks help to conceive a modular
narrative. Today’s scoop are not tomorrow’s fish wrap, but tomorrow’s (and next year,
27
“Security contractors in Afghanistan fund Taliban”, BBC News 08/10/2010; “Les preuves de l'existence d'un fichier
ethnique sur les Roms”, Rue89, 07/10/2010 ; « Salários dos funcionários públicos com reduções entre 50 e725
euros », Publico.pt, 08/10/2010.
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especially when a reader’s search recovers that node and links it with some other
related informations) related news. Open nodal narrative is more and more frequent.
Protasis, development or initial state are the main structures when linked to other
news, now or in the future, these time points could change, and narration is fragmented
and reordered in surprising forms. Probably this is the reason way almost all the news
examined present an only event, one time narrated structure as well, instead of a more
complex one, which should be given by further linking to other related news. As
hyperdocument structures becomes more and more potentially complex, nodal
structure becomes even more simple.
Space is referential, anticipation is the main direction, modalization tends to be
presented as equal for the reader (we offer you all the information, and if not, a link to
the report). By the way, third persons’ reports appear to be the main focalizer of a lot of
stories on the Web. Journalist as a narrator just completes, orients and reorders all that
information to the reader, as he or she points out the main data and put them on the
most superficial levels. Deeper knowledge should depend on the reader’s will of
following, or not, the documentary links.
Change and confrontation, mandatories as main characters and improvement: task
fulfillment (or lack of it) is a common pattern also present in more digital stories. Heroes
(Chilean miners, for exemple) are also present, but even when they are the main
characters, politicians appear in the story as well: they introduce, announcing a task
fulfillment (the duty), which should seem to be the most archetypical plot, the victory of
the heroes, the external/internal journey completed, the return to home. In this respect,
the narrartive unites are presented systematically as information or investigation, and
change and confrontation are more often present than election.
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iPad journalism with the eyes of editorial staff and readers
Merja Drake
Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland
Abstract:
Journalism has faced many challenges in the past decades. Maybe one of the greatest
influences has been the invention of the Internet. Online journalism has played a very
important role in the Internet’s growth (Foust 2005). According to Paul (2008), the
Internet is not the first disruptive technology that news organizations have contended
with, but it may be the widest reaching.
In recent years there has been much discussion about the role of social media and
Web 2.0 in journalism. (Aunesluoma, Majava & Wilenius 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein
2010; Kim, Jeong & Lee 2010; Drake 2009; Boyd & Ellison 2008; Burns 2008; Domingo
et al. 2008; Castells 2007; Lietsala & Sirkkunen 2008; Deuze 2006; Gillmor 2006;
Rosen 2005; 2004; Bowman & Willis 2003; Pavlik 2001.)
The year 2010 was exceptional for Apples’s iPad, e.g. over 2 million iPads were sold in
two months. Many newspapers and magazines now publish their stories in iPad format.
Finland’s first iPad magazine Suomen Kuvalehti was published on the 1st of October
2010, only two months after the company had made the decision to do so. Journalists
and photographers are now producing print and iPad magazines alike. Noteworthy is
that iPad devices were first sold in Finland only in December 2010.
The objective of the presently ongoing research project is to gain an understanding of
what kind of journalistic product the iPad magazine is from the point of view of editorial
staff and readers.
Focus in on how the iPad format is changing editorial workflow and what are the
reactions of the readers: Do they think iPad magazines are something new and
revolutionary? How much are they willing to pay for an iPad magazine? And how
interactive and participatory do they consider iPad magazines to be?
Keywords: iPad, magazines, open journalistic culture, readers’ participation
The realm of iPad and magazines
Why is iPad so remarkable to the journalism industry? According to Matsa et al. (2011),
the magazine industry is losing its audience but nevertheless managed to slow down
the decline in 2010, mostly because magazines were able to hold on to their
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subscribers. The sales of single copies continue to fall. One reason is free Internet
content.
Apple launched iPad, its new e-reader or tablet, in April 2010. The device looks like an
iPhone but is bigger with its 9.7” colour screen and also provides battery life of 10
hours. iPad comes with WiFi Internet access and devices equipped with 3G can be
used as a mobile phone (Palser 2011; Dougherty 2010; Tonkery 2010).
In two months Apple sold more than two million iPads. iPad 2.0 was introduced about
year later. According to Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffrays, almost 70 % of the
buyers of the new device were first timers (Elmer-DeWitt 2011; Schroeder 2011).
There are also other e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Digital Reader, Barnes &
Noble’s “nook” and Samsung’s Galaxy, each embracing different business model and
conceptions of how magazines and newspapers are published (Dougherty 2010; Matsa
et al. 2010; Tonkery 2010). Matsa et al. stress that the evolution of the e-tablet may
alter the interaction that consumers have with digital journalism and may make the
concept of an electronic magazine easier to imagine. But it is still quite early to judge
how important iPad is to magazine publishers. First, there are not enough subscription
options for iPad users – magazines are mostly subscribed – the normal newsstand
accounts for less than a percent of total sales. Secondly, Apple’s business model does
not please everybody. Magazine publishers are required to provide Apple with 30 % of
sales income when purchased through an Apple Store. (Matsa et al. 2010; Tonkery
2010.)
There is plenty of debate about whether the iPad and other digital magazines will kill or
save the magazine industry, as well as about possible earnings logics for digital
content. According to Jansen (2010), 65 percent of Internet users have paid for online
content and 18 percent say they have purchased content from a digital newspaper,
magazine or journal.
A survey by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute shows that iPad could have a
harmful effect on print newspapers and magazines. The survey, which covered more
than 1,600 iPad users, reported that nearly 80 percent said they spent at least 30
minutes a day reading the news on the iPad, and 81.5 percent said they used the
device to read books, newspapers or magazines. The reading experience with iPad
was rated better or about the same as the reading experience with printed newspapers
or magazines. An alarming finding was that 58 percent of those who had print
newspaper subscriptions and spent at least an hour a day accessing news on their
iPads said they were likely to cancel their print subscription in the next six months.
iPad is a new and interesting device and more information is needed to understand its
possibilities and threats to journalism, newspapers and magazines.
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Social media, participatory journalism and Web 2.0
What is the distinction between social media and Web 2.0? Social media can be
described as a concept or model that includes participation, networking, information
sharing, user-generated content as well as innovating and spending time together.
(Aunesluoma, Majava & Wilenius 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein 2010; Kim, Jeong & Lee
2010; Boyd & Ellison 2008; Castells 2007; Lietsala & Sirkkunen 2008.) Reader
participation has been described as we media, distributed journalism, participatory
media, open source journalism and participatory journalism (Deuze 2006; Gillmor 2006;
Rosen 2005; 2004; Bowman & Willis 2003; Pavlik 2001). The influence of active
readers is transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatewatching (Burns 2008).
Domingo et al. (2008) claimed that the emergence of participatory journalism is
influenced by external factors such as technology, economy and the broader social and
cultural framework.
Web 2.0 is perhaps more connected to technology. It is focused on consumer needs
like the scalability of the systems employed. Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) highlight that
although Web 2.0 does not refer to any specific technical update of the World Wide
Web, there is a set of basic functionalities that are necessary for its functioning, for
example RSS, Adobe Flash, and Ajax (Asynchronous Java Script). According to Ebner
& Scheifner (2008), the most important and visible manifestations of Web 2.0
technologies are weblogs. Web 2.0 and social media are very much a symbiotic
relationship of technology and new culture.
The change of journalism
The rise of a new way of thinking, i.e. sharing and creating content together with
readers, has had its influence on journalism. Every newspaper must think how to react
to reader demands for user-generated content, to what extent to accept comments and
discussion on the web, and how to moderate this content.
Deuze (2003) highlights the differences between open and closed journalism by means
of a diagram, which includes the instrumental and orientating dimensions of Bardoel
(1996). The diagram also includes elements relating to public participation: monitorial
journalism, i.e. the extent to which content produced by the public is moderated, and
dialogical journalism, i.e. the extent to which professional journalists enter into
discussion with the public. In the diagram (figure 1), journalistic culture is either closed
from the orientating or monitorial point of view, or open from the instrumental or
dialogical point of view. In closed journalistic culture, content is typically not added to
the content produced by professionals, and the content has the primary purpose of
providing background information and orientation. If the public is given the opportunity
to contribute, this content is also monitored and moderated. Conversely, in open
journalistic culture the public is allowed to participate instrumentally, i.e. online
technologies are utilised for the distribution of content even if this content has been
produced by professional journalists. Online technologies are utilised, for example, by
offering hyperlinks to content produced by other journalists. Open journalistic culture is
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dialogical when citizens are given the opportunity to produce user-generated content to
supplement the content produced by professional journalists (Deuze 2003).
Figure 1. Characteristics of open and closed journalistic culture by Deuze (2003).
Patterns of social media, participatory journalism and open journalistic culture have not
been as significant for magazines as for newspapers. Many Finnish magazines offer
very little journalistic content on their websites, while some magazines offer plenty
participatory elements.
This research project makes use of Deuze’s model to find out how open iPad
journalism is and the extent to which iPad magazines allow reader participation.
Research questions and methods
This research project investigates the role of IPad in Finnish magazines, with focus on
identifying how IPad is changing the journalistic process and how readers are reacting
to this new type of journalistic product.
The research questions are:
1)
How revolutionary is iPad journalism?
2)
What is changing in journalistic processes?
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3)
What kind of a reader experience is iPad journalism?
The research method is mixed. The project has two stages. Firstly, editorial staff was
interviewed by means of thematic interviews. There were 40 interviewees of whom 12
were journalists, 12 were photographers, 11 were chief editors, 4 were art directors and
one was a site builder. Each group had its own interview structure. Interviews were
held between October and December 2010. Interviews were analysed using Grounded
Theory, which is well suited to the study of phenomena in areas where little previous
knowledge exists (Corbin & Strauss 1990). According to Strauss (2003) the basic steps
of Grounded Theory are data collection, coding, memoing and theory construction.
Coding is the general term for conceptualizing data and it involves the discovery and
naming of categories. Strauss (2003) has divided coding into three stages: open
coding, axial coding and selective coding. Coding includes finding and naming
categories and their relations. In the present study, the data was first open coded, i.e.
the data was first transcribed; second, the data was read line by line, word by word;
and third, the codes were added. The aim was to identify categories and subcategories
that explain the data. The coding process made use of a computer and ATLAS.ti
software.
The second stage covers a survey of reader opinions. The questionnaire has 27 items.
This includes classificatory questions to establish demographics and rating questions
using the Likert scale and verbal scaling. Data collection began in April 2011 and will
continue until the end of October 2011. Data will be analyzed by means of cross tables
and weighting.
Preliminary results
The first stage and preliminary results indicate that there has not been enough time to
develop an iPad magazine concept that is effectively differentiated from the print.
Journalistic content remains pretty much same. Journalists and editors say they are
producing exactly the same content for both magazine versions.
P11:13 We are sort of expected to adapt our content into iPad format. But this hasn’t
really had much impact on the writer’s job.
P22:30 Well, at the moment there isn’t a difference because the iPod version has been
conceptualised to be pretty much the same as the print.
P27:22 Most magazines available on iPad, including all Finnish magazines, are more
or less exactly as the print. So this is not something totally new like when websites
were introduced.
Some journalist’s found it difficult to create content for a device they are not yet familiar
with. Journalists and photographers were not yet sure how readers would react
because the device is just starting to be available in stores. Some journalists and
photographers considered it negative that magazines for iPad have not been
sufficiently designed beforehand.
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P4:4 People weren’t prepared for it, or couldn’t have prepared for it in advance. It
happened very fast. The iPad isn’t even officially on sale yet in Finland, i.e. the device.
But the magazine is already out. The first issue came out yesterday.
P7:7 In a way it feels like we just rolled up our sleeves and produced something, so is
that where development ends or can we take it to the next level?
P15:32 We’ve had the Pad magazine for two weeks. Staff have not increased, but
workloads have. Apparently that’s away from something else, and I believe one way or
another the editorial board will have to come to grips with resource allocation.
The iPad has not yet shaken up some editorial boards, but both journalists and
photographers estimate that a new type of magazine will emerge and that this
magazine will have a revolutionary impact on the journalist’s and photographer’s
working routines.
P 19:36 I’m not aware that iPad would have impacted us. But it has impacted other
magazines in our group.
P28:38 I think the impact will be quite substantial. I’ve tried the iPod, but I haven’t had
the chance to read our magazines with it.
Photographers found that iPad offers new and innovative ways to illustrate magazines,
but at the same time they experienced increased workloads.
P14:26 You need to do it sort of like a film. The world is so different, the requirements.
That’s why taking stills and video simultaneously isn’t too practical or easy.
P 34: 24 Well, of course there’s more rush, given that we basically have two different
jobs that can’t be done at the same time. You do the magazine photos first and video
later. And then you need to do the editing and other stuff, so it’s a full day, extra work.
Editorial staff seemed divided between those who believed that iPad would
revolutionise magazine making, bringing new life, creativity and dialogue to magazine
concepts, and those who felt that the device does not yet offer sufficient novelty value
for readers. The device was considered expensive and pricing policies of iPad
magazines have not yet stabilised.
The reader survey is still at such an early stage that conclusions about reader
experiences cannot yet be made. In the first surveys, iPad was being used only with
WiFi and without a micro SIM card. This caused some difficulties because the
connection was sometimes lost while a magazine was being downloaded, which led
some survey participants to note that it would be easier if the device was continually
online. The survey will proceed with devices equipped with micro SIMs.
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Discussion
Interview analysis and survey data collection will continue through autumn 2011. Final
research results are expected in spring 2012.
It is too early to say if iPad will kill or save the magazine industry. The iPad is a new
platform for disseminating digital content to readers. What it will take to gain reader
interest and willingness to purchase or even subscribe to iPad magazines – that
remains a mystery. Also open is how magazines will be visible in Apple’s online store
and by what mechanisms they can be ordered. More than 90 percent of Finnish
magazine sales come from subscriptions, so individual copies do not have much
significance.
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Mass Media and Multimedia Convergence: A Research
Proposal for Evaluation of Online Newspapers
Manuel de la Fuente*, Germán Llorca*, Lluís Codina**, Javier Díaz Noci**
* University of València, Spain
** Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
Abstract
This paper analyses the content of Spanish online media through a specific database.
The study is a result of the project “Evolución de los cibermedios españoles en el
marco de la convergencia. Análisis del mensaje” [“Evolution of Spanish online media
facing convergence Message and content analysis”] (CSO2009-13713-C05-04),
financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. We focus on the process
of data collection, which includes the selection of the media corpus, the evaluation of
websites, the application of methodology, the creation of databases and the contrast of
results according to homogenous patterns. This process intends to propose a new
model for content analysis originating in the multidisciplinary fields of the members of
the research group (Linguistics, Semiotics, Documentation and Media Studies).
Prior to the content analysis, a data gathering protocol was applied during the second
semester of 2010 covering four weeks and twenty-five of the most relevant online
media. Fifteen of these media were Spanish, while the rest were chosen amongst the
most representative international online newspapers (notably France, Italy, England,
Argentina, Brazil and the United States) so as to carry out a comparative analysis of
their contents.
The results will be contrasted with a second data collection to be undertaken in
October 2011. The corpus of research – which includes the three most relevant news
in each newspaper and its homepage – will help design an accurate mapping of online
media writing strategies.
Keywords: Evaluation. Online news
Introduction
Since the aim of this project (coordinated with another four sub-groups dealing with
different aspects of Spanish online journalism and convergence) is to analyze the
Spanish online media, we will concentrate on several of them, chosen from the case
database developed by the SEJ2006-14828-C06 research project, in which I
coordinated a sub-group from the University of the Basque Country, and applying a
convergence formula developed based on point assignment and developed by Xosé
López, Xosé Pereira, Teresa de la Hera and Idoia Portilla (vide A methodological tool:
An
index
to
calculate
the
level
of
convergente
of
a
medium,
http://prezi.com/48942/view/#64), as represented in this table.
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In order to advance in the universe election, and taking into account some elements of
representativity (type of media, geographical distribution, etc.), the subgroup we
currently lead preliminary proposes these media:
• El País.com
• El Mundo.es
• RTVE.es
• 20 Minutos.com
• Tele 5 .es
• Sur .es
• La Vanguardia .es
• La Voz de Galícia .es
• El Correo digital.com
• Diario de Navarra .com
• Vilaweb .cat ( a native media)
LaInformación.com (a native digital media)
We will compare the Spanish media with some other representative media from
different countries, as recommended by the Spanish research institutions (vide my own
book chapter 'Perspectivas de la investigación y docencia universitarias de la
comunicación periodística', 2008): advanced countries (the United States, Canada and
Japan), some Latin-American countries (Chile, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil), and
countries from the European Union, specially those of the Mediterranean area. For
those reason, and also for language-knowledge reason, we will limit ourselves to
several countries, and not will abuse of Spanish language media. We will try, for
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exemple, to explain if stylistic, rhetorical, hypertextual or narratological rules can be
consider universal or are part of come different languages. As a secondary hypothesis,
we advance that is more in common than there is different in all the countries and
languages analyzed.
Finally, the media were: Asahi.com (Japan; English version), BBC.co.uk/news
(United Kingdom), Clarín.com (Argentina), Folha.com and Globo.com (Brazil),
LeMonde.fr and Rue89.fr (France), Público.pt (Portugal), Guardian.co.uk (United
Kingdom) and New York Times (United States of America).
Once definitely decided which are those media, we have applyed a morphological
catalogation record, and an evaluation of the general quality of those media, as we
propose in the following pages. These tools are being applied to the comparative study
we are carrying on in Brazil and Spain as well (PHB2006-2005, 2007-2010)
As a third preliminary step to accurately define the study universe, we will apply Lluís
Codina's evaluation tool, (for this tool, please consult http://www.lluiscodina.com; a
previous versions applied to online media can be found in the chapter written by Dr
Codina in Díaz Noci & Salaverría, 2003). This tool will give us a quality vision of the
media to be studied before practising any other deeper analysis of them, and give us
an introductory frame and the first results of the subject. We will specially focus on the
influence of Web 2.0 or, even so, Web 3.0. Dr Codina will expose those lines in his
paper presented to the I Congress on Cyberjournalism and Web 2.0 in Bilbao,
November 2009. We consider this is a useful tool to explain in a general and
comparative form –and also in a longitudinal way, since it will be apply successively to
the same media every year- with scholarly purposes, using a series of standardized
criteria categorized by groups.
The evaluation has been carried on by the authors, under the supervision of
professor Codina, in order, needless to say, to achieve comparable data. During the
current study, intercoder reliability tests based on Cohen’s kappa coeficient (Cohen,
1960) were performed with satisfactory results.
Website evaluation
Evaluation of digital resources is a discipline of Documentation Sciences which was
born sometime in the 1990’s, when the World Wide Web was conformed for the first
time as a reliable and valuable resource for scholars and professionals of information.
This discipline was born, then, linked to the analysis of those websites considered
interesting for the scholarly world, with the spirit of giving the analysts and researchers
a group of intellectual tools able to measure the quality and reliability of a webpage or
any other Web-accessible resource.
During the last years, some major changes have occurred in this discipline:
1. The application of these tools is not reduced to just documentalists and
librarians, and some other scholars –i.e., people involved in the analysis of
usability of scholars facing the research on digital media, in general, and online
journalism, in particular.
2. Tendence to fomalization and operationalition of quality criteria. This means,
basically, that criteria are articulated in two levels, parameters and indicators (or
guidelines and check points). So do we in this proposal.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
3. A relative agreement is set up, concerning a central core aspects qhich give
quality to a website or online publication. Normally information architecture,
accessibility and visibility are considered.
4. As times change, we need to consider and propose new parameters, indicators,
guidelines and check points for every website typology or research purpose.
The tool
After reviewing all the different versions of the tool, from 2003 (as it was
proposed by Lluís Codina in the mentioned handbook) to the necessities of our current
project (2010-2012), we decided to maintain the three great parts of groups or original
criteria: content and information access; visibility and macronavigation; and usability,
but the list of concrete indicators was carefully revised, so that some of them were
eliminated –they were redundant or were not of application to online journalistic media,
since the tool was proposed to be applied to any kind of website- and some other
indicators were added, because from the proposal of the original tool in 2003 to our
days news applications, and especially the so called Web 2.0 have appeared.
One of our main goals is, precisely, to explain to which extent the analyzed
media are adapted to these new times, so a number of indicators about the use of the
new tools and services were added. The concrete indicators and it classification
appears in the tables with the results of the application of the tool in the second part of
2010 at the end of this paper.
Another part, on interactivity, was considered of kind importance, so it was
segregated from this proposal. Another paper presented by Lluís Codina and Javier
Díaz Noci to this ECREA Journalism Studies Conference 2011 explain the
development of the interactivity evaluation.
Qualification system
For every indicator or check point, we have considered at least three different
qualifications systems. The second one, as we explain later on, is converted from
absolute values –very different and dissimilar- to 1 to 4 scale, so the different parts of
the study could be converted to numeric values.
Symbol
0|1
N
0-3
Explanation
Presence / ausence indicator. Value for summatory
Numerical result after measuring or applying a test. Base value for
a ranking once completed all the measures and tests for every
website we analyze, and converted to comparable scale before
using for sumatory.
In some cases . We have traed to reduce this cases to 0 | 1 binary
scale, decomposing the questions posed in this kinds of
parameters.
0 : Ausence of the evaluated funcionality.
1 : Functionality is present, but in a limited degree
2 : Funcionality preset with relatively broad options but able to be
strenghtened
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Ranking
3 : Level of relative excellence for this funcionality.
Used as a value for summatory.
Quartils 1-4, being 4 the fourth part of analyzed websites with
highest values, and 1 the fourth part with lowest values. Used as a
value for summatory.
Results
The results of this first evaluation wave can be seen in the tables we present below,
dividid into general media and Spanish media –the universe of our research. Results
are not very different in all the online newspapers –those which come from a printed
version-, approximately 50 points, but are considerable lower in Spanish native online
media, curiously, and Spanish radio-television websites. LeMonde.fr is the best
qualified media we analyze (57 points), and LaVanguardia.com the best one in Spain
(55 points). Folha.com is the one with lowest punctuation (35 points)I n the world and
the website of a regional or autonomic television of Andalusia, Canal Sur, the lowest
one in Spain (31 points).
Section by section, in the general media we analyze BBC and LeMonde.fr are the ones
with best punctuation in information access the lowest ones. Nevertheless, Publico.pt
and Asahi.com present the poorest archive retrieval systems, and BBC and LeMonde.fr
the best ones. Navigation is consistent in all the media we analyze.
Público and Le Monde present the best positioning, but Clarin.com is better than
Público.pt in numerical parameters. Asahi.com and Folha.com present the weakest
results in this respect.
Accessibility is, in general, clearly low in all the media, since personalization
options are already poor.
Regarding to Spanish media, we have divided them into three categories: online
newspapers, native online media and audiovisual media (radio and television).
Newspapers, as we have already mentioned, have gained the best qualifications.
ElMundo.es, ElPaís.com and Lavanguardia.es are the best situated ones in information
access; their search engines and retrieval systemas are very good, with one difference:
El Mundo and El País are relatively young media, produced both of them from the
beginning (also the printed version, we mean) with digital means; La Vanguardia,
instead, was first published in 1881 and has done a considerbale effotr to offer all the
historial archive, in searchable pdf, on the web. Like other media (Folha is one of them,
Guardian the other one) with historial archives, they offer a double search system.
Navigation is consistent in all the Spanish newspapers, with an average value of 12.
Positioning is very homogeneous as well. Accessibility, on the other hand, is extremely
poor, and the number of errors is consdierable, especially in La Voz de Galicia and La
Vanguardia. This last medium, must be mentioned, has changed in 2011 their design
and this afirmation needs to be modulated with further application of our tool.
Curiously, qualifications of native media in Spain are lower than those of the previously
studied newspapers, in both cases (Vilaweb.cat, the oldest one, and
LaInformación.com, born in 2009) they are below 50 points –before the avegrage
puntuation of internationl media as well. They bare consistent, as all the rest of the
media are, in navigation, but very wak in archive –a question that, regarding to digital
preservation of those native media, is a very important one. Positioning and social web
use is correct (LaInformación.om, created by the former director of Prisacom, the firm
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
created by Prisa, editor of El Páis and ElPaís.com, to develop their impressive
information architecture, Mario Tascón) but quality of the source, accessibility and
adaptation do not give the best results.
Finally, Spanish audiovisual media have been analyzed. With the exception of
RTVE.es, the website of the national radio and television (50 points) all the other are
below it and two of the below 40 points). Positioning and accessibilty and adaptation
aret he worst sections. Archive, with the exception again- of RTVE.es is another weak
point.
Making a long story short, online newspapers, especially the oldest ones –with a huge
paper archive that have been digitised in several cases- are the firm better adapted to
the Web. Results are very similar in the group of international reference newspaper
and in the Spanish groups, with better results for the three ones most read in printed
version –and, in the first two cases the most accessed ones on the Net: ElMundo.es,
ElPaís.com and LaVanguardia.es. On the extreme, public national audiovisual media –
at least, BBC and RTVE- show good results, far from the poor ones of the private
Spanish channels websites and CanalSur.es. And, curiously, native online media (at
least, the two Spanish ones) are on the middle. Further research, an ampliation of the
universe with the inclusion of more audiovisual and native media will confirm or refute
these first preliminary results.
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PARAMETER
1. INFORMATION ACCESS
1.1. Archive
1.2. Navigation
2. POSITIONING-SOCIAL WEB
2.1. Presence/ausence
INDICATOR
Público.pt
LeMonde.fr
Guardian.co.uk
Folha.com
Clarín.com
BBC.co.uk/news
Asahi.com
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
3
0
0
2
0
1
1
0
2
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
3
2
3
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
1
1
10
1
1
6
1
1
4
1
1
5
1
1
12
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
0
1
1
1
1
1
2
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
3
0
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
12
14
13
23
9
15
8
12
12
17
12
24
7
9
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
1
NA
1
1
0
0
0
0
Does the medium have an archive with precedent
editions?
Is there any temporal limit to consult any previous
edition?
Is there any limit to free access to the archive?
Chroinological search ?
Ordering options?
Search through indexes?
Advanced research?
Results present any categorization system?
Results present any further utilities?
Search is based in any documental treatment or
ontology, descriptors, thesaurus...?
TOTAL 1.1.
Global navigations with sections?
Is global navigation consistent throughout the whole
website?
Is it possible to follow the contents of the site in a
sequential way?
Website map?
Is it possible to access any section of the website
without passing through all the precedent ones?
Is the strcuture of the sections clear?
Do sections have local menus or summaries?
Semantic navigation?
External links are posed in the correct places?
Textual tags are clear?
Are tags mutually excluent?
Is the tag system consistent or are the same things
named with different names?
TOTAL 1.2
TOTAL 1
YouTube channel ?
Facebook?
Can Readers create blogs?
Can reader send text, photos videos to be published?
Do news admit comments?
Have they a great amount of comments (at least, 10 in
24 hours)?
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
2.2. Number indicators28
Do the medium have an own social network?
TOTAL 2.1.
Number of links to URL, measured with Yahoo Site
Explorer using the option: Except from this domain +
Only this URL
PageRank (Google)
Traffic Rank (Alexa)
How many pages exist in Yahoo’s index? (measured
with Yahoo Site Explorer)
How many subscriptors have the YouTube channel?
How many followers in Facebook?
TOTAL 2.2.
TOTAL 2
0
6
1
0
6
4
0
5
3
0
2
2
0
3
2
0
4
3
0
2
1
2
4
3
3
3
4
4
2
4
3
2
1
3
4
3
4
1
2
3
3
2
3
3
16
22
1
4
19
25
2
2
17
22
N/S
N/S
8
10
7
2
21
24
4
3
17
21
3
NS
12
14
1
0
0
1
0
2
3
1
0
0
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
0
4
4
1
0
0
1
0
2
3
1
0
0
1
0
2
2
0
0
0
1
1
1
2
0
0
0
1
0
1
4
4
3
3
4
2
2
2
2
2
3
4
1
3
2
9
11
47
6
9
57
10
14
51
11
13
35
5
7
48
7
8
53
8
9
32
3. ACCESSIBILITY, ADAPTATION
AND QUALITY OF THE SOURCE
3.1. Presence/ausence
3.2. Numeric indicators
Is it possible to adapt the type size?
Is it possible to adapt colour and contrast of the fonts?
Is there a link to skip navigation?
Do visual elements have metadata (alt o longdesc)?
Is there any personalization option?
TOTAL 3.1.
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using
TAW test (www.tawdis.net)
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using
W3c’s (X)HTML code validator
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using
W3c’s (X)HTML code validator
TOTAL 3.2
TOTAL 3
TOTAL QUALIFICATION
28 Relative position inside the group
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Spanish media
1) Online newspapers
PARAMETER
1. INFORMATION ACCESS
1.1. Archive
1.2. Navigation
2. POSITIONING-SOCIAL WEB
2.1. Presence/ausence
INDICATOR
20Minutos.es
ElMundo.es
El
Correo.com
ElPaís.com
LaVozdeGalicia.es
LaVanguardia.es
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
3
0
2
1
1
1
1
1
3
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
2
8
1
1
11
1
1
9
1
1
11
1
0
7
1
1
11
1
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
12
20
12
23
13
22
11
22
12
19
12
23
0
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
Does the medium have an archive with precedent
editions?
Is there any temporal limit to consult any previous
edition?
Is there any limit to free access to the archive?
Chroinological search ?
Ordering options?
Search through indexes?
Advanced research?
Results present any categorization system?
Results present any further utilities?
Search is based in any documental treatment or
ontology, descriptors, thesaurus...?
TOTAL 1.1.
Global navigations with sections?
Is global navigation consistent throughout the whole
website?
Is it possible to follow the contents of the site in a
sequential way?
Website map?
Is it possible to access any section of the website
without passing through all the precedent ones?
Is the strcuture of the sections clear?
Do sections have local menus or summaries?
Semantic navigation?
External links are posed in the correct places?
Textual tags are clear?
Are tags mutually excluent?
Is the tag system consistent or are the same things
named with different names?
TOTAL 1.2
TOTAL 1
YouTube channel ?
Facebook?
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
2.2. Number indicators29
Can Readers create blogs?
Can reader send text, photos videos to be published?
Do news admit comments?
Have they a great amount of comments (at least, 10 in
24 hours)?
Do the medium have an own social network?
TOTAL 2.1.
Number of links to URL, measured with Yahoo Site
Explorer using the option: Except from this domain +
Only this URL
PageRank (Google)
Traffic Rank (Alexa)
How many pages exist in Yahoo’s index? (measured
with Yahoo Site Explorer)
How many subscriptors have the YouTube channel?
How many followers in Facebook?
TOTAL 2.2.
TOTAL 2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
5
3
0
5
3
0
6
4
0
5
4
0
5
1
0
6
2
3
3
3
4
2
3
3
4
1
4
2
4
3
4
1
3
3
2
NA
3
15
20
NA
3
15
20
NA
2
14
20
NA
4
18
23
4
4
17
22
3
2
15
21
0
0
0
1
0
1
3
0
0
1
1
0
2
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
1
0
1
4
0
0
0
1
0
1
3
3
3
1
2
4
3
1
3
4
3
4
4
7
8
48
8
10
53
6
6
48
7
7
52
12
13
54
10
11
55
3. ACCESSIBILITY, ADAPTATION AND
QUALITY OF THE SOURCE
3.1. Presence/ausence
3.2. Numeric indicators
Is it possible to adapt the type size?
Is it possible to adapt colour and contrast of the fonts?
Is there a link to skip navigation?
Do visual elements have metadata (alt o longdesc)?
Is there any personalization option?
TOTAL 3.1.
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using
TAW test (www.tawdis.net)
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using
W3c’s (X)HTML code validator
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using
W3c’s (X)HTML code validator
TOTAL 3.2
TOTAL 3
TOTAL QUALIFICATION
29 Relative position inside the group
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
2. Native online media
PARAMETER
1. INFORMATION ACCESS
1.1. Archive
1.2. Navigation
2. POSITIONING-SOCIAL WEB
2.1. Presence/ausence
2.2. Number indicators30
INDICATOR
Does the medium have an archive with precedent editions?
Is there any temporal limit to consult any previous edition?
Is there any limit to free access to the archive?
Chroinological search ?
Ordering options?
Search through indexes?
Advanced research?
Results present any categorization system?
Results present any further utilities?
Search is based in any documental treatment or ontology, descriptors, thesaurus...?
TOTAL 1.1.
Global navigations with sections?
Is global navigation consistent throughout the whole website?
Is it possible to follow the contents of the site in a sequential way?
Website map?
Is it possible to access any section of the website without passing through all the precedent ones?
Is the strcuture of the sections clear?
Do sections have local menus or summaries?
Semantic navigation?
External links are posed in the correct places?
Textual tags are clear?
Are tags mutually excluent?
Is the tag system consistent or are the same things named with different names?
TOTAL 1.2
TOTAL 1
YouTube channel ?
Facebook?
Can Readers create blogs?
Can reader send text, photos videos to be published?
Do news admit comments?
Have they a great amount of comments (at least, 10 in 24 hours)?
Do the medium have an own social network?
TOTAL 2.1.
Number of links to URL, measured with Yahoo Site Explorer using the option: Except from this domain +
30 Relative position inside the group
147
LaInformación.com
Vilaweb.cat
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
5
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
14
19
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
1
1
0
1
0
0
1
3
1
1
1
1
11
14
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
5
4
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
3
2
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Only this URL
PageRank (Google)
Traffic Rank (Alexa)
How many pages exist in Yahoo’s index? (measured with Yahoo Site Explorer)
How many subscriptors have the YouTube channel?
How many followers in Facebook?
TOTAL 2.2.
TOTAL 2
3
1
1
4
4
17
22
4
4
4
1
2
17
20
Is it possible to adapt the type size?
Is it possible to adapt colour and contrast of the fonts?
Is there a link to skip navigation?
Do visual elements have metadata (alt o longdesc)?
Is there any personalization option?
TOTAL 3.1.
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using TAW test (www.tawdis.net)
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using W3c’s (X)HTML code validator
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using W3c’s (X)HTML code validator
TOTAL 3.2
TOTAL 3
TOTAL QUALIFICATION
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
1
3
3
44
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
1
3
7
7
41
3. ACCESSIBILITY, ADAPTATION AND QUALITY OF THE
SOURCE
3.1. Presence/ausence
3.2. Numeric indicators
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
3. Audiovisual media
PARAMETER
1. INFORMATION ACCESS
1.1. Archive
1.2. Navigation
2. POSITIONING-SOCIAL WEB
2.1. Presence/ausence
INDICATOR
Cadenaser.com
CanalSur.es
Rtve.es
Telecinco.com
Does the medium have an archive with precedent editions?
Is there any temporal limit to consult any previous edition?
Is there any limit to free access to the archive?
Chroinological search ?
Ordering options?
Search through indexes?
Advanced research?
Results present any categorization system?
Results present any further utilities?
Search is based in any documental treatment or ontology, descriptors, thesaurus...?
TOTAL 1.1.
Global navigations with sections?
Is global navigation consistent throughout the whole website?
Is it possible to follow the contents of the site in a sequential way?
Website map?
Is it possible to access any section of the website without passing through all the
precedent ones?
Is the strcuture of the sections clear?
Do sections have local menus or summaries?
Semantic navigation?
External links are posed in the correct places?
Textual tags are clear?
Are tags mutually excluent?
Is the tag system consistent or are the same things named with different names?
TOTAL 1.2
TOTAL 1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
3
0
0
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
1
1
2
2
2
11
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
9
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
10
1
1
1
0
1
0
1
10
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
11
YouTube channel ?
Facebook?
Can Readers create blogs?
Can reader send text, photos videos to be published?
Do news admit comments?
Have they a great amount of comments (at least, 10 in 24 hours)?
Do the medium have an own social network?
149
19
11
22
14
0
1
0
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
2.2. Number indicators31
TOTAL 2.1.
Number of links to URL, measured with Yahoo Site Explorer using the option: Except
from this domain + Only this URL
PageRank (Google)
Traffic Rank (Alexa)
How many pages exist in Yahoo’s index? (measured with Yahoo Site Explorer)
How many subscriptors have the YouTube channel?
How many followers in Facebook?
TOTAL 2.2.
TOTAL 2
4
4
2
1
3
2
3
2
4
2
3
2
3
4
1
No consta
1
4
1
2
4
3
4
1
4
NA
4
15
19
10
12
16
19
15
18
3. ACCESSIBILITY, ADAPTATION AND QUALITY OF
THE SOURCE
3.1. Presence/ausence
3.2. Numeric indicators
Is it possible to adapt the type size?
Is it possible to adapt colour and contrast of the fonts?
Is there a link to skip navigation?
Do visual elements have metadata (alt o longdesc)?
Is there any personalization option?
TOTAL 3.1.
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using TAW test (www.tawdis.net)
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using W3c’s (X)HTML code validator
Number of automatic mistakes in the homepage using W3c’s (X)HTML code validator
TOTAL 3.2
TOTAL 3
TOTAL QUALIFICATION
31 Relative position inside the group
150
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
1
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
2
4
6
6
44
0
0
0
1
0
1
3
3
2
8
8
31
0
0
0
1
1
2
1
4
1
8
9
50
6
7
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References
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funciones y método.Madrid: Síntesis.
Alonso, J. L.; Figuerola, C.; Zazo, Á. (2003): Cibermetría: nuevas técnicas de estudio
aplicables al Web. Gijón: Trea.
Cabré, T.; Codina, L.; Estopà, R. (2000). Terminología i Documentació. Barcelona:
IULA.
Castelo, E; Domingo, D. (2005). “Spanish media facing new media: a challenge to
journalists?”.International Journal of Iberian Studies, Vol. XVIII.
Codina, L. (2000). El libro digital y la WWW. Madrid: Taurus.
Codina, L.; Polo, M. (2001). La representación del coNocimiento en Internet.
Barcelona: Elisava Ediciones.
Cohen, Jacob (1960). "A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales". Educational and
Psychological Measurement 20 (1): 37–46.
Díaz Noci, J.; Salaverría, R. (coords.) (2003): Manual de Redacción Ciberperiodística.
Barcelona: Ariel.
Díaz Noci, J.; Palacios, M. (2008). Metodologia para o estudo dos cibermeios.
Salvador: EDUFBA.
Domingo, D. (2004). Periodisme digital a Catalunya. Radiografia de 445 webs
informatius. Barcelona: Col.legi de Periodistes y Diputació de Barcelona.
Quandt, T . (2008). (No) news to the World Wide Web? A comparative content analysis
of online news in Europe and the United States. Journalism Studies, 9(5), pp. 717-738.
Rodriguez-Martinez, R; Codina, L; Pedraza-Jimenez, R. (2010). Online journalism and
web 2.0: A model for analysis and report on results. El Profesional de la Información,
19(1), pp. 35-44.
Rovida, C.; Codina, L.; Marcos, M. C.; Palma, M. V. (2004). Información y
Documentación Digital. Barcelona: IULA.
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Changing Relations in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 20052010: A Comparison of Coverage and Mutual Representation in
Aruban, Curaçaoan and Dutch Newspapers
Birgit G. H. Kreykenbohm
University of Aruba, Aruba
Abstract
The constitutional reform of the Netherlands Antilles that took place during the period
2005-2010 had a profound impact on the relations between the countries in the
Kingdom of the Netherlands. The changing constitutional relations and shifts in the
traditional political landscapes influence the local dynamics of Aruba, Curaçao and the
Netherlands as well as the dynamics of the Kingdom as a whole. In a construction as
far apart as the Kingdom, with its Caribbean and European part, media are important
sources of information for each country and its people. The impact of worldwide as well
as national, regional and local transformations like globalization, technological
innovations and political discourse leave the parallel landscapes of journalism and
politics to become more and more volatile. Established mainstream media reflect these
shifting dynamisms and can even shape or intensify them. Social reality and local
perception of ongoing development or incidents in Kingdom relations are mirrored in
press coverage and even can trigger a dispute in those relations. As part of a larger
study of changing relations and mutual representation in the Kingdom of the
Netherlands, this article compares and analyzes media coverage in Aruba, Curaçao
and the Netherlands. While the Aruban and Curaçaoan press frequently report on
events in the Netherlands, the Dutch press covers less and reports on mere incidents
in Aruba and Curaçao. This comparative analysis of Aruban, Curaçaoan and Dutch
mainstream news coverage, illustrates the ease with which political rhetoric, historical
images and stereotypical representation can be reinforced and even created in the
written press. At the same time it shows, in spite of the collective constitutional bonds,
the differences between the states and their own social, historical and political
development, but also the distinct cultures of journalism in Aruba, Curaçao and the
Netherlands.
1. Introduction
Aruban, Curaçaoan and Dutch citizens like millions of others “turn to the news media
daily and ‘the media’ is considered a cornerstone institution in our democracies” (de
Vreese, 2005, p. 51). De Vreese states that one influential way that media may shape
public opinion is by presenting and defining issues, thus by framing news in particular
ways (de Vreese, 2005). Newspapers in Aruba and Curaçao are still appreciated media
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for acquiring local and international news. In addition, national news organizations also
provide a significant local ‘spin’ to the framing of news stories. Because journalists
select ‘relevant’ facts and place them in what they consider the appropriate context,
and thereby ‘frame’ a story, all news stories offer no more than a representation of
‘reality’.
The colonial involvement of the Netherlands with the islands of Aruba and Curacao
ended long time ago, but the constitutional bonds that were created in 1954 with the
Charter of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, still exist. The bonds changed over time
and in addition to Aruba’s Status Aparte in 1986, Curaçao also became an autonomous
country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands on October 10, 2010.
History, cultural differences, the geographical location of the parts of the Kingdom and
changes in the political arena in Aruba, Curaçaoan and the Netherlands are elements
that contribute to the persistence of certain (historical) images and stereotypes about
each other. Maintaining the –intercultural- relations in this constitutional construction
has proven to be a challenge. Studies like With flag and ripple (van Romondt, 2003),
Stereotypes overseas (Marcha, 2010) or The colonial playground (Sluis, 2010) are
striking examples of how relations are perceived. Representation or even stereotypes
between Arubans, Curaçaoans and the Dutch still exist and shape current interactions.
Studies on how stereotypes influence mutual perception and intercultural cooperation
between Curaçao and the Netherlands (Heijes, 2004) or relations in the Kingdom of the
Netherlands (Marcha, 2010; Marcha & Verweel, 2009) consider stereotypes to be a
given in the relations between the countries in the Kingdom. Media, in this regard, are
considered to be mechanisms that - like socialization, education and politics - help
assign stereotypes and influence stereotypical perception by covering Kingdomrelations in a negative way (Marcha & Verweel, 2009).
This paper explores the idea that mutual representation or stereotypes are reinforced in
Aruban, Curaçaoan and Dutch newspapers. The comparison of different newspapers
and their content by frame analysis will unravel what frames are used and how the
relations in the Kingdom are described.
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Literature review
Theories on intercultural communication, representation and phenomena like
stereotypes, prejudices, ethnocentrism and discrimination offer quite a few
explanations (Shadid, 2003). The overall conclusion of various American of European
publications is according to Shadid (2003), that media directly or indirectly play a
central role in the dissemination and continuation of negative representation.
Journalists have fiercely denied these conclusions and state that they only cover facts,
events and views expressed in the society.
Shadid (2003) points out that mass media not only influence society, but society most
certainly influences mass media. So the smallness and multilingual context of the
Aruban and Curaçaoan societies, the Western-European character of the Netherlands,
the so-called equal constitutional partnership as formulated in the Kingdom Charter, the
constitutional reform of the Netherlands Antilles, the increased self confidence of
Aruban and Curaçaoan politicians and the fierce political discussions in the
Netherlands about immigration and identity, shape the context for the newspapers
under study.
Media coverage of the relations between Aruba, Curaçao and the Netherlands concern
mostly the political encounters and research has shown that discussion in the news
between political entities often reduces complex substantive political debate to overly
simplistic conflict (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997).
2.1 Framing analysis
Entman (1993) defines framing as selecting “some aspects of a perceived reality to
enhance their salience in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition,
causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation” (Entman,
1993, p. 53)
Framing theory suggests that the mass media do even more than create saliency.
Iyengar and Kinder (1987) state that by selecting what to include and what to exclude
from a story a story is framed and news media may even limit or define the story’s
meaning (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987). In that regard frames can help identify issues,
shape public opinion and according to Tuchman “narrow the available political
alternatives” (Tuchman, 1978, p. 156).
According to framing theory, the way issues are shaped in the media can contribute to
stereotypical portrayals. Media frames also reflect broader cultural themes and
discourses, as well as they reflect the journalist’s emphasis or silence in their
expression of an issue. Scheufele argues that while mass media play a major role in
the construction of social reality, interaction between texts and recipients limits media
effects (Scheufele, 1999).”Not only unconscious worldviews, but also conscious
responsible journalism and political agendas affect the framing of issues in media
discourses” (Mahony, 2010, p. 743).
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Neuman, Just, and Crigler’s study (1992) about news and the construction of political
meaning has identified a few frames that occur commonly in the news. Based on their
frames, Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) analyzed news stories in national newspapers
and on television and identified the five generic news frames attribution of
responsibility, human interest, conflict, morality and economic consequences. De
Vreese (2005) explains that studies of generic frames either concentrate on the
coverage of politics (more specific on election campaigns) or on frames “that are
structural and inherent to the conventions of journalism” (de Vreese, 2005, p. 55).
Furthermore De Vreese (2005) has shown how generic news frames may be used to
understand cross-national differences in news coverage by concluding that “the use of
similar news frames in different political and journalistic cultures emphasizes the
generic nature of such news frames. Thereby generic frames teach us about journalism
and render cross-national differences visible.” (de Vreese, 2005, p. 59)
The studies of Neuman et al. (1992) and of Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) have
developed the generic news frames and found the abovementioned frames to be
generally applicable. The responsibility frame accentuates an issue or problem in such
a way as to attribute responsibility for its cause or solution to an individual, a group or
the government. The Human interest frame emphasizes a human or personalized face
or an emotional angle to the presentation of an event issue, or problem. The conflict
frame emphasizes conflict or disagreement among individuals, groups, organizations or
countries. The morality frame understands events, problems, or issues in the context of
morals, religious or social prescriptions.. The economic consequences frame reports
an event, problem or issue in terms of the economic consequences on an individual or
on a group, an institution or countries.
Semetko & Valkenburg (2000) found that the responsibility frame was the most
commonly used, followed by conflict and economic frames (Semetko & Valkenburg,
2000). In the process surrounding the constitutional reform of the Netherlands Antilles
the governments of Aruba and Netherlands Antilles/Curaçao needed to guard the right
of self-determination. The kingdom council of ministers, in which the Netherlands has
the majority of representatives, symbolized the dominance of the Dutch government as
perceived by Aruban and especially Curaçaoan politicians. The ‘dismantling’ of the
Antilles was not only a constitutional reform but also an enormous effort to relief the
indebtedness of the islands. One of the aims was to ensure that the (financial)
dependency of the islands (as was agreed for Aruba in 1986) on the Netherlands would
end. When looking at framing in the news coverage on relationships in the Kingdom of
the Netherlands between 2005 and 2010, an emphasis on conflict, economic
consequence and attribution of responsibility was expected.
Therefore the first research interest was to compare the use of frames in the different
newspapers in the three countries Aruba, Curacao and the Netherlands and to
consider if there are significant differences in the uses of frames between the
newspapers.
RQ1: Which of the five news frames has been used in the news coverage in the
different
newspapers?
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To assess the expectation that Kingdom-relations are often presented with a negative
review, this study looked at what aspects of the relations in the Kingdom are covered in
the different newspapers and how they are valued.
RQ2: What is the relational dimension in the different newspapers in regard to
relations in the
Kingdom of the Netherlands?
2. Method
Representation can be studied by reconstructing the structure of a text and the
included verbal repertoires like frames or discourses (Wester, 2006). In this paper
representation in newspaper articles from different newspapers in the Dutch Kingdom
will be described by looking at so called ‘cues’ or words with a strong cultural
resonance (Kitzinger, 2007).
The wider PhD-research will study the changing relationships, news coverage and
mutual representation in six newspapers from Aruba, Curaçao and the Netherlands
between October 2005 and April 2010. Two of the newspapers are published in the
local language Papiamento and four in Dutch. For Aruba the Diario and (the relevant
sections of) the Amigoe are selected, for Curaçao the selection includes Amigoe and
Extra and NRC Handelsblad and De Telegraaf complete the selection with newspapers
from the Netherlands.
3.1 Sample
In this paper the sample is based on the four Dutch newspapers: Amigoe Aruba,
Amigoe Curaçao and the Dutch newspapers NRC Handelsblad and De Telegraaf.
The sample includes ten constructed weeks in the period 2005-2010 for each
newspaper; the articles were selected from coverage in March-April and SeptemberOctober. The first day of this constructed news-week started the first Monday in March,
followed by the second Tuesday in March until the sixth newspaper day was reached
on a Saturday in April. For the year 2005 the autumn week is made up from days in
October and November since the digital archive of Amigoe did not included data before
October 2005.
The newspaper articles from NRC Handelsblad and the Telegraaf were selected from
the LexisNexis database using the keywords Aruba, Curaçao, Dutch Antilles and
Kingdom of the Netherlands. The articles from Amigoe Curaçao and Amigoe Aruba
were selected from the online archive of the newspaper itself and used the keywords
Aruba, Netherlands and Kingdom for Curaçao and Curaçao, Netherlands and Kingdom
of the Netherlands for Aruba.
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The total constructed weeks add up to 10 weeks per newspaper, with 251 articles for
Amigoe Curaçao, 113 articles for Amigoe Aruba, 56 articles for Telegraaf and 37
articles for the NRC. From this sample only the articles specifically about relations in
the Kingdom were included for the analysis in this paper, which led to a total of 237
articles (113 articles for Curaçao, 62 for Aruba, 15 for NRC and 21 for De Telegraaf).
The unit of analysis in this study was the individual news story. Each story was
downloaded and coded according to 16 items from a code instrument. The code
instrument was divided into several categories which included general information
(place in the newspaper, author), thematic information (main topic or actors in article),
framing items and relational dimension.
2.2.1 Framing
To measure the extent to which frames appear in news stories in Aruba, Curaçao and
the Netherlands, a coding scheme was applied based on the standard set of content
analytic indicators as developed by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000). They found a
reliable set of content analytic indicators necessary for studying developments in the
news over time and similarities and differences in the way in which politics and other
topics (…) are framed in the news in different countries.” (Semetko & Valkenburg,
2000; p. 94). The coding scheme in the current study involves a series of 19 questions
with a no (0) and yes (1) answer possibility. Each frame consists of several questions
that together meant to measure one of the five news frames of responsibility, human
interest, conflict, morality and economic consequences.
In addition to examining how events are categorized, framing researchers look out for
words with powerful cultural resonances – which seem to be highly charged and
memorable (Kitzinger, 2007). Framing can be distinguished by identifying significant
cues or looking at specific elements of a text, like headlines or the placement of the
article in the newspaper. Cues from which aspects of the text can be examined involve:
Type of used language, employed labels and definitions, assigned responsibility,
proposed solutions, links and contextualization, invoked historical associations, similes
and metaphors, emotional appeals, how speakers are introduced and the description of
different characters, groups or entities (Kitzinger, 2007).
3. Findings
4.1
General findings
Apart from the frame indicators the code instrument also included variables on general
characteristics of the articles (like place in newspaper and size), thematic variables like
the main topic and central actor in the article.
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The amount of articles selected from the Aruban and Curaçaoan Amigoe are much
higher than the amount in the Dutch newspapers, respectively 202 (85%) of the
selected articles versus 35 articles. While the selected articles from Amigoe Aruba and
Curaçao are solely from the news section, the articles from the NRC and Telegraaf
also contain the specific sections of sport, culture, travel and economics. This indicates
an imbalance and suggests more interest from the Aruban and Curaçaoan side for the
Netherlands than vice versa.
The author of an article, the journalist, is only mentioned in 30 of the total sample of
237 articles (12.7%). The NRC is the clearest about attributing the article to a specific
journalist: in 78.6% of their articles on Kingdom-relations the journalists is revealed. For
Amigoe Aruba, Amigoe Curaçao and De Telegraaf the journalist is not known in
respectively 98.2%, 93.8% and 57.1% of their coverage.
Results for the coding of the main topics in the articles show that the constitutional
reform of the Netherlands Antilles, kingdom affairs, is the most coded topic (25.7%) in
all articles, which coincides with the negotiations that dominated Kingdom-relations
since 2005. Considering the ranking across all newspapers the topics politics &
government and Public order, security and crime rank second (21.9%) and third
(13.5%).
When looking at the topics for each newspaper the sequence differs slightly: All
newspapers cover the kingdom affairs, and while for the Amigoe Curaçao it is the most
important topic, for NRC and Amigoe Aruba the main topic is politics & government.
The Telegraaf covered public order, security and crime the most. Kingdom affairs are
considered the second most important topic for NRC and Telegraaf while for Amigoe
Aruba this was public order, security and crime. Noteworthy is that economy comes at
third place in the Amigoe Curaçao, which indicates the importance the issue of debt
relief in the negotiations between Curaçao and the Netherlands. Corresponding with
the main topics in the newspapers, political parties, politicians or representatives of
government are the most coded actors, which suggests a confirmation of the indicated
political nature of relations in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the obvious
correspondence in media coverage.
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4.2
News frames in newspapers in Aruba, Curaçao and the Netherlands (RQ1)
For each of the five news frame the values were coded as 0 (frame not present) and 1
(frame present). Each frame from the coding scheme includes several items: the
attribution of responsibility frame has 0 (not at all used) to 5 items (five items used).
The human interest and conflict frame have 0 (no item used) to 4 (four items used) and
items for the morality and economic consequences frame vary from 0 to 3 (three items
used). To create the total score per news frame each of the corresponding items were
summed up. The overview of the use of frames in general is presented in table 1.
Table 1 Use of news frames
Use of frames
Five generic frames
Attribution of
responsibility
Human
Interest
Conflict
Morality
Economic
Consequence
Use
171 (72.2)
81 (34.2)
96 (41.5)
15 (6.3)
57 (24.1)
No use
66 (27.8)
156 (65.8)
141 (59.5)
222 (93.7)
180 (75.9)
Total
237 (100.0)
237 (100.0)
237 (100.0)
237 (100.0)
237 (100.0)
The attribution of responsibility frame was used in 72.2% (171 articles) of all articles,
followed by the conflict frame in 41.5 % of the articles and the human interest frame,
which was used in 34.2% of the articles. The economic consequence frame was found
in only 24.1% of the news coverage and the majority of articles, 75.9%, did not use a
morality frame. The next table, table 2 gives an overview of the results for the use of
frames for each newspaper.
Table 2 News Frames per newspaper
Newspaper All
Amigoe
newspapers Aruba
Frames
Amigoe
Curaçao
Attribution of
Responsibility
72.2%
81.4%
Human Interest
34.2%
Conflict
40.5%
NRC
Telegraaf
73.7
71.4
42.9
26.8
30.1
64.3
61.9
32.1
43.2
57.1
33.3
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Morality
6.3%
0.0
8.2
7.1
9.5
Economic
Consequence
24.1%
10.7
29.5
21.4
23.8
Surprisingly, the ‘serious’ newspaper NRC frequently used the human interest frame
(64.3%), next to the use of the responsibility (71.4%) and the conflict frame (57.1%).
The findings for the Amigoe for Aruba and Curaçao were however consistent with
Semetko and Valkenburg and found that “the more sober and serious the newspaper”
the more frequent the attribution of responsibility and the conflict frame are used.
Amigoe Aruba utilizes the attribution of responsibility in 81.4% of the articles and
Amigoe Curaçao in 73.7%. For the conflict frame this is respectively 32.1% and 43.2%.
Results for the more sensationalist newspaper De Telegraaf are also consistent with
other studies by emphasizing the human interest frame. Compared to the other frames,
the morality frame is scarcely used in all newspapers. The less frequent use of the
economic consequence frame was unexpected, since one of the major bottlenecks in
the negotiations between the Netherlands Antilles and the Netherlands concerned the
debt relief.
4.3
Relational Dimension in the different newspapers (RQ2)
The expectation of a negative tendency in news coverage regarding the relations
between Aruba, Curaçao and the Netherlands presides the second aim of this study to
look at what aspects of the relations in the Kingdom are covered and with what value
these descriptions are presented in the different newspapers. For each article and for
every relational dimension (variable 16A to 16P) the presence or absence of that
particular relation is determined by either coding 0 (relational dimension not present) or
1 (relational dimension present).
The dimensions that are used the most in Amigoe Aruba are in order of predominance:
the transactional relationship, the equal relationship and the hegemonic/unequal power
relation, which are used respectively 30, 20 and 19 times. Amigoe Curaçao uses a
transactional description of the relation 77 times, the hegemonic/unequal power
relation 52 times followed by involvement (39 times) and an unequal relational
dimension (38). NRC describes the relational dimension the most in terms of inequality
(10 times), division (6 times) and personal relationship (4). While in the Telegraaf the
use of personal relationship is most common and is used 10 times, followed by
connection/engagement (7 times) and division/quarrel and unequal relationship (both 6
times).
Apart from what is covered in regard to relations in the Kingdom, this study also
focused on the estimation of the relational description. Table 3 shows the positive or
negative value of the relation as presented in the different newspapers.
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Table 3 Value of Relational Dimension per newspaper
Newspaper
Value of Relationship¹
Positive
negative
Amigoe Aruba
77 (56.6)
50 (36.8)
Amigoe Curaçao
175 (56.8)
128 (41.6)
NRC
11 (29.0)
22 (58.0)
Telegraaf
27 (52.0)
19 (36.5)
¹ The categories neutral, indefinable and no relational dimension are not
included
For the analysis of the estimation of the relationships in the Kingdom of the
Netherlands as presented in the analyzed newspapers, the variables on relational
dimension (16A to 16P) are grouped. The variables 16A to 16F give a positive
assessment of the relationship in the Kingdom and the variables 16N to 16i describe a
negative inference. The neutral variables (16G and H) and the variables that present
an unclear or no relationship (16O and P) are not included in this validation.
All newspapers display a rather positive description of the relationships in the Kingdom,
except for the NRC Handelsblad were a more negative tendency for the relational
dimension is found. The Amigoe Aruba has 77 scores for the positive category, a share
of 56.6%. The negative category for Amigoe Aruba scores 36.8%, namely 50 ratings on
one of the negative variables. Amigoe Curaçao shows a similar picture: positive
variables are used 56.8% (175) of the times and 41.6% (128 ratings) are scored for the
negative category. The NRC presents divergent results: 29% of the relational scores
are positive and 58% negative, which suggests that the NRC depicts relations in the
Kingdom more negatively. The Telegraph has 27 positive scores, a share of 52% and a
negative score for the relationship of 36.5% (19 times).
4. Discussion
The identification of the use of generic news frames and the description and rating of
the relational dimension in newspapers from Aruba, Curacao and the Netherlands
between 2005 and 2010 was the aim of this study. Findings suggest that news stories
in the selected newspapers used news frames in the order of predominance: attribution
of responsibility, conflict, human interest, economic consequence and morality. This
outcome is divergent to the results of Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) and Neuman et
al. (1992), which concluded that the more serious the newspaper the more the
economic and conflict frames are predominant. In the process of the reforms in the
Kingdom which concluded with the autonomous status of Curacao at October 10, 2010,
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the governments and their representatives were central actors. Therefore the finding of
the prevalence of the attribution of responsibility in the newspaper articles coincides
with this reform process.
This study provides the first impressions for further study of the coverage on relations
in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. As limitations, the sample construction of two
weeks per year resulted for this study in a small sample for the Dutch newspaper NRC
(14 articles) which may have resulted in the frequent use of the human interest frame.
This might have to do with the characteristics of the employed correspondents that
cover relations in the Kingdom In NRC for example four out of the 14 articles are
written by a journalist from Dutch origin living in Curaçao.
Further study will also include newspapers in the local language Papiamento from
Aruba and Curaçao next to the four newspapers in Dutch, to complement the rather
‘elite’ and Dutch oriented newspaper Amigoe. This will probably result in a different use
of frames.
In addition, this study focused on the changing relations between Curaçao and the
Netherlands, in regard to the reform of the Netherlands Antilles, but did not include the
consequences and the received media coverage for the other 4 islands Saint Martin,
Saint Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire. Saint Martin became an independent country in the
Kingdom of the Netherlands, like Curaçao, but other three islands were integrated in
the Netherlands as special municipalities. Studying the other reform-processes may
well produce different results in the use of news frames.
By looking not only at the generic frames from Semetko and Valkenburg, but also
including the use of a relational dimension, cues, as Kitzinger describes them, resonate
a transactional or co-operational dimension of relationships in the Kingdom, especially
between the islands of Aruba and Curacao and for example Surinam. Further research
needs to be conducted to see if this maybe could be a specific frame for Kingdomrelations.
In small societies like Aruba and Curaçao with commercial media landscapes, a
scarcity in trained journalists, demands and the proximity of advertisers and politicians
and developments of technologies and new media, newspapers experience maybe
more direct influences than the bigger and more varied media landscape in the
Netherlands. Therefore further research needs to also involve production and media
use perspectives.
Overall, this study aims to offer the first systematic review of the use of news frames in
regard to relations in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and emphasizes the mere
existence of frames in Aruban, Curaçaoan and Dutch newspapers. Future research will
focus on the contextual characteristics of the three countries, the specifics of the
newspaper discourse and the journalistic surroundings to gain additional insights into
the specific conditions under which frames emerge.
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References
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The Journalistic Message within the Convergence Framework:
A Case Study Analysis of Hypertextual News Stories in Quality
Online Media
Ainara Larrondo*, Javier Díaz Noci**, Irati Agirreazkuenaga*
* University of Basque Country, Spain
** Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
Abstract
Media convergence promotes an integration of previously dispersed languages and the
creation of innovative products with consequences in the traditional form of the
journalistic message. This scenario requires more thorough studies that develop quality
criteria on issues such as the structuring of informa¬tion within a news site and the
combination of data in different media formats. This line of research is thus currently
one of the most productive in online journalism, as hypertextuality has become a key
element for studying the potential of web content and genres, as with multimedia. In
considering it, this paper discusses the effect of convergence on online journalistic
language, bearing in mind the foremost characteristics of communication in this
changing framework: complexity, depth, non-linearity, divergence, multimediality and
interactivity. This argument supports the case study presented in this paper, carried out
in the framework of the I+D project “Evolution of Spanish online media facing
convergence Message and content analysis” (CSO2009-13713-C05-04), funded by the
Spanish Government. This analysis examines structure, style and function of
hypertextual new stories published in worldwide online media which have been
selected by means of quality criteria: Clarin.com (Argentina), Guardian.co.uk (United
Kingdom), Elpaís.com (Spain), Lemonde.fr (France), Nytimes.com (United States),
Oglobo.globo.com (Brazil) and Repubblica.it (Italy). The research methodology is
based on a qualitative message analysis procedure focused on hypertext rhetoric:
types of links and non-linear reporting patterns, particularly those related to the
coherence strategy of hypertextual narrative. The data codification has been carried
out using a database with a combination of fields, following the indicators proposed.
The study results make it possible to contrast data and establish significant conclusions
that show an enrichment of the news message on the Web.
Keywords: Hypertext. Hyperlinks. Online news
A state of the art
Within the narrative tendencies on Internet and in the new media, we refer concretely
to the studies on hypertext. The first approaches to the news hypertext were frequently
set out as repertoires of advice.
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The first articles try to explain the characteristics that are inseparable from journalistic
information on Internet. An interesting article is “Locating information in an online
newspaper”, 1998, by Herre van Oostendorp and Christof van Niemwegen. In 1988,
Mark Deuze published an article referring to the general aspects of the
WebCommunicators. Three years later he published “Modelling the first generation of
news media on the World Wide Web”. How that declaration of intentions should be
achieved is something that Deuze does not make clear. Daniel Cunliffe, on the other
hand, indicates that:
A personalisable hyperspace might include the ability of the user to add links, new link
types and annotations to links, allowing them to impose their own structures over the
information space and create a hypertext based on personal associations rather than
more abstract general classifications.
The step to the study of the hypertext and journalistic information takes place at the
turn of the century. In Communication & Langages, number 129, 2001, two articles are
dedicated to precisely that. The first, signed by Valérie Jeanne-Perrier, is titled “Média
imprimé et média informatisé: le leurre de la complémentarité”. The second is by
Dominique Cotte and its intention is clearly revealed in the title: “De la Une à l’écran,
avatars du texte periodistique”. Bruno Giussani’s title is illustrative, although it does not
proceed beyond a mere declaration of intentions: “A new media tells different stories”.
This author finds contradictions between the results of the – still scarce – empirical
research and the expectations that the theory on cognitive structures invites the
humanities to develop, as Robert Huesca does well to recall.
Amongst the articles of the last five years directly centred on the relationship between
narration, hypertext and online journalism related to the modes of reading and
reception studies, those by Díaz Noci and Wilson, Hamzah and Khattab are
outstanding. There are besides articles concerning the possibilities offered by online
journalism for learning and for models of evaluation from the point of view of
documentation.
The determination of hypertextual structures, their hyperlinks and their potentialities is
a fairly widespread methodology. It has been applied in at least two articles by Ainara
Larrondo (Larrondo, 2005 and 2009) and by the group at the Universidad de Lomas de
Zamora (Argentina) (Canella and Tsuji, 2004). Many authors have pointed out that the
central element of the hypertextual structures is the link (Mielniczuk, Palacios, 2001).
There are many other case studies in several different countries around the world
(Obijiofo, 2009; Thurman; Myllylahti, 2009; Russell, 2007; Marshall, 2007) and articles
on the values of the journalistic profession on Internet (Carpenter, 2008; Thorsen,
2008; Chang; Lee; Pan, 2006).
The comparative perspective has been notably cultivated both with respect to the
narration of news stories (Hong; McClung; Park, 2008) and with respect to content
(Quandt, 2008; Dimitrova and Neznazki, 2006; Carpenter, 2010; Deuze, 2003; Deuze,
Neusberger and Paulussen, 2004). Nor is there any lack of those who relativize the
hopes deposited in the possibilities of the hypertext (Salaverría, 2005; Steensen, 2010)
and interactivity (Boczkowski and De Santos 2007; Domingo, 2008), which later
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became the dynamic content of news stories (Tremayne, Weiss & Alves, 2007;
Engebretsen, 2006).
The proposals concerning what news stories on Internet should be like are based on
reception studies. Two authors deserve a very special mention: the Norwegian Martin
Engebretsen and the Portuguese Joao Canavilhas. The first is the author of a doctoral
thesis in his native Norwegian language and of some articles in English. His evolution
can be appreciated from reading these two articles, separated by almost a decade of
work (Engebretsen, 1007; Engebretsen, 2006). Joao Canavilhas is the author of a
thesis and several articles based on an experimental methodology that is infrequent in
studies on online journalism (Canavilhas, 2008). It is also worth mentioning Maeyer
(Maeyer, 2010).
The criticisms levelled at the dominant tendency in the study of the hypertext (Bettetini,
Garsparini, Vittadini, 1999) have laid bare the limitations of what they call the “United
States school” headed by George Landow, who sets out from literary theory and
cognitive psychology, and which Carlos Scolari brands as “deconstructionist” (Scolari,
2000 and 2004). Facing this, they proclaim the primacy of the “Franco-Italian school”,
which prefers to analyse the hypertextual phenomenon from semiotics. Other criticisms
are even more radical: Jean Davallon and Yves Jeanneret consider that it is not even
correct to study the hypertext as a combination of nodes, or lexias, and hyperlinks
(Davallon and Jeanneret, 2004).
There are several authors who have recalled that the World Wide Web employs a
somewhat limited conception of the hypertext. Wendy Hall (Hall, 2000) prefers to recall
that the technique enables the dynamic generation of hyperlinks (which is done by the
search engines and, in general, any architecture of information in databases): the
associative link, which will not materialise until the so-called “semantic Web” becomes
a reality.
As Marcos Palacios (Palacios, 2005) recalls, Natura non facit saltum, and therefore,
the passage from printed journalism to hypertextual journalism has strengthened, much
more than in the literature of fiction, what there already was of multilineal and
transversal reading in the media we were familiar with, instead of invoking all the
possibilities of the hypertext (Nolan, 2003).
Proposal of a Model of Analysis
The procedure proposed for the study of the hypertextual news typologies take
concrete form in practice through a file that codifies the units of analysis or online
journalistic texts selected for the sample, organized in three sections: 1) General Data;
2) Hyperlinks; 3) Functional structure of nodes and links adopted by the hypertexts
examined. This method is thus based on the specific functionality of hypertextual
newswriting and on the types of superstructure it generates, specifically contemplating
two basic and related parameters of analysis. The first of these considers the link as a
fundamental rhetorical nucleus of the hypertextual systems, due to its capacity for
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creating hierarchical and associative organizations that enable a logical and conceptual
structure of the content. The second parameter inquires into the mode of organization
of those nodes and links (structure) or, which comes down to the same thing, about the
formal use that the media make of the hypertext for the construction of their messages.
1. General data: this section contains identificatory data of the sample, such as
the name of the medium under study, the headline of the item analyzed, its
URL, the date of publication, the name of the evaluator and the date of
evaluation.
2. Links
a) How many links does the information contain?
b) What type of links are they? Criteria and subcriteria
b.1) Route: sequential and non-sequential links. “Sequential links” maintain the
cohesion and encourage a lineal exploration of the content of the hyperstructure. “Nonsequential links” provide access to nodes without the need for exploration of the
preceding ones (CODINA, 2003: 150).
b.2) Logical principle: structural links and semiotic links. “Structural links” that follow a
systematic logic of creation of cohesion seek to materialize the structure of the
hyperdocument as the author conceives it and thus generate an “author’s route”. The
links that follow a semantic logic seek to create sense or meaning through the
establishment of relations based on discretional criteria of similarity or relationship
(CODINA, 2003: 150).
b.3) Mode of exploration: embedded links and superposed links. “Embedded links” are
situated in the text and generate navigation based on decision making while reading is
taking place. “Superposed links” are localized outside the text, in the form of
summaries, lists, drop-down menus, etc. (CODINA, 2003: 151; PAUL Y FIEBICH,
2005).
b.4) Destination: internal links, external links and intrinsic links. “External links” connect
with a web page that is external to the medium and with a URL different from the
latter’s. “Internal links” give access to a web page with the medium’s URL, but different
from the hypertext analyzed. “Intrinsic links” provide access to nodes of the same
hypertext (PAUL Y FIEBICH, 2005; SALAVERRÍA, 2005; MARCOS, 2004). Destination
is the criterion employed by authors like Paul and Fiebich (2005), Salaverría (2005:
128-129) and Marcos (2004), amongst others.
b.5) Degree: 1:1; 1:N; N:1. “1:1 links” enable access from one node to another and
represent the typical connections of the Web. “1:N links” give access from one node to
two or more related nodes. “N:1 links” provide access from two or more nodes to
another (CODINA, 2003: 151).
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b.6) Discursive purpose: development links, related links, chronological links, updating
links, contextual links, documentary links, complementary links, attribution links,
referential links, service links, duplicate links and supplementary links. “Development
links” are used for explaining and developing the information contained in a previous
node. “Related links” give access to related information published on the same day.
“Chronological links” give access to related information published on previous days.
“Updating links” provide access to information published subsequently. “Contextual
links” are used for providing contextual information on the theme. “Documentary links”
give access to related documents (police reports, press releases, court records and
judicial rulings, statements, etc.). “Complementary links” provide access to additional
and reused content for going deeper into the information. “Attribution links” are used for
providing information about the information source. “Referential links” give access to
websites mentioned in the text. “Service links” connect the user to useful elements like
search engines or on-demand files. “Duplicate links” give access to the same content in
a different format that offers an exact replica, while “supplementary links” give access
to the same content in a different format that does not offer an exact replica (Larrondo,
2010).
b.7) Morphology: link to text, link to radio, link to a static image, link to video, link to
interactive graphic, etc.
b.8) Interactivity: links to commentaries, forums, chats, interactive surveys, the sending
of information, bookmarks in social networks, e-mail, blogs.
b.9) Authorship: author’s links and user’s links. “Author’s links” are created by the
author of the hypertext, while “user’s links” are created by the reader and make it
possible to make different routes amongst those provided by the author of the
hypertext. They are commonly known as “bookmarks”.
Hypertextual Structure
Here we follow the structures and typology contained in our book from 2003 (Díaz Noci
and Salaverría, 2003: 120-132).
3. Degree (CODINA, 2003: 153-155).
Does it contain
links?
Yes
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No
How many links does the
text have?
First level
First node32
Second level
Second node
Second node
Third node
…
Third level
First node
Second node
Third node
…
Depth: number of levels
First level
Number of routes
Second level
Number of routes
Third level
Number of routes
…
Number of routes
Connectivity Destination33
Luminosity
Internal links First level
First node
32 Normally, the first level consists of a single node.
33
169
Related
news
From the same
day
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
stories
From previous
days (archive
news)
Photographs
Video
Multimedi
a
Audio
elementos
Infographics
Commentaries
Forum
Chat
Survey
Sending of
Interactivit information
y
(news stories,
photos,
videos…)
Bookmarks in
social networks
Send to a friend
(e-mail)
Second level First node
Second
node
…
…
Third node …
Third level
…
…
First node
…
Second
node
…
Third node …
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External
links
First level
…
…
First node
Sources
Documents
Another medium from the
same group
Another medium from a
different group
External blogs
Second level First node
Sources
Documents
Another medium from the
same group
Another medium from a
different group
External blogs
Second
node
…
…
…
…
…
Third node …
…
…
…
…
Third level
First node
Sources
Documents
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Another medium from the
same group
Another medium from a
different group
External blogs
Second
node
…
…
Third node …
…
…
…
…
Visibility
Number of
(Popularity) links from
other
documents
to the
hypertext
analyzed
Typology of
links
Route
Number of sequential links
Number of non-sequential
links
Logic
Number of structural links
Number of
semantic links
Connective
Associative
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Degree
Number of 1:1 links
Number of N:1 links
Exploration
Number of embedded links
Number of superposed links
Authorship
Number of author’s links
Number of user’s links
Discursive
purpose
Number of development
links
Number of related links
Number of chronological
links
Number of updating links
Number of contextual links
Number of documentary
links
Number of complementary
links
Number of attribution links
Number of referential links
Number of service links
Number of duplicate links
Number of supplementary
links
Hypertextual structure
Lineal (pure, with
alternatives or
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multilineal)
Arboreal
Reticular
Mixed
Degree
Degree 1
Degree 2
Degree 3
Degree 4
Results
A sample of breaking news taken from several international media reveals preliminary
conclusions or trends (the analysis will be completed within one year and a half, until
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
the end of 2012, with two more sampling collection during a month in 2011 and 2012,
so a longitudinal research could be done). Some media show a clearly preference
towards a pure lineal, two node and two level with no return news structure; Asahi.com
(the English version has been analyzed) uses systematically this kind of simple,
printed-press like news presentation. Generally no further links, not even contextual or
to related news, is presented.
But the preferred structure is that apparently branched but in fact mainly lineal. First
node presents the headline as a link to the main story, as well as some other links to
complementary news items, photographs, videos or whatever.
An exemple of lineal structure : the second level textual node gives access to another
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development node, a video
BBC.co.uk/news is a very different case. Normally, the second level node is completed
with some contextual links to news, graphics or related informations. These are internal
links, mostly used to link special reports or to form a news network uniting several
days’ information on the same subject. A modular conception of information is clearly
conceived in this way. The same links, generally, are presented in the first node
(homepage) and in the second one (development node), so a supposedly tree structure
is offered but, in fact –and this is a general trend in all the media we have examined, all
over the world- is to keep a strong linearity (node 1 [teaser] + node 2 [development])
but enriched with related news, reports or special products like chronologies, timelines
or slideshows, presented as it they were a branch. Nevertheless, if the headline link is
followed, a lineal narration can be read, and then, or previously from the first node,
different complementary, second-level (from a narrative point of view) branches can be
followed. In fact, those branches are properly attached to the second-level node, and
not to the first one, since if clicked from the beginning, the main story is lost.
The different presentation is also revealed this way, in the first node as a list, in the
second (and probably in the following, deeper node/levels) as a menu, so in the most
superficial level, first node (homepage) they are presented as a branched structure and
in the following ones as a summary index, thus, as a semireticular structures.
An example of different branched structures on New York Times (April 2011), showing
a typical tree one and an apparently multilevel one, with nodes pending on different
levels
In fact, there is a clear tendency to present first page items –specially breaking news
stories- as branched structures, just adding to the most recent news item some other of
previous days related to the subject. Once clicked these related, previous news,
normally there is no link to the most recent one, so even though technically the
structures is almost indefinitely opened, structural coherence is weak.
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Second level related news, presented as a summary in the second node. Example
taken from Clarin.com
Accumulation is another tendency. Even some special report sections are created
mainly this way. Special events, such as war or sports news, are composed this way.
Usually, the properly created levels are the first one (axial node of the homepage) and
the second one, and when this second one, at least the main line coming from the
development of the axial link of the first node’s headline is developed in further or
deeper levels, usually the third level is composed by special accumulated reports, in
the case of New York Times and othe media. This US online newspaper has created a
section called Topics very useful for this purpose. Sports news are also enriched this
way. In the NYT case, on the development node there are links to videos and
photographs also present in the first node.
Blogs offer another new development source for breaking news. This is usually an
accessory ranch of the main story
Another resource used by several of the media researched are slideshows which
means superpose both lineal and network structures.
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Complex, properly created structures: Taken from the New York Times, 22/03/2011
Needless to say, internal links are preferred to external ones. Media like New York
Times, Guardian.co.uk, BBC.co.uk/news or ElPaís.com (the latest one, with erratic
strategy) use to include external links in the case of reports or documents –
documentary links-, while the internal ones are mainly semantical-connective and
developmental when referred to the main narration line, and semantical-associativeaddition (they add information to the main narration) usually in the deeper levels, not in
the first one. When they are offered in the first node, the semantical-connective links
are embedded ones, and the semantical-associative are superposed (a list, usually)
ones. Sidebar links, as we have seen often the same ones presented differently in the
first node, are reserved to second-level nodes. Menu-like sidebar links are used when
a complex structure (not a merely accumulative one) is properly developed for the
news item. As we are studying breaking news, and they are refreshed during the period
event are happening, this kind of links are preferred in documentary nodes.
Sequential links are few; not always a contextual link addressed to related news are
conceived this way, usually is just a choice used with non-narrative purposes, in fact,
the union of two or more nodes of different but related news does not guarantee a
coherent reading. The reader must complete this role instead of the journalist, since
sometimes those links are automatically generated after a searching session. All links
examine are athor-created ones; readers just could include a link –and this is a rather
unfrequent fact- a hyperink to an internal node –very rare- or to a external resource
inside a comment. Online edition is already strictly managed by the medium and the
journalists. If coherence was to be an objective, a returning link to the newest node
should be offered from the related news nodes, and between them, and this is not so.
Real sequential links are, in fact, scarce. Links from the second node/level are of two
types: embedded ones link to related news (same day/another day/special reports
done by accumulation). Superposed ones go to the same multimedia nodes
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(video/photo/sound/blog) of the second level that comes from the first node, equally
superposed as a list. When further levels are offered, usually they are composed by an
accumulation of related news and multimedia, which explains the enormous presence
of hyperlinks in media like New York Times and, sometimes, BBC News (“Trapped
Chilean miners…” and news on Chilean miners during October, 2010 are a good
example).
Compared with the first times of online journalism, use of hypertext and hyperlinks is
far more rational, but still not all the supposedly complex structures (just because long
texts appear plenty of links) are in fact properly constructed ones, but acculumative –
and not always fully convincing coherent- structures. However, the use of hypertext is
highly interest specially when announced events occurred (i.e., sport matches), which
allow a previous planification of properly confectioned nodes correctly linked, but
generally speaking strategies are two: use of special reports (timelines, videos,
slideshows, infographics) previously done and continuously linked to those news items
related to thse subject; and use of related news, with no correspondence between
them (relation is 1:1, with no return from the linked news to the linking node), which
composed in fact lineal enriched structures with apparently branched aspect.
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Balance as a Source of Misinformation. A Study of the
Coverage of the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change in the
Spanish Press
Bienvenido León
University of Navarra, Spain
Abstract
Among traditional journalistic norms, balance has played a key role, as it is often seen
as a criterion that portrays the pursuits of objectivity. Balance reporting is seen by
journalists as a tool to present the views of legitimate spokespersons of the conflicting
sides in a dispute and provide both sides with equal attention.
However, in the coverage of climate science, balance has also been regarded as a
factor that can contribute to misinformation, by way of disguising bad journalistic
practices, as it has enabled that the views of the so called ´climate change sceptics’
have had a more relevant position in the media than within the scientific community.
This paper analyzes the coverage of the International Conference on Climate Change,
promoted by the United Nations (Copenhagen, December 2009), by the two leading
Spanish newspapers (El País and El Mundo). Results indicate that the use of balance
is subject to the editorial line of each newspaper. Although, scientific consensus is not
directly disputed in information or editorial articles, balance can still be used as a tool to
support the editorial line, thus becoming a possible source of misinformation. While one
of the newspapers backs established scientific knowledge, the other one maintains an
ambivalent position, by supporting the scientific consensus on the editorial articles, and
presenting the sceptical point of view, especially in opinion articles.
Introduction
For over a century, balance has been an accepted and important journalistic norm, as
one of the pillars of the notion of objectivity, which crystallized in American journalism
in the second half of the 19th century. Since then, the balance norm has been a
relevant standard, although, in practice, not all journalists have implemented it
uniformly and it has manifested in different ways (Antilla, 2005).
Since objectivity implies to represent fairly each side of a controversy, balance
reporting is considered to be an important tool to provide all points of view with equal
attention (Michael, 2001, p. 150). Balance aims for neutrality, a notion opposed to that
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of bias; a pattern of favouritism that occurs when one point of view receives more
coverage and more favourable, over a period of time (Entman, 1989, p. 30).
For some scholars and journalists, balance is associated with quantity of coverage:
media coverage is balanced when it gives equal attention to all sides of an issue
(Myrick, 2002, p. 8). In this sense, balance depends on the quantity of information
presented and it means giving all relevant viewpoints the same attention, regardless of
how well known or influential they may be (Donohue et al, 1985, Griffin & Dunwoody,
1997). Besides quantity, sometimes balance takes into account other variables, such
as “tone and prominence of placement” (Cenite et al, 2008).
Some scholars argue that, in fact, in many cases, only the two most influential view
points are presented, since reporters do not have the time or expertise to present all
potential viewpoints (Dearing, 1995; Dunwoody & Peters, 1992). Therefore, balance
may also be a function of quality, since the two most influential (or extreme)
perspectives are often selected and presented with equal attention (Dearing, 1995;
Entman, 1989; Gans, 1979).
Some conceptualizations of balance recommend that journalists should analyze the
validity
of
the
arguments
presented
(Cunningham,
2003).
But, sometimes, the criterion to select two points of view is not related to the relevance
of each one, since journalists tend to focus on the most extreme points of an issue, no
matter how relevant they can be within their sphere sector or group (Dearing, 1995).
Sometimes positions are selected –and given equal attention- under the premise of
challenging the established authority or the most influential point of view (Dearing,
1995; Gregory & Miller, 1998; Miller, 1999).
As Clarke (2008) points out, the norm of balance may appear to conflict with a
commitment to accuracy, when a point of view with “little supporting evidence receives
prominent attention compared to an established consensus”. In the words of Ward
(2008, p. 15), “does one need to balance a report that the Sun rises in the East and
sets in the West? Or, for that matter, that there’s a proven link between smoking and
incidence of lung cancer? Does creationism deserve equal time with evolution in a
science article?”.
Some specific elements in the field of science reporting make the use of the balance
norm even more problematic. As Smith (2005) has pointed out, science is, to a great
extent, a process of debate and discussion, in which competing viewpoints are
weighted in terms of strength and evidence. But since competing points of view on
scientific issues are rarely divided by 50 to 50 per cent, giving equal attention to both
sides can present an inaccurate image to the public.
A balanced report on a scientific topic can give the impression of uncertainty by
suggesting that both perspectives are equally supported by evidence, regardless of
how strong scientific evidence can be. Besides, it can elevate a minority group of small
relevance to the status of a consolidated position. In his research about the controversy
on the possible link between a vaccine for teenagers and autism, Clarke (2008, p. 3)
points out that “by covering the perspectives of both supporters and sceptics of a link,
in the interest of balance, media discourse gave the impression that the
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epidemiological evidence was uncertain and a potential relationship was plausible
(despite the preponderance of scientific evidence to the contrary)”.
In some cases, the search for opposing points of view can lead to inappropriate
journalistic practices. In a study on the coverage of the breast implant controversy in
the US press, Powers (1999) observed that some scientific sources were accepted, in
spite of not having received the approval of the scientific community, by way of
publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Some of the sources supporting one side of the
controversy had even been funded by a manufacturer of implants. Therefore, the
author states that journalists are responsible to “decipher the motivating factors behind
the sources” (p. 96).
In sum, as Corbett and Durfree (2004, p. 142) suggest, it can be “problematic to
introduce dissent where science largely agrees, particularly for readers unable to
evaluate where the balance of the evidence lies”.
Within the specific area of the coverage of climate change (CC), the journalistic norm of
balance has been regarded as a source of inaccuracy, especially in the US. Boykoff
and Boykoff (2004, 2007a) concluded that the coverage of the US media emphasized
the position of the so called ‘sceptics”, a minority group supporting the idea that
changes in climate are due to natural cycles, thus challenging the ample scientific
consensus about the existence of an anthropogenic climate change. As a result, media
discourse differed substantially from the scientific consensus, and retarded the
necessary action to mitigate the consequences of this phenomenon, as demanded by
the majority group of scientists, represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. In addition, some of the articles including the opinion of the sceptics have
been written by news agencies, which causes and exponential diffusion of the
information (Antilla, 2005, p. 350).
This phenomenon of over-representation of the ‘sceptic’ point of view has been
observed, especially in the US, for over a decade. Although scientific consensus has
strengthened along this period of time, the media have not always reflected this
situation. From 1995 to 2004, 69% of US network news segments provided a
“balanced” coverage of anthropogenic climate change vs. natural variations. In this
case, there were no significant differences in the coverage along the period of analysis
- in spite of the increasing scientific consensus-, to the point that this period has been
regarded as a “lost decade” for CC mitigation (Boykoff, 2008, p. 9).
On the contrary, a study on CC coverage in prestige US newspapers, from 2000 to
2006, shows that there is a dramatic change along this period. Whereas in 2000 almost
half of the coverage diverged from the scientific consensus, in 2006 this position was
only represented in 8% of the articles. In the UK prestige newspapers, the
representation of scientific consensus increases from 67% to 83% of the coverage in
the same period. However, the situation is quite different in the UK tabloid press, which
still does not inform according to the consensus. (Boykoff & Mansfield, 2008).
According to Gelbspan (2005), this is a “profoundly distorted form of journalistic
balance”, and is related to misinformation campaigns funded by the fossil fuel lobby. In
his view, balance should be employed only when the content of a story resolves largely
around opinion. But when the story is based mainly on facts, it should not apply. And
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this is the case of CC, a topic on which, “during the past 15 years our understanding of
climate changes and its likely causes has been informed by an unprecedented
accumulation
of
peer-reviewed
science
from throughout the world” (p. 48).
This use of the balance norm is connected to the politicization of CC, which occurred in
the US since the early nineties (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2007). From the journalists’ point
of view, this new perspective offered a more interesting frame for the coverage of this
topic, since it allowed presenting the stories in a more conflicting frame.
The political perspective simplifies the process of finding adequate sources, since only
two conflicting points of view are needed. This is easier to achieve compared to finding
scientific experts with the required epistemological authority, for a topic with such
focus. (McKnight, 2010, p. 697). Therefore, scientific qualifications become less
important than other attributes and climate deniers and sceptics are “elevated to the
status of brave dissidents against an oppressive set of beliefs (p. 703).
When stories on CC are framed as political issues, the ideology of the medium
becomes a decisive factor for the coverage of this topic. In her study of CC coverage in
the British quality press, Carvalho (2007) concludes that each newspaper covers the
issue according to its own editorial line. This is also the case of the newspapers and
television stations belonging to Murdoch’s News Corporation group, which denied the
science of climate change and dismissed the entity of the problem, on their editorials
and opinion articles until 2007, when the group announced a radical change in the
direction of the coverage (McKnight, 2010).
Research questions and method
As explained in the previous section, balance has been a norm extensively used in the
coverage of CC, which has led to inadequate journalist practices and inaccurate
portrayal of this topic in the media. But most of the studies circumscribe to US and
British media, where the norm of balance may be more established than in other
countries. Therefore whether this principle is applied in the same way in other countries
remain to be seen.
On the other hand, as we have seen, the use of the balance norm has often been
linked to the politicisation of the topic. Therefore it is important to know if there is a
relationship between the focus of the articles and the use of this norm. In addition,
along the last two decades, scientific consensus on the existence of an anthropogenic
CC has become more solid, as new findings have reduced uncertainties. This situation
of an even more established consensus constitutes a new scenario to analyze if the
norm of balance is still followed and whether it can be considered to be a possible
cause of misinformation (in the sense of false or inaccurate information).
More specifically, the following research questions are formulated:
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
RQ1: Is balance a relevant norm in the press coverage of CC, in spite of the current
strong
scientific
consensus?
And,
if
so,
how
is
it
justified?
RQ2:
Is
balance
linked
to
the
focus
of
the
article?
RQ3: Is the use of balance related to the political position of the medium?
This paper analyzes the articles on CC published in the two leading Spanish
newspapers, during the Copenhagen summit, held in December 200934. More
specifically, we study the articles published in El País and El Mundo, containing the
term “cambio climático” (climate change), within the period December 5th to 20th. All the
articles containing this term were selected, regardless of its journalistic genre or
sectioni in which they were included.
The selection of the two newspapers is due to two reasons. Firstly, they are the two
Spanish newspapers with the largest distribution in the country. In 2009, the average
daily circulation of El País was of 391.851 copies, while El Mundo reached 300.030
(OJD, 2010). Secondly, they maintain different editorial lines. El País is situated in a
center-left wing position, whereas El Mundo is considered to be a liberal newspaper,
frequently critical with left-wing and close to right wing political positions.
The articles were selected by means of a specialized search engine (“My News”),
which allows searching by key words on specific media and dates. Articles were coded
by the author and two other coders. The code was previously tested with a sample of
10 articles. Following the method used by Harcup and O’Neill (2001), the articles were
discussed and coded by the three coders together, trying to minimize the possible
subjectivity of the process.
The presence of balance was marked as positive when two or more conflicting points
of view on the existence of anthropogenic CC or the so called Climategate affair35,
were included in the same article or in a group of articles presented together. Focus
was classified into five different categories (political, economic, scientific, social and
mixed) according to the main concern of each article.
34
th
The 15th International Conference on Climate Change took place in Copenhagen (Denmark) from the 7 to the
18th of December, 2009, with over 34.000 people, from 192 countries, participating (climate experts, NGO
representatives and press members. The aim of the conference was to reach an international agreement to be
applied since 1012.
35
The so called Climategate affair is constituted by the leaking in November 2009 of several email messages and
electronic documents, pirated from scientists of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (UK).
Sceptics interpret this as a proof of manipulation, in favour of the theory of anthropogenic CC. They published the
documents on the Internet, as a way to call attention from newspapers, radio and television channels. Perhaps the
most polemic email was written by the director of the centre, Phil Jones, which reads as follows: "I’ve just
completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (eg. from 1981
onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline”. Michael Mann is a scientist known as the author of the
“hockey stick graphic”, which reconstructs climate in the last centuries, showing a dramatic increase of
temperatures in the late 20th century. Independent research on hypothetical manipulation of data found no reason
to question scientific consensus (Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee, 2010; Lord Oxburgh
Scientific Assessment Panel, 2010). The final report endorses the integrity and rigour of the scientists but describes
the ice hockey graphic as deceitful (Sir Muir Russell Review, 2010).
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Results and discussion
As table 1 shows, both newspapers published 192 articles on CC, during the period of
analysis (117 in El País, 75 in El Mundo). The political focus was the most frequent one
(40.6%), followed by the mixed focus (18.7%) and the scientific focus (17.1%).
Percentages were similar in both newspapers, although the scientific focus was slightly
more frequent in El País (18.8%) than in El Mundo (14.6%).
Table 1. Focus of the articles on Climate Change
El País
El Mundo
Total
Polítical
Economic
Scientific
Social
Mixed
Total
48
(38.4%)
12
22
14
19
117
(10.2%)
(18.8%)
(11.9%)
(16.2)
(100 %)
30
3
11
14
17
75
(40%)
(4%)
(14.6%)
(18.6%)
(22.6%)
(100%)
78
15
33
28
36
192
(40.6%)
(7.8%)
(17.1)
(14.5%)
(18.7%)
(100%)
Source: author’s own elaboration
The high percentage of articles with a political focus can be interpreted as part of a
general media trend, which gives special relevance to political coverage. Very often
traces show that the articles were produced after “called” information, such as press
conferences and news releases provided by political leaders, about specific political
aspects, specially the evolution of negotiations during the summit.
The number of articles with a scientific focus is relatively small in both newspapers,
considering the importance of scientific knowledge for the topics discussed in the
summit. This small presence of scientific content has also been observed in the
coverage of the summit by newspapers of other countries (Painter, 2010, p. 4). In most
cases, the scientific focus appears in articles originated by each medium (eg.
interviews to scientists or experts) or opinion articles, rather than “called” events.
Table 2 shows that the number articles using the balance norm represents only 12.5%
in both newspapers, although it is very significant in articles with a scientific frame. This
table also shows an evident difference between both newspapers: whereas the use of
balance is marginal in El País (5.9%), it is quite frequent in El Mundo (22.6%),
especially in those articles with a scientific focus (72.7%).
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Tabla 2. Articles using the balance norm
Scientific frame
Political frame
Other frames
Total
El País
El Mundo
Total
4
8
11
(18.1%) (72.7%)
(33.3%)
4
8
12
(8.3%)
(26.6%)
15.3%)
-
1
1
(3.2%)
(1.23%)
7
17
24
(5.9%)
(22.6%)
(12.5%)
Source: author’s own elaboration
In those articles with a political frame, El País uses the balance norm mainly related to
opinions on the evolution and results of the summit. For example, when speaking about
the final agreement, it reads that, on the one hand, politicians stress the achievements
of the summit (although with different overtones); and on the other, Greenpeace
ecologists state that “the world leaders of the most powerful countries have betrayed
the future and the near generations”36. In another article on the outcome of the crisis,
the failure of the summit is made evident by paying more attention to the position of
ecologist groups, who consider the agreement is disappointing37.
Only four articles with a scientific frame use the balance norm in this newspaper.
Balance is mainly used to present different perspectives on the possible consequences
of CC. In two of them, diverging points of view on the possible consequences of CC are
presented:
The IPCC warns that the glaciers on the Himalaya (…) may disappear in 2035. This
date has been debated by specialists and considered by many to be ‘alarmist’. But
organizations like the prestigious World Glaciers Monitoring Service (WGMS), backed
by the United Nations, accepts that ‘most of the Himalaya glaciers are in state of rapid
and substantial fold’. However, they assure that it is unlikely that they disappear
completely within the next few decades38.
36
“Los líderes mundiales de los países más poderosos han traicionado al futuro y a las próximas generaciones”, El
País, 21-12-2009, p. 30.
37
El País, 20-12-2009, p. 45.
38
“El Panel Internacional sobre Cambio Climático (IPCC) advierte de que los glaciares del Himalaya están
retrocediendo más rápido que en cualquier otra parte del mundo y que podrían desaparecer por completo en 2035.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Another article uses balance to discuss the relevance of the Climategate affair, and
dismiss it as an event of lesser importance. This is an excerpt from an opinion article:
The truth is that the scandal is not too relevant: “I just completed Mike’s trick in Nature
of adding real temperature to each of the series for the last 20 years and since 1961 to
those of Keith, in order to hide the drop”. It is not probably the most brilliant phrase that
the director of a science institute can write, but trying to turn it into a proof of the fact
that CC does not exists only reveals one thing: that critics have nothing better (…) the
concentration on CO2 in the atmosphere has no precedents in the last half million of
years”39.
The existence of an anthropogenic CC itself is the topic of an article in which balance is
used. The main argument of the group of US republican congressmen in Copenhagen
is “balanced” with the established scientific consensus:
Their argument is that it is not proved that CC is originated by emission of greenhouse
effect gasses derived from burning fossil fuel, in spite of the thousands of scientists
who have proved it40.
In fact, the consensus on the existence of anthropogenic CC is clearly stated in other
articles, in which the norm of balance is not used. An opinion article, published on the
very day of the beginning of the conference, reads as follows:
The aim is not to argue if there is a CC or not, and the causes of this change, which are
sufficiently well known, but the measures we must take and the cost (and how to share
them) which we are ready to accept41.
As it is self-evident from table 2, the coverage of the Copenhagen summit in El Mundo
is very different, compared to El País, as far as the use of the norm of balance is
concerned. The first difference is that balance is used more often (22.6% of the
Esta fecha ha sido debatida por especialistas en glaciares y tachada, por algunos, de “alarmista”. Pero
organizaciones como el prestigioso Servicio de Monitoreo de los Glaciares del Mundo (WGMS, en sus siglas
inglesas), respaldada
por la ONU, acepta que “los glaciares del Himalaya, en su mayoría, están en un estado de rápido y sustancial
repliegue”. Aunque aseguran que no es probable que lleguen a desaparecer por completo en las próximas
décadas”. El País, 9-12-2009, p. 33.
39
Perro la verdad es que el fondo del escándalo no da para mucho: “Acabo de completar el truco de Mike en Nature
de añadir la temperatura real a cada una de las series para los últimos 20 años y desde 1961 para las de Keith para
ocultar el descenso”. No es probablemente la frase más brillante que pueda escribir el director de un instituto
científico, pero intentar convertirla en la prueba de que el cambio climático no existe sólo revela una cosa: que los
críticos no tienen nada mejor que echarse a la boca. (...).la concentración de dióxido de carbono en la atmósfera no
tiene precedentes en el último medio millón de años. Así de claro. El País, 7-12-2009, p. 22.
40
“Su argumento es que no está probado que el cambio climático tenga origen en las emisiones de gases de efecto
invernadero por la quema de combustibles fósiles, pese a los miles de científicos que lo han probado”. El País, 1912-2009, p. 40.
41
Ya no se trata de polemizar sobre si hay o no CC y las causas de este cambio, suficientemente contrastadas, sino
las medidas que hay que tomar y los costes (y su reparto) que se están dispuestos a asumir. El País, 7-12-2009, p.
19.
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articles), mainly in articles with a political focus (26.6%) and -very especially- articles
with a scientific focus (72.7%).
In articles with a political focus, El Mundo uses the balance norm simply to express
relevant opinions. For example, the speech by the Spanish Prime Minister, José L.
Rodríguez Zapatero, is reported with some quotes from the actual speech and also
some reactions by representatives of NGOs, who considered that the speech had no
concretion42. Other similar examples include opinions on the number of people
demonstrating in the streets of Copenhaguen43 and the negotiation at the summit, with
opinions of representatives of the US, Europe and China44.
The use of balance in articles with a scientific focus is related to two topics: the
existence of anthropogenic CC and the “Climategate affair”. The editorial article
published at the beginning of the summit portrays the position of this newspaper.
Balance is used to present, on the same level, scientific consensus and minority
positions. On the one hand, this article emphasizes scientific evidence on CC:
Innumerable measures on CC made with total rigour show that the average
temperature of our planet is raising in an abnormal way, and this is linked to the
increase
of
CO2
in
the
atmosphere45.
Nevertheless, the same editorial article suggests that the Climategate affair is very
relevant:
The summit starts with a strong background noise provoked by the scandal of the emails robbed in one of the main centres for climate studies, at the British University of
East Anglia. The e-mails reproduce conversations among researcher about how to
“handle” data and use “shortcuts” so that data tally with results. Those who deny or are
sceptics with global warming are taking profit of this to reaffirm that CC is a big lie46.
This use of the balance norm can also be found in other articles. For example, the
debate on the US Congress on this affair is reported following clearly the norm of
42
“Falta de concreción”. El Mundo, 18-12-2009, p. 40.
43
“Marcha por el ‘hielo’ en pleno invierno”. El Mundo, 13-12-2009, p. 38.
44
“China se enfrenta a EEUU y la UE por el CO2”. El Mundo, 9-12-2009, p. 30.
45
“Innumerables mediciones realizadas con todo rigor demuestran que se está acelerando anormalmente la
temperatura media del Planeta, y que va unido al aumento de CO2 en la atmósfera” El Mundo, 7-12-2009, p. 3.
46
“La Cumbre arranca con el fuerte ruido de fondo que ha provocado el escándalo de los e-mails robados a uno de
los principales centros de estudios del clima, el de la Universidad británica de East Anglia. Los correos electrónicos
contienen conversaciones entre investigadores sobre cómo «manejar» los datos y usar «atajos» para que los
resultados cuadren. Quienes niegan o son escépticos con el calentamiento global –que han bautizado al caso como
Climategate– ya lo están aprovechando para reafirmar que el cambio climático es una gran mentira”. El Mundo, 712-2009, p. 3.
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balance. One of them states that “Republican congressman James Sensenbrenner has
accused the scientists involved in this affair or “suppression, manipulation, excessive
secrecy and service to an ideology”. But this position is “balanced” with the quote of an
opposing testimony by Jane Lubchenko, director of the National Oceanic and
Atmosferic Administration (NOAA): “The intercepted emails do not deny, and do not
even talk about the independent measurement by NOAA and NASA, which show a
dramatic rise of the temperatures in the last few decades”47.
Both articles exemplify the way El Mundo covered the Climategate affair, giving both
points of view roughly the same space and relevance, with no contextual information
which may help the reader to evaluate the relative weight within the scientific
community, therefore transmitting the idea that both positions are equally legitimate as
sources of knowledge on the topic.
The position of this newspaper on the existence of anthropogenic CC also seems to be
“balanced”, since opposing opinions are included. On December 9th, El Mundo
publishes an article signed by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who supports
the idea that the Climategate affair is irrelevant:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gets together more than 4000
scientists from all over the world. Their last report has accentuated, not diminished, the
enormous and diverse corpus of evidence on climate change due to human activities.
Its historical relevance can not be ignored as a consequence of the robbery of a
handful of e-mails from a university research centre. On the contrary, the harmful
antiscientific reaction that these e-mails have generated shows what is at stake48.
In the same page, George Will, columnist of The Washington Post, supports the
opposite position, in an article that ignores the scientific consensus on this topic, and
includes several pseudoscientific arguments:
Those who are sceptics about (..) climate change are so because climate change is
constant: since millenniums before the Medieval Warm Period (800 to 1.300), during all
the small Ice Age (1500 to 1800), and along millenniums since then, climate change
has always been a certainty that nobody argues. Sceptics doubt that the scientific
47
“El congresista republicano James Sensenbrenner ha acusado a los científicos implicados de «supresión,
manipulación, secretismo y servicio a una ideología. (...). En defensa de Holdren, durante una sesión especialmente
caldeada sobre el cambioclimático celebrada esta semana, salió la directora de la Administración Nacional Oceánica
y Atmosférica (NOAA), Jane Lubchenco. «Los ‘e-mails’ interceptados no niegan, y ni siquiera tratan sobre las
mediciones independientes de la NOAA y de la NASA que demuestran un dramático aumento de las temperaturas
en las últimas décadas», señaló Lubchenco”. El Mundo, 6-12-2009, p. 39.
48
“El Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático reúne a más de 4.000 científicos de todos los rincones
del mundo. Su último trabajo ha acentuado, no disminuido, el enorme y diverso corpus de evidencias del
calentamiento global debido a la acción humana. Su importancia histórica no puede ignorarse por el robo de un
puñado de e-mails de un centro de investigación universitario. Por el contrario, la dañina reacción anticientífica que
han desatado los correos electrónicos ha puesto de manifiesto lo que nos estamos jugando”. El Mundo, 9-12-2009,
p. 31.
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models that could not explain the current situation are going to forecast in an infallible
way the distant future49.
In some interviews to scientists, in which the Climategate affair is mentioned, a peculiar
type of “balance” can also be observed. While the interviewer stresses the importance
of this affair, some scientists and politicians play down its importance. This is the case
of the interviews, , to Wallace Broecker, scientist of Columbia University50, and Teresa
Ribero, representative of the Spanish Government in the summit51, among others.
Some opinion articles clearly support ideas against the scientific consensus. Very often
they reproduce pseudoscientific arguments, presented by scientists from areas
different to climate studies. This is an example:
In Seville, a group of friends had lunch with don José Luis Comellas. Comellas is a wise
man: professor of contemporary History, a high level musicologist and astronomer, who
has published some important books and made several noteworthy discoveries of stars.
He explained to us that in the last few years the temperature of Mars has increased by
two or three degrees. The conclusion seems to be unavoidable: if planets in the solar
system are heating, and clearly humans have nothing to do with this heating, then men
must have either nothing to do with heating of planet Earth52.
The same article continues with some confusing pseudoscientific reasoning, which tries
to justify that CC is not provoked by human activities:
A few days ago, I have seen in this news paper the beautiful image of the Antarctic Sea
melting with a footnote saying ‘The Antarctic is melting, as a consequence of climate
change’. For God’s sake, in the polar seas, ice melts every summer”53.
Obviously, the fact that polar ice melts naturally every summer does not exclude the
fact that this process is more intense in the last few decades, due to CC.
49
“Los que son escépticos con las estridentes certezas concernientes al calentamiento catastrófico provocado por el
hombre son escépticos porque el cambio climático es constante: desde milenios anteriores al Período Cálido
Medieval (del 800 al 1.300), durante toda la Pequeña Edad de Hielo (1.500 a 1.850) y durante milenios desde
entonces, el cambio climático siempre ha sido una certeza que nadie cuestiona. Los escépticos dudan de los
modelos de los científicos, que no pudiendo explicar el presente van a pronosticar de manera infalible el futuro
distante”. El Mundo, 9-12-2009, p. 31.
50
El Mundo, 12-12-2009, p. 26.
51
El Mundo, 14-12-2009, p. 30.
52
“Algunos amigos de Sevilla hemos comido con don José Luis Comellas. Comellas es un sabio: catedrático de
Historia contemporánea, musicólogo de altura y astrónomo con libros importantes publicados y varios notables
descubrimientos de estrellas. Nos explicó que en los últimos años la temperatura de Marte ha subido dos o tres
grados; la conclusión parece entonces inevitable: si los planetas del sistema solar se están calentando, y está claro
que nada tiene que ver el hombre con ese calentamiento, tampoco debe tenerlo con el calentamiento del planeta
tierra”. El Mundo, Edition for Andalucia, 18-12-2009, p. 59.
53
“He visto hace unos días en este periódico la hermosa imagen del mar Antártico deshelándose: el pie de foto
rezaba algo así. “vista de la situación actual. La Antártida se derrite a consecuencia del cambio climático”. ¡Por Dios!
Los hielos de los mares polares se derriten cada verano, y ahora, precisamente, empieza el verano en el hemisferio
austral”. El Mundo, Edition for Andalucia, 18-12-2009, p. 59.
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In some cases, certain scientific facts are presented, trying to support the idea that
science is not concluding, thus portraying a hypothetical scientific controversy on the
origin of CC. In some cases, some well known scientific arguments are reproduced,
without including the explanations that the majority of scientists have given to them.
This is an example from another opinion article published in El Mundo:
A phenomenon [CC] for which men are told to be responsible, but with no solid proofs.
(…) We are blamed for the destruction of the Planet, because of our thirst for industrial
development and our obsession with exhaling carbon. We are guilty of the fact that
there is no snow on the Kilimanjaro y Greenland is melting. But Hannibal got across the
Alps without snow and river Thames was frozen two centuries ago, when capitalism did
not exist nor there were too many free men54.
In this case, the article presents some true scientific facts, but it omits to say that this
does not mean that in the present time climate is changing not for natural reasons but
because of human activities, as the majority of scientists accept.
Conclusion
In spite of the ample scientific consensus on the existence of an anthropogenic CC,
some media still use the norm of balance to justify the introduction of facts or opinions
which are contrary to the established science, in a practice that constitutes a possible
cause of misinformation to the public. This study shows that this problematic use of the
norm of balance, observed mainly in anglo-saxon journalism, there exists in the
Spanish press as well.
In those articles with a political focus, balance is often used in the traditional
unproblematic way, simply to present confronting opinions. However, in articles with a
scientific focus, balance is not always related to opinions, but also to facts. Therefore
this norm can lead to reproduce mistakes observed in previous studies, such as
including false or inaccurate information (that is to say, contrary to the scientific
consensus), or suggesting some scientific uncertainties were, in fact, there exist a solid
consensus.
El Mundo uses the journalistic norm of balance in a way that seems to be an attempt to
justify an ambivalent position, rather than a face-to-face fight against the scientific
consensus on this topic –a position that could be difficult to sustain. On the one hand, it
agrees that evidences on CC are numerous and solid; but, on the other, it covers the
Climategate affair extensively, mentioning it several times and giving it even more
relevance than to the scientific consensus.
54
“Un fenómeno del que se responsabiliza a los hombres sin pruebas sólidas. (...). Se nos imputa la destrucción del
planeta por nuestro afán en desarrollarnos industrialmente y nuestra manía de exhalar carbono. Tenemos la culpa
de que no haya nieve en el Kilimanjaro y de que Groenlandia se derrita. Pero ya Aníbal atravesó los Alpes sin nieve y
el Támesis se helaba hace dos siglos, cuando no existía el capitalismo ni había demasiados hombres libres”. El
Mundo, 6-12-2009, p. 8.
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Although El Mundo does not openly challenge the scientific consensus, through
information or editorial articles, the use of the balance norm allows providing an ample
coverage of the sceptic point of view and the Climategate affair. In addition, several
opinion articles (implicitly also justified by the norm of balance), include false or
inaccurate facts, which constitute a potential source of misinformation on this topic.
The use of this norm in the Spanish press, seems to be linked to the political position of
the medium. The fact that only the conservative medium uses balance in this
inappropriate way, allows drawing a relationship between the use of this norm and the
ideology of the medium. The analysis we have made in this study suggests that
balance is used in a second level of decision, only when it can help to present ideas
with are coherent with the editorial line of the medium.
The norm of balance should be applied to give equal coverage to different points of
view, on those topics which are subject of dissenting opinions. However, ours and
previous studies show that there also exists a perverted use of this norm, which leads
to present false or inaccurate data on a topic in which scientific certainties leave little
room for dissenting opinions. Therefore, journalists should use this norm with a sense
of wisdom, combining them with other journalistic norms, such as the need for
contextualization, which allows giving each point of view the relative weight it really
has.
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The Diversity of Scholarship on Journalism. How Journalism
Journals Reflect Theories, Methods, and Topics of Journalism
Research – a Content Analysis (2008 – 2009)
Martin Löffelholz, Liane Rothenberger
Institute of Media and Communication Science of Ilmenau University of Technology,
Germany
Abstract
Over the course of time various changes in journalism created a diverse media
landscape. Since generally journalism studies are closely linked to its object, this leads
to the question whether the diversity of journalism is reflected by journalism studies. To
answer this question, we conducted a content analysis of academic articles published
in seven peer-reviewed English language journalism journals. In sum, the paper will lay
open gaps and desiderata, draw conclusions and suggest possible improvements for
future journalism studies in an emerging media landscape.
Introduction
Today, journalism studies is “one of the fastest growing areas within the larger
discipline of communication research and media studies” (Wahl-Jorgensen &
Hanitzsch, 2009, xi). Can journalism studies be called only an “area” or is it a proper
and distinct discipline showing even signs of transdisciplinarity involving new
perspectives out of the combination of multiple disciplines? How can we identify as well
as systematize new and old fields in journalism studies when facing tendencies
towards more differentiation, heterogeneity, and also inconsistency? To answer these
questions, we will have a look at the history and developments of concepts and
theories in journalism studies.
Over the course of time various changes in journalism created a diverse media
landscape. Since generally journalism studies are closely linked to its object, this leads
to the question whether the diversity of journalism is reflected by journalism studies. To
answer this question, we conducted a content analysis of academic articles published
in seven peer-reviewed English language journalism journals. The sample comprises
articles published in volumes 2008 and 2009. Not only abstracts but complete articles
were encoded. The code-book consists of 18 quantitative and qualitative variables
pointing at the following questions of which the results are indicators of the diversity (or
uniformity) of journalism studies, for example:
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1.
Which theoretical approaches are applied?
2.
Which field of journalism research do most of the studies belong to?
3.
Does the academic research address the multifaceted media environment or
does it focus on few specific topics?
4.
Which methods are used?
Evolution of Scholarship on Journalism
If we look further at the institutionalization of journalism studies regarding the
development and establishment of departments or schools, professorships and
professional associations as well as an own terminology in the respective field, we will
certainly agree that in most places of the world journalism, since a certain time, is an
academic discipline.55 It is a recognized discipline carrying a certain image in the
scientific community. The huge number of scientific journals on research in journalism
also provides evidence of a high level of institutionalization. Thus we can conclude that
journalism is an academic discipline, even if not in all times and places.
Normativism: the journalist as a person
Having touched the increasing professionalization and institutionalization of journalism
research, we will now focus on the history of ideas, approaches, concepts, theories and
paradigms.
German researchers for a long time concentrated on a person-oriented, practical
understanding of journalism. Also in other countries “a história do jornalismo é muitas
vezes escrita como a biografia dos ‘grandes homens’” (Traquina, 2005b, 60). In the
U.S.A., too, journalism studies were limited mainly to practical trainings. When
researchers conducted studies with special attention paid to journalistic production and
work context, their work was received sceptically by the practitioners who talked of
“Mickey Mouse studies“ (cf. Zelizer, 2004, 20).
55 In Brazil, for example, journalism studies started with Adelmo Genro Filho and his addiction to rather Marxist
theories in the 1970s. Anyhow, many University institutes were not founded until in the 1990 (cf. Traquina 2005a,
14).
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Discovery of analytical empiricism
Orientation towards individualism and normativism was rapidly losing its dominant role
when researchers started to use the repertoire of empirical methods from social
sciences. Wilbur Schramm pioneered empiricism relying on the works of Harold
Lasswell (rooting in political sciences), Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (sociology) and Carl
Hovland (social psychology).
Towards systems theories and integrative social approaches
The German scholar Manfred Rühl in the 1960s rejected the paradigm of normativism
and did not see the individual journalist or “Mr. Gates” as the main research object
anymore. His alternative: “The person as a paradigm is a much too complex and
inelastic term to serve as a unit of analysis for journalism. In response to this, the term
‘social system’ is suggested, which permits differentiation between journalism and its
environments.” (Rühl, 1980, 435-439) One has to admit that the term “system” is not
used uniformly by journalism researchers till this day.
Internationalization and transdisciplinarity
International and intercultural comparative studies are increasingly enriching our
knowledge about structures, actors, products as well as the functioning of journalism as
such. Some researchers even talk about the “global-comparative turn” in journalism
studies. To reinforce their assumption, Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch point to the new
possibilities of communication and collaboration in a globalized world: “Journalism
researchers are finding more and more opportunities to meet with colleagues from afar,
made possible by the end of the cold war and increasing globalization. New
communication technologies have triggered the rise of institutionalized global networks
of scientists, while it has become much easier to acquire funding for international
studies. As journalism itself is an increasingly global phenomenon, its study is
becoming an international and collaborative endeavor“ (Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch,
2009, 6). One has to admit that the focus of most of the studies still is on journalism in
Western industrial nations. Nevertheless, researchers from Africa, Asia and Latin
America are more than ever raising their voices and acting as a counterbalance to the
hitherto dominating “Westernization“, or “Western bias” in journalism studies (cf.
Wasserman/de Beer 2009). What is needed in future is a truly global research on
media communication transcending and surmounting cultural, national, and disciplinary
boundaries (cf. Weaver & Löffelholz, 2008, 8).
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Analysis of scientific journals
The disciplinarity and transdisciplinarity of journalism studies can be well detected
when looking at the publications in the field. The resulting spectrum will show which
criteria mark the actual research and where interrelations to other disciplines can be
found. It might also be an indicator for future research fields. But let us first have a look
at the status quo of theories, methods and topics in journalism studies. Therefore we
systematically analyzed seven reputable journalism research journals, all issues of
volumes 2008 and 2009. We decided on the following journals because they have
proved themselves relevant places for publication in an international research field, or
they represent publications of journalism research which, up to now, have been more
or less marginalized in the Western scientific world: “Journalism Studies”, “Journalism
& Mass Communication Quarterly”, “Journalism – Theory, Practice and Criticism”,
“Journalism and Communication Monographs”, “Brazilian Journalism Research”,
“Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies” as well as “Pacific Journalism Review”.
Another criterion was that the field, “journalism”, had to be mentioned in the journal’s
title because the title stands for the journal’s (self-)concept. Nonetheless we did not
include journals which turn more toward articles from journalism practice and not to
articles from scientific sources.
All seven professional journals adhere to peer-review-system and have two to six
issues per annum. The sample consisted of published scientific articles only. We did
not encode editorials, obituaries, book reviews etc., only plainly scientific contributions.
The number of articles coded is: Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 68
articles, Journalism Studies 99 articles, Journalism – Theory, Practice and Criticism 66
articles, Journalism & Communication Monographs 13 articles, Ecquid Novi 21 articles,
Brazilian Journalism Research 39 articles, and Pacific Journalism Review 43 articles.
In total we coded 349 articles, 182 articles from 2008 and 167 from 2009. The little
smaller number in 2009 is due to the fact that Journalism – Theory, Practice and
Criticism had a special 10th anniversary issue in June 2009 which did not contain
standard articles but 38 short essays plus editorial and book reviews, hence could not
be used.
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Frequency
Valid
Accumulated
Percentage percentage percentage
Journalism & Mass
Communication Quaterly
68
19,5
19,5
19,5
Journalism Studies
99
28,4
28,4
47,9
Journalism - Theory, Practica
and Criticism
66
18,9
18,9
66,8
Journalism & Communication
Monographs
13
3,7
3,7
70,5
Ecquid Novi
21
6,0
6,0
76,5
Brazilian Journalism Research 39
11,2
11,2
87,7
Pacific Journalism Review
43
12,3
12,3
100,0
Total
349
100,0
100,0
--
Journal
Tab. 2: Number and proportion of articles
The coefficient of intercoderreliability measured r = .92. One has to admit that most
times it was in the category “theoretical focus” that differences occurred. That can be
traced back to the fact that in many articles the authors did not state clearly and
explicitly their theoretical background.
The field of journalism research that the authors studied in their articles was encoded
according to the Lasswell formular “Who says what in which channel to whom with
what effect?”. If the researches focused on the “who” we coded “communicator
research”, if they focused on “what” we coded “media content research”, and so on.
Multiple choices were possible.
Definitely in first place ranks communicator research. 64.5 percent of all articles treated
this field of journalism studies. They are followed by media content research (49.6
percent). Then there is a big gap until audience research ranks on third place with 14.6
percent. Research on the channel resp. the medium as a product as such is quite rare:
only 9.2 percent of all articles presented data or observations regarding this field of
research.
Table 3 shows how the research fields are portioned according to the respective
periodicals. In almost all journals communicator research and research on media
content are the most important research fields.
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Journal
Research on
Communicator Research on medium /
research
media content channel
Audience
research
Over all journals
64.5
49.6
9.2
14.6
Journalism & Mass
Communication Quarterly
35.3
58.8
4.4
44.1
Journalism Studies
68.7
47.5
16.2
5.1
Journalism – Theory,
Practice and Criticism
78.8
39.4
1.5
10.6
Journalism &
84.6
Communication Monographs
53.8
7.7
15.4
Ecquid Novi
71.4
28.6
28.6
14.3
Brazilian Journalism
Research
61.5
61.5
10.3
10.3
Pacific Journalism Review
72.1
53.5
2.3
0.0
Tab. 3: Research fields (in percent)
Furthermore, the articles were encoded according to their main theoretical focus. As
said above, many authors did not state clearly their theoretical affiliation but presented
their research data without tracing it back to a profound theoretical background.
To have a solid instrument for dividing the single theories in larger sections we applied
the eight theoretical concepts of journalism research according to Löffelholz (2003). He
distinguishes normative individualism / gifted individuals, materialist theories of media /
economic goods, analytical empiricism, legitimist empiricism, theories of action,
systems theories, integrative social theories / three-level-integration and cultural
studies.56
If it was not possible to relate the applied theory to one of the concepts, the coder could
write the concrete theory as a separate string variable. He could also tag that there was
no theory applied at all. Thus the coding resulted in the following spreading:
56 For further explanation of the theoretical concepts see also the synopsis of basic theoretical concepts in
journalism studies in Loeffelholz (2008, ).
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Frequency
Valid
Accumulated
Percentage percentage percentage
Normative individualism
24
6.9
8.3
8.3
Materialist theories of media
3
0.9
1.0
9.3
Analytical empiricism
110
31.5
37.9
47.2
Legitimist empiricism
21
6.0
7.2
54.5
Theories of action
23
6.6
7.9
62.4
Systems theories
11
3.2
3.8
66.2
Integrative social theories
4
1.1
1.4
67.6
Cultural studies
94
26.9
32.4
100.0
Total
290
83.1
100.0
--
Main theoretical focus
Tab. 4: Theoretical focus
59 articles (16.9 percent) did not mention a specific theoretical focus. If we leave these
apart and let the remaining 290 articles equal 100.0 percent, we have a high portion of
37.9 percent using theories of the “analytical empirical approach” category as
theoretical background. One third of the articles regard cultural studies as the theory
relevant for their research. The other categories are chosen in not such relevant
numbers: 8.3 percent normative individualism, 7.9 percent critical theories of action, 7.2
percent legitimist empirical approach. The remaining three categories are even more
neglected: materialist theories of media seem to be out of fashion since the end of the
Iron Curtain and most socialistic regimes.
When looking at analytical empiricism in detail, there is a remarkably high percentage
of articles treating agenda setting (10.3 percent out of all 349 articles) as well as
theories of news selection (gatekeeping, news bias, news values theory etc.) (8.0
percent). These seem to be theories that can easily be combined with empirical
research and have a solid standing in the theory portfolio of our discipline.
As said above, in a string we coded the theories that were not related to one of the
eight categories, which have proved to unite the main theories applied in journalism
research. But of course, as journalism research is a transdisciplinary field of study, too,
researchers apply theories of different scientific origin. Some examples: cognitive
theory, value theory and so on. These examples show the variety of theoretical
concepts that can be found but also indicate a strong tendency toward theories from
the field of psychology as well as political studies.
The following table shows the medium the authors brought into focus in their articles.
Here again, multiple choices were possible.
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Journal
newspaper magazine
radio
TV
internet
Over all journals
38.7
7.7
8.0
15.8
17.5
Journalism & Mass
33.8
Communication Quarterly
11.8
4.4
17.6
23.5
Journalism Studies
46.5
4.0
8.1
12.1
18.2
Journalism – Theory,
Practice and Criticism
31.8
4.5
6.1
16.7
12.1
Journalism &
Communication
Monographs
53.8
23.1
7.7
15.4
0.0
Ecquid Novi
38.1
0.0
33.3
9.5
0.0
Brazilian Journalism
Research
41.0
10.3
0.0
20.5
38.5
Pacific Journalism Review 32.6
11.6
11.6
18.6
9.3
Tab. 5: Medium in focus (in percentages)
Surprisingly, 27.8 percent of all articles did not focus on a specific medium but
concentrated on theories, conditions for professional formation of journalists, general
cognitive effects or some other topic. The newspaper as traditional research object is in
first rank in every journal. This also might be surprising thinking of the much longer time
audiences are watching TV or are surfing in the internet but newspapers, above all high
quality newspapers, are still seen as important definers for topics discussed in society.
Furthermore, thinking of document content analysis they are an “easy-to-handle”
research object.
Internet and TV are almost on the same level (17.5 vs. 15.8 percent). As the internet
seems to be getting more and more important even in remote areas of the world, it
might be of interest to pursue this development in future years. On the other hand it
might also be interesting to have a look at past volumes of journalism studies
periodicals and trace back at which point in time the internet “overtook” television.
Studies on magazines and radio are not so very popular.57 Not even ten percent resp.
of the articles of all analyzed journals chose these media as research object. A reason
for the unusually high percentage of articles in Ecquid Novi treating questions of radio
57 The high percentage of the research object “magazine” in Journalism & Communication Monographs has to be
seen in relation with the small number of articles in that journal: only 13 (cf. table 2).
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might be the utter importance of radio in remote African areas or in countries that tried
or still try to amend the people’s participation regarding democratic rights with the help
of the media.
Getting back to outlining the internet as research object, we examined the field in more
detail. There are plenty of possibilities to highlight the internet in a research study58 but
we focused on new employments like blogs, e-communities (facebook, xing etc.) or
multimedia platforms like the photo-sharing platform “flickr” or the video-sharing
platform “youtube”.
In 39.3 percent of the studies dealing with internet-related issues the authors wrote
about blogs or bloggers, in 8.2 percent about multimedia platforms, in 4.9 percent
about e-communities, and 3.3 percent mentioned micro-blogging services like “twitter”.
In our analysis we also asked whether the studies dealt with professional content (e.g.
journalistic websites) or user-generated content (e.g. newsgroups, bulletin boards). The
result shows that the investigation of professional content by far outnumbered the
investigation of user-generated content (72.1 vs. 27.9 percent). Hence, scientists in our
field still stick to analyzing content of professional journalists.
And how do they analyze and expand on their research topic? Is it mainly by relying on
theory or by employing empirical approaches? As shows table 6, in most of the studies
(68.8 percent) we found the presentation of results of empirical research.
Theory / empiricism
Frequency
Percentage
Mainly theory
109
31.2
Mainly empirical findings: single 200
study
57.3
Mainly empirical findings:
comparative study
40
11.5
Total
349
100.0
Tab. 6: Main focus on theory/empirical study
Within the articles presenting results of empirical research the single case studies
prevailed (57.3 percent). There were only 11.5 percent that offered results of
comparative studies (be it comparing countries, be it journalistic cultures or the like).
58 For example there were single studies covering governments’ websites, content management systems, websites
and news content of social movements as well as “google” topics or wikis.
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The studies concentrating on empirical findings did employ empirical research
methods.59 Again, multiple codings were allowed.
Empirical research method
Frequency
Percentage
content analysis
151
43.3
in-depth / guided interviews
70
20.1
(paper)written survey
29
8.3
observation
27
7.7
standardized oral survey
13
3.7
online survey
13
3.7
declared (laboratory) experiment
11
3.2
Tab. 7: Empirical approaches employed
The most demanded empirical approach very clearly is content analysis (43.4 percent).
The empirical research method ranked second is not even half as much employed (indepth or guided interview: 20.1 percent). Paper-written surveys as well as observations
were used in not even ten percent resp. of the analyzed articles. According to our
findings, oral and online polls do not belong to the common repertoire of journalism
research either. And experiments come in last with only 3.2 percent of all articles.
If we exclude the number of 85 articles (24.4 percent) which did not employ any
empirical research method, we have a new “method-sample” of n = 264 articles. Out of
these 264 (100 percent) articles we had 210 that described the results of studies
following a single-method-design. The remaining 54 employed multi-methodological
approaches, the majority combining two different methods, but in six cases even three
different methods. Out of these six, there were three studies combining content
analysis with in-depth interviews and observation. Looking at the multi-methodological
studies in general, there were 37.0 percent combining content analysis with in-depth
interviews, 24.0 percent combining in-depth interviews and observation as well as 13.0
percent combining content analysis and paper-written surveys.
If we correlate applied method with theoretical approach we can see a strong
correlation between content analysis and analytical empiricism. 70.0 percent of all the
110 articles referring to analytical empiricism as their theoretical background (see
above), present the results of a content analysis. This is a coherent finding as there
were many “classical” studies on news value theory etc. where a content analysis to
detect the employment of certain news factors seems to be apparent.
59 Albeit the studies relying mainly on theory, of course, most times did not employ an empirical approach, there
were some putting their focus on theory but presenting some short empirical data.
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There was also a dense correlation between content analysis and cultural studies: In
43.6 percent of all “cultural studies”-articles the researchers had conducted a content
analysis. Cultural studies were also closely linked to in-depth interviews (23.4 percent).
Studies from the theoretical category “legitimist empiricism” were strongly related to indepth interviews (42.9 percent) as well as to paper-written surveys (23.8 percent). This
is obvious as legitimist empiricism is interested in the motivation, self-concept and
political affiliation of journalists as well as their image of colleagues, their audience, and
the like (cf. Löffelholz, 2003, 35).
Regarding the country focus of the articles, it is not surprising that the three journals
naming their landscape scope in their title, i.e. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies,
Brazilian Journalism Research and Pacific Journalism Review, centre on journalism
studies dealing with country-specific aspects from Africa, Latin America, Australia and
New Zealand. The share of articles regarding continents is:
Continent
Percentage
North America
36.9
Europe
25.5
Australia / New Zealand / Oceania
14.8
Latin America
11.7
Asia
10.1
Africa
8.7
Tab. 10: Share of articles regarding different world regions (multiple answers possible)
Examples for studies on culture- or country-specific aspects are: post-apartheid, the
Australian Federal Press Gallery, coverage of the Maori party’s election campaign. 51
articles did not focus on a specific country. If we discount these from the total n of 349
articles, we have 298 articles left where a specific country focus was named. Taking
this new n = 298 = 100 percent, we have a strong share of 36.9 percent of articles
dealing with the U.S.A. and Canada, for example analyzing U.S.-American media or
portraying U.S.-American journalists, and about a fourth of the articles dealing with
aspects of journalism in European countries60. The world region “Australia / New
Zealand / Oceania” was represented by 14.8 percent of the articles, Latin America by
11.7 percent. Placed second to last and last were Asia and Africa (10.1 resp. 8.7
percent).
60 Turkey numbered among Asia.
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Regarding questions of transdisciplinarity we wanted to know whether the scientists in
their research stuck only and purely to the field of journalism or whether their research
was tangent to other fields. The findings (table 8) show that most of the studies
affected interrelated areas like politics, technology, history, but also advertising, public
relations, and entertainment.
Disciplinary links
Frequency
Percentage
Politics
141
40.4
Technology
52
14.9
History
35
10.0
Advertising
30
8.6
Public relations
16
4.6
Entertainment
13
3.7
Economy
9
2.6
Other (culture, law, military,
religion, science, sports etc.)
8
2.3
No specific disciplinary link
45
12.9
Total
349
100.0
Tab. 8: Disciplinary links
Researchers in our discipline have their specific perspective but from this “journalism”
point of view broaden their scope and conduct research that is of importance to
connected scientific disciplines like for example political or historical studies.
In an open string we coded the specific topics of the articles and afterwards built
categories if some topics were mentioned over average. 4.6 percent of the articles laid
their focus on globalization or Europeanization of journalism. 5.4 percent treated
questions of profession and professionalization. A quite astonishing amount of 8.0
percent concentrated explicitly on gender or race aspects. Very few articles covered
tabloidization or yellow press. Higher percentages were achieved by the following
issues: Articles dealing with topics like ethics, values or normative demands in
journalism were 16.0 percent of the total. Quality aspects in general were the topic of
12.6 percent of the articles. The quality debate thus is recognized but not thoroughly
discussed in the journalism field. 20.6 percent of the studies dealt with aspects
regarding structure and organisation in journalism e.g. in editorial offices or news
rooms but also structures imposed from, for example, regulatory authorities.
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Conclusion
As new theories in journalism studies make the field more complex and
heterogeneous, journalism researchers have to trace the new approaches attentively.
Crucial desiderata will be that they perceive journalism as a global phenomenon, taking
into account its cultural, economic and political variety, and that they will enhance a
meta-theoretical discourse, holding the balance of disciplinarity and transdisciplinarity
in journalism studies.
References
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Hanitzsch Eds.), Handbook of Journalism Studies (pp. 413-427). New York: Routledge.
Löffelholz, M. (2003). Kommunikatorforschung: Journalistik. In G.Bentele & H.-B.
Brosius & O. Jarren (Eds.), Öffentliche Kommunikation (pp. 28-53). Wiesbaden:
Westdeutscher Verlag.
Löffelholz, M.; Weaver, D. (Eds.) (2008), Global Journalism Research. Theories,
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Bertelsmann Universitätsverlag.
Traquina, N. (2005a), Teorias do Jornalismo. Volume I. Porque as notícias são como
são. Second edition. Florianópolis: Insular.
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comunidade interpretativa transnacional. Second edition. Florianópolis: Insular.
Wahl-Jorgensen, K.; Hanitzsch, T. (Eds.), Handbook of Journalism Studies. New York:
Routledge.
Wasserman, H.; Beer, A. S. de (2009), Towards De-Westernizing Journalism Studies.
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Weaver, D. (1998), The Global Journalist: News people around the world. Cresskill, NJ:
Hampton Press.
Weaver, D.; Löffelholz, M. (2008), Questioning National, Cultural, and Disciplinary
Boundaries. A Call for Global Journalism Research. In M. Löffelholz & D. Weaver
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(Eds.), Global Journalism Research. Theories, Methods, Findings, Future (pp. 3-12).
Malden et al.: Blackwell.
Zelizer, B. (2004), Taking Journalism Seriously. News and the Academy. London et al.:
Sage.
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Media and journalists in Twitter: Corporatizing the personal and personalizing the professional
(Preliminary Analysis)
Alberto López-Hermida Russo and Cecilia Claro Montes
Universidad de los Andes - Chile
Abstract
Social networks like Twitter have become platforms used by people as well as
corporations to reach audiences of a size that, barely a decade ago, seemed
unimaginable. Journalism has also been affected by this trend, so now journalists and
media corporations make use of these social networks.
The presence of media and journalists in platforms such as Twitter inevitably comes
with multiple ways of presenting themselves to the public. While the media face the
challenge to upkeep their informational end, journalists have to find a balance between
their personal and professional profile.
A comparative usability analysis of journalists and media Twitter accounts makes this
an evident problem that will allow studying the phenomenon and proposing certain
guidelines for action.
Questions emerge rapidly: Can media corporatize a social tool that is essentially
personal? Must a journalist inform, give his/her opinion as a common citizen, in an
account created under his professional profile? Can media and journalists profiles coexist in the same social network? The answers to these questions present us with new
professional and ethical challenges that are worthy of further study.
Keywords: twitter, journalism, journalist, social networks, ethics.
Corporatizing the personal and personalizing the professional
In July 2010, Octavia Nasr, a senior editor of Middle Eastern Affairs at CNN was fired
by a tweet. It only took 89 characters in Twitter for this person, who had been
catalogued a short while before by the same news network as a leader in the
integration of social networks as a result of her journalistic track record, to see her
career shot down in flames.
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“Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah … One of
Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot”, she wrote with her explanation that she admired the
deceased Shiite Ayatollah’s person but not his ideas or his work61.
Cases such as Ms. Nasr’s, although perhaps might not having the same
consequences, are more frequent than it might seem in the world of journalism (García
de Torres et al., 2011), and this inevitably raises a series of question marks regarding
how journalists use social networks such as Twitter.
As a matter of fact, Chile in 2010 was a year that, as a result of a handful of events –
earthquake, tsunami, Sebastián Piñera’s presidency and the rescue of the 33 miners
trapped in the San José Mine – the use of social networks grew exponentially and
journalists and the traditional media were part of that growth.
So, the time has now come to ask ourselves what kind of a role do those Chilean
journalists and the media play in networks such as Twitter. In view of the nonexistence
of any academic studies in this direction – evidently because they are new – it appears
that a primary approximation is necessary.
With this in mind, the profiles of the journalists and the Chilean media will be analyzed
within the network of micro-blogging in order, on the one hand, to find out how they
became present in it and, on the other, how they behave once they are involved in it.
Only then can the next step be taken and thus assess whether using Twitter is
appropriate or not.
This working paper considers the first glimpses of a research of a tall order; one which
attempts not only to respond to the questions already mentioned, but also to try and
outline certain principles regarding how a social network that started out as being
personal, should be used professionally and corporatively.
Journalism and social networks
5 years in 140 characters
In its fifth year just recently celebrated, Twitter now has 175 million users around the
world62 and its impressive growth appears to know no bounds, at least in the short or
medium term. Among an immense and mind-boggling amount of social networks that
have seen the light of day since 1997 in the world (Boyd and Ellison, 2007), this one
has stood out because of its simplicity and usefulness at certain moments (examples in
Li & Rao, 2010 and Ad Age Staff, 2011) and it has attracted the attention of a
considerable range of researchers (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).
61
The New York Times, July 7 2010
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/bss/media8cnn.html?_r=2&scp=4&sq=octavia%20nasr&st=cse – LV: March
31, 2011).
62
Official information provided by Twitter (http://twitter.com/about - LV: March 31, 2011).
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Particular in Chile at the beginning of 2010, the number of unique users of Twitter
exceeded 100,000 and after the earthquake and tsunami that struck our country on
February 27, Chileans using the social network swung up explosively, mainly in an
effort to contact family and friends. Jenna Dawn, the director of communications of
Twitter mentioned off the record that the figure increased by 500% over a few days
only63.
Although in 2010 the number of new internauts increased by 16% - far below the
average for Latin America (21%) – the percentage of social networking is still higher
(91.1%) than the search/navigation category (89%) and the use of email (80.4%). In
Chile, access to social networks exceeds by far the world average (69.8%) and Latin
America as well (82.7%). Twitter, as a matter of fact, accounts for 9.8% of Chilean time
(7.1 million, ComScore, 2010).
Twitter’s web page is the 13th most visited page (Alexa.com – March 31, 2011), without
taking into consideration access to the social networking services through third party
applications such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Tweetie or Twitterific that account for 42%
of traffic (Sysomos. Com – March 31, 2011).
Twitter and journalism … or journalism and Twitter
Leaving to one side the important discussion regarding the real power of Twitter – and
social networks in general – in the social scheme of events (cfr. Hoboken, 2009;
Hindman, 2009 and Morozov, 2011), it is a fact that journalists and the media have not
remained on the sidelines where this micro-blogging network is concerned (Arceneaux
& Schmidz, 2009). Despite certain pessimistic views that journalism is at risk due to the
practically unlimited access to first hand information (Sauter, 2009. See also, but from
a business point of view, “The Two Sides of the Social Media” in Safko & Brake, 2009),
the idea that “journalism will survive but in a different way” (Garcia de Torres et al.,
2011) appears to be more accepted in academic circles and even the Internet and
social networks “might be creating a golden age for journalists” (Lenatti, 2009).
To date, the study conducted by Ahmad in 2010 is possibly the most accurate in
demonstrating “the fact that twitter was not as some people feared, being used as a
substitute for traditional forms of journalism, but rather supplementing them” (Ahmad,
2010. See also Dickerson, 2008 and Tremblay, 2010).
Following this line of thought, the role of the media in social networks such as Twitter
has been the object of study fairly often although, generally speaking, from a point of
view of the process of generating news and people’s participation in the networks in
that process (a good and interesting example is in Garcia de Torres, et el., 2011). This
perspective has led to interesting products which, however, do not tackle the ethical
aspects or good practices (see examples in Briggs, 2007 and Crucianelli, 2010).
63
This data was spread by several domestic media
(http://www.emol.com/noticias/tecnologia/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?id noticia=415360 – LV: March 31, 2011).
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Ramón Salaverría correctly summarizes the different conclusions reached when he
points out that “the media is limited to using the social networks almost exclusively for
publishing its contents” (2010; see Greer and Yan, 2010 along this same line of
thought).
The use that journalists often make of the social networks has been researched
somewhat less. Salaverría himself does not hesitate underscoring that “the journalist
who, either due to ignorance or out of scorn, turned his back on social networks, is not
doing his job properly” (2010b. see also Lebatti, 2009 and Cobos, 2010) which is
reinforced with research into the effects of Twitter and other social networks on
journalism in general or in particular, such as the case of sporting (Hutchins, 2011),
environmental (Hermida, 2010) or judicial (Cervantes, 2010) journalism.
We still find today that many journalists state that with Twitter, “the rules and roles
aren’t always clear” (Farhi, 2009), and they generally confuse what is personal with
what is professional and institutional. The challenge that journalists are faced with
today in a “reconciliation for that personal/organizational disconnect” is gravitating”
(Garber, 2011).
Along these lines , the Specialized Guidance of Reuters (http: bit.ly/XOjcm) has a
special section on Reporting from the Internet, updated on January 2, 2011, where in
the first place, it mentions that “reporters must never misrepresent themselves”,
including any participation in the Web which, at the same time, is an invitation “to
explore all new techniques for delivering news and information to our customers”, and it
goes on to explain that “the advent of social media does not change your relationship
with the company that employs you”.
From a professional point of view, Reuters requires authorization from the line manager
to use the word “Reuters” in the user name and to abide by the institutional Principles
of Trust. Moreover, it places a special emphasis on the fact that “micro-blogging and
the use of the social media tend to blur the distinction between professional and
personal lives: when using Twitter or the social media in a professional capacity you
should aim to be personable but not include irrelevant material about your personal
life”.
Lastly, a list is given of good and bad practices. Summing up, the journalist, among
other things, must be interesting, conversational, use links to external sites, monitor
other bloggers, inject some personality and credit the original source, whilst he must
avoid being opinionated, respond in anger and he must warn when a link is made to
material that infringes copyright.
Likewise, the BBC (http:/bbc.in/1EIZLT), the Washington Post (http://bit.ly/ewQUBs),
the New York Times (http://bit.ly/nFlsy), the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/9DoLMP),
the Radio Television Digital News Association (http://bit.ly/9fAAK0) and the American
Society of News Editors (http://bit/ly/h1b0Ko) all have guidelines that insist, in some
way or other and in more or less depth, that those codes “apply to all our content,
wherever and however it is received”. Nonetheless, the majority of the ethical codes
that exist in the media do not even mention that all of the principles defined previously
also apply to the use of social networks.
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Precisely from an ethical point of view, Jackie Bischof states that “a credible journalist
is able to adapt to new technologies, new forms of storytelling and new opportunities
while stubbornly remaining true to the ideas of the profession” (2010).
David Brewer emphasizes, just like Bischof, that the use of Twitter by journalists “does
not mean that journalistic ethics can be ditched”. There has simply been a change in
conduct or platform that implies a professional degree of adaptation in key aspects
such as accuracy, impartiality, fairness, offence, integrity and privacy (n.d.). Along
those same lines, Stevenson and Peck confirm the need for a “fresh ethical framework
for decision making and/or evaluating actions made online” (2011).
Justifying this research
In view of the foregoing, how journalists and the Chilean media behave in Twitter gives
rise to many approaches but, we feel that this needs to be done properly. In fact, it
would be far simpler giving examples which, in the same micro-blogging network, have
been commented – or openly criticized – at least locally.
Regarding the media, prominent is the accidental (presumably) of the corporate
account such as what occurred from @diariolahora which, on Monday March 28, 2011
launched a “I went for a crap”, which generated a certain level of criticism64 - not
without some humor - despite the explanations by the person in charge of that account
in the Wednesday edition of the complimentary daily65.
As regards journalists, the limit is usually more hazy. On April 1, the journalist
Fernando Paulsen (@fernandopaulsen) shot a harsh accusation through Twitter.
Within the framework of sexual abuses by a Chilean priest, the radio and TV journalist
referred to the declarations made by a cardinal regarding the difference – legal,
psychological and moral – between abusing a child of 8 and a teenager of 17, adding
later that “he is speaking from experience, I assume”66.
To tackle the good or bad practices of journalists and the media in Twitter when
referring to these types of examples is the right path to tread, but we believe that it
leads, on the one hand, to highlighting the most striking cases at the time and, on the
other, not making – potentially – good use of the social network in the remainder of the
hundreds or even thousands of tweets that those same accounts issue. As a matter of
fact, none of the large national dailies has pointed out – even mentioned – in their
professional codes of conduct as to how to act in or with the social networks. Neither
has the National Press Association announced anything in this regard, whilst the
64
Image from a tweet: http://twitpic.com/4ecdn4 (LV: March 31, 2011).
65
The explanation given in the daily in its hardcopy and electronic edition:
http://lahora.cl/2011/03/30/01/noticias(dos-monutos/2-7783-9-viral-por-accidente.shtml (LV: March 31, 2011).
66
http://twitter.com/#!/fernandopaulsen/status/53878704891375616 (LV: April 15, 2011).
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Chilean Association of Journalists, in its Code of Ethics rewritten in 2008
(http://bit.ly/bYK0y5) does not mention these aspects at all.
So, we believe that the way in which to properly approach a broader view as to the
good use of Twitter by journalists and the Chilean media, requires – although it
evidently means the long way round – a prior analysis of the identity of those
professionals and organizations in the Web and only then, how they make use of it.
This approach appears to be healthier – inasmuch that it also highlights what is positive
– and more realistic – because it considers the presence and independent use of it.
Methodology
A survey was conducted of 450 Chilean journalists in Twitter who, at the time of the
analysis, were actually exercising the profession in some or other national medium, as
well as a total of 70 Chilean media, also with a presence within that social network67.
So as to get to know the influence of those 520 accounts, the tool offered by Klout
(klout.com) was used; i.e. after analyzing 25 variables, a Klout Score is given that
oscillates between 0 and 100 and which implies quantifying the influence of a given
account in Twitter. Among the variables taken into consideration, not only the number
of followers is highlighted – which is none other than its popularity (See, for example,
Cha et al., 2010) – but also the amount of responses, retweets (RT), comments or
simply clicks that each tweet issued from an account generates.
Besides, Klout provides, among others, two metrics that are interesting for the aim of
this research. On the one hand is the so-called True Reach that refers to the volume of
relevant followers with which one interacts and shares interests, thus adjusting a total
that is often “contaminated” by robot accounts that are simply in charge of fictitiously
stuffing the number of real followers.
On the other hand, Klout provides a characterization of each account split up into 16
categories assigned depending on the public – followers and followings – as well as its
participation in the conversation. So, the accounts can be considered as Celebrity,
Taste Maker, Pundit, Thought Leader, Broadcaster, Curator, Feeder, Syndicator,
Networker, Socializer, Activist, Conversationalist, Dabbler or Observer68.
At the same time, the 520 accounts found in the total amount of journalists and Chilean
media were assigned the so-called TFF Ratio, which is none other than a division
between followers and followings of each address. Although the idea is now fairly
extended, the number of followers does not necessarily reflect the influence of one or
67
This total was obtained on the basis of the Guide to Chilean Journalists in Twitter published in 2010 on the
domestic web side “El Ojo del Medio”. http://www.ojodelmedio.cl/index.php/2010/07/05/la-guia-odm-de-losperiodistas-chilenos-en-twitter/ (LV: March 31, 2011). Updated and completed after checking the list of journalists
in Twitter.
68
For a more detailed description of the profiles yielded by Klout: http://klout.com/blog/2010/08/better-know-theklout-classes/ (LV: March 31, 2011).
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other account, but rather its popularity and the consideration of the TFF Ratio will
enable certain predispositions of journalists and media in Twitter to be assumed.
For the purpose of this working paper, after the Klout analysis, a sample was taken of
the 150 accounts of the most influential professionals and the 50 media that, likewise,
reached a high rate.
It thus became possible to begin to obtain interesting results with all and each one of
them, such as where – TV, radio, press or Internet – the journalists work or to which
media he/she belongs, the informative area – anchor, sports, culture and show
business, science and technology, tabloids or pure journalism – where the journalists
themselves work, what types of “Klout personalities” predominate, what is the average
TFF Ratio and what conclusions can be drawn.
Moreover, of the configurations of the accounts of the 150 journalists and the 50 media,
it was observed from the type of information – personal, professional and institutional –
that even the nature of the image with which that account is kept is published as a Bio.
Having said that, for this working paper, a more in-depth study was conducted into an
analysis of the use of Twitter by the 10 most influential journalists according to the
Klout index and a description is provided of the accounts of the 10 most influential
domestic media.
Of the 10 personal accounts, each tweet published during the March 1 to 31 period of
2011 was analyzed in order to determine their origin – original, dialogue or retweet
(RT) – and their intentions – informative, public use, reporting, own or third party
promotions, opinions or daily comments.
So, 8.328 tweets were analyzed and which preliminarily enabled it to be discovered
whether the journalists use Twitter in connection with their job of informing or as a
platform for furthering their own products and giving an opinion that, generally
speaking, they do not issue in their respective media.
Results
After applying the Klout Score of the overall influence of the accounts of Chilean
journalists in Twitter, the sample of the 150 who obtained the highest score was
extracted and which oscillated between 81 points (@tvn_mauricio) and the 50 points
(@jorgemolinas).
One first glance at the information from these accounts leads us to find out in what
sector the most influential Chilean journalists work in Twitter. As can be observed in
Figure 1, 42% of the journalists work in TV and 31% do so in radio, whilst 14% work for
the press and 14% in the Web.
It is fair to point out that a high percentage of the journalists selected work in more than
place at a time, particularly in radio and TV and where they obtain the highest Klout
Score influence. In fact, the journalists at the top of the list work in one and/or the other,
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with one journalist (@pamelajuanita) – placed 39 - appearing as prominently working
for the press.
Now, Figure 2 shows the information area where the journalists go about their work:
mainly sports (26%), anchors (23%) and pure journalism (22%).
It is no coincidence to discover that of the 10 most influential journalists in Twitter (see
Table 1), all devote some percentage of their work day to television and, at the same
time, anchor a news program or one of an informative nature. It might even be
deduced, in the light of these figures, that it is precisely TV exposure – and to a lesser
degree, radio – that gives these journalists the excuse to wield their influence. In fact, 6
of the 10 more influential ones are, at the same time, the ones who have more
followers; i.e. they are the most popular.
Regarding the characterization provided by Klout, of each one of the 150 most
influential Chilean journalists in Twitter, not everything is as it seems.
More than half of them (52%) respond to the Thought Leader profile; i.e. somebody
followed not only because of the information he gives out but also because of his
opinion on that information. So, a high percentage (35%) are identified as Specialists,
or someone who, albeit not a celebrity, does have a steady audience that listens to his
opinion with attention concerning a specific issue.
Figure 2. Distribution according area
(150 most influential journalists in Twitter)
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As can be seen in Figure 3, the remainder of the most influential Chilean journalists in
Twitter are spread among such characterizations as: an Explorer (5%) or someone
who shares and also creates news, a Broadcaster (3%) or someone who spreads
information widely, a Taste Maker (3%) or someone who identifies trends and extends
them, a Feeder (1%) or someone who has a faithful following and an Activist (1%) or
Figure 3. Distribution according to Klout personality
(150 most influential journalists in Twitter)
someone who you can count on to defend certain ideas.
Having said this, an analysis of a configuration of the accounts of the 150 most
influential journalists in Twitter provides data that could also be termed interesting as
one can see in Figures 4 and 5.
Almost half of them (48%) provide information of a professional and institutional nature
in their Bios without referring to anything else. On the other hand, 17% of the
journalists exclusively provide information of a personal nature without mentioning their
profession or the institution they belong to. Half way in between, 42% of the journalists
mention personal characteristics, they specify their profession and they state the
name/s of the companies they work for. In this same sense, no less significant is the
fact that 14% of the most influential Chilean journalists in Twitter do not mention their
Bios in their accounts at all.
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Figure 4. Information on Biographies
Figure 5. Image of the account (150 most
influential journalists in Twitter)
Regarding the image that identifies each one of the accounts of these journalists, the
journalist’s personal photo predominates, whilst 17% reflect the image of an animal, a
fictional person, a celebrity or some other.
@jisa39
@pamelajuanita
@Skoknic
@sebaeyzaguirre7
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The address of the accounts as such, in their vast majority (90%), do not refer to the
medium in which the journalist is working. Only 15 accounts have among their user
names something that identifies them with where they work and, of them, not all of the
Figure 6. 10 periodistas chilenos más influyentes en Twitter
(Índice Klout del 31/03/11)
Image
Name
Media
Mauricio Bust amant e
Televisión
Nacional
@t vn_mauricio
KLOUT Value
TFF Rat io
81
342,9
75
772,6
CNN Chile
74
9,6
Canal 13 (*)
74
3623,3
73
329
73
512,7
73
423,5
73
561,8
Radio Infinit a
Chilevisión
Fernando Paulsen
ADN Radio
@fernandopaulsen
El Post
Christ ián Pino
@christ ianpino
Soledad Onet t o
@soledadonet t o
Mega
Rodrigo Sepúlveda
ADN Radio
@rodrigosepu
Terra.cl
Felipe Bianchi
Chilevisión
@bianchileit on
ADN Radio
Mónica Pérez
@mxperez
Televisión
Nacional
Mat ías Del Rio
Chilevisión
@mat iasdelrio
ADN Radio
journalists working in a medium are found, so it can be deduced that, apparently, there
does not exist an institutional policy regarding this or, if there is one, then not all of the
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journalists live up to it. Moreover, only one journalist (@tvn_mauricio) has his account
vouched for by Twitter.
Figure 7. Tweets Origin (10 most influential
journalists in Twitter)
Regarding the periodic use that the 10 most influential journalists make of Twitter,
figure 7 and figure 8 exhibit in a global mode the origin and the intention of every tweet.
Respect of the origin of the actualizations done by the 10 chilean journalist with
more influence in Chile during march 2011, one third of them are absolutely original
from the journalists; and 5% of them are Retweets (RT) from information provided from
third party.
Figure 8. Tweets Intention (10 most
influential journalists in Twitter)
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The remaining percent - over 60%- are part from the dialogues that the journalists
support with other members of the community of twitter and that without a context they
do not provide finished information if the person do not acceded to the Timeline of that
conversation.
The previous point suggest that journalists get in contact with their followers, but in a
high percentage of the them the contact is a reply of a previous tweet. The figure is a
very similar at a chat service.
About the intention of the tweets, the global analysis from the 10 more influencial
accounts proves the idea that twitter is use for supporting dialogues that are only
understand in the context of a Timeline (40% of the tweets).
25% of the analyzed tweets are only informative and 12% are the opinion of the
journalists about current affairs. Only the 4% of the tweets respond to the category of
reporting, a very insignificant number.
Profile of the Chilean media in Twitter
The presence of the Chilean media in Twitter also has some certain interesting
characteristics. In the first place, as can be observed in Figure 9, only 10% of the 72
Chilean media analyzed in Twitter belong to TV and 20% to Radio. The press – either
in hardcopy or on the Web – lead the pack with 70% of domestic influence. Our
Figure 9. Distribution according media (10
most influential media in Twitter)
attention is drawn, to say the least, to the fact that whilst the most influential Chilean
journalists work in television, it is the press that dominates their influence in Twitter, In
that sense then, also, worth mentioning is that the Klout Score, both for the journalists
as well as the most influential media, is fairly similar.
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With the data we now have in the analysis concerning journalists, the conclusion can
be drawn that – with only one circumstantial exception – the most influential journalists
do not work in any of the media – not only in their place of work – who got higher marks
in the Klout Score. This is worth noting inasmuch that the journalist’s relationship is
considered to be professional, a face and/or a voice.
Figure 10. 10 most influential Chilean media in Twitter
(Klout Score - 31/03/11)
Media
KLOUT
Score
TFF Ratio
82
15,8
Media
KLOUT
Score
TFF Ratio
75
15.342,3
75
830,2
74
1,1
74
0
71
N/A
El Mostrador
Radio Biobio
@elmostrador
@biobio
Terra
Cooperativa
79
369,1
@terrachile
@cooperativa
EMOL
(El Mercurio On
77
Line)
La Tercera.com
1,5
@laterceracom
@emol
Publimetro
The Clinic
@PublimetroCh 77
ile
0,3
@thecliniccl
La Tercera
CNN Chile
77
@cnnchile
2.933,8
@latercera
Of the 10 media with the highest Klout Score, our attention is immediately drawn to the
presence of two accounts associated with the newspaper La Tercera and the behavior
of each one of these accounts: whilst one (@latercera) uploads an automated delivery
of news every hour, the other (@latercera.com) is an account that, besides providing
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the printed version of the information, provides other informative aspects and it relates
to whoever follows its tweets.
It is therefore not surprising that the former has no following but 55,000 followers and it
has issued 125,000 tweets, whilst the latter is less followed (a little over 35,000
followings) but it follows more than 33,000 and it has tweeted almost 20,000 times.
This latter is a less popular account, considerably more moderate in its tweets and with
a greater contact with its followers – messages and RT – which probably makes it more
influential according to the Klout Score.
It is worth mentioning that the 72 media analyzed have a logo or an image that is
characteristic of the institute, whilst 71% of them exclusively mention the name and
nature of the medium in their Bios, whilst 26% simply do not have any biographic data
at all.
Discussion and preliminary conclusions
Conscious that the analysis – even with the date provided in this working paper – might
be considerably harsher, we believe that at least what has been mentioned is sufficient
for beginning a debate along two parallel lines.
On the one hand, there appears to be a weak relationship in Twitter between journalist
and the specific medium where he/she works. Although it is true that some
professionals use the social network for promoting the products in their organizations,
there is no correlation between the influence wielded by the journalists and that of the
media they work for.
There does appear to exist, however, a much stronger relationship between the
influence of the journalists and the role – news programs – they play in their media and
which, as a matter of fact, is usually TV and/or radio. The journalist’s exposure would
appear to have more weight whilst working for a mass medium than his/her
participation in a given medium.
Secondly, Twitter is used by Chilean professionals in a limited way for reporting and
information. The most important use is in its origin and intention for conversations with
their followers, that are mostly colloquial.
This then means – and here is where we reach the final aim of the overall
research to which this working paper belongs – conducting an overall exploration into
the use of the social networks within journalistic work.
There does not appear, for the time being, to be a reflection by the institutions and the
professionals who belong to them – in Chile anyway – in relation to the correct use of
the social networks either as a source of information, a channel for own or institutional
means or a personal journalist-follower relationship.
There are valuable initiatives in this sense then, such as the Forum of Digital
Journalism that has been held annually since 2009 in Rosario (Argentina) and the
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encounter led by the Forum of Argentine Journalists last April, precisely held to deal
with Twitter and Facebook in the media.
In Chile, meanwhile, except for a few isolated initiatives which are exclusively
academic in their content, there is hardly any reflection on this matter, in fact, a lot less
than the industry itself often thinks.
End Note
This working paper is part and parcel of a major research that is still in progress
developed by both authors as well as by a group of pre-grade students from the
Communication Faculty of the Universidad de los Andes (Santiago, Chile).
For further information or suggestions regarding this material or the research in which it
is enshrined, please get in touch with Alberto López-Hermida Russo at [email protected]
or on Twitter (@albertopedro).
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A Multifaceted Study of Online News Diversity: Issues and Methods
Emmanuel Marty*, Nikos Smyrnaios**, Franck Rebillard*
*University of Paris 3, France
**University of Toulouse, Franc
Abstract
Evaluating the pluralism of online journalism is both a major issue for democracy and
an academic challenge for researchers. The multiplicity of online news outlets and the
complexity of news consumption patterns make it particularly difficult to estimate the
degree of pluralism that the web is supposed to embody. In 2010 and 2011 we carried
out a research project called IPRI (Internet, Pluralism and Redundancy of Information)
that combined quantitative and qualitative methods and aimed at measuring the
diversity of online news in France through a transdisciplinary study. The purpose of this
paper is to present the theoretical and methodological issues of our study.
Keywords: Agenda-setting, pluralism, diversity, redundancy, media, journalism,
methodology
Evaluating the pluralism of online journalism is both a major issue for democracy and
an academic challenge for researchers. The multiplicity of online news outlets and the
complexity of news consumption patterns make it particularly difficult to estimate the
degree of pluralism that the web is supposed to embody. Thus, only a combination of
multileveled analyses combining quantitative and qualitative research methods is able
to give a satisfying answer. Our research project called IPRI (Internet, Pluralism and
Redundancy of Information)69 aimed at measuring the diversity of online news in
France, through a transdisciplinary study of several categories of websites (online
media, portals, blogs, pure-players). Our purpose here is to present the theoretical
issues and the methods of our study.
69
The research programme IPRI (Internet, pluralisme et redondance de l’information) was supported by a grant
from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-09-JCJC-0125–01b ). Several research teams specialized in media
studies and computing science are involved in the program: CIM (University of Paris 3, France), ELICO (University of
Lyon, France), LERASS (University of Toulouse 3, France), CRAPE (University of Rennes 1, France), GRICIS (UQAM –
Montreal, Canada), LIRIS (INSA Lyon, France).
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Theoretical framework
The degree of pluralism of opinions in the public sphere is a major political and social
issue that greatly depends on the diversity of journalism and media: the more diverse
are the media, the better will the public be informed on current affairs and social
stakes. This ideal type of the public sphere, largely derived from the work of Jürgen
Habermas (1991), has inspired journalists, essayists as well as policy makers into
considering the internet as a sort of paragon of democracy (Hindman, 2009). The
reasoning is simple: since online publication is much easier and cheaper than
traditional forms of mass communication, then mediated public expression becomes
affordable to every citizen that has access to the internet. This argument has been
used for instance in several governmental reports (Lancelot 2005; Tessier 2007) but
also in reports produced by supranational organizations such as the UN and the EU on
the advent of the so called “ information society ” (Bangemann, 1994; UN, 2005). More
generally, the web is seen as a means for marginal cultural and informational products
to reach easily a larger public than they do through traditional distribution channels, to
the point of overtopping traditional best-sellers. This idea was particularly popularized
by Chris Anderson and his Long Tail theory (Anderson, 2006).
This seducing but somewhat simplistic vision has been since challenged by empirical
research (Benghozi & Benhamou, 2010; Elberse & Oberholzer-Gee, 2008; Brynjolfsson
et al., 2006). Among other things this deterministic approach ignores the fact that, over
the last years, the internet has become a field of fierce competition between social
groups, political organizations and giant corporations for the distribution of power to
control the digital communication outlets (Mansell, 2004). As a result, the contemporary
online news sector is the result of a complex set of relations established between
professional media, amateur content producing communities and powerful
intermediaries such as Google (Rebillard & Smyrnaios, 2010). From this point of view,
the electronic public sphere is more likely to be considered as a conflicting arena,
rather than a peaceful marketplace of ideas (Peters, 2004), where news and politics
embody rival editorial, political and industrial strategies (Mosco, 2009; Fenton, 2009).
Thus, online news diversity depends greatly on the outcome of those strategies and the
balance of power between players.
Furthermore, such a complex media environment is characterized by two other
particular aspects, compared to traditional media: first, the enormous quantity of
information daily produced and reproduced online by a large spectrum of entities
provokes a situation of oversupply – a tendency that is intrinsic to the cultural
industries, but has been exacerbated on the web (Hesmondhalgh, 2007); secondly, this
information is systematically computerized, that is stored and/or processed in systems
of computers and networks. This digital content supply is then provided to millions of
users around the globe through a multiplicity of channels and tools (rss feeds, search
engines, social networks, personalized portals, blogs etc.) that allow complex social
interaction – from mere transmission to in depth transformation of the information (Im et
al., 2011). This multilayered process of production and circulation of online news
produces coexisting and contradictory tendencies balancing between redundancy and
pluralism (Smyrnaios et al., 2010).
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Thus, if one aims in a deep and comprehensive study of such a complex and
challenging issue as the question of online news diversity, traditional methods in social
science fall short. In order to harness research grounds that produce vast quantities of
data one needs to combine an approach moored in humanities and social sciences
with automated computerized methods. One set of methods in this field is that of
classic quantitative content analysis applied on media messages (Riffe et al., 2005).
Another set of innovative methods is provided by the so-called "digital methods"
(Rogers, 2009).
Content analysis
Quantitative computerized methods have been used at least since the 90’s in order to
analyze large corpuses of media content. Such approaches aimed for example in
exposing journalistic biases in news coverage that can be explained by corporate
ownership of media (Gilens & Hertzman, 2000), culturally and nationally bound
journalistic practices (Brossard et al., 2004) or journalist gender differences (Rodgers &
Thorson, 2003). The rise of perpetually evolving online content brought about the need
for tools that can perform content analysis close to real-time (Krstajic & al., 2010).
Furthermore, computerized content analysis has also been applied in order to test the
agenda setting effect (Meijer & Kleinnijenhuis, 2006) as defined in media studies
(Dearing & Rogers, 1992). Other research focused on methodological problems. For
instance Jörg Matthes and Matthias Kohring (2008) provided an alternative procedure
that aims at improving reliability and validity of content analysis on media frames,
based on the definition advanced by R. M. Entman (1993). For Baumgartner and
Mahoney, « methodological advances in computer science now allow much greater
use of complex analytic schemes, assisted by computer technologies (not driven by
them) to measure the relative use of different frames by different actors in the
process. » (2008: 447).) In a comparable approach, Thomas Koenig (2006) introduced
a step-by-step program for frame identification and measurement. Frames are
identified with analysis techniques borrowed from sociolinguistics, discourse analysis,
and content analysis in order to perform international comparative studies. Koening
insists on the epistemological necessity of combining quantitative and qualitative
methods in content analysis. Indeed, purely quantitative methods tend “to be deductive
in that theory-based categorical schemes and coding rules are developed before
conducting the analysis of data from subjects or documents” (Waltz et al., 2010: 279).
Moreover, such procedures may be deeply positivist assuming that concepts should
arise unmediated from the data and falsely “objective” (Koenig, 2005).
Digital methods
One of the most active fields of research that puts in use computerized data is the “new
science of networks” that combines a long tradition of network analysis in social
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science with graph theory in discrete mathematics (Watts, 2004). The basic idea of this
approach is that real-world networks are both partly ordered and partly random and
that some of their properties can be embodied by mathematical models. In addition to
that, the structure of a network is not considered as neutral, but rather as having major
implications for the collective dynamics of the system the network represents. This
theoretical framework has been applied in numerous empirical studies including
metabolic reaction networks, biological neural networks or transportation and
information networks. Henceforth, the rise of the internet as a mass media provides
researchers in social sciences with a critical and abundant material because it
concentrates and records mediated human activity in an unprecedented scale.
According to Richard Rogers, alongside with classic social scientific armature, like
interviews, surveys and observations should be applied natively digital methods that
ground claims about cultural change and societal conditions in online dynamics
(Rogers, 2010). This consists in inverting dominant epistemological approaches and
asking what claims about reality may be made on the basis of digital measures. Such
an approach allows large-scale analyses of big corpuses, which suppose a certain
level of abstraction, while still considering the data as indices in the sense of Charles S.
Peirce: in this case they take the form of “digital traces” of social activity left on web
servers.
Empirical grounds
Recently, number of scientific surveys has applied a mix of digital methods and
traditional methods in social sciences in order to address issues related to online news
circulation and diversity. For instance, Serena Carpenter has carried out a comparative
study on content diversity in order to determine whether online citizen journalism and
online newspaper publications were serving this function in the USA (Carpenter, 2010).
Even though in this case the process of collecting content online was largely
automated, the actual analysis was mostly manual. Undoubtedly, this constraint
impacts the quality of the results because of the disproportion that emerges between a
very voluminous corpus on the one hand and qualitative analysis on the other, that
limits itself in the identification of big news stories. Leskovec et al. (2009) showed how
a meme-tracking approach can provide with a representation of what the authors call
the “news cycle”, meaning the patterns of news circulation through websites, blogs and
social networks over time. In this case, both the tracking and the analysis methods
were computerized and allowed the authors to process a huge amount of data (90
million news articles).
This kind of primarily quantitative approach of online information was boosted recently
by the development of Twitter. Many quantitative studies conducted through automated
data extraction from the Twitter API are designed to map the flow of information inside
the network and classify user groups and message groups (Cha et al., 2010; Kwak et
al., 2010). Others process huge corpuses extracted from Twitter in order to examine
the structure of distribution of connections and activity among the network’s members
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(Huberman et al.; 2010, Heil & Piskorski, 2009; Krishnamurthy et al. 2008; Java et al.,
2007).
Closer to our subject, a recent study by Asur et al. (2010) explicitly tried to test the
agenda-setting hypothesis and its time patterns on data collected through the Twitter
API. The findings showed that there are few topics that last for a long time in users’
messages, while most of them fade out rapidly. They also revealed that traditional
notions of user influence such as the frequency of posting and the number of followers
are not the main drivers of trends. What actually triggers a long lasting trend on Twitter
over a certain issue is the dominant position of this issue in the media agenda. In this
respect, Twitter, and social media in general, behave as a “selective amplifiers” for the
content produced by traditional media. Similar findings were also made by Yang and
Leskovec (2011) regarding time patterns of dissemination of news on social networks
and agenda setting effects of traditional media. Their study revealed that both the
adoption of hashtags in Twitter and the propagation of quoted phrases on the web
exhibit nearly identical temporal patterns. For instance press agency news exhibits a
very rapid rise followed by a relatively slow decay, whereas news stories that are
discussed by bloggers may experience several rebounds in popularity.
These empirical implementations of the theoretical frame of the new science of
networks and of automated content analysis produces interesting results but at the
same time raises serious epistemological and methodological questions from the social
scientist’s point of view. Indeed, frequently there is a tendency of overreliance on
concepts, categories and figures provided by the network operators themselves (e.g.
Twitter’s Trending Topics, Google Trends’ Unique Visitors or Facebook’s Like Buttons
statistics). Yet for a humanity scholar these are artifacts that need to be deconstructed
and explained. If they are completely opaque, like the examples mentioned above, the
researcher finds himself confronted to a technological black-box effect (Rieder & Röhle,
2010). Similarly, not all digital traces left on the web have the same value as
explanatory tools of social practices: writing a long blog post isn’t the same thing as
poking a Facebook “friend” or performing a search on Google. This means that the
race to the “biggest corpus” is useless without suitable reflection prior to the collection
of data on what one measures and why. Finally, as Duncan Watts points out,
interpreting empirical data of this nature is tricky: “in a symbolic relationship it is
frequently unclear how network metrics such as degree, path length, or centrality
should be interpreted with respect to their consequences for some particular social,
physical, or biological process (…), these relationships involve different kinds of social
interactions, but because the interactions themselves are underspecified, the network
alone cannot be said to reveal much about actual social processes” (2004: 254). This
means that real-world networks metrics should systematically be put in perspective in
regard to the socio-economic determinants of social relations.
A case study: the IPRI research project
In 2010 and 2011 we carried out a research project called IPRI (Internet, Pluralism and
Redundancy of Information) aimed at measuring the diversity of online news in France
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through a transdisciplinary study. Its main aspect was a quantitative analysis of a
sample of thousands of articles: we created a software called IPRI News Analyzer
(IPRI-NA)70 to collect and process automatically headlines from tenths of news sites
through rss feeds. We then developed a semi-manual classification method based on
the data collected by IPRI-NA as means to test the agenda-setting effect in online
news. This revealed the variety of issues and the types of websites generating
diversity, compared to those leading to redundancy. We then doubled the sample of
news headlines composed by IPRI-NA with a collection of tweets produced by a
sample of French users in order to test potential discrepancies between online news
agenda setting and Twitter users’ preferences. In order to deepen our overview of
French online journalism landscape, several other analyses were led. First, the “offered
pluralism”, as measured by the initial quantitative study, was confronted to “consumed
pluralism” through traffic analysis based on statistics of news sites audiences. Then, a
qualitative study of full text news articles allowed us to identify the use of particular
media frames, strategic cues and linguistic routines. Finally, we made a comparison
between our results concerning the internet and another study related to TV news, to
understand how the internet contributes to the diversity of news in a larger media
landscape.
Figure 1: a capture of IPRI News Analyzer
70
The IPRI News Analyzer software was developed by Samuel Gesche, Elöd Egyed-Zsigmond and Cyril Laitang. It is
distributed under a Creative Commons Licence http://liris.cnrs.fr/ipri/pmwiki/index.php?n=Public.IpriNA
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Sampling process of sources
The first step was to choose the news websites that would be part of our study. The
perimeter that we defined is that of French websites that cover mainly current affairs
and politics. Consequently we excluded from our sample sources that focus on
particular domains such as sport, finance or technology for example. Through a
meticulous census of different directories we established an exhaustive list of 98
general interest French news websites composed as follows:
- 42 online media: digital outlets of traditional media firms such as newspapers,
magazines, press agencies, television and radio stations. These structures employ
professional journalists and are often part of conglomerates and media groups.
- 14 portals and aggregators: high-traffic websites, belonging to large corporations of
the telecom and web services industry, which outsource their news pages to press
agencies and other media (e.g. Yahoo, Orange or MSN) or package and deliver deep
links to news content on third-party sites (e.g. Wikio and Google News).
- 42 pure-players: news websites without an offline counterpart that employ
professional journalists (e.g. Slate.fr) and participatory journalism websites that publish
user-generated content (e.g. Agoravox).
We added to this list 111 blogs that we selected out of several hundred that we
discovered using the Navicrawler71 software over blog directories. We then made sure
through thorough observation that the selected blogs met the criteria of covering mainly
current affairs and politics. The whole sample of sources in its final version included
209 news sites and blogs.
Data collection, topic identification and analysis
The second step was the data collection made via the IPRI-NA software. The software
performed real-time crawling of the sources, using their rss feeds, in order to extract
different sorts of data: the headlines of the articles, the first lines of the articles included
in the rss feeds which we refer to as descriptions, the name of the source that
published each article and the hour and date of publication. The crawling took place
throughout March 2011 on a 24-hour basis. The average number of headlines collected
by IPRI-NA each day was 3,500. The gathered data were processed in order to extract
the most frequent lemmatic keywords (canonical forms of lexemes in the text) which
gave us a diachronic and global overlook of the media agenda through the studied
period.
The third step was the identification and measurement of the news agenda through a
smaller period. We focused on a particular period of eleven days, between March 7
and 18 2011, in order to perform a more detailed statistical analysis of the headlines:
we classified all the headlines published by our sample sources in that period
71
http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/navicrawler/
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according to the topic they were related to. Our definition of a ‘topic’ is that of an event
that occurred in a specific spatiotemporal context. A ‘topic’ becomes a ‘story’ or an
article after it has been recounted as such by journalists (Esquenazi, 2002; Ringoot &
Rochard, 2005). A topic is much broader than a story, in the sense that it can be
approached through different angles or frames, but still refers to the same facts. For
example the headline « Libya: violent battles in Ras Lanouf » was classified in the topic
« Insurrection in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime ». In order to identify the
different topics of the news agenda throughout the eleven days and to link each
headline to one of those topics, we used a computer-assisted and inductive method.
This classification allowed us to measure the number of articles dedicated to each
topic. By proceeding in this way, we were able embrace the spectrum of issues
covered by French news sites throughout the period of eleven days.
We carried out the operation of classification using IPRI-NA. First, we applied a
clustering method to our corpus of article headlines on the basis of repeated phrase
segments. Second, we overlapped the URLs of collected articles in our database with
URLs of articles from Google News that were already clustered by that service. These
two preliminary processes allowed us to spot the most redundant topics in our data and
to attach an important number of headlines to them. Finally, it was necessary to carry
out a manual categorization of headlines into less frequent topics that it was impossible
to identify through a computerized method. Such a qualitative approach raises the
question of arbitrariness. Nevertheless, this solution appeared to be the least biased
since the nature of editorial content does not allow a purely automated categorization.
This initial treatment led to the creation of a database including several parameters: the
name of the web source, the article headlines and descriptions that it published, the
hour and date of publication and the topic to which each headline referred to.
In the fourth and final step of this phase of our research, relying on this classification,
we calculated the degree of headline distribution among topics, by applying the
concepts of variety and balance that have been previously used in the field of cultural
industries (Benhamou & Peltier, 2006; 2007). Variety in this case depends on the
number of topics that we isolated in our sample of headlines. The more topics there are
in the media agenda during a given period the more pluralistic this agenda can
potentially be. Balance on the other hand depends on the number of headlines per
topic. If a great number of headlines are concentrated in a few topics then the news
agenda is redundant. Finally, we focused on the wording of the headlines. For this
analysis we used textual statistics (Lebart et al., 1998), also called lexicometrics, to
compare the vocabulary used by the different categories of sources, as previously
described. The combination of this wide range of methods gives us a multifaceted view
of the issue of pluralism in online news production. Our findings suggest that both
tendencies, redundancy and diversity, appear to coexist in our sample, each one being
enhanced by different categories of websites.
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Qualitative analysis
As we saw previously tracking pluralism and redundancy in the online media discourse
demands not only strictly quantitative methods, such as statistics about variety and
balance, but also more qualitative methods based on discourse analysis and semiotics.
An example of pertinent use of basically qualitative content analysis methods in order
to record the evolution of the media agenda over time is the News Coverage Index of
the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (State of the Media,
2011). In complement we held such a qualitative analysis upon a full text corpus of all
articles released in a single day and dealing with two particular topics « Insurrection in
Libya against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime » and « Marine Le Pen tops French
Presidential poll rating ». This analysis was carried out through different steps: a
manual collecting of the articles, a computer assisted pre-analysis leading to a rational
sampling of representative articles, and finally a two-sided content analysis of
discourse and image.
First, full text articles were gathered directly from their respective websites on the basis
of keyword requests. The gathering consisted basically in a manual copy-paste of the
text and a screenshot of the article (thanks to the software ScreenGrab72). Then, the
textual corpus was pre-analyzed with the lexicometrics software IRAMUTEQ73, based
on hierarchical cluster analysis (for technical details see Reinert, 2007) in order to
identify the different frames conveyed by the different articles. Based on this first
analysis, having identified several frames through their specific use of particular words,
we managed to process a rational sampling of the corpus, leading to a selection of
twenty articles, representative of both the different media frames and the different
categories of sites using those frames.
Finally, the qualitative analysis itself was made including textual approach of speech
acts and semiotic analysis of images and of graphic settings of the web pages. The
discursive analysis was mainly based on the identification of the “voices” taking on the
different frames, the use of reported speech by journalists in their stories and media
discursive strategies (narrative, descriptive or argumentative), linked to the distinction
made by Iyengar (1991) between episodic and thematic framing. Concerning graphic
and iconic settings of the sites, the analysis based on the screenshots aimed at
identifying the weight of technical constraints on the graphic landscape of the sites as
well as their interactive potentialities. It also qualified crucial editorial and journalistic
choices, such as the type of picture used, their nature and their symbolic relation with
the text. All these elements combined are seen as a means to create a particular
relationship to the web users of the site that the study aimed at identifying.
Consumed diversity and social intermediation
72
http://www.screengrab.org/
73
IRAMUTEQ is a free software developed by Pierre Ratinaud http://sourceforge.net/projects/iramuteq/
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A crucial factor concerning the question of diversity and pluralism is their dual nature
(Benhamou & Peltier, 2006). On the one hand, there is the diversity offered, that is the
spectrum of choices offered to the public. On the other hand, there is the diversity
consumed, meaning the actual choices that the public makes among those that are
possible. Even if the existence of diversity offered is a sine qua non condition for
diversity consumed, it is not a sufficient one. In the case of an extreme concentration of
online audiences into a small number of sources, even if the spectrum of online
information is very wide, pluralism is not effective. Furthermore, consumers of online
news are not limited in simple reception and interpretation of messages. They’re also
engaged in online activities, such as sharing, rebroadcasting and commenting news,
that constitute techno-social intermediations.
In the first part of our study we focused on the problem of news diversity on the supply
side. In order to take into account the consumption side, through consumed diversity
and social intermediation, we associated the topics we found through our quantitative
analysis of the online media agenda with traffic and unique visitors’ statistics as well as
with data collected on Twitter. Combining traffic data of the AT Internet site-centric
solution with user-centric measures from Médiamétrie74 we were able to determinate
which news topics were the most popular ones among those present in our sample of
news headlines. In other words, we were able to compare the online media agenda to
the preferences of the public as they were measured by two different methods and
institutes.
Figure 2: a capture of Tweetism
At the same time, we operated a similar comparison of the online news agenda to
sharing preferences of French Twitter users using a software we created called
74
http://www.mediametrie.fr/ and http://en.atinternet.com/
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Tweetism75. The sampling technique we opted for was a combination of manual and
automated procedures. Our goal was not to obtain the most voluminous sample of
tweets possible, but to meet a crucial criterion: collect the messages of users with
special interest in French current affairs and politics. After an initial exploratory survey,
we hand-picked a base sample of 400 accounts, composed of French journalists,
politicians, and internet activists. A quick check showed that these highly visible
individuals were, in fact, among the most mentioned and retweeted accounts in the
French Twittersphere. Starting with these accounts, we explored the network vicinity by
recuperating all friends and followers (n+1). To keep our sample manageable, we
reduced this number through several techniques netting the sample to around 22 000
Twitter accounts. We then compared over the same period of one month the URLs of
news articles shared by these users in Twitter to those collected initially by IPRI-NA
and organized into topics. In this way we managed to shed light on discrepancies that
arouse between what online media consider to be “big stories”, thus much covered by
many different sources, and what users share on Twitter. Each time we explored topic
propagation on Twitter we examined in parallel the particular characteristics
(nationality, language, profession, age, interests, network of friends) of the users that
were actively sharing links to articles related to particular topics in order to identify
patterns, profiles and key user groups.
Transmedia comparison and relative diversity
In a first version of this project (Smyrnaios et al., op. cit.) we met justified criticism on a
crucial aspect of our interpretation method: measuring online news alone is not
sufficient in order to obtain an evaluation of its relative diversity compared to other
media. So the last facet of the study focused on a juxtaposition of that kind. Thanks to
a collaboration with the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel ( INA)76, we were able to
compare the online news agenda as we measured it to the one of French television.
Since many years, the INA institute weekly publishes a list with the news topics
(variety) treated by all the channels in France, established through a manual method.
This list includes the time devoted to each one of the topics by all the TV news shows
(balance). Such a comparison allowed us to put our results in perspective and open
new horizons for future research.
End Note
Emmanuel Marty is a post-doctoral fellow in the CIM research group and a sessional
lecturer in information and communication sciences. Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
75
Tweetism was developed by Raphaël Velt and Bernhard Rieder.
76
The Institut National de l’Audiovisuel is a French Institute in charge of the archiving and promotion of mainly
radio and TV broadcasting.
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Paris 3 - PRES Sorbonne
[email protected]
Paris-Cité
-
CIM
(EA
1484).
Contact:
Nikos Smyrnaios is a lecturer (‘Maître de conférences’) in communication and
information sciences at the University of Toulouse, France. He is member of the
LERASS research group.
Franck Rebillard is a professor in communication and information sciences. Université
Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 - PRES Sorbonne Paris-Cité - CIM (EA 1484).
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The Growing Impact of Video in Online News Genres
Samuel Negredo
University of Navarra, Spain
Abstract
The late development of video in the context of online news operations adds to existing
typologies of online news genres, mainly derived from the study of print journalism. The
very existence of video sections in news websites, and the diversity in their architecture
and in the volume of content, determine the procedures to establish a census of
published items, as well as other methods of analysis. Video expands the multimedia
aspects of online news, developing the codes of many established genres and being a
driving force for heterogeneity among them.
Keywords: online journalism, online video, news genres, multimedia, research methods
Introduction
The development of multimedia features in online journalism is better understood in a
context of evolution. Video fits in established typologies of online news genres; the
question is how to combine already existing methods to systematize the mix of written
and audiovisual forms of journalistic expression. This paper addresses specifically the
processes of building a census by retrieving all videos within a given timeframe, and
deciding on what categories to use for further analysis of the presence of diverse news
genres in online video. It is part of an ongoing PhD thesis project that explores the
editorial impact of the development and growth of video production in online news
operations in Spain.
Such effort is relevant both to updating the news genres framework for online
journalists, and to reinforcing the audiovisual mindset in online journalism training, fitted
to the technical possibilities and expressive features enabled by digital production and
current presentation technologies on the internet.
The addition of video unleashes several simultaneous movements in the system of
online news genres: it stimulates diversity, enabling the generation of new branches,
and it brings some aspects closer to broadcast journalism, while making them diverge
further from their counterparts in print. This ongoing transformation is both part of and
shaped by media convergence, and must be taken into account so that the
classification used for any analysis will be suited to the current reality of the offer in
online news video, a media form which was scarce in Spanish online newspapers as
late as in the mid 2000s, because of the cost and constraints associated with
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bandwidth, and because of production being labour-intensive and expensive, too
(López, 2005: 464-465; Salaverría & Cores, 2005: 167).
Based on analysis of several news websites, Micó and Masip (2008: 103) state that the
quantity of videos in Spanish online media has increased in recent years, even if video
still plays a subsidiary role, with the purpose to support the text, contextualize or show
what is difficult to express with words, and not as part of a multimedia storytelling effort.
As a result of innovations in how multimedia types and interactive functions are
combined, formats become more relevant, as opposed to legacy genres inherited from
print or newspaper journalism. Nevertheless, these typologies keep their status as
frameworks for journalistic production and consumption, in the sense that if journalists
follow certain codes, readers, viewers or users will know what to expect from them:
reporting, analysis, advocacy. This raises the need to update this classifications to
integrate the most recent instances of new media forms.
The connections between media platforms and the genres that occur within them have
been broadly analyzed. According to Palacios & Díaz Noci (2009: 23), reseachers
assume that the medium defines the units of discourse, to such an extent that it is
taken for granted. In television news, text is only complementary or subordinated to the
images, and is best kept short (Armentia & Caminos, 2009: 107-108). Splitting content
up and linking it are basics in Bradshaw’s principles for online journalism (2008), be it
in text or video form, in order to achieve both brevity and depth. This complexity will be
generally more suited to feature-style stories (Larrondo, 2009: 155-156).
As the boundaries between news, information and entertainment are blurred,
“Each Web genre has specific demands and production needs. Some mimic TV
formats such as news and talk shows, often with a twist, a new approach, or a new
point of view. Others are unique to the Web, like the growing library of short, visual
how-to and educational videos showing up on many popular sites. There are also
dramas, documentaries, and oral histories you’d never see on TV”. (Bourne et al, 2009:
17).
Video suits informative, interpretative, dialogic and argumentative genres on the web in
various ways, both reinforcing and enhancing their distinctive features and enabling
their evolution and growth in effectiveness and expressive wealth in a way that text and
still pictures could not provide by themselves.
Methods
This section discusses the aspects related to establishing a census, in what has to do
with the criteria which are used to design retrieval strategies, one of the methods of
choice for the research project along with in-depth descriptive analysis of specific and
defining aspects such as visual identity and branding (Negredo, 2009), and conducting
hypertextual and audiovisual analysis of videos selected for their relevance,
representativeness and production values.
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Quantitative data, as that conveyed by a census, gives an overview of the importance
assigned to video in the editorial proposition of news websites, but the peculiarities of
the architecture of each of them poses specifical challenges to the comprehensiveness
of such a study and the validity of comparisons among them.
Criteria for designing retrieval strategies
As part of research design, it is relevant to discuss the criteria considered to describe
the possibilities for retrieval of published videos in six Spanish news websites
(ElPaís.com,
ElMundo.es,
ABC.es,
20Minutos.es,
LaVanguardia.es
and
LaInformación.com). As what is being analyzed is the editorial offer and proposition, we
judge it important to base the gathering of data on what is presented on pages that any
user can access through simple navigation. Seven criteria can be observed to
determine how video units will be registered for the census.
The availability of a video section or web TV in the website determines where videos
will be retrieved from. The existence of editor’s features in the video section has to be
taken into account, to avoid registering them more than once.
The organization of videos into subsections is useful to make a first identification of the
editorial nature of the content. The number of recent videos available in reverse
chronological order in the general video or archive pages, and in video subsection
home pages, is relevant to gathering and recording evidence in form of screenshots.
Access to a fully functional video archive by date should allow for access to all videos
published on a certain date, eliminating the need to capture indexes on the day of
publication. Lists and/or video galleries -which may also be called collections, series or,
similarly, podcasts or videoblogs- are also relevant presentational features, even if they
are not comprehensive.
The final aspect which should be noted is the availability of specific search options for
video, either a dedicated search engine only for this content type, or advanced search
options in the main search engine to retrieve only video files.
Findings
The outcomes related to methods and procedures of retrieval, after undertaking the
analysis during one week, are summarized in Table 1. The comprehensiveness of the
census faces some challenges because of design and architechture aspects: what the
news organization decides to show the user and enable her to do, and what not.
First of all, the existence of a video section is crucial for designing the strategy of
retrieval. Even if it is available, changes in publishing technology may result in some or
all videos not showing up for certain periods of time. Otherwise, one alternative is to
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identify videos in section home pages, be them embedded or linked to. If there is a
specific interest in identifying and analyzing in-house productions, the monitoring of the
general video section can be complemented or reinforced by looking into the pages for
series, galleries, collections or videoblogs.
The availability of a historic archive of videos by date and section, with details such as
title and source or byline, enables to register published videos more easily, the
following day. By contrast, in some news websites, only a small quantity of the latest
videos can be retrieved, which forces to take logs of the available videos several times
each day.
Automated publication from feeds and the variety of sources -i.e. agencies- cause
duplication of videos, and them being classified under the wrong section. Another effect
of this system may be that the number of clips published in the video section or a
certain subsection of a news website on a given day -or even, on a fraction of the dayis greater than the quantity of videos that the user can retrieve through simple
navigation -that is, without search queries-, and therefore, that won’t be apparent or
retrievable. And yet another aspect to consider is that the hour of publication displayed
on the page may not correspond with the actual one; for instance, it may show 00:00
when the video was actually published during the day.
The coverage of big, unexpected stories with the organization’s own multimedia
production resources can affect the periodicity of publication of regular series or
formats in those websites that feature them, just as can happen in holiday periods. The
news agenda and optimization of resources may mean that in a given week, in-house
production is concentrated in that breaking news or developing story, because the
video staff, which specializes in the medium and not so much in the topic, is assigned
to cover it.
Discussion
What follows is an operative, commented classification, based on the aforementioned
census and developed as a tool for further research, with the aim of being
representative of the videos published by Spanish online newspapers, but should not
be taken as a definitive result of the overall project. Specific examples for each of the
genres are omitted for the sake of clarity and concision.
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Informative Genres
In this first group, attention is brought to the connections of video with news stories and
interactive graphics.
News story. Video was first attached to online text stories by juxtaposition, achieving
multimediality by publishing independent parts next to each other. Such modularity is
ideal for breaking news, as updates can be made easily; the downsides can be
redundance or incoherences between the text and the video. Video in online news may
be used to tell the whole story, or just to show the angle that is best suited to the video
form. For example, through raw footage or a soundbite. Short-lived, freshly gathered
video about national or world news is usually sourced from broadcast channels or
audiovisual news agencies. Breaking news became an early priority for online media in
order to differenciate websites from their print counterparts, and to increase pageviews
and the frequency of visits (Salaverría & Cores, 2005: 151). Short news stories are the
dominant genre in television news broadcasts and the services of audiovisual
agencies.
Interactive graphic. This media form excels in textual, iconic and sound integration
(Salaverría, 2004). The last word must be stressed, as it has proved to be an ongoing
challenge for online journalism to go further from putting media forms side by side.
What makes interactive graphics different from their print counterparts are interactivity in the form of buttons or other elements-, movement -emulating those that take place in
nature- and hypertext -understood as the addition of external links- (Valero, 2003: 563565). Flash containers, which will be discussed later on, enable journalists to integrate
the codes of video and infographics seemlessly for the user. Professionals have
highlighted for years the likelihood of video taking over some of the functions covered
by interactive infographics in the early 2000s, such as to explain or to show in detail
(Esteban, 2007).
Interpretative Genres
As opposed to breaking news, features allow for more production time, which makes a
difference in how video can be integrated in feature stories, reports, and profiles.
Feature story. The “hypermedia feature” or “special” (Larrondo, 2009) is the form in
which the context and detail of feature journalism can be conveyed online. Multimedia
containers, developed in Flash or solely in HTML, are a common way to confer sense
and unity to multi-part features in video. These programmes are sometimes published
periodically as a branded series with a leitmotif or purpose that will let users know what
to expect, and can be loosely or closely based on successful television reportage
formats.
Report. The journalist tells the story as witness, on site, from the place where the
action takes place. Mobile technology makes it possible to record and even edit video
clips on the go. Otherwise, audio reports can be recorded on the phone and later
moving images can be added to produce a package. When defining their style for
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reports, journalists and their organizations have to choose whether to abide to
broadcast conventions or decide more freely on issues such as appearing on camera.
This genre suits local journalism just as well as international coverage; in both cases,
the tendency to employ multi-skilled and multi-tasking one-man crews fits with costsaving measures and is facilitated by the availability of increasingly easy to use
recording gear.
Profile. This biographical genre provides an approach to the life and character of a
figure, usually conveyed by multiple perspectives and documentary sources, for which
hypertext is an adequate form of presentation. Videography helps to portray the subject
of the profile, by showing her image, gesture and action. Video portraits are an
emerging form of speechless profile, in which the subject reacts to the camera, plays a
role or improvises, bearing resemblance to short films (Aragón, 2011).
Dialogical Genres.
For the purpose of the study, our focus is on interviews and chats. The particular
nature of forums and polls has prevented the development of original video within
them, so we won’t elaborate on these otherwise highly participative formats.
Interview. Along with being one of the primary forms of newsgathering, interviews with
newsmakers are brought to life with video. Another form of interview that can be often
found online, as a cheap way of adding multimedia, is one journalist ‘debriefing’
another reporter or correspondent in the newsroom or the studio, or even on location,
thanks to videoconferencing software. Interviews may be single- or multi-camera, and
the interviewer may be on shot or may not appear at all, not even as a voiceover.
Pieces of analysis are sometimes shot as interviews, in a way in which the analyst
doesn’t make eye contact with the camera, but with the journalist who introduces her.
Chat. Sometimes used as a substitute term for readers’ questions (in Spain), it is in
practice a form of participative interview with editorial moderation, and can integrate
video in two ways: showing the answers of the interviewee -as a summary or in full,
either live, as a recording, or both-, or in a more ambitious format, if questions are
submitted as moving images and sound, these can also be edited into the video.
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Argumentative Genres
The main genres to consider in the area of comment are editorials, columns, letters to
the editor, reviews and comic strips, with varying suitability to the development of
multimedia.
Editorial. This genre with an institutional author, which is no other than the news
organization, is rare both in broadcast media and in online-only operations, and as
such, has not been fit, to date, for the development of video, as comment benefits from
some sort of individual face and personal voice.
Column. According to López Pan (1996: 130), this form of journalism is an expression
of the ethos of the author, with permanent formal elements that allow for continuity: a
fixed place where readers can look for it, and regularity in publication. With increased
interactivity, columns have found a new life online as blogs; videoblogs are just a kind
of blog in which entries consist of videos (Orihuela, 2006: 34). They are included here
as they are more widely used for comment than for reports, differently from what
happens with the text-based live blog. Videoblogs in online news media are sometimes
published in relation with or as an extra to audio podcasts.
Letter to the editor. The purpose of traditional letters to the editor, that of giving
feedback on published editorial content, is now shared by more spontaneous
comments to stories, but the interface in which standalone videos are presented
sometimes prevents these to be posted, and other times, comments to a video will
have to be made under the text story. Distributed publishing means that the reaction to
a video can’t be measured only within the website; users’ actions -including links,
mentions, replies, ratings and comments- in social networks and format-specific
distribution platforms such as video aggregators. The audiovisual equivalent of a letter
to the editor would be similar to that of a user-generated videoblog, usually in the form
of a talking head expressing a view, with the clear purpose of publication.
Review. The information about a consumer product or a work of art, sometimes more
of a critical evaluation, benefits from the possibility of showing an actual clip from it or
about it, side by side with the text or with a voiceover. This addition may add to the
usefulness of the piece, offering a taster of what the user can expect, and in the case
of products or services, also demonstrating how they look like and how they work.
Some websites specialize exclusively in this sort of content, whereas it can also be
found in news websites.
Comic strip. In this genre, the shift is from illustration to animation, be it in two or three
dimensions. The purpose of the comic strip may also be served by real image videos
edited in a humorous way, usually by the addition of music or the yuxtaposition of
decontextualized clips, conferring new, funny meanings to the footage.
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Conclusions and recommendations
Research into online news video requires attention to the context, as this media from
may be used as an add-on just as it can work on its own. It may be analyzed through a
census which discriminates by section and source of production, or going in-depth
about particular aspects. In either case, regardless of more indirect factors, any
analysis is immediately influenced by the architecture and design of the site, which
shape how the user accesses and retrieves multimedia content. The diversity in this
area poses challenges to the homogeneity in analyses that cover several news outlets,
both in the observation of the object and in the comparison of results.
Any research effort must also consider the irregular presence of video among news
genres and the possibility that the most frequent instances may not be the most
interesting or representative in order to study the application of the principles of
hypertext and interactivity to this media form. By definining clearly how videos are
usually integrated in each genre, they can be more easily classified in further research,
making replicability easier.
Going further, a general analysis of online video across all genres may limit the ability
to study particular aspects unlocked by the particular potential of breaking news,
feature-style journalism, dialogue or comment. This also needs to be considered when
determining the scope.
Acknowledgement
This paper is part of the research project “Evolución de los cibermedios españoles en
el marco de la convergencia. Multiplataforma e integración periodística” (ref.:
CSO2009-13713-C05), financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation,
Government of Spain.
End Note
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Samuel Negredo,
Journalism Projects Department, Edificio de Bibliotecas, Universidad de Navarra,
31080 Pamplona, Spain. E-mail: [email protected].
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References
Aragón, G. (2011). “El género de los retratos en movimiento”. Heraldo.es, 27/04/2011,
http://www.heraldo.es/noticias/cultura/videoretratos_zaragoza.html (retrieved
27/04/2011).
Armentia, J. I.; Caminos, J. M. (2009). Redacción informativa en prensa. Barcelona:
Ariel
Bourne, J.; Burstein, D. (2009). Web Video: Making it Great, Getting it Noticed.
Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.
Bradshaw, P. (2008): “BASIC principles of online journalism: B is for Brevity”, Online
Journalism Blog, 14/02/2008, http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/02/14/basicprinciples-of-online-journalism-b-is-for-brevity/ (retrieved 04/04/2011).
Esteban, Ch. (2007): “El vídeo mató a los gráficos estrella”, Infografistas, 17/01/2007,
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(retrieved 04/04/2011).
Larrondo, A. (2009): Los géneros en la Redacción Ciberperiodística. Bilbao: Servicio
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López, G. (2003). “Géneros interpretativos: el reportaje y la crónica”. In Díaz Noci, J. &
Salaverría R. (Eds.), Manual de redacción ciberperiodística (pp. 449-494). Barcelona:
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López Pan, F. (1996). La columna periodística. Teoría y práctica: el caso de Hilo
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Digital”, Trípodos, 23, 89-105
Negredo, S. (2009). “La identidad visual corporativa en el vídeo de producción propia
de los cibermedios españoles”. I Congreso Internacional de Ciberperiodismo y Web
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Orihuela, J. L. (2006). La revolución de los blogs. Madrid: La esfera de los libros.
Palacios, M.; Díaz Noci, J. (2009). Ciberperiodismo. Métodos de investigación. Bilbao:
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In Salaverría, R. (Ed.), Cibermedios. El impacto de internet en los medios de
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comunicación en España (pp. 145-185). Sevilla: Comunicación Social Ediciones y
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Valero, J. L. (2003). “El relato en la infografía digital”. In Díaz Noci, J. & Salaverría, R.
(Eds.), Manual de redacción ciberperiodística (pp. 555-589). Barcelona: Ariel.
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Tables
Table 1
Retrieval of videos in six Spanish news websites
ElPaís
ElMundo
ABC
20Minutos
LaVanguardi
a
LaInformació
n
Video section
or web TV
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Editor’s features
in video section
Yes
N/A
Yes*
Yes
No
No
Organization into
subsections
Yes*
N/A
No*
Yes
Yes
Yes*
Number of recent
videos available*
(general/per
section)
50
N/A
72
5
60
5
Video archive
by date
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
No
Lists and/or
video galleries
Yes
Yes*
No
Yes
Yes
No
Specific search
options for video
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Source: personal compilation, June 21th - 27th 2010.
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Updating a Traditional Role? The AFP News Agency
Confronted by the Diversity of Challenges in the Digital Era
Jérémie Nicey
University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, France
Abstract
International news agencies are traditionnaly considered – with truth – as providers of
information to diverse media customers. With AP and Reuters, the Agence FrancePresse (AFP) is one of the three major agencies; and it is the oldest. For centuries,
AFP (1944-.) and its French predecessors have adapted to media and societal change;
they have participated in the shaping of some of those changes in information/news
flows. Yet, AFP has had a specific role to play, because located at beginning of the
news flow in France: collecting news then used by other more visible, up-front media —
newspapers and mainstream media— print and broadcast. In the Internet era, does
this specific role continue? What are the strategies of AFP towards recent and major
online ‘actors’, such as Google or Twitter, and towards amateur practices (such as the
agency Citizenside)? Is AFP hesitant towards web transformations and the advent of
‘competitors’ of a new kind, or is it continually adapting to such changes? How does it
respond to the requirements of both its usual customers and the more informed
community accessing information from a whole new range of suppliers and outlets
accessible in the Internet age? This article examines the changes in journalism
routines, the adaptation of AFP to web transformations and the options to be taken by
the agency to strengthen its branding in online competition.
Keywords: Agence France-Presse, news reporting, news flows, journalism routines,
Five Stages of Grief, Citizenside, reputation.
For over a hundred and fifty years, news agencies were the main ‘actors’ in the flows of
international information. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) dates its origins back to
1835, when Charles-Louis Havas founded his agency: Agence Havas. The agency
soon faced rivals in Europe (Wolff was launched in Berlin in 1849, and Reuters in
London in 1851), and later on a global level (notably with Associated Press, AP,
founded in New York in 1848). Yet, AFP is not only the ‘oldest’ agency: even today, it
remains one of the three major world news agencies – Wolff, as well as UPI, another
US-based agency, have disappeared.
By their position at the beginning of the news chain, such agencies have had a – if not
the most – decisive role to play in defining the news agenda. A proof of it can be found
in the critiques of their role, during the New World Information and Communication
Order (NWICO) debates, in the 1970s: the UNESCO MacBride Commission
highlighted the fact that the selection of geographic areas and topics in news reporting
reflected the priorities of news agencies, alleged to control 80% of the international
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news flow. Their role in their collection and provision of news was thus underlined. Until
recently, their customers, professional media as well as private or public entities, payed
great attention to their services, because such services were unique; no other major
purveyor of international news could compete.
In the context of increasingly diverse journalism and news-sources and services, do
news agencies still have such a central role to play? In a world dominated by the
Internet and by online practices – at various layers of society – does the Agence
France-Presse still occupy its traditional central role? This article aims to answer such
questions, by observing ways in which Internet has modified the routines of
professional journalists; it examines recent strategies of AFP in adapting to the Internet
era, and analyses why and how news agencies may rely on their own strengths in
facing online competition.
Changing journalism routines and practices
In some aspects, the time when the news agencies were the first and main link in the
chain of manufactured news (Fishman, 1980), seems to lie in the remote past.
Traditional practices gave international news agencies, including Agence FrancePresse, the role of collecting news for other more visible, up-front media players —first
and foremost, newspapers and mainstream print and broadcast media. They were the
main ‘fountain of information’. This classic journalism ‘circuit’ has been more and more
threatened in the past forty years. Change began when public administrations and
private corporations enhanced their communication by making spokesmen send direct
messages to the press – therefore bypassing news agencies. But the main main novel
and fundamental structural change confronting news agencies is more recent: after a
century and a half of of profiting from their technologically advanced networks, AFP,
Reuters and AP have had to face the arrival of Internet. At the outset, in the beginning
of the 1990s, news agencies positions appeared little affected; but soon, they had to
suffer the combined advent of the Internet and of changing user-practice changed
routines —especially journalism routines, which is our focus here. In 2002, Oliver BoydBarrett and Terhi Rantanen pointed out one – if not the main – effect of Internet on
news agencies:
« One impact of the Internet is a further blurring of the line between traditional
‘wholesaler’ and ‘retailer’ roles of news agencies and their media clients,
respectively. […] Until recently, news agencies did not have a direct access to an
audience consisting of individuals ; their services were mediated through their
subscribers. This classic definition fo news agencies still holds true in good measure,
but now needs to be extended and recontextualized. In addition to their traditional
‘wholesale’ role, news agencies have become increasingly important as ‘retail’ sources
of information not only for media but also for individual citizens. […] However, even on
the Internet, clients typically access news agency news through secondary or ‘retail’
agents consisting of general interest (e.g. Yahoo!) and corporate websites, the websites
of newspaper and television stations, or through Internet portals such as Netscape »
(Boyd-Barrett, Rantanen, 2002, 57-58).
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The situation pinpointed at the end of this quote has changed radically over the past
ten years: the main portal is not Netscape any longer, but Google; above all, direct
access of individual citizens to flows of information has exploded since 2002, and
particularly since 2007 with community networks such as Facebook and Twitter. For
both reasons, the analysis of Boyd-Barrett and Rantanen needs to be fine-tooled, now
that journalists and citizens all live in a ‘convergence society’ (Jenkins, 2006). In 2002,
the author could still hold: « Despite all these changes in communication technology
and media markets, most news agencies still perform their traditional role as
wholesalers of news for media » (Boyd-Barrett, Rantanen, 2002, 59).
The ‘future’ has now arrived and the tendancy observed ten years ago concerning
individual citizens as end-users —both as receivers and producers of breaking news—
as in their production of it – may provide the potential for a new strategy for news
agencies, as we will explain later. Another limit of the previous quotation could be
considered to be ‘cultural’: the examples provided by Boyd-Barrett and Rantanen
mainly highlighted transformations launched by Reuters and AP – not AFP. Two
reasons may explain this. First: AFP adapted to Internet later than its English and
American rivals. Second: Boyd-Barrett and Rantanen’s observations mainly concern
English-speaking actors and therefore they focus much less on the French agency.
Since 2002, wholesalers have proliferated. The result of it is that news professionals
now follow various flows of breaking news. The practice of being only or mainly
connected to international agencies wires is out-of-date. In 2011, the AFP wire is not
the only page constantly open on journalists’ screens, but what is worse, it is
sometimes closed. It is more recent ‘actors’, of news-purveyors including amateur
news products, who are constantly being monitored. Of course, traditional practices
and ‘routines’ of media professionals have not completely disappeared among media
professionals. Thanks to their high-quality and reliable content, and thanks to the
relationships they continually rekindle within the sector, international news agencies
still have their specific profile —some would call it a brand. In 2004, a EuropeanCommission-funded market survey noted that:
« The B2B nature of the relationship means that contracts are usually long-term, in
contrast to individual customers’ short-term or even casual buying decisions – and the
duration of the relationships is seen as one of the reasons why the news agency’s
content is so often integrated with the customer’s own offerings. » (Krueger, van der
Beek, Swatman, 2004, 9).
News agencies remain important and monitored. The main difference with past
decades is possibly that they cannot rely on their traditionally assured position. But for
centuries, AFP and its rivals have adapted to change, whatever those evolutions
concerned the news-media industry or society at large. Let us look briefly at change
Agence France-Presse has made in the Internet era.
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How AFP adapts to the web
In the Internet era, what are the strategies of Agence France-Presse? How have these
responded to recent major online actors, such as Google and Twitter? to the practices
of amateurs? Different stages or phases characterise AFP responses to the web.
International news agencies, as well as most traditional media professionals did not
expect their leading position to disappear. It took them time to realise how such a
technology would endanger their position and force them to transform practices and
strategies. This could be compared to the well-known Kübler-Ross model (1969): « The
Five Stages of Grief ». At first, at the turn of the cenury, AFP and others were ‘in
denial’: they strongly believed Internet in no way heralded the end of their ‘model’. In
France, similarly, the idea that Internet would endanger the French videotext or ‘Minitel’
was likewise hard to accept. Meanwhile, private telecommunication operators and the
State sought to equip the country with the news ‘state-of-the-art’ technology and to
reduce the cost of Internet access both for companies and for individual users.
Then in 2003-04, by the time France reached broadband access to Internet, managers
and journalists at Agence France-Presse felt hostile towards new key actors: this was
the stage of ‘anger’. One instance of this lied in heated discussions of copyright issues
and the measures the agency took against Google. Several articles and photos
produced by AFP were published in ‘Google News’ (launched in 2002, but the French
version ‘Google Actualités’ started in 2006). The agency accused the leading agregator
of copyright violation and started suing it in 2005, requiring $ 17.5 million in damages.
Obviously, the next step was the one of negotiation or, as Kübler-Ross writes,
‘bargaining’. In 2007, a final agreement was indeed signed, stating :
« AFP and Google have signed a licensing agreement that will enable the use of AFP’s
newswire content in innovative, new ways that will dramatically improve the way users
experience newswire content on the Internet. It will also help highlight original
journalism, giving credit to the newswire journalists who worked hard to break the news.
The new collaboration will ensure that AFP’s original journalism and breaking news are
easily discoverable on Google services and in particular on Google News. »
Nevertheless, this did not prevent the French agency from entering the Kübler-Ross
stage of ‘depression’ or, at least, as Michael Palmer (2009) puts it, of ‘self-doubt’. In
2007-09, AFP did not join in the first wave of social networks. It lost some customers
and it realised it suffered competition not only in the range of its geographic coverage
of news, but above all in the speed with which it transmitted news. Mobile telephonetransmission and the development of modes of acces such as Twitter have overtaken
news agencies as the fastest providers of news, although the quality and reliability of
the content delivered by such actors can be questioned.
The final stage is the one the agency is presently in: ‘acceptance’. AFP is not hesitant
about the Internet any longer. And it has taken aboard the existence of competitors of a
new kind. The implementation of key decisions in this regard will take time to bear fruit.
The specific ‘semi-public’ status of the agency and the high costs involved complicate
matters.But AFP appears now to have developed the necessary Internet strategy.
Three examples suggest this. First is the major increase of multimodal content,
including video: in their study covering the period 2005-10, the Swedish researchers
Christer Clerwall and Michael Carlsson (2010) noted how similar strategies were
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adopted by newspapers websites. Second: the AFP chief executive since 2010,
Emmanuel Hoog, wants to launch a news platform tailored to individuals, even if this is
runs foul of existing media customers of the agency, for understandable reasons. Third:
AFP developes strategies to provide amateur content, it thus signed a partnership with
the Citizenside agency, specialised in citizen journalism (mainly photos and videos).
This of course raises several questions which are dealt with in the following part,
examining the real place the agency can occupy on Internet.
Today’s online competition : news label and AFP branding
At a time when Internet has 2 billions users, when Google announces 1000 billions of
pages accessed and when individual citizens or traditional media customers are
massively moving to online social networks, Agence France-Presse does not really
have any choice: it has to make its news services meet the interests of all categories of
possible audiences. Internet must not be seen as a threat, be as an opportunity for
international news agencies to enhance their connectivity —the agencies note that
Internet has already reduced the cost of transmission of their services in the past
fifteen years. Strategies therefore include ‘end-users’ themselves; this may mean the
integration of amateur content.
By acquiring 34% of the Citizenside, AFP is moving in that direction. Citizenside.com is
a website —born as “Scooplive” in 2005— which is defined by his founders both as a
laboratory and as a Web 2.0 press agency. Its services include ‘reporters kits’ for
traditional media to develop their own news communities, but its main task is to
propose photos and videos that its website collects from amateurs, who get 65 % of the
sale of their news products to medias (and who keep their authors’ rights). Citizenside
managers say they receive 300 to 500 photos per day, on 60 to 70 topics. Why the
model seems interesting lies in the tools to ensure verification of news provided by
amateurs: journalists at Citizenside require complete and reliable profiles of
contributors; they massively use metadata and geolocalisation of photos to avoid fakes.
Furthermore, they have developed ‘community management’: they regularly
communicate with contributors to enhance the performance of the latter, especially the
quality of their photos/videos. In the end, this even enables the website to alert its
community when needed —when an event is learnt of and if contributors are situated
nearby.
Having AFP as a partner, Citizenside aims for quality rather than quantity. The
company stated that it has moved « from UGC to UCC »77: from User Generated
Content to User Certified Content, or ‘quality citizen journalism’. Such a strategy follows
the challenges highlighted by Chris Paterson and David Domingo (2008) in their study
of online news. Although their work does not include France, it reveals that traditional
newspapers websites hardly meet the common Internet goals of immediacy and
77
Matthieu Stefani (co-founder of Citizenside), conference at AFP headquarters, Paris, 26th Nov. 2009.
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interactivity. We shall here temporarily conclude that the model of Citizenside can help
Agence France-Presse to move in that direction.
Finally, AFP can still count on its own history, reputation and credibility to provide news
generally considered exact. Its ways of working can be seen as its label, especially at a
time when unverified news pollute newsrooms and affect misinformed individuals.
While new key players have a tendancy to depict the ‘imagined worlds’ denounced by
Arjun Appadurai (1996), international news agencies have to stand out because of their
reputation for quality. For so long, they have focused on facts, not on opinions; they
have to continue to do so. They also have a proven reputation for their ability to
operate across different international time zones; this remains a strength. For instance,
AFP is present in 165 countries, has 2900 contributors of some 80 nationalities78. No
actor can pretend as much, except its rivals, Thomson-Reuters in particular. And that is
where the final challenge lies: between agencies, should there be competition or
agreements? In the past, agreements were signed to reduce costs (1859) or to
organise the cover of given territories (1909)79. Those and others, all managed to
impose international news agencies as a powerful news cartel, profitable for its leading
members. Similar cooperations within the close future, for the good of each of the main
news agencies, could give food for thought, although present times rather accentuate
competition and AFP does not seem to be in the best place in this regard.
Meanwhile, AFP and other news agencies can succeed in the digital era by producing
« news you can use », as Ulf Hannerz (2004) pointed it out, in an optimistic mode:
« […] much of the foreign news seem more immediately relevant, in a fashion, like
“news you can use”. We cannot take for granted, then, that as globalization in all its
varieties intensifies, foreign news reporting will automatically grow with it. Instead, we
will have to be continuously aware that the latter is vulnerable to contemporary
pressures. […] But I believe we can still assume that if they have only so much time a
day to set aside for being satisfactorily informed in a general way, as a kind of everyday
ritual […] the majority of people will tend to expect that they can rely on the mainstream
media to offer them what they need. » (Hannerz, 2004, 25-26).
***
Despite the hard times it has been through in recent years, there are reasons for
Agence France-Presse to keep optimistic. Like any traditional media, it has to find out
how to survive in the digital age. Yet, the basic principles involved are not really new. It
has to update measures needed to maintain its traditional reputation; this imposes
reactivity and sufficient resources. AFP can survive by maintaining its model of news
services. The recent Arabic revolts are a case in point : at one stage, AFP had bureaux
in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. But, to remain fully visible, the agency mainly needs to
occupy roles which impinge directly on new audiences. With the Internet, these change
from year to year —if not by month. Since at least 2007, one has to be seen on major
social networks. In this context, we suggest AFP and other news agencies need to
reactivate and nurture contract of all kinds. They must constantly follow novel trends
78
According to AFP website : www.afp.com (consulted on March 19th, 2011).
79
A wider range of observations about those agreements is provided by Michael Palmer (1980, 2011).
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and adapt so as to maintain their profits or indeed their very existence. After all, this is
what Internet requires for any individual, for any professional, for any academic
researcher... In that sense, news agencies have lost a part of their unique role. But
their role in launching news and of authentifying —checking and double-checking—
reports from a host of venues worldwide, on which their brand-image and reputation lie,
can still be considered to be profitable.
References
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Boyd-Barret, O., Rantanen, T. (2002). News agencies. Global and national news
agencies: Opportunities and threats in the age of the Internet. In Briggs A. and Cobley
P. (Eds.). The Media: An Introduction (2nd Ed.). London: Longman. 57-58.
Boyd-Barret, O.; Palmer, M. (1985). Le Trafic des nouvelles – les agences mondiales
d’information. Paris: Alain Moreau.
Clerwall, C., Karlsson, M. (2010). The Emergence of Convergence in Swedish Online
News. Hamburg: ECREA Conference (to be published).
Fishman, M. (1980). Manufacturing the news. Austin. University of Texas Press.
Hannerz, U. (2004). Foreign News. Exploring the World of Foreign Correspondents.
Chicacgo: The University of Chicago Press.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New
York: New York University Press.
Krueger, C.; Van der Beek, K.; Swatman, P. (2004). New And Emerging Business
Models For Online News: A Survey Of 10 European Countries. Bled (Slovenia): 17th
Bled eCommerce Conference eGlobal.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death & Dying, New York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone.
Palmer, M.; Nicey, J. (2011). Lexique subjectief de l’homme informant. Paris:
L’Amandier.
Palmer, M. (2009). Transnationales de l’information. L’Internet et les interrogations des
journalistes. (International news agencies and News-Brokers. News-Feeds in the Era
of Globalisation, Internet and self-doubting journalists). Questions de communication,
15, 345-366.
Paterson, C.; Domingo, D. (eds). (2008). Making online news: the ethnography of new
media production, Peter Lang.
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Content Analysis applied to Digital Media: A Comparison of
News in ‘The Guardian’, ‘Clarín’, and ‘Asahi Simbun’
Javier Odriozola*, Guillermo López**
*Universitat Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
**University of Valencia, Spain
Abstract
This paper aims to estimate intercoder reliability in content analysis of international
online media. In order to measure this rate of agreement, we have selected three of the
twenty-five online media that configure the corpus of the research: The Guardian,
Clarín and Asahi Shimbun. The English Web Edition. We make use of two types of
indexes. On the one hand, Holsti's liberal method; and on the other hand, Cohen's
Kappa, a conservative index. The study is part of the research project "Evolution of the
online media in the context of convergence: message analysis" (CSO2009-13713-C0504-sub-SOCI-).
Keywords: content analysis, intercoder reliability, online media, Holsti, Cohen´s Kappa.
Introduction
This communication is framed within the development of the methodological tool of
content analysis, which we will employ in the research project of the Ministry of Science
and Innovation: “Evolution of the online media in the context of convergence: message
analysis” (CSO2009-13713-C05-04-sub-SOCI-). Its aim is to analyse the extent to
which the message is changing significantly due to effects of the convergence process.
The main part of the research will be centred on measuring the variables of the
message and a comparative study of a complete typology of the online media in Spain
and in the whole world. “Our main hypothesis is that convergence in production is
creating some major changes in newswriting, in the product offered by online media.
Due to the application of characteristics like hypertext, multimedia, interactivity, and the
use of different information sources (probably predominating news agencies), but also
taking into account that production routines and rhythm are very different from those of
the other media” (Díaz, Seixas, López, Palomo & Tous, 2009:648).
Thus, on the one hand, we will analyze the production of news stories through:
interviews, ethnographic observation and consultation of internal documents; and, on
the other hand, we will study the message itself, thanks to various methodological
tools: content analysis; mediological and narratogical analysis; pragmatic analysis;
rhetorical analysis; paratextual analysis and analysis of design elements; analysis of
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journalistic genres; analysis of hypertextuality; analysis of interactivity; and multimedia
analysis (see figure 1 for the structure of the research project).
This communication will be centered on checking the degree of agreement between
the coders, who will later carry out the codification of the entire sample of our content
analysis.
Structure of our content analysis
Our methodological tool will analyze a set of online media, both national and
international. Through multistage sampling, every six months approximately, we will
collect and analyse the three leading news stories of each medium until, on each
occasion, an artificial week is formed as the corpus of the study. For this purpose, as
noted by Xiaopeng (2006), we consider that a sample size of six days will be efficient
and effective for representing the content of the news sites, updated in a period of six
months.
Once we have determined the digital media and the information to be analyzed, we will
concentrate on categorizing the different variables. We should recall that any content
analysis might support itself or collapse due to what its categories of analysis are.
Amongst the units of register we find, in the first place, a series of variables that enable
us to measure the importance given to each news story: (a) position on the front page,
(b) spatial distribution, (c) presence of audiovisual resources of the front page
information, (d) relevance on the front page and (e) interactivity, measured through the
presence and number of comments. The rest of the units of register will enable us to
determine the structure of the news stories analysed: (f) section, (g) author, (h)
location, (i) principal topics dealt with, (j) number of sources used and, (k) the origin
and (l) characteristics of the two first sources of each news story, and (m) the types of
audiovisual resources, both in the development node and on the front pages.
We can, therefore, define our analysis as a thematic content analysis of a quantitative
type, as in the majority of this type of methods, which makes it possible to predefine a
broad number of topics and to then analyze the whole corpus according to these
topics. The study is carried out in an extensive manner, applying our categorization to a
great number of units of register. On the other hand, by attending to different aspects in
the selection of the communications, the design and the measurement parameters, our
research work can be defined as: verificatory/explanatory, longitudinal, triangular and
frequential. Verificatory and/or explanatory, because it makes it possible to account for
inferences on the origin and nature of the communicative products. Longitudinal, as it
carries out data collection in different study waves. Triangular, as it combines with
other methods that make it possible to complete the deficiencies of our method. And
frequential, as it studies the possible relations amongst the different variables.
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Aims
We should recall that reliability is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition of
validity. When it comes to speaking of reliability, Stemler (2001) distinguishes between
(a) stability, the intra-rater reliability – can the same coder get the same results try after
try? or (b) reproducibility, the inter-rater reliability – do coding schemes lead to the
same text being coded in the same category by different people? However, as
Krippendorff (1990: 192) affirms, we must bear in mind that “in content analysis,
reliability and validity are related by the two following propositions (a) reliability sets
limits on the potential validity of the research results; and (b) reliability does not
guarantee the validity of the research results”. Thus, according to Andrén (1981: 46)
"we find a connection between the concepts of objectivity and of reliability. This is only
as it should be; it is natural to assume that an objective result is independent of the
subject who conducted the investigation. Here, however, we must distinguish between
the factual or ontological problem – what makes the result true? – and the epistemic or
methodological problem – how do we come to know that a result is true or false –”.
Intercoder reliability
Our communication, as we have said, is centered on analyzing the reproducibility of the
content analysis developed within the project as a whole. Therefore, with the aim of
providing our study with the necessary intercoder reliability, we consider it a priority to
carry out a test that measures that level of agreement before starting the analysis of
the entire sample.
As Lombard, Snyder and Campanella (2002:589) affirm “it is widely acknowledged that
intercoder reliability is a critical component of content analysis and (although it does not
ensure validity) when it is not established, the data and interpretations of the data can
never be considered valid”. The United States General Accounting Office, GAO,
(1996:64) states in one of its reports “this measure indicates how well two or more
coders reached the same judgments in coding the data”. In its turn, the GAO (1996:36)
considers its use necessary given that “in many circumstances, evaluators can make
numerical estimates of intercoder reliability and use the results to judge the readiness
of coders to proceed from training to actual coding”.
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Method
Size of the sample and online media to be analyzed
When it comes to determining the size of the sample of our intercoder reliability test,
we must bear in mind that “the appropriate size of the sample depends on many factors
and should not be less than 50 units or 10% of the full sample.” (Lombard et al.,
2002:601). Therefore, to situate ourselves within this margin, we must analyze three
online media, which would involve analyzing 12.5% of the total units of analysis.
For the test of intercoder agreement, we will analyze The Guardian
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/), Clarín (http://www.clarin.com/) and Asahi Simbun. English
Web Edition (http://www.asahi.com/english/). We have selected these online media as
they employ the two most widely used languages in the total set of our study sample:
English and Spanish.
Number of coders
The research work will be carried out by the two researchers responsible for this study:
Guillermo López García and Javier Odriozola Chéné.
Indexes to be used
When it comes to measuring the reliability of our different categories, we should recall
that there are liberal indexes and others that are conservative. The former do not take
account of possible agreements or coincidences that the coders reach by chance.
Such chance agreement becomes more possible the briefer the number of variables
(for example, in our work “yes/no” answer variables are more liable to chance
agreement). Therefore, we will use:
A) A calculation of the index of general reliability using Holsti’s Method (liberal method).
This index which serves for measuring the reliability between two coders does not take
account of chance agreement. Nonetheless, we should recall that the large quantity of
variables and, in their turn, the large quantity of categories that the majority of these
have, make it possible to use this type of index. Subsequently, we will also realize a
personalized calculation of each one of those variables that have more than two
categories, that is, all of those that are not a “Yes/No” answer. Holst’s formula (1969)
is:
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(see figure 2).
B) Following this, we will employ Cohen’s Kappa index, a more conservative method
for two coders, in order to measure the reliability of all the Yes or No variables as a
whole, and of each of the variables individually whose categories are Yes or No. This
index “also accounts for chance agreement, using the same conceptual formula as
Scott’s Pi” (Lombard et al., 2002: 591). Cohen’s Kappa formula (1960) is:
(see figure 3).
Determining an acceptable level of reliability. As well as the appropriate choice of a
particular index, we must determine what constitutes an acceptable level of reliability,
given that there are no established standard values. In spite of that, we will take into
account the conclusions reached by Neuendorf (2002), after carrying out a study on the
different indexes according to which coefficients of 0.90 or greater would be acceptable
to all, 0.80 or greater would be acceptable in most situations, and below that, there
exists great disagreement. Nonetheless, we must bear in mind that “the criterion of .70
is often used for exploratory research” (Lombard et al., 2002:593).
Results
We therefore establish the reliability levels for all the units of register, except for the
number of comments, since this unit is provided by the comments gathered 24 hours
after capture of the news stories. Thus, we can verify that the average reliability level of
our content analysis is situated at 0.87 (see table 1). Nonetheless, we should be aware
that agreement will vary depending on the unit of register studied.
We can check whether the units whose reliability has been found through Holsti’s
method show different values. Agreement is total in variables like position on the front
page and section. Near total agreement is found in units of register like: author (0.90),
localization (0.92), spatial distribution (0.94) and relevance on the front page (0.94).
Reliability falls with respect to topics and sources: topics in the text (0.73), first topic
(0.73), second topic (0.61), source of the headline (0.87), sources in the text (0.81),
first source of the text (0.78), importance of the first source (0.78), second source of the
text (0.79) and importance of the second source (0.79). Thus, the values referring to
the topics dealt with are too low, even for a study with an exploratory character such as
ours, and a restructuring of the variables becomes necessary. We will take the
opportunity, at the same time, to restructure the units of register referring to the
importance of the sources analyzed.
On the other hand, units of register are found whose intercoder reliability has been
measured through a conservative method (taking account of chance agreement), such
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as Cohen’s Kappa index. We find here the audiovisual resources used on the front
page (0.84), presence of images (0.97), presence of graphics (0.93), presence of audio
(0.94), presence of videos (0.97) and possibility of introducing comments or not (0.94).
We observe how the set of these units of register shows a very high reliability index, in
spite of taking chance agreement into account.
Discussion
Calculation of intercoder reliability in our content analysis leads us to carry out a series
of changes in the development of the different variables. We thus eliminate two
variables: the number of topics dealt with in the new stories analyzed and the
identification of the second topic dealt with in the news text. These variables can
contaminate the reliability of a variable like the first topic of the texts analyzed, which
would prevent us from establishing a clear sample of the topics dealt with in the online
media. Thus, in the variables referring to the topics dealt with, we finally opted for
establishing a single variable that shows us the main topic dealt with in the news
stories analyzed.
To increase the reliability of some of our units of register, we have also opted for
restructuring the units that refer to the importance of the first and second source. We
have decided to simplify these variables by establishing some simpler and more
exclusive categories. We thus differentiate amongst: single source, principal source,
secondary source and no source.
Another variable that has undergone slight modification refers to relevance on the front
page. In it, we attribute a certain importance to news stories based on their position on
the front page, number of columns and use of audiovisual resources. We now
introduce a corrective element for those news stories whose only development on the
front page is a headline for the information. Thus, when this situation is found, we
subtract one from the total value given for relevance on the front page.
The objective of these changes is a double one given that our purpose is: (a) to
eliminate variables that might “contaminate” other units of register of key importance in
our study and (b) to increase the intercoder agreement of our analysis. This increase of
reliability is sought so that in new study waves we will be able to carry out codification
amongst more than two researchers, although to measure intercoder agreement we
will have to employ more complex indexes (Fleiss’s Kappa or Kripppendorff’s Alpha).
We therefore believe it is necessary to make our content analysis more systematic.
Footnotes
The Spanish media that will be analyzed are: ELPAÍS.com; EL MUNDO.es; rtve.es;
20minutos.es; TELECINCO.es; SUR.es; LA VANGUARDIA.es; La Voz de Galicia.es;
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elcorreo.com; diario de navarra.es; VilaWeb; Cadena SER.com; Canal Sur Andalucía;
lainformacion.com and Xornal.com.
2
The international media that will be analyzed are: BBC; guardian.co.uk; Clarín.com;
globo.com; la Repubblica.it; Le Monde.fr; rue89; Público (Portugal); The New York
Times and Asahi Simbun. English Web Edition.
Tables
Table 1: Intercoder agreement for our content analysis
Note. Average reliability for our content analysis is 0.87. Bearing in mind that the
minimum necessary agreement for studies that have an exploratory character is 0.70,
we can affirm that our analysis is sufficiently reliable. The results obtained will thus not
vary significantly, independent of whether codification has been done by one
researcher or another.
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Figures
Figure 1: Structure of the research project
Note. The goal of this project is to analyze the extent to which the message is
significantly changing due to the effects of the convergence process, as defined
in an ongoing project (SEJ2006-14828-C06-02). We will therefore try to explain
how the journalistic discourse is presented and how it is made in these times of
convergence. We propose to carry out a content analysis and a discourse
analysis of both textual and paratextual elements, and an analysis of those
elements that define the digital language: hypertext, interactivity, multimediality,
as well as memory and continuous renewal of contents. Our aim is to put
together the results of parallel surveys from the point of view of several
disciplines related to discourse. We will apply some methodologies related to
our aim in order to determine what precisely are the characteristics that define
the (cyber)journalistic products on the Internet, in this way trying to propose
typologies or even attempt to provide criteria for defining journalistic genres on
the Net.
Figure 2: Holsti´s Method
Note. Where M is the number of coding decisions on which the two judges are in
agreement, and n1 and n2 refer to the number of coding decisions made by judges 1
and 2, respectively.
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Figure 3: Cohen´s Kappa index
Note. Where Pr(a) is the relative observed agreement among raters, and Pr(e) is the
hypothetical probability of chance agreement, using the observed data to calculate the
probabilities of each observer randomly saying each category.
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European Representations of the Basque Sovereignist Plan
Cristina Perales*, Ludivine Thouverez**, Laura Filardo***
*University of Vic, Spain
**Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
***University of Valladolid, Spain
Abstract
This paper will analyse the national and international representation on the media of
the only statutory and sovereignty-based proposal within democratic Spain, known as
“Ibarretxe Plan”. This proposal was discussed in Parliament on February 1, 2005, and it
was arranged around 10 issues, which eventually proposed a new political pact within
the Spanish state. We will study those media representations of the Ibarretxe Plan
which can be found in the most important newspapers of Spain, France and the British
Isles between January 31 and February 6, 2005. In this research the media are
understood as political actors whose actions have an influence on how conflicts evolve.
This can be done by means of the (de)legitimisation of both the discursively implied
participants and the actions done by them. A Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
approach will be followed in order to uncover how ideological beliefs are spread and
whether they are dependent on power abuse by any of the selected newspapers.
Keywords: discourse, journalism, press, Ibarretxe Plan, sovereignty, critical discourse
analysis.
The Parliamentary debate that took place in Madrid after a new Political Statute of
Autonomy was proposed for the Basque Country in 2005 has been extremely important
for Euskadi’s political life–the 2009 regional electoral campaign is an example of this.
Nevertheless, the media have not reported much about its contents, basically
presenting it as unconstitutional and antidemocratic.
This research derives from the idea that media are political actors (Borrat, 1989) whose
actions influence the evolution of conflicts by means of a (de)legitimation process of
political participants, their actions, and their discourses. To prove this, 79 articles taken
from six different newspapers - El País, El Mundo, Libération, Le Monde, The Irish
Times and The Guardian – have been analysed, and a polarization strategy has been
found in their generally-slanted description of the Ibarretxe plan, which is usually
contested on the grounds of its unconstitutional status. This shows the key role of
these newspapers in spreading a social representation which stems from the
ideological beliefs that can be found within them (Van Dijk, 1996).
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Taking into account the plan’s legal and political features, and its being subordinated to
the constitutional framework, a main problem can be seen: the impossibility of the
Spanish State – which is made up of different autonomous regions (the regional state
established in 1978) - to adjust to the different historical and geographical realities. As
a consequence, there is a legal vacuum which prevents the particular features of these
entities from being legally recognized. Within this context, the plan – entitled “Proposal
of a Political Statute for the Autonomous Region of Euskadi” – tries to detail the type of
relationship that should be established between the Spanish State and the Basque
autonomous region. Its legitimacy is based on the rights that the Basque citizenship
possesses to decide their own future, one of the key aspects in the statutory articles.
Zallo (1997: 152) explains that sovereignism is a matrix concept within which
nationalism is reconciled with democracy as agreed during the Spanish Transition to
Democracy. Self-determination hence entails the application of sovereignty and the
appearance of different political scenarios which range from achieving different
degrees of autonomy to the creation of a Basque State. “Self-determination” is
nonetheless an empty signifier (Laclau 1996: 36), i.e. a signifier which has no meaning
and whose semantic connotations vary depending on the context where they are
produced.
In spite of this semantic vacuity, two problems can be found when this right is to be
applied (Perales, 2009): its being exercised depends on sovereign will, and sovereignty
is understood as coming from Spanish citizenship as a whole. Formally, Ibarretxe’s
proposal is constitutional: legitimate and protected by the Spanish Constitution when
understood as an initiative proposed by the President as an autonomous region and as
a procedure.Likewise, the Basque government does not mention explicitly a new
Basque State being created, but refers to the need of the Basque community to be
recognized as a national reality (country) within a complex State.
Historical Context
The sovereignist plan proposed by the then president of Euskadi, Juan José Ibarretxe,
clashed against the idea held by the then- PP80 Central government about the future of
the Spanish State, which they believed should be determined by state unity and the
sovereignty of the entirety of the Spanish people. On the contrary, when PSOE gained
power, there is a new period characterised by implication in the media, and
newspapers taking part in the debate over the right to self-determination.
The so-called Ibarretxe plan was born in a complex context characterized by the 20022003 illegalization process of those political parties associated to the abertzale left and
Batasuna being subsequently included in the EU list of terrorist organizations. At the
same time, some abertzale-left-related mass media were closed and Spain’s Penal
Code was reformed, hence managing to penalize any referendum being called by the
80
PP as standing for Partido Popular, a centre-right party, and PSOE for Partido Socialista Obrero Español, a socialist
party.
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Lehendakari without the approval of Parliament, where at the time PP had an absolute
majority.
The plan is argued to be a direct consequence of a number of badly resolved or
unresolved disputes81 such as the structure of the State, the definition of the Basque
collective identity– which includes different identities resulting from various degrees of
euskaldunization –, and an antagonistic model of left and right ideologies (Zallo, 1997:
110-115). The Basque proposal is a legal and political project which is presented as
overcoming the problems of an obsolete statute and which, according to nationalist
forces and some abertzale82 groups does not correspond to the political aspirations of
most of Basque people.
Method
This study is based on the analysis of news stories published in six mainstream
European newspapers - El País, El Mundo, Le Monde, Libération, The Guardian and
The Irish Times – between December 31, 2004 –when Ibarretxe plan was approved by
the Basque parliament –, and February 6, 2005 – date of rejection by the Spanish one.
Even if these newspapers do not represent the view of all the national media in Spain,
France, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, they are considered a reference whose
influence is exercised not only over the general public (including mainly national and
international intellectual, political and economical elites) but also over other furtherreaching media such as television, radio or the Internet. This stresses their importance
in spreading beliefs.
The corpus includes 79 news stories: 34 found in El País, 33 in El Mundo, 3 in
Libération, 3 in Le Monde, 2 in The Guardian, and 4 in The Irish Times which are
analysed following the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach, combined with
some theoretical postulates based on the sociology of conflict. The research departs
from the interest on the politically-active role of the mass media – particularly the
written press – in the social representation of conflict, whose nature can be stressed or
downplayed by the discursive representation of the communicative events which are
being reported (Borrat, 1989). A CDA-based analysis of newspaper discourse and its
stemming ideology aims therefore at understanding how and whether these texts
legitimise, reproduce, or oppose any domination or exclusion social relationship.
By analysing linguistic and discourse strategies which epitomise the beliefs of the
sender, this research studies newspaper discourse about the Ibarretxe plan understood
as a proposal aimed at solving the Basque conflict. Two elements have been identified:
81
Dispute is understood as any conflict or lawsuit which has been put before court (Zallo 1997).
82
This plan was approved by the Basque Parliament on December 2004. There were 39 favourable votes, one more
than the required minimum. The votes came from the tripartite government formed by the Nationalist Basque Party
(PNV), Eusko Alkartasuna (EA) and Ezker Batua- Joined Left (EB-IU). It was also supported by three of the six
representatives of Socialista Abertzaleak (SA).
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key topics and representation of actors involved in the conflict. These can help in
uncovering the ideological position of the newspaper, and whether this is a
consequence of the political and geographical structure of the country where it can be
found.
To do this, a table has been designed, including the semantic and global-coherence
macropropositions (or big units) (Van Dijk, 1996) of the articles, their definition of
conflict, their characterization of actors, and those contextual features which can help
in the location of conflict. These features have been selected by relying on Grice’s
(1975) Cooperative Principle, which proposes that both sender and receiver try to ease
the communication process by following and accepting a number of non-regulatory
principles related to the amount of information, its (true) quality, its relevance, and its
discursive organization.
This Cooperative Principle coincides with Charaudeau (2005)’s description of a
communication contract which regulates the relationship between the information
senders (the mass media) and its receivers (consumer society). It stipulates that
communication shall abide by the following requisites: there shall not be any lie, the
different reported actors shall be treated fairly and in a balanced way, information shall
be separated from opinion, and it shall be always true.
If these principles are followed, the analysed informative texts should provide the
reader with true and measured information, regardless of the ideological beliefs of the
press
where
they
are
produced
and
those
of
their
readers.
Results
Spanish newspapers
In the selected dates, 34 news stories, 4 front pages and 2 editorials about the
Ibarretxe plan are published in El País. Those articles published between January 31
and February 3 are included under the heading “Parliamentary debate over the
‘Ibarretxe Plan’” within the section about Spain. The heading changes twice and we
can read “The situation in the Basque Country” until February 6, and “Pre-campaign at
the Basque elections” afterwards.
In general terms, the ideological point of view of this newspaper can be described as
Spanish centralist, and they do not approve any proposal based on an idea of a State
within which more than one nation is recognized. The unity of the state is defended and
any other complementary or shared sovereignty rejected. It is diametrically opposed to
the plan, which is described as “not democratic” and “not constitutional” and
understood as an element aimed at unsettling the system.
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The newspaper does not allow any negotiation between the Spanish and Basque
administration because the plan is imposed by the Basque nationalist majority.
Ibarretxe is delegitimized as a political actor, particularly when reacting to the regional
elections. The idea of this plan as a mistake made by Ibarretxe and most of the Basque
parliament is often stressed, while the responsibility of the Spanish parliament is
downplayed and its actions are justified because of the rejection of an unconstitutional
plan which did not follow the democratic rules, i.e. the Spanish Constitution and the
Statute of Gernika. No difference is made between the political initiative and its content,
and both aspects are directly rejected by El País.
The legality and legitimacy principle of any proposal are positively valued provided that
the “non-nationalist” parties – PSE-PSOE and PP – take an active part in any statutoryreform proposal. This means that the newspaper aligns itself with Zapatero, who bets
for a project “within which everyone is fit”. Furthermore, within the news stories, it is
argued that the “bigger parties” should agree in working together for a reform based on
the notion of consensus and not on a “unilateral” plan.
The plan is negatively characterised as a “sovereignist project” and the “greatest
challenge to the Constitution”. Consequently, its rejection in the Spanish Parliament is
already justified as “certainly a defeat” of which one “can be sure” days before the
parliamentarian vote is held. On the contrary, Zapatero, as president of the Spanish
government, is positively described because he has sought consensus and has tried to
“spread dialogue between territories, peoples and identities” by offering the
“alternative” of a new proposal for a statutory reform. PP leader Mariano Rajoy is
presented as an inflexible person who offers no possibility of negotiation with the
Basque representatives and who labels the plan as “illegal”.
Even if El País explains the content of the plan, there is no direct reference to its
constitutional status under the grounds of the 1978 Spanish Constitution and the stillin-force 1979 Statute. On several occasions, the newspaper stresses that Ibarretxe’s
proposal has reached the Spanish parliament thanks to the support of three positive
votes coming from Batasuna in the Basque parliament. This contributes to the negative
depiction of the plan, personified in Ibarretxe, which also relies on the idea that a
politician’s defeat equals the defeat of his proposal. Besides, it is argued that this
document “establishes the legal basis for the independence of the Basque Country”.
There are certain recurring topics in the analysed coverage, which can be summarized
as follows: First, the newspaper worries over the idea of consensus, which results in it
defending the constitution as the unbreakable framework; second, consensus results
from a political pact between Basque non-nationalist forces. PSE-PSOE and PP should
not be left out when preparing a political project similar to this one – whose unilateral
trait is stressed; and third, the right to exercise self-determination is contested. The
conflict that results from the Basque proposal focuses on the belief in full sovereignty.
Ibarretxe plan is widely covered in El Mundo, where it occupies a large textual and
pictorial space: 33 news stories published under the heading “nationalist challenge”, 5
editorials, and several opinion columns and figures that illustrate how parliamentarian
votes have been divided and people’s opinion as included in a poll carried out by this
newspaper. This newspaper’s editorial beliefs determine the description of the plan as
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a “secessionist proposal”, a “fraud”, a “challenge”, and a “trap”, hence discrediting it
within the information articles.
Indeed, the plan is condemned by relying on several resources. First, the
unconstitutional status of the plan is stressed inasmuch as it opposes to the existence
of the “single” Spanish nation proposed in article 2 of the Spanish Constitution.
Besides, it foresees a “final dissociation from the State”, which is considered
unacceptable because the parliament of an autonomous region cannot take a
“unilateral” decision over the ties that bind it to Spain.
Another common strategy is to justify criticism of the plan by using the words of political
actors: PP, PSOE, and to some extent IU. PP claims that the plan is “backed up by
terrorists” and it “ignores and despises the opinions and feelings of non-nationalist
Basque people”. Patxi Lopez, from PSOE, states that “PNV has embarked the country
in a ship which has lost the sense of direction and which moves towards the breach of
consensus” and “the coexistence framework” built after the Transition period. El Mundo
also reproduces the disqualifying description of Ibarretxe made by the Basque socialist
leader, with the former behaving as a “visionary” (a word that is reproduced in a front
page and an editorial) and the representative of an “authoritarian regime”. Figures are
likewise quoted to persuade the reader of the plan’s lack of legitimacy. In February-1st
front page, it is stated that 22 millions of citizens oppose – through their parliamentary
representatives – the Ibarretxe plan in contrast with the supporting 826,223. These
figures being used together is somehow misleading, as those who vote PSOE, PP and
IU do not necessarily reject a reform of the Statute of Gernika.
There is no objectivity in the representation of actors, and discursive attacks to the
Basque government and its president are quite obvious, while his office in power is
negatively characterized. By claiming that he “spent four years in preparing this plan”, it
is argued that the Basque government forgot to manage the problems of this
autonomous region and they incorrectly employed public money: “most Basques have
admitted they ignore the Plan’s content, in spite of the intense mailing campaigns
financed by the Basque government” (31.01.2005).
Zapatero and Rajoy also have an active role. Although El Mundo praises the
president’s firm and dialogue-prone attitude at the debate, it seriously doubts about the
effectiveness of his state policy in relation to the demands of peripheral nationalism. By
avoiding a direct confrontation with PNV - “Zapatero did not want to hurt, irritate or
promote a victim mentality within nationalism”- and leaving an open door to a
modification of the Statute of Gernika, Zapatero is presented as coming out of the
debate with flying colours. Notwithstanding, Rajoy is presented as having defended
better constitutional values with a “hard and brilliant” discourse that denounced the
Basque President’s attempt to “over-extend his powers” “dressed up as a constitutional
reform”.
As a conservative opposition newspaper, El Mundo follows a biased trend which is
characterised by a lack of objectivity when presenting actors and their opinion. While
Ibarretxe and his plan are continuously discredited and the socialist government is
accused of making some concessions to “separatists”, Rajoy and PP appear as
adopting the most feasible positions.
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French newspapers
Founded by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and the Maoist left in 1973, Libération has
followed since the early 1980s a left or centre-left editorial line similar to the one in Le
Monde. Nevertheless, the former’s style and position on the Basque conflict differs
greatly from the ones of the latter. After the 1970s comparison of the Basque Country
with a “colonized land”, in the 1980s Libération opposed the expulsion and extradition
of ETA members that had taken shelter in France (Thouverez 2011: 96-97). A few
years later, it strongly criticized the “criminalization” process that Aznar’s Government
had initiated against the abertzale left. With these premises in mind, it seemed
reasonable to think that Ibarretxe’s sovereignist proposal was going to be accepted. On
the contrary, the analysis of the three published news stories shows a different
portrayal.
There are two different discursive stages in the informative coverage of the Ibarretxe
plan. Firstly, Libération acknowledges this proposal’s worthiness and legitimacy by
comparing it with Quebecer nationalists. The verbs used to refer to the actions carried
out the Lehendakari stress his willingness in making this statutory reform succeed.
However, the reporter stresses that the “legitimacy” reached by this plan in Euskadi
has resulted in tension amongst Spanish politicians. The statements uttered by
Zapatero and Rajoy, both of which are reproduced, insist on the dangerous and
unconstitutional traits of this plan: “With the objective of creating a ‘common front’
against this text that aims at ‘blowing the Spanish constitution up’, the Prime Minister
and the leader of the opposition party met […]. Zapatero repeated his commitment for
‘making the Constitution be respected’.” By reproducing these statements, the
journalist helps in spreading a false belief about this proposal. Indeed, by quoting
PSOE’s and PP’s most virulent assertions (most of which contain war-related words
such as “front”, “blow up”, “defy”, “breach”, or “rejection”), Libération negatively
prejudices the readers towards the plan.
The rejection of the plan in the Spanish parliament results in a third article being
published, where the debate is described as “historic” and “without surprises”. It is
“historic” because it is the first time that a “regional president” (the Jacobinist term used
by the French journalist should be noted) defends the right to self-determination in
Madrid. “Without surprises” refers to the global opposition of the biggest national
parties. According to correspondent François Musseau, Zapatero show serenity and
firmness, whereas Rajoy had a very aggressive attitude. Ibarretxe is associated to
voluntarism, political audacity and snub.
In spite of its apparent neutrality, Libération implicitly positions itself in favour of the
Spanish government when it is claimed that Ibarretxe wants to “arrogate state
competences”, i.e. competences which do not belong to him. Existing contradictions
within nationalist discourse are likewise stressed: “even if the proposal is presented as
a ‘plan for peaceful coexistence’, PNV moderate nationalists believe that half of the
Basque society desires breaking with Spain”. Libération thus shows a Spanish
centralist point of view: the plan is unconstitutional and it could harm coexistence. Both
information about the plan and its political contextualization are scarce and the
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adjectives associated to this project (sovereignist, independentist, irredentist83, and
secessionist) partially distort reality. Even if it is mentioned twice, the similarities
between the Quebecer model and the Basque proposal are not explained. Therefore,
we find superficial information that is focused on the confrontation between the Spanish
and Basque governments, hence not showing the actual complexity of this topic.
This pro-Spanish government stance is stressed in Le Monde. One idea underlies the
three articles published about the Ibarretxe plan: the Spanish government has to face
the “serious problem” of PNV’s separatist aspiration. According to correspondent
Martine Silber, the plan aims at driving the Basque Country towards an “almost
independence of a region which already has a very large autonomy”. Thus, “the
structure of the Spanish State is attacked”.
Le Monde ascribes this proposal to PNV’s willingness for attracting Batasuna voters in
the regional elections to be held in May 2005. But the second party is not prepared to
be left out of the political game, which explains its last-minute support of the plan.
According to the journalist, this statutory reform project is not legitimate as it does not
have the support of the Basque and Spanish political forces. The Catalan case is
presented as the reference model: “Catalan parties are working on a common project
at the moment. This is not the case of the Basque Country”.
Three other actors appear in the analysed news stories: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero,
María Teresa Fernández de la Vega and Mariano Rajoy. The Government’s Vicepresident, in an interview granted to Martine Silber, explains that the Ibarretxe plan
entails a modification of the Constitution, something which is opposed by the
Government. However, she states that Zapatero is in favour of a “pluralist Spain” and
does not rule out certain measures which could improve self-government in the Basque
Country. Le Monde greets this attitude towards “dialogue”, which together with Aznar
being substituted by Rajoy, ended with “extreme political tension” in Spain.
Newspapers in the British Isles
Two newspapers have been analysed in the case of the British Isles: The Guardian
and The Irish Times. Their intended audience could be described as middle class, left
wing (Reath 2003: 35). The Guardian is a newspaper which is associated to the UK,
and Southern England, in particular, whereas The Irish Times is published in Ireland.
This different geographical location has determined their choice, mainly in order to see
whether historical perceptions about the Irish conflict mediate, or not, portrayals about
the Ibarretxe plan.
The first difference in treatment can be seen in the number of articles published: two
short news stories in The Guardian and four in the Irish Times. The time span also
83
Irredentism is an Italian political doctrine born at the end of the 19th century. It argues in favour of annexing
certain territories to a state on the grounds of cultural, ethnic or historical reasons. The incorrect use of the
adjective “irredentist” in an article published on 15.01.2005 shall be noted.
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differs. Whereas in The Guardian news are produced only at two of the key moments
(the early calling of elections on February 2, and the political debate on January 2005),
in The Irish Times intermediate events are also reported, including Zapatero’s meeting
with Rajoy and the actual defeat of the plan in the Spanish parliament.
The image found in The Guardian is based on two elements: the “pressure” exercised
over Zapatero to pass the Ibarretxe plan, and the description of the plan and those
surrounding circumstances that contribute to increasing that pressure over the Spanish
government. These negative associations – mainly stemming from the combination of
“independence” and “pressure” – delegitimize the plan, particularly by relying on a
number of features. First, the plan has been passed in the Basque parliament “by one
single vote”, hence highlighting that it is not approved by a majority of Basque
parliamentarians (regardless of their reasons for it). Besides, the plan is turned down
by “the centre-right opposition” on the grounds of it running “counter to the principles of
the Spanish constitution”, something which makes them “confident” of having “the
backing of the majority of the electorate”. Words such as majority and electorate and
the historical value of those legal documents used to oppose the plan stress its
negativity. Besides, its objectives are downplayed when the proposal is described as
aiming at “greater” or “increased” (regional) “independence”. The use of the adjectives
“greater” and “increased” modifying independence presuppose (Yule 1996: 26) the
existence of that independence in the Basque country – probably in comparison with
other unmentioned regions.
Four main actors are mentioned in The Guardian: Zapatero, as Spanish Prime Minister,
and the Spanish government; Juan José Ibarretxe, as head of the Basque government
and architect of the plan; critics of the plan; and Catalan nationalists. Whereas
Zapatero is suffering the pressure of an “escalating row over Basque independence”,
Ibarretxe is seen as the source from which pressure stalks because of his attempt to
“bring forward his quest”. The Guardian highlights the opposed relationship between
the government and pro-plan Basques, particularly when they are quoted as saying
that “Zapatero is becoming a pathetic spokesman for the (opposition) People’s party”.
This negative portrayal of Zapatero is subsequently delegitimized when embedded in
the context of this news story. Interestingly, Catalan nationalists are included as an
actor involved in the debate over the Ibarretxe plan. They are referred to with
adjectives such as “angry”, and they are associated to destructive actions such as
“threat to sink the Socialist administration” or “step up the pressure”. Even if the plan is
the conflicting event with which this news story deals, Catalan nationalists –
significantly portrayed as “separatists” – are given a prominent role, being the actors of
most of the actions. This negativity is stressed by the use of words which evoke the
destruction of a particular political formation: the Spanish government.
Although the Ibarretxe plan is more clearly explained in the news stories that appear in
The Irish Times, it is also implicitly delegitimized. Its objectives are presented as a
“threat [to] the unity of the Spanish state by creating a semi-independent Basque
nation”. Using words such as “nation” and “state” to describe the outcome of this plan
help in creating a definition of self-determination that is clearly equivalent to being
independent. Nevertheless, this desired total independence (turning “the Basque
country into a virtual free state”) is not acknowledged as such within the plan, which
“stops short of full independence since this would force them out of the European
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Union”. References to the EU, and even to the European constitution, in relation to the
plan abound in the Irish Times, hence presenting a proposal which is not only based on
ideological beliefs – the desire of an independent nation – but also on pragmatic
political decisions which could have an impact in the future of the Basque country.
Two further elements appear in reports published in the Irish Times. On the one hand,
“self-determination” – as opposed to the mere use of “independence” – is used to
describe Ibarretxe’s goals. This word also serves to link the plan to other participants,
as it is “ETA’s principal demand”. The negativity of the plan is highlighted by its
discursive association to violent groups; an association which is tightened by the
explanation of how the plan was approved in the Basque parliament only because of
the support of “Sozialista Abertzaleak, which arouse from the ashes of the banned
Batasuna, ETA’s political front”. On the other hand, the geographical scope of the plan
is also mentioned, once again linked to ETA’s demands for “the incorporation of the
neighbouring region of Navarre into the Basque Country”. This wider geographical
claim is delegitimized not only by the explicit reference to ETA, but also by a
“vehement” opposition by “the majority of the residents.” Comparisons of the plan with
the “Third Reich” and “totalitarism” embedded in a quote by the president of the
Navarran government stress its negative goals.
Both Ibarretxe and Zapatero are included in all the news stories. Although their actions
are similar to the ones presented in The Guardian, their overall portrayal is slightly
different, with Ibarretxe’s actions being characterized as “unconstitutional”, and
Zapatero basically meeting the different political actors and making statements in
relation to that. Two other significant participants appear in The Irish Times: the
Spanish people and Batasuna. Spanish people are the audience reacting to the events
that are taking place in the Basque country and are described as “fear[ing]” the
consequences of the plan, particularly a possible future demand for greater autonomy
from other regions and the subsequent breaking of Spanish unity. The inclusion of
Batasuna as one of the political actors, its characterisation as “illegal”, and their
connection to ETA results in a further delegitimation of the plan, which is not overtly
criticized, but from whose characterisation stems a negative image.
Conclusions
This study has shown that newspaper discourses published about the Ibarretxe plan
have a centralist point of view, with peripheral nationalism being silenced. In general
terms, the analysed newspapers reject this plan which is considered an
unconstitutional proposal which lacks consensus. The information offered by these
newspapers is biased and insufficient, hence breaking the communication contract
“signed” with their readers. This breach can be seen in the deformation of some ideas
associated to the plan and the superficial description of actors and their discourses.
Even if the newspapers talk about the content of the plan, it is never presented as a
legitimate and constitutional initiative, and neither are the readers offered any reason
which justifies why a project which was supported by more than 50% of the Basque
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parliament should be considered illegitimate because it is not backed by the most
powerful state parties, PSOE and PP.
Acknowledgement
This research is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, under the
National Programme of R+D+I, in the framework of the project entitled “La construcción
mediática de los conflictos políticos y territoriales en España: estudio de los discursos
y de las narrativas” (CSO2010-20047).
End Note
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cristina Perales,
Departament de Comunicació, Facultat d'Empresa i Comunicació (FEC), Universitat de
Vic, C/ Sagrada Família 7, Vic – 08500 (Barcelona), Spain. E-mail:
[email protected]
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Speech Acts,Vol. 3 from Syntax & Semantics. New York: Academic Press.
Laclau, E. (1996) Emancipation(s). London: Verso.
Perales, C. (2009) Análisis crítico de la cobertura del Plan Ibarretxe en el discurso
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de febrero de 2005. Barcelona: UAB.
Reath, D. (2002) The Language of Newspapers. London: Rougledge.
Thouverez, L. (2011) Violence d’Etat et médias, Le traitement informatif du GAL dans
la presse française et espagnole de référence. Paris: LGDJ.
Van Dijk, T. A. (1996) La noticia como discurso. Comprensión, estructura y producción
de la información. Barcelona: Paidós Comunicación.
Yule, G. (1996) Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zallo, R. (1997) Euskadi o la segunda transición. Nación, cultura, ideologías y paz en
un cambio de época. Donostia-San Sebastián: Erein.
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Making Sense Out of Newspaper Humour – The Swine Flu
Pandemic in Portugal
Gonçalo Pereira Rosa
Catholic University of Portugal, Portugal
Abstract
Using semiotic methodologies to uncover denotative and connotative meanings
following Roland Barthes’s work, our research analysed the humour published in one
Portuguese newspaper about the global build-up of the swine flu (H1N1) scare of 200910. Results demonstrate that humour was much quicker than traditional journalistic
templates to assign responsibilities and depict failures in the crisis management
system, precociously suggesting that the pandemic could be just another moral panic.
Through humour, newspapers stressed the cyclic nature of health risks.
Keywords: humour, risk society, news constraints, journalism, swine flu
Introduction
Newspaper cartoons and other expressions of humour are a valuable resource to study
social trends and shared meanings, while providing information about the way social
meaning is attached to specific risk events.
Simple, easy to interpret and decode, humour reaches a section of the audience
usually not influenced by written news, and therefore not included in the overall debate
over the impacts of the risk society. Its study provides clues to design better
communication strategies for events marked by uncertainty.
Consider the headlines of two stories published in the Portuguese newspaper Público
during the global build-up which led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare
the first pandemic of the 21st century on June 11, 2009. “The Health Line 24 will
encourage users to heal each other in a Wikipedia approach” and “Swine sue
journalists for libel and damages.” Despite the familiar template that resonates with a
newspaper style, these fragments correspond to a discursive non-sense strictu sensu.
They are only intelligible in the context of a humorous supplement, weekly published by
this newspaper. Appropriately, its motto is: “It didn’t happen, but it could have.”
The Health Line 24 was the telephone service established by the Ministry of Health to
screen potential suspects of flu-like symptoms in order to alleviate the pressure on the
patient care units. At the peak of the pandemic in Portugal, in the second and third
weeks of November 2009, the service could not respond in a satisfactory manner, thus
justifying the joke about users being forced to heal each other.
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In contrast, the second headline may be explained by the discursive battle waged
between the WHO and the newsrooms. Following the first reported cases in Mexico,
the Portuguese media designated the disease “Mexican flu”, a label that sparked panic
in the tourism industry of this Central America’s country. They were right. To this day,
the 1918-19 pneumonic is still widely known as the Spanish flu, although it was not an
epidemic confined to the borders of any specific country. It was then argued that the
disease should be named “swine flu”, since the H1N1 virus had originated in pigs.
However, this label also displeased economic interests in livestock, as it motivated the
indiscriminate slaughter of pigs in countries like Egypt. The WHO finally announced
that the disease should be designated influenza A (H1N1) but several media
organizations in English speaking countries decided not to change.
This discursive struggle waged to define a new social problem sparked the inspiration
to create a humorous text about the possible discomfort of pigs with the lack of
newspaper accuracy. In a broader perspective, both jokes express the larger editorial
freedom enjoyed by humorists, since professional constraints force journalists to look
for balance. This article discusses the merits and the validity of editorial humour stories
applied to the case of swine flu.
Project
Much research has been devoted to the communication of risk in the face of disasters
or other unforeseen accidents – the most prolific expressions of what Beck (1992)
called the risk society. However, communication through images, whether photographic
or humorous, remains to be examined, just as there are few studies on the role of
editorial humour in the collective sublimation of the issues that create public alarm.
We seek to demonstrate in this article that humour had a relief role during the news
coverage of the pandemic flu, putting into perspective the real risk of contagion, playing
with the consequences and blaming the authorities and the media for the panic. We
shall discuss how this function was put into practice long before the media discourse
did the same.
We argue that humour is a journalistic tool comparable to the editorial column,
expressing opinions not bound by the standards of objectivity that govern journalism.
Through the multiple layers of meaning and different stylistic features that construct the
connotative content of each humorous expression, there is an accepted space within
the publications to make judgments that would not be accepted in traditional news
pages. We also note that the constraints that ensure the subordination of reporters to
professional standards become blurred in the case of humorists, opening a grey area
within which (almost) anything can be written or drawn under freedom of expression.
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The social functions of humour
Humour’s success derives from its ability to act as an inverted image of the
seriousness of speech imposed by institutions like the media (Mulkay, 1988). However,
even in its most distorted versions, the humorous discourse maintains the pretension of
representing reality, because it is endowed with a meaning associated with real
persons, institutions or events. Therefore, it reflects cultural attitudes and shared
beliefs of a fraction of the society within an historical context (Giarelli, 2006).
Smyth (1986) studied the rapid proliferation of jokes about the Challenger shuttle
disaster in spoken folklore and suggested that one function of humour in face of
disaster was the ability to represent the abstract concept of death in a way that can be
mocked. In doing so, it exhausts the collective anxiety by integrating the most morbid
details in a humorous structure. By making fun of ideas, institutions or events that may
precipitate its own mortality, society expresses inhibited impulses about the taboo
subjects, drawing pleasure from this behaviour. The second example we have selected
above answers to this logic. It was published at the same time it became known –
through a public comment of the President of the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine – that a pandemic could infect two to three million Portuguese and cause
75,000 deaths in this country alone. The catastrophic scenario acted as a spur for
alarm and anxiety. The swine lawsuit story may have helped to defuse it.
Smyth also drew attention to the impossibility of escaping the news representation of a
catastrophic event in contemporary society. He proposed that another function of
humour in these circumstances was precisely the targeting of aggression towards the
media and the power they wield over other social actors. The humour that places the
media in the centre of mockery also acts as an implicit criticism of the devices that turn
a private universe – such as the case of the patient that desperately struggles to
communicate his flu-like symptoms to a jammed telephone service – into a public
event. Television shows, such as the widely known Daily Show, that mock real news
through commentary represent an expression of this trend (Baumgartner and Morris,
2006).
Meyer (2000) systematized three additional features of humour – relief, incongruity and
superiority – that can be used in accordance with the purpose to unite or divide the
audience. In stressful situations, humour can mock the threats and signal that they may
not be as severe, producing collective relief in the audience; incongruity, in turn, is
expressed when a society shares certain standards of reality and the use of humour
can divert the audience's attention from the problem to the standards themselves, thus
pointing out that deviations from the standards are laughable. Ultimately, the function of
humour may be an exacerbation of one group over the others, pointing out its
superiority in the face of real or perceived ignorance of “the other”, like adults laughing
at children’s follies or courtiers mocking the court jester.
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Cartoons and other humorous styles
Modern society operates through its texts. Symbolic representations that join text with
image are therefore a useful mechanism to successfully reach the public. Editorial
humour – in particular, cartoons – provides cognitive maps to decode everyday life, but
sociology has devoted little attention to the visual discourse built on these supports
(Greenberg, 2002). Morris (1993) argued that editorial cartoons present four
advantages for the newspaper: They establish the source (the artist and the
newspaper) as an expert on the problem; they propose a frame by suggesting an
interpretation and a course of action; they define a normative agenda that allows
readers to evaluate the cartoon in moral terms; and they promote the desire for action,
capitalizing symbolic resources to a particular cause.
The comedian on a newspaper has a similar role to the columnist, expressing opinions
on a topic without any pretension of objectivity (Conners, 2005). He has fewer
constraints because of the absence of a direct relationship with news sources, and
therefore he is not subject to external pressures. Making use of myths, narratives,
metaphors or cultural and symbolic representations, the cartoonist helps to disseminate
news frames, simplifying them to their roots (Gamson and Stuart, 1992). Conners
(2005: 482-486) found that in order to achieve this the comedian can make analogies
with sport, festive occasions, film or literary references, the entertainment industry,
advertising or television programs. Another resource, as noted by Smyth (1986: 249),
is the recycling of narrative structures already used in the past.
One of the merits of editorial humour lies in the ability to charm readers who believe not
to be eligible to participate in the more sophisticated debate that takes place in the hard
news sections. Cartoons require only a “minimum cognitive strain” (Giarelli, 2006: 74).
Concision increases the impact of editorial humour, as its most obvious meaning is
captured in a few seconds and not after reading a dense column of text (Caswell, 2004:
17).
There are of course limitations to the comedian. He has a narrow space of intervention
and is expected to comment on issues already defined by the media (Greenberg,
2002). The arguments should be condensed into mini-narratives, crudely personalizing
problems and building idealizations of the world. Therefore, his legacy is less durable
than the news texts. Moreover, the comedian is not completely autonomous in that he
must absorb the prejudices and the editorial line of his publication and his audience
expectations (Hansen, 1997: 1799). Even so, the humorous expressions provide
important clues about the familiarity of ordinary people with specialized topics.
Methodology
We have identified four humorous techniques used by the daily newspaper Público
(mostly in its humorous pages, but also in other sections) from April 2009 (when the
first news about the deaths in Mexico broke) to August 2010, when the WHO declared
the end of the pandemic. The cartoon consists in a single caricatured image with a
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possible caption; the strip corresponds to a sequence of three or more vignettes,
usually predefined by the author; the photomontage glues the face of a public figure to
a bizarre body or scenario; and the humorous text by itself dismisses any image. In
humorous expressions of a single image, the success of humour depends on a shared
knowledge between the artist and the audience; in compound expressions, such as the
strips, it is easier to establish the parameters of debate (Giarelli, 2006: 64).
We have also identified all relevant textual references to swine flu in the newspaper
during the sampling period, quantifying the number of items per day, the number of
times the subject was addressed on the first page and the number of times it made the
headlines. By item we mean any textual, illustrative or mixed, visually identifiable,
autonomous block of the newspaper that suggests to the reader it is an independent
unit. We have outlined in the news coverage and in the humorous production the
moments of hegemony of seven major news frames: i) the description of the
epidemiology of the virus (severity, causes, history); ii) the battles to define the disease
designation; iii) government statements appealing to normalcy; iv) impacts on economy
and everyday life; v) vaccination and resistance to vaccination; vi) accusations of
media hysteria; and vii) accusations of poor risk management. Naturally, the definition
of one or more frames in a news story or a humorous expression is a subjective
exercise. This stage of the project is therefore more qualitative than quantitative, but
we believe that the set of items accumulated over a given period allows us to identify
the hegemonic frames of any given time, following Gamson and Modigliani’s (1989)
approach to interpretive packages expressed by nuclear messages.
All image outlets have connotative and denotative meanings (Barthes, 1977). Meaning
and, by extension, humour are produced in two semiotic ways – verbally and visually
(Tsakona, 2009). Humour is normally produced through the interaction between
drawing and text, whether by juxtaposition of concepts or by contradiction between
them. Through Barthes semiotics, an image can be decomposed in layers of meaning,
from the most obvious to the most profound and unintended. The use of cultural
resources should therefore be identified, as stigmatization, personalization and other
rhetorical figures provide clues about the author's intention. Giarelli (2006: 71), for
instance, analyzed the use of the Frankenstein metaphor in cartoons about cloning and
concluded that cartoonists sometimes suggest an inference to their readers: If two
subjects share some common characteristics, they may share all of them.
We have also interviewed two newspaper cartoonists, hoping to obtain additional
information regarding the limits and objectives of the spaces of humour in the pages of
Público.
Results and discussion
The swine flu killed 124 people in Portugal in the autumn and winter of 2009-10. The
peak of flu-like symptoms took place in November and December, during which time
more than ten thousand people were infected each week and dozens were hospitalized
(DGS, 2010). More than half of the deaths occurred in those two months, but the
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worsening of the disease indicators does not reflect the emphasis the newspaper
devoted to the case. Indeed, as Eldridge and Reilly (2003) noted on their analysis of
the media coverage of BSE in the British media, the scientific story may occur in a
different timeline of the news story. We believe that this happened with the swine flu in
Portugal.
Table 1 distributes the number of items, the number of cover mentions and the
occasions the swine flu was the headline. The newspaper produced 785 items about
the flu. 69 references were made on the first page – 18 of which as headlines. The
peak of coverage was in July as cases proliferated throughout the world, but the virus
arrival to Portugal was slower. Although there were no clinical cases to justify alarm,
the newspaper anticipated the threat. Earlier, in May 2009, there was a period of
intense news coverage, which acted to define the new social problem. The third peak
occurred in November, in conjunction with the dissemination of symptoms and the first
deaths.
Table 1
Items, first page references, headlines and predominant frames from April 2009 to
August 2010, Público.
Months
Items
First page
Headlines
Predominant frames
April 2009
42
5
3
Description of
epidemiology of the virus /
Battles to define the
disease designation
May 2009
91
8
1
Government statements
appealing to normalcy /
Impacts on economy and
everyday life
June 2009
43
5
1
Government statements
appealing to normalcy /
Impacts on economy and
everyday life
July 2009
140
15
7
Impacts on economy and
everyday life
August 2009
90
9
2
Government statements
appealing to normalcy /
Impacts on economy and
everyday life
September
2009
71
7
3
Government statements
appealing to normalcy /
Vaccination and
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resistance to vaccination
October 2009
88
8
1
Government statements
appealing to normalcy /
Vaccination and
resistance to vaccination
November 2009
106
6
0
Government statements
appealing to normalcy /
Vaccination and
resistance to vaccination
December 2009
34
1
0
Government statements
appealing to normalcy /
Vaccination and
resistance to vaccination
January 2010
25
1
0
Government statements
appealing to normalcy
February 2010
14
1
0
Accusations of poor risk
management /
Government statements
appealing to normalcy
March 2010
3
0
0
Accusations of poor risk
management /
Government statements
appealing to normalcy
April 2010
9
1
0
Accusations of poor risk
management
May 2010
4
0
0
Government statements
appealing to normalcy
June 2010
5
0
0
Government statements
appealing to normalcy
July 2010
4
1
0
Government statements
appealing to normalcy
August 2010
16
1
0
Government statements
appealing to normalcy /
Accusations of poor risk
management
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In January and February 2010, during which time the WHO and the European
Commission were criticized for having yielded to lobbying from the pharmaceutical
industry, the story was no longer interesting to the Portuguese press. It was followed at
a distance, and almost without first page references.
From a clinical standpoint, the periods of stress were quite different. The peak of
infection occurred in the last fortnight of November, a period during which more than
twenty thousand people were infected each week. December and January were the
months in which more people died of the disease.
As suggested, the predominant news frames varied throughout the news coverage. In
April 2009, the newspaper echoed the interpretive packages that we have designated
as “Description of the epidemiology of the virus” and “Battle to define the disease
designation.” From May to September, the newspaper reported under the frames
“Government statements appealing to normalcy”, “Impacts on the economy and
everyday life”, and occasionally “Accusations of poor risk management”. In October
and December, the frame “Government statements appealing to normalcy” was still
predominant, but there was more information on the theme of “Vaccination and
resistance to vaccination.”
From January to August 2010, one can easily find “Accusations of poor risk
management” and “Accusations of media hysteria”, although health officials struggled
to show how the government was in control. In August, the WHO declared the end of
the pandemic. By then, the predominant interpretive package was again “Accusations
of poor risk management”. In a way, the newspaper was slow to calling into question
the assumptions official authorities had chosen to define the issue, confirming yet again
the decisive influence of officials with scientific authority in the initial framing of
controversial health topics (Traquina, Cabrera, Ponte and Santos, 2001). At least one
section of the newspaper, however, reported otherwise.
Table 2 represents the monthly publication of humorous approaches to the subject of
swine flu. 20 cartoons (some of which purchased abroad), 7 strips, 19 photomontages
and 60 texts were published during the sampling period.
The timing of the address of swine flu in humorous items did not escape the pattern
established by the news sections, as expected. After all, the humour is generated by
the mockery of current affairs. Nevertheless, the use of comedy frames was different
from the rest of the publication.
Humour as a place of rebellion is more effective as a device to critique. The absurd or
the unreal permit claims that do not demand auxiliary evidence, as is required by the
professional standards of journalists. Thorough factual checks and the search for
witnesses or documents proving the allegations are unnecessary. Naturally, one runs
the risk of libel or of injustice to public figures, but at the same time a healthy area of
critique is fostered. One could assume that its value to the newspaper is precisely the
indiscipline it resonates.
Since the beginning of the swine flu case, newspaper humorists downplayed the
severity of the threat and compared it to previous health panics such as the outbreak of
SARS in 2003 and the avian influenza in 2005. For instance, the last cartoon of our
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sample, published in late August 2010, places the flu in a circular motion, in which
every health threat is just a step on the way to the next big scare. The representation of
the pandemic as just one more health problem denies its severity and raises the
debate to the level of the responsibilities of those involved in its public build-up.
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Table 2
Humorous items and predominant frames in Público, April 2009 to August 2010.
Month
Humorous Predominant frames
items
April 2009
11
Accusations of media hysteria
May 2009
13
Impacts on economy and everyday
life / Accusations of media hysteria
/
Accusations of poor risk
management
June 2009
-
-
July 2009
35
August 2099
13
Accusations of poor risk
management / Accusations of
media hysteria /
Accusations of poor risk
management / Accusations of
media hysteria /
September 2009
4
Accusations of poor risk
management
October 2009
14
Accusations of media hysteria /
Vaccination and resistance to
vaccination /
November 2009
10
Accusations of poor risk
management
December 2009
2
Vaccination and resistance to
vaccination /
January 2010
5
Accusations of poor risk
management
February 2010
-
-
March 2010
1
-
April 2010
-
-
May 2010
2
Accusations of poor risk
management
June 2010
-
-
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July 2010
-
-
August 2010
2
Accusations of media hysteria
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In April 2009, almost simultaneously with the first reports on the situation in Mexico, the
newspaper published texts and humorous cartoons that attacked the journalistic
propensity for disaster. A good example is presented in Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Photomontage. April 2009. Unknown author.
Pig 1: I quote George Orwell: “The journalist serves the interests of no creature except
himself.”
Pig 2: “If there is a guilty part, it should be the ducks!”
In this photomontage published in April 2009, journalists are attacked by humorists on
the account of their limited ability to challenge official positions. The dialogue
represents one of the pigs in a higher level of consciousness discussing the fragility of
the journalistic process, while the other, naiver, sees nothing more than the intervention
of the ducks. The author hence produces comedy by exaggerating the Orwellian
critique of journalists and by the incongruence of the new and unexpected culprit.
It is quite evident in this example the meta-referential power of humour, which is
allowed to express doubt over the merits of its own outlet. One can find examples of
this meta-function in editorial columns and interviews with subjects who cast doubt on
the media’s role. But the humour is much more comfortable – and it is given more
latitude by the publication – in the critique of the newspaper itself.
Figure 2 is also representative of this.
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Figure 2
Cartoon. April 2009. António Jorge Gonçalves.
Visibly ill, the pig sneezes coins that will enrich some outside party. This cartoon uses a
reminiscence of the childhood piggy bank, which is emptied with just one sneeze. The
reader is left with the responsibility of guessing who will get the flying coins. It should
also be noted the cracks in the piggy bank - a wink to the already depleted Portuguese
finances.
The cartoon has a denotative meaning since the pig was often used to designate the
disease, although it should be noted, at the connotative level, the association of the
piggy bank with the money issue as a symbol of economy and savings. The act of
throwing money away is thus a metaphor for what the cartoonist thinks of official health
politics. Importantly, in the first weeks of coverage, cartoons like this sought to suggest
vested interests in the pandemic’s origin. As the author explains:
«At this point - with the West on the brink of economic crisis - I realized that we were
seeing a media battle in which various parties were trying to get the better of the
discussion using pragmatic arguments. Health authorities used the issue to reaffirm the
importance of their decisions; the media (as usual) wanted to have larger audiences
and played with the public's voyeurism.» (Interview with António Jorge Gonçalves,
cartoonist)
Figure 3, published in May, exacerbates the previous two frames.
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Figure 3.
Cartoon. May 2009. Repeated in October 2009. Al Rayes.
A little pig in the foreground sees its shadow amplified in the world map, suggesting a
gross distortion of its real impact in benefit of others. This cartoon is part of the list of
humorous work the newspaper bought from foreign authors.
Notice just two additional examples. Figure 4, published in October during the critical
phase of the vaccination programme, challenged the medical authorities that imposed
the vaccine. Although every citizen was free to choose, a huge media campaign
boosted the importance of being vaccinated, highlighting risk and age groups. In the
cartoonist’s eyes, scientific evidence was not enough to direct the public to the
vaccination needles, but free will was given a very narrow latitude.
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Figure 4
Cartoon. October 2009. António Jorge Gonçalves
There is a clear association with Orwell’s Big Brother and its oppression, which
subordinates individual freedom to the needs of the collective. The syringe, which
intentionally emerges from the television, offers no alternative to the individual who
feels compelled to get vaccinated. We identify in this cartoon the news frames of
“Resistance to vaccination” as well as “Accusations of media hysteria”.
«I think we lived in a kind of ultimatum; in face of the (legitimate in my view) hesitation
expressed by citizens at the lack of assurances from the vaccination program,
authorities, in liaison with the media, used an offensive tone exploiting the fear. This
patronizing attitude is recurrent with health authorities» (Interview with António Jorge
Gonçalves, cartoonist)
Finally, Figure 5 represents the Minister of Health who the humorous sections
repeatedly addressed as “The Minister of Swine Flu.”
Figure 5
Cartoon. January 2010. António Jorge Gonçalves
Minister Ana Jorge became famous for her daily appearances on television in
connection with this case. In January 2010, the newspaper mocked her actual role by
representing her with an evil look, washing her hands with all the precepts taught by
the Ministry and wiping them on a roll of paper labelled “false pandemic”.
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No text of the news sections dared to personalize so much the responsibility of the
case, pointing the finger at the minister and suggesting so evidently collusion with other
interests.
It is also worth discussing the degree of autonomy the humourist possesses within the
publication. Público is the daily newspaper with the longest and more successful
humorous section. One of the comedians (António Jorge Gonçalves) recognized that
there are discussions with the newspaper editor about the topic and the approach to
each cartoon, but it remains an artist’s decision. The other one (Luís Afonso) stressed
that with the current software to access the newspaper back office, the editor only sees
the cartoons when they are already online. Hence the only constraints are
organizational (when there are already too many pieces on the subject in one issue) or
commercial (when the interests of a sponsor can be tweaked) within a framework of
healthy autonomy.
They found their work more relatable to the columnist’s than to the journalistic function.
They express free opinions, but the work still requires an analysis of current affairs (to
see which topics are broad enough to warrant treatment) and documentation (to decide
what to draw).
Both valued the advantage of not having to deal with sources since this provides a
safeguard against the sanctions and pressures from external sources. Both defined
themselves as representatives of the audience, i.e., social agents halfway between the
newspaper and its public, a sort of moral reserve or a reader’s ombudsman.
Conclusion
The role of humour in the journalistic construction of risk stories warrants further
approaches. We believe that, in this case, the humorous sections embodied the relief
role envisioned by Morris (2003) in face of the information overload that was produced
about a previously unknown threat. Cartoonists joke about what is important as the
transformation of fearful subjects into current news takes place.
At the same time, we find in humour a willingness to discuss news frames - even if not
in an objective way – that is non-existent in traditional news sections. Even the
columnists or the interviewees who questioned the government's risk management
waited until late June, two months after the beginning of the case, to voice their
concerns.
The role of humour in the contemporary press justifies the attention of sociology. We
therefore recommend additional studies to gauge the scope of these sections on
attitudes and behaviours about the risk society. Moreover, crisis managers should take
into account these non-conventional spaces of intervention in the press, realizing that a
cartoon like Figure 5 has tremendous impact on the audience and raises doubts on the
merits of health officials plans at the worst possible time.
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Online News Comments: A Sense of Community from an
Ethical and Legal Perspective
Carlos Ruiz*, Javier Díaz Noci**, Pere Masip*, Josep Lluís Micó*, David Domingo***,
Koldo Meso****
*Ramon Llull University, Spain
**Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
***Rovira i Virgili University, Spain
****University of the Basque Country, Spain
Abstract
This study assesses the quality of comments in news of five online newspapers from a
normative perspective of Habermas’ discursive ethics. Our main goal is to analyze the
ethical and legal norms that regulate audience participation in five international quality
online newspapers: The Guardian (UK), Le Monde (France) The New York Times
(USA), El País (Spain), La Repubblica (Italy). We compared their legal texts and
participation guidelines
From an ethical and legal perspective, audience discussions in news are not just about
journalism becoming more participatory. As online newspapers incorporate usergenerated content (UGC) to their production routines, an ethical approach must
consider which are the criteria that guide participation, and a legal analysis will reveal
how media companies consider user input as part of their products. At the same time,
we captured a sample of stories and associated comments using software designed ad
hoc for this project.
The five news sites have guidelines that orientate conversations in a moral sense, in
order to make citizen contributions comply with democratic principles. Concretely, the
following aspects were considered: Rules to foster coherence and logic of the debate,
Rules to foster the cooperative search of truth, Users’ consideration both as consumers
and as authors (thus, intellectual property is considered as well), and, finally, the
problems that globalization poses to legal systems and its concrete translation as a
quasi-contractual norms in online media.
The analysis of conversations in the sample reveals to what extent the moderation
teams manage to keep the debates within the limits the newsrooms have set.
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Introduction
There is a link between democracy and communication that traverses the history of
western thought. In his work The Laws (Plato, 1971), the Greek philosopher asks what
would be the ideal number of citizens for a polis. His specific answer is 5,040, although
it is not the figure that is important but the underlying criterion: everyone should be able
to hear the voice of the orator, and share and know about the issues that are of interest
to everyone. The Greek solution was the agora. Pericles contributes another essential
element of the link. He does so in the funeral oration in honour of the Athenian heroes
who died in the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides, 1972), where the concept of citizen is
defined for the first time: one who deliberates. We can reencounter this essence of
democracy in later authors, such as John Dewey. In his work The Public and Its
Problems (Dewey, 1927), he reaches the same conclusion as Plato, that the
community exists in communication, because through communication the members of
a community come to hold things in common (Dewey, 1991).
Today, the new technologies are making it possible to uphold those two constitutive
elements of democracy. Internet makes it possible to hear the voice of any orator and
the deliberation amongst the members of a community. It is now a question of an agora
2.0, of a digital public sphere, in which, for the first time in the history of
communication, a new subject emerges: our former receiver has been emancipated
and has become an emitter of content. From the previous reflections it is clear that
citizen participation is the indispensable element in a democracy. Internet has made
the possibility of participatory audiences possible, and their content flows through the
different channels of the online newspapers (Bruns, 2005; Hermida & Thurman, 2008;
Singer et al.; Thurman, 2008).
Dahlberg (2001: 110-121) considers that Internet foments political debate and
increases participation. And the number of participants is a factor to be borne in mind,
since the more that citizens participate in politics, the closer one comes to the ideal of a
public sphere (Schudson, 1992: 147). Internet makes it possible to revitalise social
conversation, deliberation amongst citizens. The digital newspapers have established
different mechanisms for participation by their audiences. The most popular is that of
comments on news stories, an example of conversation 2.0 (Ruiz, Masip, Micó, DíazNoci & Domingo, 2010: 9). However, the key element for strengthening democracy is
the quality of that conversation (Grbesa, 2003), which is reflected in reasoned
argument and involves “recognising, incorporating and refuting the arguments of others
– dialogue and mutual respect – as well as justifying one’s own arguments” (Ferree et
al., 2002: 222). As Barber (2006: 6) reminds us, the essential democratic relation “is
not between leaders and citizens but between citizens and citizens.” From the quality of
a conversation 2.0 one can infer the democratic quality of a society. And for this
purpose it is important to know what the requisites are that the online newspapers
establish for participation, as well as the degree of fulfilment achieved by the
moderation teams. This is a question of a normative approach that takes account of the
moral and legal norms that orientate participation in order to check whether they are
compatible with democratic principles. This communication thus joins other
bibliographical references that have dealt with the question of readers’ comments
(Conway, 2010; Park, 2007; Li, 2010; Connor, 2009;), and especially those articles that
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explore the issue from the viewpoint of comments on news stories from the viewpoint
of readers’ participation (Lampe, 2010; Tsagkias, 2010; Cho, 2010)84.
Method
The methodology of this research has consisted in an analysis of the legal norms and
the moral norms of participation that are to be found in the web pages of five
international digital newspapers: nytimes.com, guardian.con.uk, repubblica.it,
lemonde.fr and elpais.com, which are the object of study. The analysis was carried out
in November 2010, taking account of those norms concerning user participation that
appear in the legal notices, although they can also be found in other areas of the
websites. We have also considered the norms on the contractual regime that is
established between the publishing company and the user, those relative to the use of
the service, as well as those that refer to the rights that the users generate as authors.
Furthermore, we have analysed the norms of behaviour that the user explicitly accepts
when s/he accepts to send in comments. These norms delimit the framework of action
of that new subject of communication.
The analysis was made from the perspective of the discursive ethics of Jürgen
Habermas (1992, 1997, 2003), because he deals with the moral requisites that can be
demanded of the participation of speakers for their conversation to be compatible with
democracy. Habermas considers that dialogue is an ethical and rational procedure for
social construction. Thus, speakers must recognise each other as valid interlocutors
through respectful treatment and consideration of the arguments of the others. The
rational and moral requisites that Habermas believes are demandable can be
summarised in three broad sections:
Logic and coherence
The speakers should centre their intervention on the subject under debate, and show
the intention of discussing it.
84
Other articles refer to the same question of comments on news stories, but from a technical point of
view (Faradini, 2010).
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Cooperative search for the truth
It is of interest to determine whether the readers recognise and respect each other in
the dialogue, whether they carry out exchanges of viewpoint, whether they show
interest in the arguments of the others. In this respect, it is important to verify whether
there is a presence of insults and defamations amongst readers, or of readers towards
the protagonists of the news story or the agents present in it.
An agreement based on the best argument
It is of interest to know whether or not the people who intervene in the debate
incorporate the argument of the others into their discourse, and whether they use other
sources to support their own arguments. Another important aspect is the exclusion of
speakers; that is, how many speakers have been able to take part in the conversation
and how many comments have been eliminated and why. It is understood that the
comments eliminated did not respect the norms.
Juridical and ethical framework of comments in digital newspapers
Technology has substantially altered communication, opening up possibilities that the
media swiftly incorporate. One of these possibilities is to integrate User Generated
Contents (UGC) into the daily flow of the content of online newspapers. The essential
question is not participation, but rather the criteria by which it is orientated. One of
these possibilities is that the user can make comments on the news stories, establish a
conversation with other users and even with the journalist or the medium that publishes
the information. In this respect, the media analysed establish a series of requisites that
orientate the conversation ethically and juridically, so that it is compatible with
democratic principles.
The juridical limits
The media analysed make the norms public through their legal notices. These are
detailed juridical norms that the users declare that they understand and accept – in a
contractual form – when they access the website created by the corporate entity or
communications group, as occurs with the material published by LaReppublica.it, which
depends on the Gruppo Espresso and whose general norms are accepted by the user.
Besides, a right to exclusion (as it is called by El País.com) is also established that
even makes it possible to prevent access to that person – to certain IP addresses –
when the cited norms are not observed.
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All the legal notices attribute liability for what is emitted by the users to the latter. That
is, they include clauses of exemption from liability, like this one from El País.com: “In
no case whatsoever, shall EDICIONES EL PAIS be liable for the opinions expressed
by the users through the forums, chats or other participatory tools.” This is a case of
complete exemption from liability. While the media establish mechanisms to avoid legal
problems in their comments, through a priori or a posteriori filters, this clause attempts
to guarantee complete juridical security. Other media, like LeMonde.fr, speak of
“limitation of liability”. Others, like Prisacom, the company that publishes El País.com,
go further and make public an “exclusion of guarantees and liability” for all of those
unintentional damages that might be caused to the user. Other media employ the term
Disclaimers of liability, more in accordance with the Anglophone juridical tradition.
Intellectual property
The legal notices or disclaimers unfailingly refer to the rights of intellectual and
industrial property85, which are presented as exclusive with respect to the user, that is,
rights of exclusive ownership of the juridical entity (the company) that publish them. In
their turn, the majority of the legal notices or disclaimers also treat the user as a
producer of content and, therefore, as a subject protected by the laws of intellectual
property, which in some cases includes the automatic cession of rights to the company
to which they send their comments.
By assuming the exclusive rights of reproduction of all the content in their websites, the
companies prevent the diffusion, with or without a desire for profit, of this content,
which can only be reproduced, in any case, for strictly personal use. This prohibition
also extends to industrial property, such as logotypes and trademarks.
With respect to the user generated contents, some media, like NYTimes.com, dedicate
a whole section to this. They include both comments and services like TimesPeople or
even reader reviews, or critical pieces written by the users. Norms that in other media
are treated more as ethical recommendations, are here elevated to juridical norms.
Besides the time-honoured rules of respect and the prohibition on sending content that
is pornographic, abusive, xenophobic, etc., a non-commercial intention on the user’s
part is established. Nonetheless, the company assures itself a license on what the user
sends in, through an explicit clause.
85
This distinction exists in the juridical tradition of continental law, but not in Common law. Author’s
rights (and of the performer, as well as some other sui generis rights) are recognised by the laws of
intellectual property in France, Italy and Spain, and patents, trademarks, etc., are protected by the laws
of industrial property, which provide more periods of protection; while in the United Kingdom and the
United States the term “intellectual property” covers both copyright and the whole system of protection
of patents and trademarks.
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Modification right86 and removal
This is a right to modify content that the companies reserve to themselves. Certainly, it
is understood that it extends to the comments sent by the users, although moral rights
– the integrity of the work, which are especially recognised in countries with a civil or
continental juridical tradition, would prevent substantial modifications of the work,
equally respectable although one is dealing with a mere comment. For example,
linguistic corrections could not be performed. Although, as was done with letters to the
editor in the world of print, the medium can practice, in a consensual way, some minor
and non-substantial changes, such as shortening the length of the text.
The moral rights – in this case paternity right – make it equally impossible to publicly
reveal the identity of the author of a comment that is signed with a pseudonym,
although there are limitations: respect for others, non-usurpation of other personalities,
etc. The system of nicknames means that, although the medium knows who they
belong to, it is difficult to fulfil all of these norms in practice. In any case, the system of
registration – that of Guardian Unlimited is one of the most complete – attempts to
avoid it only being possible to identify the authors of comments by their nickname and
not by their real name.
All the media reserve the possibility of not accepting and of eliminating comments. This
latter possibility is more problematical, according to the different national legislations,
because it consists in withdrawing a work from the market, an action that cannot be
carried out so easily a posteriori as a priori, when it involves the simple non-acceptance
of a work submitted for the consideration of the juridical entity that would publish it (“to
our sole discretion”). It is also the responsibility of the user, as the Guardian Unlimited
establishes for example, to guarantee that s/he holds the rights of the material that s/he
sends (text, photos, etc.), and that they do not belong to a third party.
Finally, and to avoid the problems of internationalisation of justice inherent in a medium
as global as Internet, the legal notices mention an attractive clause that effectively
“draws” any claim that might arise to the company’s own juridical sphere. The user
must be aware that s/he submits to the national laws, and to the jurisdiction of the
courts, of the countries where the head office of the company is based.
Ethical limits
Nytimes.com and Guardian.co.uk are the most explicit when it comes to explaining the
reason for the norms regulating participation. Thus, the British newspaper attempts to
achieve “intelligent discussions” through the comments. And it understands that, to this
end, “we welcome debate and dissent”, but always with respect for “other people’s
views”. Guardian.co.uk indicates a double responsibility, that of the newspaper and that
of the reader: “the platform is ours, but the conversation belongs to everybody”. For its
part, Nytimes.com, understands participation as follows: “Our goal is to provide
86
Only applicable in continental laws.
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substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we have
created a space where readers can exchange intelligent and informed commentary that
enhances the quality of our news and information”,
This is an attempt to achieve, through the norms, a balance between freedom of
expression and respect for the other. The online newspapers analysed only protect
freedom of expression which is respectful of the other and of democratic principles. As
Lemonde.fr declares, “we can criticise arguments, not individuals”.
The responsibility of the user begins with the obligation to register. Lemonde.fr is the
strictest, given that it only allows subscribers to comment. The French newspaper
demands to know the Christian name, surname, gender, email address, country, post
code and date of birth. These are details that are usually requested by all, although
some, like Larepubblica.it, also ask for fixed telephone and mobile phone numbers.
The medium that asks for the least details is Elpais.com; name and email address.
Once registered, the newspapers permit the use of an alias. Nonetheless, the opinion
of Nytimes.com is interesting: “We have found that people who use their names carry
on more engaging, respectful conversations”. Anonymity dilutes responsibility.
A new moral subject
Until now, the Ethics of Communication protected the receiver because the latter was
in an asymmetrical relationship with the institutional emitters had to be protected from
determinate content. Ethics must now protect the users of the content of other users. A
new moral subject has been born. While the former receiver had rights above all else,
the new prosumer has duties above all else. This is the meaning of the norms of the
online newspapers. And the first duty consists in being responsible for the content s/he
generates. The responsibility of the medium is that of ensuring that the user assumes
his/her responsibility because, if s/he does not do so, s/he will be expelled from the
dialogue. This is the important function of the moderation teams, responsible for
ensuring that the user’s content fits the norms.
The moderation teams are the expression of the commitment that participation should
not only have an entrepreneurial aim directed at increasing profits due to an increase of
users, but that it should also have the effect of an intelligent exchange of arguments
that improves the formation of Public Opinion. To that end, the quantity and quality of
these teams are a symptom of the responsibility of the medium.
Moderation teams. All the newspapers analysed had moderation teams. However, not
all of them make clear whether this moderation is previous or takes place once the
comment is published. Only Lemonde.fr states that it previously moderates the “Near
and Middle East” section. The French online newspaper sometimes decides to block a
debate when it is detected that a discussion “between two participants has become
bitter or is drifting towards awkward issues”. For its part, Nytimes.com hints at prior
moderation when it states that it “generally cannot alter a comment once its is posted”.
On other occasions, the decision to consider a conversation concluded, or not to open
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some news stories to debate, depends on the volume of comments that the team can
monitor. In the case of Elpais.com, the limit is 10,000 comments each day. In an
explicit way, only Guardian.co.uk ask for the help of users in notifying undesirable
messages.
Failure to fulfil the norms can result in refusal of access to the services, or in the total or
partial elimination of the messages. Except in the case of Larepubblica.it, which does
not offer information in this respect, the moderation decisions in the rest of the media
cannot be challenged or commented on by the users.
Another important aspect is that referring to the composition of the teams and their
work routine, although not all the media make details available. Nytimes.com hints that
its team cannot monitor all the comments when it states that it “does not and cannot
review every submission”. This newspaper recognises that moderation “can be less
frequent in the evening and on weekends”. A situation that is the opposite of
Guardian.co.uk where “there is moderation coverage throughout the day and overnight,
seven days a week”. This medium makes public offers of work so that anyone with
experience in online participation can become involved in this task. To the question of
whether the newspaper hires moderators with a political or religious tendency, the
answer is that what is requested is neutrality and coherence in the application of the
norms.
With respect to moderation in Elpais.com, we have learnt what we know through two
articles published by the Reader’s Ombudsman in answer to the complaints received
from the readers. In the first article, Comentarios muy poco edificantes [Comments that
are hardly edifying]87, it is explained that participation “is subjected to a system of prior
moderation that the newspaper has entrusted to an outside company”. Elpais.com
cancelled the contract due to dissatisfaction with the service and contracted another
company, with the commitment to moderate 10,000 comments a day, “the limit of the
capacity of participation”. The Ombudsman makes a reflection on anonymity, which
“facilitates a climate of impunity that favours excesses”. She favours the application of
stricter criteria in the selection of comments: less participants, but “a much richer
conversation”.
Seven months later, the Reader’s Ombudsman published another article titled Cuando
se incumple la propia norma [When the norm itself is not fulfilled]88, on finding that the
“the situation has not improved”. And she attributes the problem to the system of
moderation, since not all of the comments are filtered. In fact, the messages are
subjected to a first automatic filter, based on algorithms. “Up to 50% of the messages
that appear in the digital edition are published with no other supervision than that
automatic filtering”, while the other 50% is subjected to a personalised moderation. And
she restates the risks of anonymity, above all when all that is required is the email
address, because a person who has been vetoed can easily change his/her account.
87
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/Comentarios/poco/edificantes/elpepiopi/20091220elpepiopi
_5/Tes (Published on 20/12/2009).
88
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/incumple/propia/norma/elpepuopi/20100704elpepiopi_5/Te
s (Published on 04/07/2010).
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The principal aim of moderation is to ensure that the norms are fulfilled and, as we
have seen, this is a problematical task. We will next consider what these norms are
that appear explicitly on the websites examined.
The norms
The set of norms analysed take into account the essence of the principal basic rights
defended by the liberal democracies. We group them according to the blocks of norms
of Habermas’s discursive ethics, set out in the methodological section. But first it is
convenient to underline the norms that refer to the identity of the user.
On the identification of the user
Le Monde
To speculate
on or reveal the
identity of a
participant.
Unauthorised
use of a
pseudonym
To impersonate
the identity of a
participant or
manipulate
his/her
messages
New York
Times
The
Guardian
X
X
La
Repubblica
El País
X
X
X
Names of users
who act against
the rules or
using public
emails,
offensive or
vulgar names,
or who express
political or
institutional
opinions.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Names of
controversial or
punitive figures
or institutions;
names of
famous
personages or
well-known
journalists
without
justifying their
choice
As we have been able to confirm, there are media that establish a direct relation
between the use of the real name and the quality of the conversation. In any case,
anonymity of participation is a question debated in the online newspapers. 89
Norms that try to guarantee a minimum of logic and coherence
These are norms that are aimed at ensuring that the speakers centre their interventions
on the theme that is the subject of debate, and that they have the intention of arguing
about it:
Le Monde
Incoherence
The
Guardian
X
X
The comment
is not centred
on the subject
of debate (off
topic)
Repetition of
identical
messages
New York
Times
X
89
“News Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/technology/12comments.html.
308
La
Repubblica
El País
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(saturation)
Legibility
X
Orthographical
and
grammatical
correctness
X
Trolling
X
Personal
messages or
personal
information
between
participants
X
Irrelevant or
mocking
messages
X
Promotions or
commercial
messages
X
X
Spam
Letters
followed by
suspension
points
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
References to
the moderation
team
Norms that favour a cooperative search for the truth
These are norms that are aimed at ensuring that speakers respect and tolerate each
other, that they do not insult or discredit other speakers or other actors related to the
news story. They are also aimed at ensuring the content of the comments does not
offend against the legal framework and the dignity of people. Because anyone who
attempts to construct an argument by violating legality or despising human dignity has
no intention of seeking the truth with the other, nor of respecting other points of view.
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Le
Monde
New York
Times
The
Guardian
La
Repubblica
El
País
Respect for
legality
X
X
X
X
X
Incitement to
racial hatred
X
Revisionism or
negationism
X
Incitement to
violence
X
X
Xenophobia
X
X
Excessive
violence or
aggressiveness
in tone
X
X
Pornography
X
X
Paedophilia
X
Obscenity
X
X
Blasphemy
X
X
Personal abuse
X
X
Alliances
against a
participant
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Libellous
material
X
Defamatory
material
X
X
Offensive
X
X
Discrimination
for reasons of
race, religion,
nationality,
gender, sexual
preference,
age, disability,
political option,
X
X
310
X
X
X
X
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state of health,
mental illnesses
Fomenting
hatred
X
Vulgarity
X
Slander (insults
)
X
SHOUTING
(represented
with capital
letters on
Internet)
X
X
X
X
X
Threats
X
Against public
order
X
Against morality
X
Respect for the
Universal
Declaration of
Human Rights
X
X
X
Defence of
terrorism
X
Dignity of the
person
X
Against youth or
childhood
X
Repressive
X
Humiliating
X
Defence of the
irresponsible
consumption of
drugs, tobacco
and alcohol
X
Encouragement
of the use of
X
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weapons
X
Announcements
of spontaneous
actions or illegal
demonstrations
Only if there is a guarantee of a minimum of logic and coherence and of the
cooperative search for truth will one be in a position to seek and reach an agreement
based on the best argument. The essential requisite is that all can participate, that is,
all those who believe that dialogue is a procedure for reaching a mutual understanding.
To this end, what is necessary is an attitude of respect towards the other speakers, an
attitude open to the pluralism of ideas, to weighing them up and, if they are considered
valid, to accepting them, modifying the initial point of view. That attitude cannot be
imposed by norms, but the conditions for it to be possible can be created.
Conclusions
The participation of audiences introduces a new moral subject that alters the concept of
responsibility in Communication and affects the communicative undertaking. If, up until
now, responsibility was centred on the content that the company itself emitted, now the
company also has a moral responsibility for user generated contents, since, as we
have seen, it attempts to make juridical responsibility fall on the user.
The norms analysed promote the defence of the fundamental rights and the moral
values shared in democracies. In doing so, the media understand that Conversation
2.0 must contribute to the formation of Public Opinion. To attain this, the newspapers
rely on moderation teams that attempt to ensure that the norms are respected.
Nonetheless, as we have been able to verify in the case of Elpais.com, the control
mechanisms are not very satisfactory. There are indications that moderation poses
problems of human resources, which make it impossible to cover all time slots, every
day of the week.
Fulfilment of the norms constitutes the principal moral responsibility of the media, given
that to enunciate but not fulfil them would denote that participation has a clear
economic aim above all. There is, therefore, a tension between the volume of
comments (economic interest) and the quality of conversation (public interest). If the
teams are not sufficient for monitoring the volume, the media should reflect in order to
reduce it. One of the issues that the media should tackle without delay is that of
anonymity because it dilutes responsibility.
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Reich, Z., &Vujnovic, M. (forthcoming). Participatory Journalism in Online Newspapers:
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Audience Participation Motivated by Media Politics: First Data
About a Newly Introduced Participatory TV Channel in Germany
Annika Sehl, Michael Steinbrecher
TU Dortmund University, Germany
Correspondence address: Annika Sehl, TU Dortmund University, Institute of
Journalism, Emil-Figge-Str. 50, 44227 Dortmund, Germany; email: [email protected]
Abstract
Even though audience participation in journalism has been the focus of research in
recent years, studies have mainly concentrated on online journalism. TV journalism has
been neglected so far. This paper partly fills this gap by presenting the first data from a
content analysis about a unique participatory TV channel nrwision that has just been
introduced by media politics in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
The project has chosen a third path between the total autonomous citizen journalism
approach and unilateral traditional journalism, since this channel organizes and guides
the participation process. This way, nrwision, a kind of “participatory lab,” also gives the
first insight into the relationship between citizen and professional TV journalism.
Keywords: Participatory journalism, citizen journalism, open channels, television
Introduction
While traditionally journalism has been attached to the institution of media and based
on the work of professional journalists, in the past decade new communication
technologies in the internet have made it possible for everybody to publish content for a
potentially global audience (e.g. Domingo et al., 2008, p. 326 f.). Many promises were
linked to this citizen journalism, especially regarding its democratic potential (e.g.
Bowman & Willis, 2003; Gillmor, 2004). The first scientific findings, however, paint an
ambivalent picture (e.g. Neuberger, Nuernbergk, & Rischke, 2007).
In this situation, a unique participatory TV channel, nrwision, has just been introduced
by media politics in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state. A
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
central aim is not only to add to the diversity of producers and reporting but also to
strengthen the producers’ media competence. They are emerging media professionals,
young people in on-the-job training or university project teams, but also ordinary
citizens.
The project has chosen a third path between the total autonomous citizen journalism
approach and unilateral traditional journalism, since the TV channel organizes and
guides the participation process. Following Nip’s (2006) typology, we define this as
participatory journalism, since “user contribution is solicited within a frame designed by
the professionals” (Nip, 2006, p. 217). We differentiate this from citizen journalism
“where the people are responsible for gathering content, visioning, producing and
publishing the news product” (Nip, 2006, p. 218).
Against this background, this paper addresses the question of how this channel adds to
the diversity of producers. Furthermore, the paper reveals the first data about the
diversity of content the channel delivers.
Theoretical Framework: The concept of diversity
Theoretically, the paper is attached to the concept of diversity and the public sphere
theory of deliberation. The origin of the demand for media content diversity lies in the
liberal democratic and pluralistic state (c.f. McQuail & van Cuilenberg, 1982, p. 682).
From a normative point of view, the diversity in modern societies, for example, issues,
options, actors, should be reflected in the media. Ishikawa and Muramatsu (1996) state
that this is the main condition for a democratic society:
Each member of the audience, with differing interests and concerns, should have equal
rights for selection. Therefore, even if individual viewers/listeners may not come into
contact with broadcasting in its entirety, broadcasting as a whole should strive to be
diverse enough in its contents to serve all interests. […] We feel that each member of
the audience should have the opportunity to come into contact with the individuals with
different personalities or viewpoints. In order to build a democratic society, each citizen
must be aware of the existence of other citizens who may have quite different values
and attitudes (Ishikawa & Maramatsu, 1996, p. 200 f.).
In this way, media coverage enables a discourse between individuals and groups in
society (c.f. Roegele, 1977, p. 214).
At the same time, mass media in modern societies have the function of social
integration by “providing a common set of values, ideas and information” (McQuail,
1992, p. 71) and to focus on the issues that are relevant to the public discourse.
For both perspectives – integration and diversity – ‘too much’ can be dysfunctional for
society. Focusing too closely on particular issues can result in control and censorship;
whereas, an extremely diversified coverage may lead to fragmentation of audiences.
(Rössler, 2007, p. 464)
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The dilemma is finding a balance between diversity and selection (c.f. Rössler, 2001, p.
163). Which position on this continuum is optimum for society is not known (c.f. Trappel
& Meier, 2002, p. 58).
Van Cuilenberg (2002) has illustrated the concept and dimensions of diversity in a
chain: On the first level, social diversity in society, on the second level media diversity
reflecting social diversity and on the third level opinion diversity nurtured by media
diversity. The diversity chain ends up in democracy since this is the final aim that
diversity is supporting (c.f. van Cuilenberg, 2002, p. 2 f.).
The level of interest here is media diversity. This is, of course, a very general term and
needs further definition. From the perspective of media content and the media system,
Knoche (1980) and later McQuail and van Cuilenberg (1983), McQuail (1992b) and
Schulz and Ihle (2005) differentiate between three levels for measuring diversity: the
macro-level (media system/ownership), the meso-level (outlets/genre) and the microlevel (issues/protagonists). The three levels can but do not necessarily depend on each
other, as Rössler states (2007, p. 500 f.):
Decreases in diversity at the macro-level should lead to decreases at the meso-level;
subsequently, decreases in diversity at the meso-level should lead to decreases at the
micro-level, resulting in overall lower content diversity. However, evidence so far
suggests that observable decreases in diversity at the macro-level did not necessarily
create decreasing diversity on the meso-level. Concentration in ownership does not
inevitably reduce the range of genre, formats, or outlets available. Moreover, even if an
increase on the meso-level is recorded, this change did not automatically prompt an
increase in diversity on the micro-level.
These distinctions mainly focus on media content and the media system. In addition,
McQuail (1992b, p. 157 f.) differentiates between content that is sent and content that
is received, which was later taken up by Napoli (1997) as exposure diversity.
Furthermore, diversity within a specific medium can be differentiated from all media in a
given market. While the former is called intra medium diversity, the latter is named inter
media diversity (c.f. McQuail, 1992b, p. 145 ff.). Following the previous argumentation,
intra media diversity is a measurement for diversity on the micro-level, while inter
media diversity is connected to the meso-level (c.f. McQuail & van Cuilenberg, 1982, p.
685).
The request for media content diversity is also a consented demand of different models
of the public sphere – from the liberal model up to the deliberative model. Central here
is the transparence function of communication on the input side, meaning openness to
speakers, information and opinion. The deliberative model of the public sphere
furthermore demands a rational and discursive way of discussion with a consented or
argumentative supported public opinion at the end of the process (c.f. Neidhardt, 1994,
p. 8 ff.).
The reality, however, seldom fulfills those normative conditions as empirical studies
have shown. Access to the media is not equal (e.g. Gerhards, Neidhardt, & Rucht,
1998, p. 42 f.). Neidhardt states that in reality the public sphere on the mass media
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level is biased in favor of a status quo representation of the political system (c.f.
Neidhardt, 1994, p. 16).
Against this background, participatory journalism – in the social web as well as in other
media – can be seen as a counterweight and chance for more diversity (c.f. Rager &
Weber, 1992, p. 15 ff.), since this type of journalism stresses diversity of access.
State of the Art: Participatory journalism from the past until today
The audience as a communicator – which has undergone a great change through the
technical progress and development of the social web – has in fact a long tradition in
Germany. For a long time, journalistic amateurs have enriched professional reporting
or added to the media offerings with media products of their own. Usually the amateurs’
aim was to fill gaps in the professional reporting or to compensate for what was seen
as deficient from their point of view (c.f. Rager & Sehl, 2010, p. 59).
In print journalism, audience participation has existed since the 18th century (c.f. Groth,
1928, p. 623; Schönhagen, 1995, p. 34 f.). In radio and television, audience
participation did not have a breakthrough until the 1970s with talk- and phone-in shows
in radio and television (c.f. Neumann-Braun, 2000, p. 18). However, a variety of
formats are connected to this category – from greetings, game and quiz shows, music
request formats to discussions between a moderator and a listener without any other
purpose (c.f. Burger, 1991, p. 361). Not all follow a journalistic approach (c.f. Engesser,
2008, p. 52).
While in the aforementioned formats the professional mass media asked their audience
to send in or to call, there were also wholly participatory formats. One are noncommercial radio stations. Their roots lie in the non-commercial community radio
stations in the United States; the first was founded in Berkeley in 1949 (c.f. Lamberty,
1988, p. 50 f.). Other roots of participatory formats are the pirate radio stations that
broadcast illegally in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s (c.f. Buchholz, 2001, p. 471).
The first non-commercial radio station in Germany was licensed in 1987 (c.f. Buchholz,
2001, p. 471) – and there are non-commercial radio stations even today. In 2008, there
were 30 throughout the country (c.f. ALM, 2008, p. 328). While in the beginning the
major idea behind the non-commercial radios was to add counterculture programming,
today this has lost significance, and the spectrum is diverse (c.f. Buchholz, 2003, p.
79).
Open channels
The most interesting citizen journalism format in respect to our research object is the
so-called open channels. Again, there are role models in the United States where the
first open channel started in 1962. But while that US open channel was introduced due
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to pressure by civic groups, the first German open channel in 1984 followed an
initiative from media politics (c.f. Walendy, 1993, p. 306). Open channels are local or
regional radio stations and television channels that are open to every citizen to
participate (c.f. Buchholz, Pagel, & Preuß, 1998, p. 73). The main aim is to give citizens
who do not have a voice or not much significance in the professional programs an
opportunity to articulate (c.f. BpB, 1980, p. 31). The open channels are mainly financed
by public funding through broadcasting fees (c.f. Breunig, 1998, p. 248). The open
channels are mainly criticized because their audience reach is quite low. Diverse
studies on open channels in different federal states prove that only between 7% and
around 30% of the audience listens to or watches an open channel at least once every
two weeks (c.f ALM, 2008, p. 324). Furthermore, the programming has been criticized
for being of low technical quality (c.f. Breunig, 1998, p. 248). Finally, the social web has
put the idea of the open channel as a place for democratic mass communication under
pressure, since the social web enables anyone with almost no barriers to speak out, for
example, in a blog.
Thus, some federal states are reforming their open channels at present. Major aims are
more programming and producers, better program quality, more audience acceptance
and funding through local supporters (c.f ALM, 2008, p. 325). In the most populous
federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), a study by Volpers and Werner (2007)
has led to a reform process in which the former open television channel was replaced
by a new channel nrwision.
nrwision
Since 2009, the former open television channel in NRW has followed a new concept.
While in the past, this channel was built on just one column, ordinary citizens, today
there are three columns: emerging media professionals, young people in on-the-jobtraining or university project teams (diverse backgrounds) and still ordinary citizens.
The producers send in their content from various regions throughout NRW.
The aim of the project today is twofold. One, it is still to add to the diversity of the
producers and reporting. Therefore, access to the channel is open to anyone interested
in participating. Two, it now also aims in particular at strengthening the producers’
media competence. Therefore, every producer gets individual feedback on his or her
production from an editorial office of professional journalists to foster motivation as well
as to improve the quality of the programming. The producers in on-the-job-training or
university project teams are even financially supported by the media authority of NRW
(Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Westfalen (LfM)) for technical equipment and
qualifications measures. However, it is central that the project does not aspire to be just
another professional television channel but an option for emerging media
professionals, young people in on-the-job-training or university project teams and
ordinary citizens to learn, to experiment, also with formats, and to speak out about
topics relevant to them. Concrete data on the three groups of deliverers and the topics
of their programs will be presented in the following empirical section. In general,
ordinary citizens are the largest group of producers covering a variety of issues such as
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local topics, special interest programs and programs for minorities such as gay, lesbian
or transsexual people.
That project is publicly funded by the LfM. The program is actually disseminated by
cable TV with a potential audience of 1.5 million households in NRW and also
distributed online as a live stream and to mobile phones. There is a weekly scheme,
and the scheme is repeated during the day and during the week depending on the
actual length of the programs sent in. In 2010, the length of the first broadcasted
programs varied between 14 and 43 hours per month with an average of 26 hours of
original programming.
Method
This study reveals the first data about the content of the participatory television project
nrwision. The data is based on a content analysis of nrwision’s 2010 programming
schedule. The unit of analysis was one whole program. Each program was coded only
once on its first broadcast and not again when it was repeated. Teasers and trailers
were excluded from the content analysis. Thus, in total 801 programs first broadcast in
2010 were included in the content analysis. That corresponds to 306 hours of
programming.
The coding process was conducted by just one person.90 The intra-coder reliability
according to Holsti was calculated based on two weeks in 2010 that were selected by
random choice. The intra-coder reliability was good with a value of at least 0.87 or
above for each variable.
Findings
Producers
The findings show that most of the content was delivered by ordinary citizens.91 They
produced 70.3% of the channel’s programming (N=801) (see Figure 1). If the duration
90
The authors would like to thank Mike Kortsch for collecting and analyzing the data for the content
analysis.
91
Here, the paper follows the official definition of three different categories of producers by the LfM.
But it has to be said that in the category of ordinary citizens there were also a few university project
teams. In contrast to the university project teams in the separate category they did not get financial
support by the LfM and therefore did not belong to that category according to the official definition.
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of the programs is taken into account, the percentage was even higher (80.3%) (see
Table 2 in the appendix). In contrast, young people in on-the-job training or university
project teams and emerging media professionals produced only 17.1% and 12.6%,
respectively, of the programming. These findings show that ordinary citizens still
participate the most.
Figure 1: Producers of the programs in 2010 (in %, N=801 programs)
Topics
The analysis of topics showed that the programming was very diverse with 24
different topics (see Table 3 in the appendix). Each program was coded in only
one category. Most programs dealt with “culture, media, education” (13.9%),
“feature film/short film” (10.5%), “comedy” (10.4%), “local politics/current affairs”
(9.4%) and “music” (8.9%). Those five topics together made up more than half
of all programs (see Figure 2). Taking into account the length of the different
programs, those topics were still among the top five, but the ranking changed
with music programs now at the top with 21.6% of the whole broadcasting time,
followed by the other four topics with each about 10% of the whole broadcasting
time (see Table 1). All other topics made up between 0.2% and five percent of
the total broadcasting time. These findings prove that the program topics were
However, even taking this into account, ordinary citizens were still the largest group of producers and
produced the majority of programs.
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diverse. Nevertheless, there was a focus one the just mentioned topics that
included an entertainment program such as music or comedy as well as more
information-oriented programs about local politics or culture.
Figure 2: Top five program topics in 2010 (in %, N=801 programs)
Total
length
Topics
Music
Percentage of total
broadcasting time
2010
Number of
Programs
65:56:51
21.60%
71
Feature film/short film
33:03:46
10.80%
84
Culture, media, education
32:39:51
10.70%
111
Politics/current affairs – local
29:25:07
9.60%
75
Comedy
27:51:42
9.10%
83
Studies/university
15:24:45
5.00%
70
Child/youth culture
14:12:23
4.60%
43
Prominent, gossip, lifestyle, zeitgeist
08:46:49
2.90%
42
Travelling/holidays
08:50:22
2.90%
26
Computer
08:34:51
2.80%
8
Nature
07:10:34
2.30%
16
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Car/traffic
07:10:06
2.30%
15
Other
06:00:43
2.00%
18
Other entertainment
05:06:48
1.70%
7
Medicine/health
04:41:57
1.50%
21
Religion
04:30:45
1.50%
11
04:22:03
1.40%
18
Politics/current affairs – international
03:41:26
1.20%
8
Sport
03:23:41
1.10%
7
Bizarre
03:21:38
1.10%
11
02:41:00
0.90%
7
Science/technology
02:47:53
0.90%
8
Politics/current affairs – domestic
02:26:41
0.80%
10
Ecology/environment
01:27:18
0.50%
17
Erotics/sexuality
01:11:59
0.40%
6
Politics/current affairs – regional
00:35:59
0.20%
4
00:31:03
0.20%
4
305:58:08
100.00%
801
Economics/social/finance/law – from
private perspective
Economics/social/finance/law –
unspecific
Economics/social/finance/law – from
public perspective
Total
Table 1: Percentage of total broadcasting time 2010 by topics
Topics per group of producers
If one compares which group of deliverers produced what kind of content, it
becomes clear that some topics were exclusively produced by ordinary citizens:
for example, the aforementioned comedy programs (100%, n=83) and music
programs (100%, n=71) and a few others with fewer than ten programs in total
(see Table 4 in the appendix). Furthermore, topics mainly produced by ordinary
citizens were “traveling/holidays” (96.2%, n=26), “local politics/current affairs”
(96.0%, n=75), “nature” (93.8%, n=16), “car/traffic” (93.3%, n=15) and “religion”
(90.9%, n=11). In contrast, the young people in on-the-job-training or university
project teams focused more on special topics such as “ecology/environment”
(88.2%, n=17) or “studies/university” (57.1%, n=70) that were linked to their
studies. The last one made up a little less than a third of all student productions.
Finally, the emerging media professionals concentrated especially on “feature
film/short film”. They produced 39.3% of those programs (n=84), which add up
to about a third of all their productions. Obviously, it is more challenging for
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emerging camera or editing professionals to work on such a format than to film
and edit other programs.
Discussion
The findings have shown that nrwision programming is produced mainly by
ordinary citizens who are guided by and receive feedback from professional
journalists. This way the channel combines democratic access with the aim of
developing the producers’ media competence and guaranteeing a certain
program quality. In this respect, this participatory TV project goes beyond what
is possible in the social web today. In addition, this project embeds audience
participation in a structure while many offerings in the social web are
fragmented and do not reach a significant public (“long tail”). At nrwision, in
contrast, the professional journalists even try to establish a network between
the amateur producers and to give suggestions for joint topics. For example,
just recently, a whole week was dedicated to the broad topic “luck”, and more
than 40 programs were produced just on this subject.
Furthermore, analysis of the topics has revealed that the programming was
diverse with foci on cultural as well as on entertaining and local topics. The last
one goes in hand with the fact that amateur reporters are usually more engaged
in topics that affect these producers’ immediate surroundings or daily life and
they have experience with (e.g. Kopp & Schönhagen, 2008, p. 86). Especially
on TV, where there are only a few windows for local reporting, the programming
enriches the professional reporting in this respect.
To analyze the diversity of reporting, the diversity of the producers and topics
are important indicators. However, additional indicators have to be taken into
account to measure diversity, and those require a deeper look at the material.
For example, actors, praise and criticism or opinions have to be analyzed in a
more detailed analysis in the next step. Beyond that, the next steps will be to
analyze the overall quality of the citizens’ productions and the cooperation
between them and the professional journalists organizing and guiding this
participatory project. While the preliminary results focus on the micro-level of
diversity the final aim will be analyze how this participatory TV channel can add
to diversity also at the meso-level and even at the macro-level.
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Appendix
Valid
Frequency
Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
563
70.3
70.3
On-the-job training/university 137
project teams
17.1
87.4
Emerging media professionals 101
12.6
100.0
Total
100.0
Ordinary citizens
801
Table 1: Producers
327
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Valid
Frequency
Length
Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
563
245:46:47
80.3
80.3
On-the-job
137
training/universi
ty project teams
26:59:53
9.0
89.3
Emerging
media
professionals
101
28:11:28
10.7
100.0
Total
801
305:58:08
100.0
Ordinary
citizens
Table 2: Producers and length of programs
Valid
Frequency
Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Culture, media, education
111
13.9
13.9
Feature film/short film
84
10.5
24.3
Comedy
83
10.4
34.7
Politics/current affairs – local
75
9.4
44.1
Music
71
8.9
52.9
Studies/university
70
8.7
61.7
Child/youth culture
43
5.4
67.0
Prominent, gossip, lifestyle,
zeitgeist
42
5.2
72.3
Travelling/holidays
26
3.2
75.5
Medicine/health
21
2.6
78.2
Economics/social/finance/law –
from private perspective
18
2.2
80.4
Other
18
2.2
82.6
328
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Ecology/environment
17
2.1
84.8
Nature
16
2.0
86.8
Car/traffic
15
1.9
88.6
Bizarre
11
1.4
90.0
Religion
11
1.4
91.4
Politics/current affairs – domestic 10
1.2
92.6
Politics/current affairs –
international
8
1.0
93.6
Science/technology
8
1.0
94.6
Computer
8
1.0
95.6
Sport
7
0.9
96.5
Other entertainment
7
0.9
97.4
Economics/social/finance/law –
unspecific
7
0.9
98.3
Erotics/sexuality
6
0.7
99.0
Politics/current affairs – regional
4
0.5
99.5
Economics/social/finance/law –
from public perspective
4
0.5
100.0
Total
801
100.0
Table 3: Program topics in 2010
Appendix
Cumulative
Frequency
Valid
Valid Percent
Percent
Ordinary citizens
563
70.3
70.3
On-the-job training/university
137
17.1
87.4
Emerging media professionals
101
12.6
100.0
Total
801
100.0
project teams
Table 1: Producers
329
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Valid
Frequency
Valid
Length
Percent
Cumulative Percent
Ordinary citizens
563
245:46:47
80.3
80.3
On-the-job
training/universit
y project teams
Emerging media
professionals
Total
137
26:59:53
9.0
89.3
101
28:11:28
10.7
100.0
801
305:58:08
100.0
Table 2: Producers and length of programs
Valid
Frequency
Valid
Culture, media, education
Percent
Cumulative Percent
111
13.9
13.9
Feature film/short film
84
10.5
24.3
Comedy
83
10.4
34.7
Politics/current affairs – local
75
9.4
44.1
Music
71
8.9
52.9
Studies/university
70
8.7
61.7
Child/youth culture
43
5.4
67.0
Prominent, gossip, lifestyle,
42
5.2
72.3
Travelling/holidays
26
3.2
75.5
Medicine/health
Economics/social/finance/law –
from private perspective
21
2.6
78.2
18
2.2
80.4
Other
18
2.2
82.6
Ecology/environment
17
2.1
84.8
Nature
16
2.0
86.8
Car/traffic
15
1.9
88.6
Bizarre
11
1.4
90.0
Religion
11
1.4
91.4
Politics/current affairs –
10
1.2
92.6
8
1.0
93.6
8
1.0
94.6
zeitgeist
domestic
Politics/current affairs –
international
Science/technology
330
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Computer
8
1.0
95.6
Sport
7
0.9
96.5
Other entertainment
Economics/social/finance/law –
unspecific
7
0.9
97.4
7
0.9
98.3
Erotics/sexuality
6
0.7
99.0
Politics/current affairs – regional
Economics/social/finance/law –
from public perspective
4
0.5
99.5
4
0.5
100.0
Total
Table 3: Program topics in 2010
801
100.0
Topics * Producers Crosstabulation
Producer
On-thejob
training
and
Topics Sports
university
Emerging
Ordinary
project
media
citizens
teams
professionals
Count
% within
2
Total
2
3
7
28.6%
42.9%
.4%
2.2%
2.0%
.9%
.2%
.4%
.2%
.9%
71
0
0
71
100.0%
.0%
.0% 100.0%
12.6%
.0%
.0%
8.9%
8.9%
.0%
.0%
8.9%
45
6
33
84
53.6%
7.1%
39.3% 100.0%
8.0%
4.4%
32.7%
10.5%
5.6%
.7%
4.1%
10.5%
83
0
0
83
100.0%
.0%
28.6% 100.0%
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Music
Count
% within
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Feature film/short film Count
% within
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Comedy
Count
% within
topics
331
.0% 100.0%
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
% within
14.7%
.0%
.0%
10.4%
10.4%
.0%
.0%
10.4%
7
0
0
7
100.0%
.0%
.0% 100.0%
1.2%
.0%
.0%
.9%
.9%
.0%
.0%
.9%
6
2
0
8
75.0%
25.0%
1.1%
1.5%
.0%
1.0%
.7%
.2%
.0%
1.0%
2
0
2
4
50.0%
.0%
.4%
.0%
2.0%
.5%
.2%
.0%
.2%
.5%
2
75
producers
% of Total
Other entertainment
Count
% within
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Politics/current affairs Count
– international
% within
.0% 100.0%
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Politics/ current
Count
affairs – regional
% within
50.0% 100.0%
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Politics/current affairs – local Count
% within
72
1
96.0%
1.3%
12.8%
.7%
2.0%
9.4%
9.0%
.1%
.2%
9.4%
8
2
0
10
80.0%
20.0%
1.4%
1.5%
.0%
1.2%
1.0%
.2%
.0%
1.2%
3
2
2
7
42.9%
28.6%
2.7% 100.0%
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Politics/current affairs –
Count
domestic
% within
.0% 100.0%
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Economics/social/finance/law Count
– unspecific
% within
topics
332
28.6% 100.0%
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
% within
.5%
1.5%
2.0%
.9%
.4%
.2%
.2%
.9%
4
0
0
4
100.0%
.0%
.0% 100.0%
.7%
.0%
.0%
.5%
.5%
.0%
.0%
.5%
11
5
2
18
61.1%
27.8%
2.0%
3.6%
2.0%
2.2%
1.4%
.6%
.2%
2.2%
53
28
30
111
47.7%
25.2%
27.0% 100.0%
9.4%
20.4%
29.7%
13.9%
6.6%
3.5%
3.7%
13.9%
1
1
6
8
12.5%
12.5%
.2%
.7%
5.9%
1.0%
.1%
.1%
.7%
1.0%
2
15
0
17
11.8%
88.2%
.0% 100.0%
.4%
10.9%
.0%
2.1%
.2%
1.9%
.0%
2.1%
15
1
0
16
93.8%
6.3%
2.7%
.7%
.0%
2.0%
1.9%
.1%
.0%
2.0%
producers
% of Total
Economics/social/finance/law Count
- from public perspective
% within
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Economics/social/finance/law Count
– from private perspective
% within
11.1% 100.0%
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Culture, media, education
Count
% within
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Science/technology
Count
% within
75.0% 100.0%
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Ecology/environment
Count
% within
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Nature
Count
% within
.0% 100.0%
topics
% within
producers
% of Total
333
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Computer
Count
% within topics
% within
8
0
0
8
100.0%
.0%
.0% 100.0%
1.4%
.0%
.0%
1.0%
1.0%
.0%
.0%
1.0%
31
4
7
42
73.8%
9.5%
5.5%
2.9%
6.9%
5.2%
3.9%
.5%
.9%
5.2%
34
5
4
43
79.1%
11.6%
6.0%
3.6%
4.0%
5.4%
4.2%
.6%
.5%
5.4%
24
40
6
70
34.3%
57.1%
8.6% 100.0%
4.3%
29.2%
5.9%
8.7%
3.0%
5.0%
.7%
8.7%
14
1
0
15
93.3%
6.7%
2.5%
.7%
.0%
1.9%
1.7%
.1%
.0%
1.9%
25
1
0
26
96.2%
3.8%
4.4%
.7%
.0%
3.2%
3.1%
.1%
.0%
3.2%
8
12
1
21
38.1%
57.1%
1.4%
8.8%
1.0%
2.6%
1.0%
1.5%
.1%
2.6%
4
1
1
6
66.7%
16.7%
producers
% of Total
Prominent, gossip,
Count
lifestyle zeitgeist
% within topics
% within
16.7% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Child/youth culture
Count
% within topics
% within
9.3% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Studies/university
Count
% within topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Car/traffic
Count
% within topics
% within
.0% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Traveling/holidays
Count
% within topics
% within
.0% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Medicine/health
Count
% within topics
% within
4.8% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Erotic/sexuality
Count
% within topics
334
16.7% 100.0%
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
% within
.7%
.7%
1.0%
.7%
.5%
.1%
.1%
.7%
5
4
2
11
45.5%
36.4%
.9%
2.9%
2.0%
1.4%
.6%
.5%
.2%
1.4%
10
1
0
11
90.9%
9.1%
1.8%
.7%
.0%
1.4%
1.2%
.1%
.0%
1.4%
15
2
1
18
83.3%
11.1%
2.7%
1.5%
1.0%
2.2%
1.9%
.2%
.1%
2.2%
563
137
101
801
70.3%
17.1%
12.6% 100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0% 100.0%
70.3%
17.1%
12.6% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Bizarre
Count
% within topics
% within
18.2% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Religion
Count
% within topics
% within
.0% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Other
Count
% within topics
% within
5.6% 100.0%
producers
% of Total
Total
Count
% within topics
% within
producers
% of Total
Chi-Square Tests
Asymp. Sig. (2Value
Pearson Chi-Square
Likelihood Ratio
Linear-by-Linear Association
N of Valid Cases
df
sided)
a
52
,000
412,303
52
,000
4,849
1
,028
421,986
801
a. 44 cells (54,3%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count
is ,50.
Table 4: Topics and Producer
335
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Figure 3: Top five program topics in 2010 (in %, N=801 programs)
Total
length
TopicsMusic
Percentage of total
broadcasting time Number of
2010
Programs
65:56:51 21.60%
71
Feature film/short film
33:03:46 10.80%
84
Culture, media, education
32:39:51 10.70%
111
Politics/current affairs – local
29:25:07 9.60%
75
Comedy
27:51:42 9.10%
83
Studies/university
15:24:45 5.00%
70
Child/youth culture
14:12:23 4.60%
43
Prominent, gossip, lifestyle,
zeitgeist
08:46:49 2.90%
42
Travelling/holidays
08:50:22 2.90%
26
336
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Computer
08:34:51 2.80%
8
Nature
07:10:34 2.30%
16
Car/traffic
07:10:06 2.30%
15
Other
06:00:43 2.00%
18
Other entertainment
05:06:48 1.70%
7
Medicine/health
04:41:57 1.50%
21
Religion
04:30:45 1.50%
11
Economics/social/finance/law –
from private perspective
04:22:03 1.40%
18
Politics/current affairs –
international
03:41:26 1.20%
8
Sport
03:23:41 1.10%
7
Bizarre
03:21:38 1.10%
11
Economics/social/finance/law –
unspecific
02:41:00 0.90%
7
Science/technology
02:47:53 0.90%
8
Politics/current affairs – domestic
02:26:41 0.80%
10
Ecology/environment
01:27:18 0.50%
17
Erotics/sexuality
01:11:59 0.40%
6
Politics/current affairs – regional
00:35:59 0.20%
4
Economics/social/finance/law –
from public perspective
00:31:03 0.20%
4
Total
305:58:08 100.00%
801
Table 2: Percentage of total broadcasting time 2010 by topics
337
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Tradition and Innovation in Online Journalistic Genres
Ana Serrano Tellería
University of Cantabria, Spain
Abstract
The narrative of internet news is still mainly textual even when information comes from
different previous media (press, radio, TV) or it is an “online native” cybermedia. Also
its design is more related to a press one rather than an audiovisual one, bearing in
mind internet potentialities. Only when we paid attention to infographics or some kind of
specials, we could appreciate clearly an innovation in online journalistic genres.
We propose a methodology to analyze online news from different type of cybermedia:
only online and previous ones come from press, radio or TV. Methological approach
will be based on content analysis and Information Architecture and Visualization,
Interactive Design, Usability and Genre will be applied as main academic principles.
Our aim is to focus on informative treatment and conclude which characteristics and at
what level is cybermedia influenced by their previous counterpart (press, radio or TV).
We will select one topic everyday and we will compare it between different cybermedia.
The selection of topics will include all sections offered and we are planning to carry on
it during one month.
Keywords: content analysis, genres, information architecture, design & visualization,
interactivity, methodology, online journalism, usability.
Introduction
To date, the academic researches carried on genres in online journalism have had a
descriptive, exploratory and conservative character. Despite their initial approach to the
study, they have been valid and effective. These analyses, based on similarities and
differences with their print counterpart and the traditional genological model, have set
out the conceptual definition of the object of study from the recent consolidated theory
of genres to the theoretical futurology regarding the new expressive forms and
tendencies in the construction of messages. (Díaz Noci; Palacios, 2009: 21).
Objectives
Due to the previous situation described, our main objective is to observe the possible
innovations carried out in online journalism genres. Linked with this general purpose,
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we also claim to describe the influence and relationship between online media and their
previous counterpart.
Hypothesis
If we analyze one topic in different online media –only online and with a print, a radio or
a TV counterpart-, we would be able to describe possible intrinsic characteristics and
innovations in online journalism genres.
According to the influence described in past studies between online media and their
counterparts, we would also be able to establish different grades of dependence and
interrelationship.
Methodological Approach
Hypertext theories and online journalistic genres are closely related through the inner
characteristics of the media –its named potentialities- and its development. Academia
agrees on hipertextuality, multimediality and interactivity (Deuze, 2001) as the main
ones; while it could be added the temporal dimension (synchrony and asynchrony), the
continuous renovation of information (replacement or accumulation), the period of time
for which it is opportune for the news to remain on the Web, or when it is linked to other
subsequent news; memory and personalization
(Díaz Noci; Palacios, 2009: 25).
Methodologies applied to analyze hypertext have focused on hypertextual structures
and narratives (reticularity: structure of nodes and links and models: axial and
reticular), a semiotic approach (Eco recalls that a part of semantic analysis deals with
narrative structures, which leads inevitably to rhetoric), the rhetorical dimension
(hyperdocument constructed to rhetoric figures) and cognitive science, the
psychological approach (Díaz Noci; Palacios, 2009: 70-83).
On the other hand, research on genres in online media needs to rigorously consider
methodologies and to propose new procedures for observing the praxis (Kopper et al.,
2000: 501). The study of generic types is part of these current research needs because
of the constant and quick changes in the field so the difficulties concerning knowledge
of research trends and applicable methods of scientific interest. There are qualitative,
quantitative and experimental techniques of proven validity in communication that can
be applied within a renovated perspective to the study of online journalism genres
(Díaz Noci; Palacios, 2009: 27).
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Content Analysis
As part of the empirical social sciences, we opted for the content analysis, considered
by Christian Kolmer (2008) an important method to analyze the products of journalistic
practice and that without it, it could not be measured the influence of various factors on
the production of news, including cultural organizations, political and economic
structures.
Content analysis purposed is based on the text corpus, with special attention to the
types, qualities and distinctions before accomplishing any quantification. The validity of
the CA should be judged not as a "true reading" of the text, but in terms of
substantiation of the materials studied and its consistency with the theory of the
researcher. According to Bauer and Gaskell, irreversible coding transforms the text into
a new one with information about it (Bauer, Gaskell, 2002: 191).
Descriptive and interpretative analysis tab
Taking into account that we are experiencing, our aim is to build an analysis tab that
includes all possible variables mentioned in hypertext and online journalism genres
methodology approach. To start, we place in the first left column the main parts of a
news, that is to say, headline, subtitle, top title, introduction and body text. Then,
horizontally in the first line, we select different characteristics or categories linked to
genres, hypertext and design (Information Architecture, Visualization and Design,
Interactivity, Usability). Finally, we leave the last right column to describe whether that
part of the new answers five W questions.
Our intention with this organization of elements is to relate different characteristics
considered fundamental in a simple way so we would be able to easily recognize their
grade of interrelationship and apply the reference code selected from academic
principles. At that point, we have chosen Lluis Codina’s proposal to classify links (Díaz
Noci; Palacios; 2009: 76-77). Each analysis tab will be dedicated to only one
information node. The hypertextual structure arising from different information nodes
related will be explained separately as in this tab we only have planned to describe the
relationship
established
directly
between
two
of
them.
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Analysis Tab
Colour
Typography Link
Genre
Image
Video
Audio
5 W?
Comments
Headline
Subtitle
Top Title
Introduction
Body (Text)
*Example: an image can be a headline with an embedded link in an infographic, so a video a body text and so on.
** Regarding links and genres category, we would leave the researcher free to choose the approach that best suits his/her coding reference.
However, we propose for links one by Lluis Codina (Díaz Noci; Palacios; 2009: 76-77):
1. According to the route. 1.1. Sequential: they maintain the structure and cohesion of the hyper document. 1.2. Non-sequential: they permit
access to a section (or level) without passing through the preceding sections.
2. Logical criterion: 2.1. Structural. 2.2. Semantic.
3. By degree, or number of linked nodes. 3.1. 1:1 links, the typical junctions of the WWW. 3.2. 1:N links. 3.3. N:1 links.
4. By the form of exploration: 4.1. Embedded in the text itself. 4.2. Superimposed, from an index, list or summary.
5. By authorship: 5.1. Author’s links. 5.2. Reader’s links (for example, commentaries in a weblog, or the entries on a wiki website).
6. By commutation: 6.1. Substitution links: the destination node re places the node of origin. 6.2. Superimposition links: a new window opens,
without closing the window of origin.
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*** As for genres, we propose one summarized by Prof. Javier Díaz Noci and Prof.
Ramón Salaverría (Palacios; Díaz Noci, 2008: 179 apud Díaz Noci; Salaverría Aliaga,
2003).
Genres
Characteristics
Informative
News
Interpretative
Report / Chronicle
Dialogic
Interview / Forum / Debate
Opinion
Traditional: Editorial, Comment, Review,
Letter to the Editor, Article, Column,
Vignette
Network discussions: Forums, Debates
Digital infographics
Individual and collective infographics
Table proposed wants to be a basic skeleton on which researcher would be able to
base a simple and appropriate structure for content analysis. Therefore, categories
are open to be completed with new ideas or features considered relevant. We are
working on new methodologies, journalistic routines and communication paradigms
so it makes no sense to hold on, now, at a close method. Our main aim was to build a
testing guide which would dismember and describe principal characteristics of
academic disciplines related. To end with, we would be able to consider its adaptation
to such principles.
While we were completing the first tests, we realized about the convenience of adding
a brief description of the elements in some of the categories. For example, we might
include an explanation of the body text composition when consisted of different
elements so we would be able to explain its hierarchy.
Main Results
To carry on with our test study, we have selected five Spanish and three American
media according to Alexa’s ranking of more visited news sites in Spain and
worldwide. Then, chosen ones were Elmundo.es (11th), Elpais.com (12th), Rtve.es
(41st), Europapress.es (79th), Cadenaser.com (242nd), Lainformacion.com (209th)
instead of Libertaddigital.com (104th), Bbc.co.uk (2nd), Cnn.com (3rd) and Nytimes.com
(4th). We analyzed a news every day in all media from 25th April until 2nd May of 2011.
Along this week of analysis we would have been able to test the tab and realized
about its grade of suitability.
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We have applied the tab to the following main news: The reveal of Guantanamo files
(25th April), Fatah and Hamas agreement (27th April), Attack in Morocco (28th April),
Bin Laden’s death (2nd May) and so on.
Here we present results obtained according to elements of analysis and classification
criteria collected in the publication Online Journalism: Research methodology in
comparative perspective (Díaz Noci, J.; Palacios, M. (Coords.), 2009: 30-38).
Rhetorical criteria
Criteria of rethorical classification
Topoi
Parts of discourse
Narrative genres
Inventio: Multilineality and polyacroasis
Interpretative genres
Dispositio: Hypertextual structures
Dialogic genres
Actio: Interactivity
Argumentative genres
Elocutio: Multimedia re -sources
Memoria: Memory
Díaz Noci, J.; Palacios, M. (2009: 30).
All news analyzed started from a narrative and informative genre and stayed there all
along the day; just the one about Bin Laden’s death end in an interpretative one
reaching the chronicle and, in some cases, the report (in special processing). Those
changes would be appreciated through language and content developed, mainly
textual in all cases.
Pictures, graphics and videos used to be secondary elements with a complement
function except when some of them, the case of Rtve.es and Cnn.com, employed a
video that consist on news from a newscast of its TV channel. That is the main
difference observed between online media coming whether from a newspaper, a TV,
a radio or an agency.
Hypertextuality
Regarding hypertext structure, we have observed a variety that ranges from simple
axial ones -with just a couple of links to news related- to more complex ones
combining parallel structures on the basis of an arboreal axis. Relationship
established between hypertextual structure and genres conclude that the general
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macrostructure of the news is a result of different news with its own genres in
combination.
As we deep into the type of links analyzed and its function on the node studied, we
have observed two main tendencies: embedded in text and out of the text. Most
media used both types, developing semantic structure mainly for the ones in the text;
but, surprisingly, they substituted one link for other instead of using superimposition
ones. Links out of the text used to be other news, topics, picture galleries and videos
related. We have found structural links on the top titles –not all media used them-,
they functioned like site maps; for example, Elpais.com-International. Out of the body
text we have found also readers links represented by commentaries.
Multimediality
Undoubtedly, text is the predominant element in all news studied. Apart from text and
subordinated, we have found pictures, videos and graphics; just in one case,
Cadenaser.com on 2nd May about Bin Laden’s death, an audio link. Links about other
news related embedded in text employ integration method of combination, also some
placed out of the body text following a semantic or structural logical criterion. The rest
of the links out of the body text engaged juxtaposition. Meaning content, we have also
observed a juxtaposition of it when TV channels placed its video-new with the textual
new –same information repeated by different elements-.
Interactivity and participation
Concerning type of interactivity, users were able to comment and navigate through
the news knowing where they would go to. Most links (in and out of the text) had a
title or were explained through the context. We have focused our analysis in the news
and its content so other links to Social Media (like Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and so
on) were not included, neither to search engines or news selection.
Temporality
We are not able to describe exactly the grade of update applied to news selected as
we have studied them in a certain moment of time. However, we do able to conclude
that they have been renovated all along the day at least once. Deduction method led
us to conclude it by the number and characteristics of links in the news and by other
news published before or after when searching on the site about our particular topic.
We decided to select the news at the end of the day so we were able to analyze the
more completed version offered by media. That is why we knew about the existence
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of other simpler versions of them and about the replacement that was done to the
chosen one. At this point, we observed few previously versions and the tendency to
accumulate links the in main news by most of the media.
Conclusions
Longer and deeper analysis is needed, as we planned to, carrying it on during a
month and with more media involved in. However, this first approach led us to some
primary conclusions about our hypothesis and about the validity of the methodology
employed.
First of all, we consider content analysis a suitable method and the analysis tab a
good basis to start with. Our proposal has answered the questions related to the
hypothesis, whether to describe characteristics and possible innovations in online
journalism genres and to establish its relationship with its counterpart media.
Dismembering the elements of a news and linking them with the different formats and
the 5 W questions, we would have appreciated a new way of building the news based
on the hypertextual structure and the possible combinations of the genres.
Despite that most news studied were mainly textual, we observed a little difference
between the ones that had a radio or TV counterpart with the ones coming from
newspaper or online natives. First ones used the news on TV or radio to add it to the
news on the web. Regarding language and style, a longer analysis in time would be
able to conclude some kind of pattern in online journalistic routines. Finally, we did
not found any common infographics during this week of analysis.
Focusing on information architecture and visualization as well as usability guidelines,
media respected general criteria of using simple and coherent typography and colour.
They differentiated the text from the links and, most of them, the headline from the top
title, the subtitle, the introduction and the body text. We have to remember that
usability theories recommend not employing less than 12 points.
Deepening the parts of the discourse, Inventio and Dispositio were represented by
links (in and out of text) and by the hypertextual structure generated with them. Actio
was driven by the grade of interactivity and Elocutio by the multimedia resources.
Memoria is memory, a potentiality of the media related to hypertext. As a conclusion,
we still found textual news with additional resources like more textual, graphic or
multimedia links. The complexity of the narrative was determined by the number of
nodes or links related, its availability and hierarchy.
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References
Bauer, M. W.; Gaskell, G. (2002). Pesquisa qualitativa com texto: imagen e som: um
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Deuze, M. (2001). Online journalism. Modelling the first generationof news media on
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methodology in comparative perspective. Bilbao: Servicio de Publicaciones de la
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ciberperiodística. Barcelona: Ariel.
Kooper, G. G.; Kolthoff, A.; Czepek, A. (2000). Research review: online Journalism –a
report on current and continuing research and major questions in the international
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Kolmer, C. (2008). Methods of Journalism Research-Content Analysis. In: Löffelholz,
M.; Weaver, D. (eds.). Global Journalism Research. Theories, Methods, Findings,
Future. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Palacios, M; Díaz Noci, J. (coords.) (2008). Metodologia para o estudo dos
cibermeios. Estudio da arte & perspectivas. Salvador (Brasil): Edufba.
Serrano Tellería, A. (2010). Diseño de nodos iniciales en cibermedios: Un estudio
comparativo. Tesis doctoral. Leioa: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del País
Vasco. URL [http://www.argitalpenak.ehu.es/p291content/eu/contenidos/informacion/se_indice_tescspdf/eu_tescspdf/adjuntos/TESIS_
ANA_SERRANO.PDF]
Van der Wurf, R.; Lauf, E. (eds.) (2005). Print and Online Newspapers in Europe. A
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The Development of Local Online Journalism in SouthWestern France: the Case of ‘La Dépêche du Midi’
Nikos Smyrnaios, Franck Bousquet
University of Toulouse, France
Abstract
Since the advent and consolidation of the web as a news medium, expectations about
its positive role in journalism diversity were high, especially when it comes to the local
public space. Our study aims at examining professional practices in the online
newsroom of a French local newspaper, La Dépêche du Midi, through ethnographic
observation. The paper also examines the business model of the publisher’s internet
subsidiary and the impact of financial constraints on its editorial strategy. We found
that despite a great potential for the development of online journalism in a local level,
in this case insufficient resources as well as a purely marketing-centered vision of
executives limits editorial and journalistic innovation.
Keywords: online, journalism, local, newspaper, strategy, content, newsroom
Introduction
In France the Regional Daily Press (RDP) is the central element of the local and
regional public sphere. This situation results from a number of its features and
functions. First, in many territories of France regional and local newspapers are
monopolies. The consolidation movement, which has been engaged since the 50s,
led to a sharing of French territory between a few major groups of RDP (Le Floch,
1997). Nowadays, more and more territories are covered by only one local journal. In
addition, the development of the RDP was accompanied by the creation of a large
network of correspondents and the opening of local offices throughout the covered
territory (Lerner, 1977). This field presence in each municipality or township makes
each regional publisher the only professional player able to cover local information in
detail. Furthermore, the RDP’s field presence is organized upon electoral and
administrative boundaries, a characteristic that makes it undoubtedly central to the
organization of local politics (Tetu, 1995). Thus, through these features, the RDP in
France contributes to strengthening territorial identification of its readers, as it does in
other countries (Kaniss, 1991).
The RDP proposes also valuable services to its readers. In France, it’s virtually the
only medium capable of delivering a daily comprehensive directory of all service
information covering especially rural territories (from the obituary section, to the local
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theaters’ program and the pharmacies on duty). This feature makes it an instrument
of daily life and an agent of integration into local life (Martin, 2002). Finally, the RDP
links its readers to the political, economic and social players of the territory
maintaining a social bond which participates in the functioning of local societies (Tetu,
1995; Ballarini, 2008).
Nevertheless, this somewhat idyllic description of the RDP needs to be revised today.
Indeed, local and regional as well as national media are going through important
changes and adjustments due to several reasons: the emergence of "generalized
public relations” (Miege, 1995); the development of the internet and its economic and
editorial consequences; constant changes in readership practices; the presence of
new entrants in the field of local information. A number of trends regarding the
changes undergone by the digital media at national level should be considered for
local media as well.
In the field of contemporary journalistic practices, recent research found that journalist
background and working conditions in newsrooms are changing rapidly (Estienne,
2008). For istance, deadlines have disappeared online and information is expected to
be produced and published in real time. This leads to what Chris Paterson (2008)
calls “shovelware phenomena” (repackaging content produced for other media) with
news agency and print setting the agenda for websites. Online journalism tends to
become a “passive journalism” relying in news providers such as news agencies and
public relations (McManus, 1994). This trend is also related to the second class status
that online news professionals occupy. What counts as journalism in the
contemporary media environment is more open to negotiation than before
(Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2009).
At the same time, it appears that the form of the news is changing, marked by
increasing convergence (Klinenberg, 2005) but also new technical constraints
(Cabrolié, 2010). This results in online newsroom employees becoming frequently
agents of editorial innovation (Schmitz Weiss & Domingo, 2011). For instance, an
important innovative trend is community and user generated content management
(Flichy, 2010; Wardle & Williams, 2010). Readers’ practices such as seeking
information through search engines and recommendations on social networks are
also developments that publishers are required to consider as such powerful
infomediaries impose new conditions in news circulation and monetization (Rebillard
& Smyrnaios, 2010). Finally, a crucial stake is that of viable economic models of
online media (Ahlers, 2006). For the moment no lasting solution applicable to all the
players has appeared. Nevertheless, an overreliance to advertising revenues is clear
and subscription models seem particularly difficult to implement (Chyi, 2005).
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Method
The main axis of our research project is the study on the economic and editorial
models of the local press in the Midi-Pyrenees region92. In order to address them, we
focus in this work on one player La Dépêche du Midi leading newspaper in the MidiPyrénées. Our methods are inspired by recent research (Paterson & Domingo, 2008).
We applied a qualitative approach including a dozen of interviews with stakeholders
in the journal (senior managers, journalists, stringers and technicians) that were held
in their workplaces in 2009. The interviews were accompanied by ethnographic
observations of their work practices. In supplement we collected and analyzed a
corpus of various internal documents such as financial statements, strategic guides
and reports, market research and readership analyses. We will first present the
economic strategy and business model of La Dépêche du Midi on the web, before
considering its editorial model in its two dimensions, print and web, less hermetically
separated than managerial views suggests.
The group La Dépêche du Midi
Undoubtedly the most important player in the media of the Midi-Pyrénées region is
the group La Dépêche du Midi built around the eponymous newspaper. Created in
the second half of the nineteenth century, during the Franco-Prussian War, La
Dépêche originally focused on news from the front and later became a newspaper of
general information about the area of Toulouse. In the early twentieth century, bought
by two brothers from the Ariège region, it developed over a larger geographic area
and became a major popular and politically engaged newspaper. Indeed, besides an
interest in daily life on its geographical area, La Dépêche, like most French local
newspapers of the time, endorsed a political family: the Radicals. Its influence
asserted during the inter-war and its territorial hegemony was confirmed after the
Second World War. In the 80's the Baylet family, who controls the newspaper since
1927, built a media group including several newspapers in the Midi-Pyrénées region
(La Dépêche du Midi, Midi Olympique, Le Petit Toulousain, La Nouvelle République
des Pyrénées, Le Petit Bleu, Le Villefranchois), classifieds newspapers (PubliToulouse, Publi-Pyrenees), magazines (Toulouse Mag, Toulouse Femmes, Toulouse
Matchs) and a broadcast news agency (La Dépêche TV). Today the group also has
participations in newspapers of Montpellier and Nimes and in the local television
station of Toulouse TLT. Besides the Baylet family the two main shareholders of the
group La Dépêche are industrial conglomerates such as the Lagardère Group and the
pharmaceutical company Pierre Fabre.
The newspaper nowadays covers the Midi-Pyrénées Region of South-Western
France (with a population of approximately 2,5M, out of which about 1M lives around
92
This article is part of a research report supported by a grant of the Regional Council of MidiPyrénées: Bousquet, F., & and Smyrnaios, N. (2010). Les nouveaux modèles économiques et éditoriaux
de la presse en région Midi-Pyrénées, July.
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the city of Toulouse) where it’s daily sales are about 200,000. After a strong deficit of
around 7.5 million Euros in 2008, the group regained profitability in 2009 earning a
profit of 1.7 million Euros for a turnover of around 118 million Euros. This recovery is
mainly due to drastic cost reductions including eighty lay-offs in 2009 on a total of
1040 employees. Nowadays, the main shareholder of the group, Jean-Michel Baylet,
is at the same time President of the Radical Party of the Left, member of the French
Senate, President of the General Council of the Tarn-et-Garonne department and one
of the richest businessmen in the region. This extreme situation of collusion between
politics, media and business, which was usual in the French press in late nineteenth
century and throughout the first half of the twentieth century, is now an exception but
still remains unchanged in the Midi-Pyrénées region.
The digital strategy of La Dépêche du Midi
From the beginning the group has spanned off its internet activities. The subsidiary La
Dépêche Interactive was established in 1997 with the aim of creating and maintaining
the websites of the group’s two main journals, La Dépêche and the Midi Olympique,
which is a sports weekly with focus on rugby. In the late 90s, the audience of French
websites was low, due to the relatively low penetration of the internet, and advertising
revenues resulting from that activity were nonexistent. That's the reason that pushed
La Dépêche Interactive to quickly turn itself into a web agency with several activities
(creation of websites and related services, CD-ROMs, interactive terminals,
databases) that allowed the company to break even.
In the 2000s, an additional effort was made to promote the websites of La Dépêche
and Midi Olympique in order to increase audience and advertising revenue. At the
same time the group established a partial pay-wall on the two sites, in an early
version of a Freemium model (Groeneveld & Sethi, 2010). These attempts to
leverage the group's internet business by setting up a subscription based system
quickly proved unsuccessful. The fragmentation of the subsidiary's activities between
web agency services, advertising and paid content, blurred the group's strategy.
That's why in 2006 it was decided to conduct an audit by an outside consultant to
implement a restructuring plan for the group’s internet business that included closing
the web agency activities. Access to the two main sites of the group was made free
and all efforts were concentrated on increasing audience and advertising revenue. In
May 2007, an experienced executive was hired to implement the new strategy which
appears to have paid off as the traffic of Ladepeche.fr has increased dramatically,
from 167,000 unique visitors in 2007 to around 3 million in 2010 according to the
user-centric measure of Médiamétrie.
This strategic shift has engaged a reconfiguration of the relations between the
subsidiary and the mother company. Until 2006, La Dépêche Interactive positioned
itself as a service provider for the group's websites. The subsidiary then billed its
services to the parent company. Since 2007 the cash flow has been reversed: the
subsidiary now buys the newspaper’s content as it does with news agencies.
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To this date La Dépêche Interactive operates four websites: Ladepeche.fr,
Midipress.fr, Publi.fr (classified ads) and Rugbyrama.fr, the website of Midi Olympique
in partnership with Eurosport. It employs eight people who work mostly for the website
of La Dépêche. According to its head, La Dépêche Interactive is a "machine that
generates traffic". Not a structure intended to produce original articles, but only to edit
newspaper and agency content and thus generate advertising revenue. This is a
purely marketing approach that considers the web and mobile platforms simply as
additional distribution channels for existing content and not a means for regenerating
journalistic practices and formats. The fact that the executive who heads the internet
subsidiary is at the same time Director of marketing of the group reinforces this view.
The advertising revenues of the internet company come as far as 90% from the
regional market (professional and classified display advertising). The rest comes in
roughly equal proportions from national publicity campaigns and Google Adsense.
The share of income from online subscriptions is negligible. Advertising revenues are
supplemented by advertorials that are often sold together on print and web to
businesses or institutional players such as municipalities and local authorities. In
2009, the subsidiary broke even: with a turnover of 1.9 million Euros the company
had a profit of 60,800 Euros thanks to low costs. Breaking even was a major goal of
the new management because pressure from the newspaper executives was great.
Indeed, early in the implementation of the new digital strategy of the group, the web
subsidiary was often criticized as "stealing" content and readership from the
newspaper while worsening the economic deficit of the parent company.
The Online newsroom
La Dépêche du Midi operates a tight separation between the journalists who produce
the print edition of the newspaper and those that publish it online. Geographically
distant from one another, the newspaper’s editorial staff has no contact with the team
of the website. The first one is located in the Cépière area (south of Toulouse) in the
vast premises of the group, the second is located boulevard de Suisse (north) in a
small building shared with other companies. This separation is a calculated act that
reflects the will of the group’s executives to refuse any editorial prerogative to the
team of Ladepeche.fr.
At the same time, the central newsroom of the newspaper as well as the local
correspondents are kept away from the process of online publishing. The journalists
of the newspaper that we interviewed told us that they knew that their papers were
published online, but they did not really know how, or under what conditions. In the
same vein, employees of Ladepeche.fr are careful not to claim any editorial
prerogatives, even if the type of task before them is certainly at least partly
journalistic. Thus, we have on one side “news producers” (the journalists who work for
the newspaper) and on the other hand editors whose main task is to adapt that
content to the context of the web.
How does the website influences newspaper journalists
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According to the sayings of newspaper executives but also journalists with whom we
spoke, their daily work hasn’t changed dramatically since the creation of
Ladepeche.fr. The previous period of the 90’s, with the computerization of the
newspaper and the adoption of software for journalists to directly lay-out the content
seems to have been more important in terms of organizational changes. Journalists
have received no special instructions or editorial guidelines intended to improve
online publishing of their work. Nevertheless, evidence gathered during our interviews
implies that the changes in journalistic practices introduced indirectly by the website
are quiet important in at least one dimension: taking into account the audience’s
preferences as they are expressed through traffic statistics and adapting their stories
to them.
Indeed, aware that their work is systematically published online, newspaper
journalists can find out in real time through the company’s intranet how many visitors
clicked on their articles, where from, at what moment etc. Some journalists working in
a local small-town office of the newspaper told us that, thanks to traffic statistics of the
website, they were able to make daily competitions for appointing the winner author of
the article with the most views. Others admitted that after having noticed that certain
type of subjects generated more clicks than others they tend to write more papers
related to them. Finally, some journalists said that during editorial conferences, the
head of the local edition made explicit reference to the figures of the website as an
important element in the choice of topics and angles. This evidence suggests that the
website has created an instrument for quantitative evaluation of journalists’ work
which is quiet a novelty. Until recently, only the sales figures, letters to the editor and
readership surveys enabled journalists and editors to get feedback on their work. That
feedback came after some time and was generally not very detailed. Journalists
always knew empirically what sort of content was more popular than other, but didn’t
have tangible real time proof of that.
Now, the internet traffic figures provide an instant quantitative judgment on each
individual item of content. The quantitative logic of maximum audience, well known in
commercial TV (Bourdon 1994), seems to settle in the print media through their digital
outlets. The online newspaper is no longer a single entity evaluated editorially and
financially as a whole like its print counterpart, but the sum of content items whose
individual value is measured through the number of clicks they receive. This
phenomenon has two major consequences: first, cross-subsidies between different
types of content online are much weaker than in print (Shirky, 2009); second, the
quantitative trend that invades local newspapers through the internet can potentially
drive and deepen editorial changes.
The “editorial webmasters” of Ladepeche.fr
The newsroom of Ladepeche.fr occupies about two hundred square meters, with four
offices occupied by executives, a meeting room and a large open space staffed with
four editors who are referred to internally as “editorial webmasters”. According to the
executive director of the subsidiary, their mission is to adapt the newspaper’s content
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to the internet and to increase advertising revenue. The work of the editorial
webmasters is basically described as formatting and marketing news content. In
reality this description of the website’s operations is correct but incomplete because it
does not reflect the entire work of the team which in many respects carries out real
editorial tasks. However, the insistence on the fact that the website’s editorial staff is
not “journalistic” has a pecuniary explanation: the actual collective agreement in the
company, which regulates the terms and conditions in work, is that of the technicians
in the computer industry (Syntec). This means that, for example, a newly hired
employee of La Dépêche Interactive in 2011 would start at the minimum wage in
France (1,073 Euros net). If the staff of Ladepeche.fr had access to the status of
journalist and the associated collective agreement, salaries would be much higher.
Behind the strategic option of non production of original content from the website
staff, there is the will to simply minimize salary costs.
In the same vein, the team is "ideally" consisting of 12 persons, as indicated by its
head, but in fact at the time of our observation in July 2009, the team had only 8
people, because of "insufficient advertising revenue”. Four of them occupy the
position of webmaster and are primarily responsible for managing the incoming flows
of
three
main
types
of
content:
- All the articles of more than 400 characters that are produced by the newspaper.
These articles are published automatically on the website at 5 am and then are
rearranged
by
the
web
team
all
through
the
day
;
- Press agency news from AFP (general news) and Actustar (TV-entertainment)
acquired
by
subscription;
- Various service contents (traffic, weather, jokes, TV programs, etc..) purchased to
suppliers
such
as
France
Météo
or
acquired
by
partnership.
Numerous editorial processes are provided by the website team on the basis of this
content: prioritization, headlining, search engine optimization and comment
moderation.
Content prioritization
The first task of the so-called webmasters is to operate a manual process of
prioritization of content. First, this process consists in eliminating automatically
published improper content. For example, the group's policy was, at the time of our
investigation, to keep the main service and practical information (obituaries, birthdays,
weddings, pharmacies and doctors on call) for the print version. Thus, the
webmasters of the site manually remove these items that may have surpassed the
number of characters required to switch automatically to the website’s database. In
theory, anything that can relate to the obituary section or civil status must be taken
offline. Nevertheless, at the time of the observation, a debate took place between
webmasters that could be summarized in arbitrating between the logic of the
audience (keep all content to create traffic) and the preservation of newspaper (keep
service information unavailable online).
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Second, prioritization consists in composing the 26 items list that will appear in the
same order in the newsletter, sent everyday to about 100,000 subscribers, and on the
homepage. This is done according to principles leaving room for interpretation and
personally motivated choices from the website staff. The main objective of
prioritization of content is to generate the most of the traffic possible. So webmasters
tend to systematically highlight on the homepage the items that have already had or
are expected to receive many views. However, alongside with traffic generation
potential, other factors must be taken into account in the process. According to the
person responsible for the homepage/newsletter ranking, in her work she tries to
reflect a certain territorial balance in the region by ensuring that each department is
represented almost daily. She avoids to use too many news items about sport,
scabrous stories, crime, or tragic accidents, even though such articles have high click
rates, and ensures that politics or international news as well as some magazine style
issues (health, mode etc.) are also present. This indicates a gap between the
journalists’ and the consumers’ preferences that results from high level preferences
about public affairs news on the journalist side and much lower level on the consumer
side (Boczkowski, Mitchelstein & Walter, 2011).
The prioritization of content is too important to be made automatically or only on a
click ranking basis. The person in charge of the homepage/newsletter list feels she
carries an important responsibility regarding the type of information that is put forward
and therefore the image of the media that is reflected. The day we made the
observation,
she
made
several
important
decisions
concerning
the
homepage/newsletter list, such as fostering an article qualified as "more joyful"
including an emphasis on cultural life, and that of choosing the theme of international
events, namely the G7 meeting in Italy. Crucial for the image of the website but also
for attracting audience this prerogative is eminently a journalistic one.
Editing, search engine optimization and (non) community management
The second important task performed by the team of webmasters is editing: changing
headlines and adding key words and photographs to the articles. Three dimensions
are identified in this task: explicitation, localization and adaptation to the online
context. On the one hand editing aims at making the content of the site more
attractive to users, thereby increasing the click rate, on the other hand it aims at
improving search engine optimization for Ladepeche.fr and thus capturing a floating
audience.
As mentioned previously, the articles of the newspaper are automatically published
online with their original title. As part of the printed newspaper, an article is located
within a territorialized section and intended for a readership with minimal knowledge
of the issues and players in its territory. However, all the contextual elements
(column, department, city) of the article disappear when it is published online. Thus,
the elliptical headlines, not explicit or built on word games, are rewritten by
webmasters. The latter also add the name of the location of the reported event to the
headline and assign keywords to the metadata describing the content of their article
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in order for that to reach the various sections of the site. Localization is extremely
important for the organization of the website since many articles do not contain
explicit reference to a municipality. The work of the webmaster is to check the location
in the newspaper when he can find no indication in the text. Another dimension of the
webmasters’ work, close to the previous, is adapting content to the context of the
internet. Indeed, the headlines in the online version must be explicit but also catchy.
Unlike the printed newspaper, where only the first page headlines serve as a
showcase to attract potential readers, on the internet all the articles headlines play
this role. According to the webmasters they must give a quick overview of the content
of the article but also tempt the visitor to click.
Thereafter, a second element comes into play: the presence on search engines. This
is crucial for the site with more than 40% of its visits coming from Google’s users
performing queries on trending topics. Ladepeche.fr is undoubtedly the best known
website for local and regional news in Midi-Pyrénées so its market share in that area
is preponderant. In consequence its potential for audience growth comes mostly from
other regions of France where people are not particularly interested in local news of
Midi-Pyrénées, but for national and international stories. So for the group La
Dépêche, search engine optimization is decisive in order to enlarge its market share
outside its traditional fief. For infomediaries like Google News, responsiveness, real
time and extensive coverage as well as inclusion of popular keywords are key
dimensions (Smyrnaios & Rebillard, 2009). In order to improve the position of
Ladepeche.fr in search results and aggregators, some headlines are modified during
the day to give the impression that new content has been created. This is particularly
true for national and international news provided through the subscription to AFP
agency. The employ of an SEO specialist in the company demonstrates the strategic
importance of this activity.
Once the headline and the keywords defined, webmasters add a photo to all the
articles that do not have one already. For this, they have access to the newspaper’s
bank of images that includes all published and unpublished photos taken by
professionals, amateur local correspondents or acquired from other local newspapers
or agencies. The choice of a photography is clearly a journalistic prerogative, even
though it is perceived by webmasters only as an illustration activity and is done very
hastily. Finally, the website’s staff inserts links in some of the articles. In no case
these links are outgoing to third party sites. Ladepeche.fr is a news site closed on
itself. The architecture of the site, consisting in a multitude of inserts giving an
impression of openness to the outside, is thought to keep the user inside the
perimeter of the site as long as possible.
In the afternoon, once all the formatting tasks are completed, webmasters update
stories, especially on national and international news, and change the homepage. For
this, they base themselves on the AFP feed for general information and on Actustar
for information on entertainment and celebrities. They also manage user generated
content which is minimal given there are neither hosted readers blogs nor a forum.
The participation of the readers on the website limits itself in comments under articles.
The main task of the webmasters is to erase insulting and improper comments. This
is done a first time automatically by filtering comments including a predefined list of
keywords and then by hand. After a full day of work, the editorial webmasters
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consider comment moderation as drudgery and act in consequence. There is an
official Facebook page (5,500 fans) and a Twitter account (350 followers in May
2011)93 of La Dépêche that are regularly updated. But neither the journalists of the
newspaper nor the webmasters answer to readers’ messages. The media never
engages in real conversation with its audience and there is no particular policy in
community management basically because of lack of resources.
Discussion
The case of La Dépêche du Midi online newsroom is typical of general trends
observed in the sector. Due to the instable business model of its internet subsidiary,
based entirely on advertising revenues, and its own bad financial situation the
newspaper has invested very little on its website. Organized in order to increase
productivity, conceived as a “machine” for high rhythm publishing of existing material
through desk work, Ladepeche.fr produces neither original reporting, nor innovative
formats. It does not exploit user generated content or community engagement. The
symbolic capital and the salaries of the people who produce the website are quiet
lower than those of their newspaper counterparts. Their working conditions are also
worse, something that reduces their willingness to innovate and engage themselves
in the project. Nevertheless, their everyday work includes de facto some journalistic
prerogatives, even if they are not recognized as such in the company. In conclusion,
what limits the development of La Dépêche on the web is material constraints related
to insufficient resources as well as its purely marketing-centered vision of the internet,
not technologic or human potential.
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http://www.facebook.com/pages/ladepechefr and http://twitter.com/ladepeche_fr
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Verlagsgruppe Passau, Orkla Media and Mecom – Different
Business Strategies on Polish Press Market
Adam Szynol
University of Wroclaw, Poland
Abstract
After socio-political breakthrough in 1989 foreign companies entered Polish media
market. Firstly, investors appeared in the press sector, later on in the electronic
media. One of the first groups presented in Poland was Orkla Media. The Norwegians
launched a brand new regional daily, which was a kind of exception in Orkla’s
strategy. After subsequent failure they changed the pattern of business activity. From
1991 to 2006 Orkla bought a dozen or so of regional dailies and took over shares in a
nationwide newspaper. During that period the Norwegians followed their well-known
path to run the media business.
When in 2006 Mecom bought out Orkla’s shares, a new era began. The British fund
was mainly interested in making their assets more profitable. Some mergers were
carried out. Consequently, many journalists had to be dismissed. Unlike the
predecessors, Mecom eagerly diverted toward the Internet and it seems to be the
most important direction of their strategy.
The biggest shareholder of the regional press sector, however, is still Verlagsgruppe
Passau (VGP). The German group appeared in 1993, in disguise of a Swiss company
and next year took over eight regional dailies from Robert Hersant, a French
newspaper tycoon. In due course, VGP bought out a couple of more regional titles
and became the leader of this sector of the market. Although the Germans were
competing against the Norwegians and the Brits, they showed a different style of
managing their assets. Originally a family firm, they kept running the business very
tightly and under the strict control of the owner.
The author is trying to describe different patterns of business strategy in the press
sector in Poland, examining each investor’s behavior and the results of their efforts.
This can lead to conclusions about the past activities as well as to predictions about
the future of the market.
Keywords: regional dailies, Passauer, Orkla, Mecom, mergers, business strategies
Introduction
It was not until the year 1989 when Poland entered the path of democratic changes
and the communism collapsed. During the Round Table Talks, between the
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government and the Opposition, a historical agreement was reached. According to
Roszkowski (2001) it was the first time when a country from the soviet bloc diverted
from the communism to democracy and free market economy. It is worth
emphasizing, because that fact is barely visible in European scientific debate.
Furthermore, the Polish breakthrough was a spark and stimulus for similar historical
occurrences in other Central-East-European (CEE) countries, which was called an
avalanche effect (Dobek-Ostrowska, 2006). It might be also assumed to be a result of
the third wave of democratization (Huntigton, 1991).
Such dramatic socio-political changes led to the transformation of media system in
Poland. Strictly regulated, driven by the political monopoly system it had to be rebuilt.
In 1990 several crucial acts were passed. Some of them were going to transform the
Polish media. At the beginning, regulatory efforts were made in the press sector, in
due course in the electronic media. The most important bill was enacted on 22nd of
March, 1990. In consequence, 105 newspapers were sold on an auction, 72 titles
were taken over by journalists cooperatives and 8 remained in the Treasury hands
(Schliep, 1996). Two weeks earlier the Seym passed a bill establishing local selfgovernments. This act enabled communes to set up newspapers. Chorazki (1991)
estimated that thanks to the changes in law and enthusiastic attitude of the new
publishers about 3 thousands of small titles appeared. In the same year censorship
was abolished.
The electronic sector, which is beyond this study, developed later on, and these
changes were based on other regulations. The most important difference was that the
foreign capital could gain 100% shares in publishing companies, while in the
electronic media only one third of the ownership. For over two decades Polish media
system went through a long-lasting and on-going process which still seems to be
unfinished. Rozumilowicz (2002) claimed that the democratization process and media
reform consists of four stages: Pre-transition, primary transition, secondary transition,
and late or mature transition stage. Sharing this view Dobek-Ostrowska and Glowacki
(2008: 12) stated that the last stage has not been reached by any of the CEE
countries because ‘mass media turned out to be too weak to face political actors on
one side and the market on the other. As a result, the media system acts under
pressure from political and economic systems’.
It has to be kept in mind that in the electronic media public broadcasters have a very
strong position, especially in television, whereas the press sector is almost completely
privatized. The diversity of Polish media system is even more complicated as there
are still visible remnants of the former system. Jakubowicz (2007) considered to name
such a complicated situation a negotiated transformation. Not only Polish media
researchers are trying to place and name existing media system. Szynol & Roppen
(2007) were discussing this issue during 18th Nordic conference for media and
communication research in Helsinki claiming that there was an influence of
Scandinavian corporation which may paradoxically direct the Polish media system not
towards a democratic corporatist model (as it is in Scandinavia) mentioned in Hallin &
Mancini’s book (2004) but a polarized pluralist one, which was admitted by three
models originators themselves lately (unpublished interview with the author).
Research area and methods
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The paper is focused on a specific segment of Polish media market. It has been
limited to the regional dailies, which is a core target of the author’s research. As it was
mentioned before, when the Communism collapsed and the Opposition came to
power, and the new law was introduced, the press was almost completely taken over
by foreign companies. Bajka (1998) rightly noticed that during the first half of the
nineties groups of foreign investors settled individual sectors of the press market.
Three of them were the main area of the paper, namely: Verlagsgruppe Passau
(German), Orkla Media (Norway), and Mecom (UK). Thus, the present research is a
kind of three business strategies case study.
The paper is based on variety of sources and methods. First of all, author has a tenyears experience working as a journalist in the printed and electronic media.
Consequently, participatory observation was one of the methods. Secondly, as a
scholar, author had an opportunity to analyze agendas and individual news and
commentary programs. Thirdly, there were several official documents, such as: Acts,
bills, decrees and governmental projects connected with the theme of the paper,
which were examined. The literature survey of the subject was a completion of those
analyzes. The last but not least, two doctoral dissertations were taken into account:
Johann Roppen’s (2003) from Volda University College and the author of the paper
(2004).
Results
First case - Verlagsgruppe Passau
When in December 1993 an unknown firm from Switzerland, Interpublication,
appeared in Poland (specifically in Wroclaw) nobody expected deceit. A German
group from Bavaria, Passauer Neue Presse (in 2000 transformed into holding
company – Verlagsgruppe Passau), used a disguise to mislead Polish public opinion,
which was very sensitive to foreign companies expansion, especially in the region
which belonged to the Germans before World War II. Eight years later CEO of
regional branch of Passauer admitted in an interview with the author that it was done
on purpose to avoid the media and audience hype (Szynol, 2004: 62). The same
strategy the Germans used in another region in 1994 when they bought 25% shares
in a regional daily in Krakow.
However, Passauer Neue Presse (PNP) gained their powerful position in Poland in
September when Franz Xaver Hirtreiter (CEO of PNP) convinced a French tycoon,
Robert Hersant, to sell out shares in eight regional newspapers for 100 million
Deutsche Mark. Since that moment the German investor became the biggest
shareholder in the regional daily press sector in Poland and still holds this position,
selling about 320 thousand copies of their nine newspapers per day.
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In due course the Germans followed the strategy of centralization (Bajka, 1998).
Passauer built its headquarter in Warsaw and started managing regional titles as
branches of Polskapresse, representative of Verlagsgruppe Passau. Cira (2000),
bringing back classical work of Ansoff (1965), noticed that the company used several
widely known business strategies. Firstly, horizontal diversification - buying the same
type of media, namely regional dailies. Secondly, vertical diversification through
establishing printing houses and trying to create a network of distribution. Finally,
although in the meanwhile, Passauer concentrated its managing structure and
established a media broker.
For almost two decades of presence in Poland, German investor applied various
modes of business operations. Settling in the capital of the chosen region Passauer
tried to take over the biggest newspaper, which seemed to be a very reasonable and
successful assumption. According to the Furhoff’s theory of the spiral of circulation
(1967), a title with the highest circulation outperforms its competitors. One might say
that the Germans consistently obeyed this rule and it turned out to be profitable. In
most of the cases they won the battle for the leadership in particular regions.
Furthermore, in accordance with the theory of household coverage (Gustafsson,
1978) the strongest newspapers not only won the competition but also drove the
competitors out of the market. It is a general rule that regional dailies rarely have any
competition in their reach. In addition, Passauer conquered the smallest markets and
subordinated sublocal weeklies through incorporating them into the regional dailies.
The expansion of German group was fast and without any scruples likewise in the
Czech Republic and Slovakia. It was manifested in buying shares in publishing
companies and also in harsh take-overs and mergers. During the interviews with the
journalists it turned out that Passauer did not want and allow workers to found trade
unions in newsrooms. Ruling with the iron fist were also visible when one of regional
dailies belonging to the group published an unfavourable article about Polish
president. CEO of Verlagsgruppe Passau (Franz X. Hirtreiter) forced the editor-inchief to place a disclaimer and to leave the newspaper. Moreover, Hirtreiter himself
sent a humble apology to the president. This occurrence was maliciously called as
“Bavarian homage” (intended historical context of the Prussian Homage). It was also
acknowledged as an independent journalism myth collapse.
It is worth remembering that Verlagsgruppe Passau is a family running business. It
was founded by Hans Kapfinger and for a few dozen of years his family took care of
the company. Today it is run by the family of Diekmann. Each year the head of the
family (Axel Diekmann), sometimes accompanied by his son (Alexander), visited
editorial offices in Poland, where over thousand workers are hired and
advertisements revenues are about 5 million euro monthly.
In the year 2007 the Polish board with Diekmann’s approval introduced a nationwide
title, called “Polska The Times”, which was based on regional dailies, and resembled
Czech version of the regional titles unification. Unlike the Czech market, where
Pasauer gained a monopolistic position, in Poland the Germans held about one third
of the regional press market. Consequently, the project did not succeed. However,
Polish assets of Verlagsgruppe Passau provided about one third of the whole group
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turnover, which seemed to be a vital and irrefutable argument against selling them
out, as it was the case of Slovakian assets.
Second case – Orkla Media
The Norwegian investor first appeared in Poland in Summer 1990. In cooperation with
the regional department of Solidarity (the biggest trade union and the strongest
opposition) Orkla established a brand new colorful daily. It should be emphasized that
it was something which Norwegians did not do even in their homeland. Although
Orkla came into existence in the year 1654 their interest in the media business
disclosed three centuries later in the mid-eighties. The operations of a subordinated
company, Orkla Media, mostly consisted of cooperation with other firms (e.g.
Egmont), through buying existing newspapers: Dailies and magazines. It is believed
that the assets managed by Orkla Media have never had an indispensible meaning
for the whole company.
When Polish market was opened for foreign investors the Scandinavians assumed
that it was a unique opportunity to widen their media asset. However, establishing a
new title was something unusual in their business strategy. One of the decisive factor
was their relations with Polish oppositionists. Orkla gave cart blanche to build a
newsroom and also free hand and independence in creating the content of the new
daily. In the first issue of “Dziennik Dolnoslaski” the editors announced on the front
page: ‘We believe that our daily will sustain free and independent, even from the
owners’. Too much freedom for inexperienced journalists and management staff was
the possible cause of collapse. One of the politicians managed to become the editorin-chief and strongly politicized the newspaper, using it as a tool of propaganda. The
daily lost its readers and had to be closed in November 1991.
After that severe failure the Norwegians changed their strategy and followed a wellknown pattern from their own market. From 1991 to 2004 Orkla Media bought 15
regional newspapers and 51% shares of a nationwide broadsheet. Although the
Scandinavians appeared in Poland three years prior to Passauer Neue Presse they
were not able to take the best regions in terms of readership and sale (which is now
about 275 thousand copies daily). Robert Hersant managed to do it instead and, as it
was mentioned before, sold almost everything out to the Germans. One exception
was done with the broadsheet “Rzeczpospolita” which the Frenchman sold to Orkla in
1996.
Thanks to that fact Passauer took over newspapers in richer regions and Orkla had to
place their investments in other parts of the country. As a result, although the
Norwegians ran more titles than the Germans they would not have the same income
(lower copy sale and revenues from advertisements). The only one position of
advantage that Orkla had was “Rzeczpospolita”. Furthermore, the Scandinavians
were purchasing shares in publishing houses in a small steps mode (Cira, 2000: 11),
very often for several years. For example in Lower Silesia Orkla Media was buying
shares in two titles: In regional daily for nine years and in local daily for eight years.
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The former representative of Orkla Media in Poland, Bjorn Cato Funnemark, admitted
during an interview with the author that headquarters did not want to buy majority
shares, even if it was possible. One might say that the Norwegians were just cautious
and stingy. The future was going to prove that that strategy would not succeed.
The Orkla Media expansion was not so aggressive and visible, however, the
Norwegian also tried to outperform their competitors and to leave the only one daily in
a particular region, with one exception. It might be assumed not as a deliberate
strategy but rather as a weakness of the market, on the readership and advertising
level. Moreover, Orkla did not want to conquer the sublocal media in a way as
Passauer did. If the Norwegian managed to buy some shares in a small title (hardly
ever 100%) they would not include the newspaper inside their regional title. They
were rather interested in advertisement revenues. Journalists hired by Orkla Media
claimed that the Norwegians were masters of Excel sheets, which means – they were
only interested in a final account not how it was achieved.
By the same token, the owner attitude towards journalistic profession was perceived.
Rarely did the Norwegians visit newsrooms and intervened in journalistic routine.
During 16 years of Orkla’s operation in Poland there were only two significant
exceptions to this rule. The first one concerned the political intervention of the ruling
party willing to take over the shares in “Rzeczpospolita”. The second one happened
when a regional daily published an interview with the president on the front page,
which seemed to be a kind of political expression. It is worth adding that the
Norwegians allowed the employees to found trade unions, what’s more, they tried to
implement some ethic codes and transparent rules of managing, however, with a little
success. Last but not least, the most important decisions were made in headquarters
and a couple of times Orkla’s representatives in Poland did not have influence on
them and sometimes even had no clue why such decisions had been taken.
The best example was the last move of Orkla in the field of media business in 2006.
The board decided to sell all the media assets out to British fund, Mecom. The
transaction, amounted to 930 million euro, aroused astonishment (“Dagens
Naeringsliv” called this deal as a farce). It was due to the fact that Mecom did not
have enough money and lacking part of it, about 100 million, borrowed it from Orkla
itself. For Polish journalists it meant that new owner appeared and was going to make
some profits.
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Third case – Mecom
Polish assets of Mecom were divided into two parts: Presspublica – a company
governed by Mecom and very inconvenient partner, that is the Treasury, which is very
unique situation; and Media Regionalne, the company managing regional dailies. The
most important title of Presspublica was “Rzeczpospolita”, with about 110 thousand
daily sale on average. A couple of times the broadsheet was going to be privatized,
never successfully. Thus, Mecom still had to cope with subsequent governments
always trying to regain either shares or influence on the management staff.
Media Regionalne was established in October 2006 and the main task of the
company was to run the former Orkla’s regional titles. Furthermore, most of the
employees stayed at the same professional position, e.g. the CEO of the new firm
remained unchanged. However, the first interviews with Mecom’s CEO, David
Montgomery, left Polish crew disillusioned. The British investor, known as a
businessman without scruples, announced that newly bought assets had to be more
profitable. It was expected that profitability of the company should increase from 7 to
35%. Soon after that the staff were going to experience the gravity of situation and
David Montgomery’s words.
In last years of Orkla’s presence in Poland the Norwegians managed to take over
three regional dailies in Pomerania. Unfortunately, there was still one competitive title
belonging to the Polish owner (one of two existing regional dailies in the whole
country). To push the rival out of the market the Brits merged their three newspapers
into one big and strong title. Since that time the competitor’s position has no longer
been the leading one, in terms of readership and sale. Moreover, Media Regionalne
decided to issue a local free press in this region to make the opponent’s condition
even weaker. It is highly probable that the Polish newspaper will eventually
disappear. It is worth adding that the regional department of British company
dismissed each fifth worker as a consequence of the fusion.
Contrary to Orkla and Passauer, Mecom is a quite new company as it had its first
public offer in March 2005. The Brits had their foreign divisions in Norway, Denmark,
Poland, and in the Netherlands. They also invested in Germany, buying well-known
publishing houses and newspapers. However, when the economic crisis appeared
and Mecom’s shares in London stock exchange dramatically dropped the British
withdrew from Germany rapidly. It may be taken for granted that this example is
somehow characteristic of Mecom’s business strategy. British investors were not so
bound to any particular market that it could restrain from selling their shares in case of
emergency.
Polish market was never considered as very important or even vital for Mecom,
moreover, it seems to be the most dissimilar to media in other divisions. Keeping in
mind Hallin and Mancini’s models (2004), Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands
were labeled as democratic corporatist countries, whereas Poland was going towards
a polarized pluralist one. It seems to be significantly easier to run a business in much
the same socio-political environment.
One distinctive feature should be emphasized. Mecom has been founded quite
recently in the Internet era and it might be easily noticed that online investments were
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overwhelming. Not only each newspaper was equipped with the electronic version but
also newsroom staff were encouraged or even forced to create a different content for
a newspaper and a webpage. In this way Mecom established a couple of dozen
regional and local portals. One of a kind idea was introduced on the streets. To
communicate with random readers Media Regionalne equipped bus stops with
intercoms enabling a direct connection with the newsroom of the regional daily. These
stops were also covered with the current issue of the newspaper. Such a resourceful
attitude was challenging for Mecom’s competitors.
Discussion and conclusions
Analysis of above three cases allow us to draw some conclusions. First of all, there
were visible similarities and differences between business strategies executed by
mentioned investors. The decision chain diversified each of them. At the beginning
Passauer branches in Poland were almost completely independent and could decide
by themselves whether e.g. to conquer the sublocal market or not. In a leap of time
this pattern was going to change into more centralized, however, even the most
important decisions were made in Poland. Orkla’s departments were independent as
long as the figure at the bottom of Excel sheet was satisfactory. But crucial operations
for the whole media assets were taken by the headquarters, sometimes without or
against the Polish representatives’ will. Mecom’s decision chain was similar to what
the Norwegians did although with a slight difference taking into account the company
situation (German case).
The ways of expansion were another important factor differentiating the
entrepreneurs’ actions. The Germans were very aggressive and did not miss any
chance to spread their influence. This pattern was used in the Czech Republic most
successfully, where Passauer gained a monopolistic position. Even though Orkla tried
to follow this track, the Norwegians were never so hostile, especially towards smaller
competitors and took over the shares step by step. When Mecom replaced Orkla, the
regional dailies market in Poland was mainly divided and there was almost nothing to
conquer. Thus, the Brits could only try to make their assets more profitable and
modern.
On the grounds of worker’s rights Orkla was the best employee, respecting trade
unions and business or journalistic codes. Passauer did not allow employees to found
unions and as a consequence hired there journalists were not so devoted to the
company and the newspaper. Generally Mecom implemented the same rules as
Orkla.
The Germans were more focused on building a consistent portfolio, whereas the
Norwegians and the Brits had shares also besides the press market. This might be an
example of diagonal diversification or, as Kowalski (2006) stated, connections. Each
of examined companies used a vertical and horizontal diversification strategy to
increase their assets. Although these business strategies may be used
simultaneously on domestic market and more and more frequently internationally
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(Kowalski, 2006: 49), Passauer did not develop its business on a such scale as Orkla
and Mecom.
Last but not least, Passauer was established as a family running business and what’s
more as a strictly media business, whereas Orkla was a multi-trade holding company
owning beside media shares also investments in mining, food or solar energy
industries. Thus, observing researchers were not surprised when in 2006 Orkla sold
its media assets out to Mecom. Because these shares were only a tenth part of the
whole company income and no longer so profitable as they were early on, there was
no point to still keeping them. The history of Mecom is the shortest one and the
achievements to date proved that the Brits would not hesitate to sell any of their
divisions if the situation forced them to do so.
This may lead us to a hypothesis about the future shape of the regional daily press
market in Poland. If Mecom manages to reach an agreement with the Treasury to
privatize the broadsheet, it will be sell out to one of the competitors on the nationwide
market. Moreover, the Brits will consider to withdraw from Poland completely due to
the dissimilarity from other divisions. In the meantime, the Germans will try to take
over Mecom’s shares in the regional press sector, which is Passauer’s core of
interest. If they succeed, the readers will be the biggest loser without choice of other
point of view.
End Note
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr Adam Szynol,
Institute of Journalism and Social Communication, ul. Joliot-Curie 15, room 207, 50383 Wroclaw, Poland. E-mail: [email protected] . Phone: +48 71 37 57 907
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Changing News Formats in Online Newspapers
Panu Uotila
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Abstract
This paper examines the different methods of news presentation online compared to
print media in three different countries: Finland, Great Britain and United States. The
study scrutinizes two key dimensions: news values and the structure of the news
stories by combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis. My argument is
that online news journalism makes greater use of the ‘inverted pyramid’ structure
combining it with hyperlinks. Online news journalism is becoming more
commercialized, more localized and softer, while at the same time opening up
towards a more deliberative, and more opinion oriented approach to news.
Commercialization leads online news presentation towards to the ‘tabloidization’: the
news are presented in a more simplified, personalized and dramatized way and the
most important news value is the attractiveness of the story. This paper is ‘work in
progress’ and it is based on my PhD study.
Keywords: Online journalism, news values, crossmedia, news consumption, media
economics, media convergence, intermediality
Introduction
The emergence of the Internet’s virtual communication space has challenged
traditional journalism and journalistic work processes in many ways. By making online
newspapers possible, the Internet has changed newspaper readers’ information
consumption habits and behaviour, and as a consequence has brought about
dramatic declines in newspaper circulation in many technologically developed
countries.
The revolution of media system has been dramatic. Nowadays eight out of ten
Americans say the Internet is a critical source of information in their lives (Project for
Excellence in Journalism, 2008). In a worldwide survey of newspaper editors, 44
percent of the respondents believed that, in 10 years, most people would be reading
their news online (World Association of Newspapers, 2008). Particularly young
readers have changed their reading habits from printed newspapers to the digital
media. In United States among readers 18 to 24 years of age, only 31 percent say
they read a newspaper yesterday, according to data from Scarborough Research.
(Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2009)
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In Finland, total circulation of Finnish newspapers has reduced in fourteen years from
4 million copies in 1995 to 3 million copies in 2009 (Sanomalehtien liitto, 2010). The
Finns read news more often from the Internet, but advertisement income hasn´t
changed as fast as readers’ consumption habits. Printed media earns still 58 percent
of total advertising revenue and online media advertising revenue is only 15 percent
of total advertising revenue (Mainonnan neuvottelukunta, 2011).
The biggest impact of the Internet on journalism is the emergence of ‘online
journalism’. The Internet is a versatile medium, which has the capability to combine
the features of traditional media, radio, television and newspapers. The features that
distinguish the Internet from all the other media are: almost limitless capacity to store
news stories; rapid real time updating; largely varying length of stories; use of
interactive graphic elements and direct quotation of voice or video. Specific features,
such as multimediality, hypertextuality and interactivity make online journalism
functionally different from print journalism. Furthermore, online journalism has
influenced the ways print media present news. (cf. Paterson & Domingo, 2008; Pavlik,
2001; Prasad, 2009; Quinn, 2005; Royal, 2008; Thurman & Lupton, 2008 and van der
Wurff & Lauf, 2005.)
Consolidation of media ownership has lead to crossmedia structures, more active
media content allocation and intermediality between different media formats. New
online journalism and new print journalism are mostly results of media convergence,
intermediality and new publishing technology. Convergence is here understood as a
phenomenon in which news stories in different media use more and more the same
journalistic material provided by the same journalists and same news organizations.
Intermediality in this context means similarities, differences, allocation and interaction
of journalistic content in different media formats.
Recent research
Online news media has become a significant part of social, economic and cultural life
in technologically advanced societies. Online news journalism is changing and
developing rapidly, challenging contemporary research in online journalism and
making it quickly outdated. International research about online news has grown
dramatically in the past few years, but in Finland there have been published only a
few studies concerning the journalistic content and the future of online media (for
example Heinonen, M, 2008; Heinonen, A, 1999).
Recent online journalism research areas can be divided according to their focus of
interest for contextual matter (such as the history and market environment, analyses
of the causes, dynamics, and consequences of innovation); changes in journalistic
practice; professional and occupational matters and the role of the user as a content
producer and its implications on the public sphere (Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2009,
pp. 562-575).
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Historical topics have attracted far less attention than other issues among scholars of
online news. According to Boczkowski (2004), newspapers developed online news
operations as a reaction to prior moves by new competitors rather than proactively
seeking new horizons. They also did so in a way that defended their existing territory
rather than conquered new ones. In a recent analysis of the evolution of American
online newspapers from 1980 to 2005 Boczkowski (2010) concludes that these
cultural factors have contributed to the more conservative and less successful path
that these newspapers have had in comparison to site not affiliated with traditional
news firms.
Research of online journalism profitability is directly related to revenue models. Online
news organizations have straddled between resorting to traditional sources of
income, such as advertising and subscription, and relying on new revenue generating
strategies made possible by the Internet, such as e-commerce and targeting
advertising according to consumers´ profiles. Recent research shows that advertising
has become the primary source of revenue for the majority of online news sites
(Bustamante, 2004; Herbert & Thurman, 2007). The situation can change in the future
if the media industry success to provide so interesting journalistic online content
which audience are willing to pay for. Media companies are at the moment innovating
new models by charging for access to online content, but breakthrough hasn´t yet to
come.
The growing importance of advertising revenue is linked to concern about the
increased blurring of commercial and editorial content in the online environment, but
this problem is related also the change of journalistic culture, identity and education of
online journalists.
One significant part of online journalism research focuses on the causes, dynamics,
and consequences of innovation processes in online journalism. Pavlik focuses on
how technology influences journalism and asserts that ‘journalism has always been
shaped by technology’ (2000, p. 229), because ‘for journalism, function has always
followed form’ (2001, p. 203). Thus in an analysis of how journalism has changed in
the digital environment, Deuze (2007, p. 153) proposes, ‘technology is not an
independent factor influencing journalistic work from outside, but must be seen in
terms of implementation, and how it extends and amplifies previous ways of doing
things’.
Four aspects of changes in journalistic practices have attracted most of the attention
of scholarly research on online news: modifications in editorial workflow, alterations in
news-gathering practices, acceleration of temporal patterns of content production,
and the convergence of print, broadcast, and online operations. Scholars have
examined the organizational integration among print, broadcast, and online
operations, usually under the rubric of convergence (Deuze, 2007). These changes in
news production practices are related to shifts in the professional identity of
journalists.
Research about professional and occupational dynamics has concentrated on three
key issues: the identity of journalism as a profession or occupation and its continued
relevance in a networked society; self reflection of journalists about possible changes
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to their professional identities; and the challenges posed by user-authored content to
the jurisdictional space that news workers occupy as gatekeepers of information.
(Mitchelstein &Boczkowski, 2009, p. 570).
Gate keeping has been considered the foremost marker of occupational jurisdiction in
journalism. However, scholars have argued that this jurisdictional claim might be
challenged by the grooving presence of users as content producers in the new media
environment (Burns, 2008). The demise of the gate-keeping role could lead
audiences to challenge the authority of journalism, as Lowrey and Anderson (2005, p.
9) found in a survey of news consumers in the Baton Rouge area in the USA. More
than two-thirds of the respondents sought news on non-news websites, and nearly
half believed they could easily become journalists themselves. The authors suggest
that these findings signal future questioning of ‘the ability of the occupation to define
the already fuzzy boundaries of what constitutes news’.
Studies about user-authored content have promoted an understanding of the factors
that affect one of the most fundamental shifts in the architecture of contemporary
media systems: the redrawing of the boundaries between the production and
consumption. The transformed information architecture of online environments and
the increased options for audiences to become content producers provide new type
division between production and consumption of journalistic media and publicity.
A common empirical strategy in studying online journalism is a structural approach to
the news websites. Another research strategy shifts from their structure to the actual
content of the sites, usually comparing the print edition of a newspaper to its online
version. (Domingo, 2006, pp. 95-100). Van der Wurff and Lauf (2005) coordinated a
cross-national team of researchers in 2003 which analysed the biggest newspapers’
websites in 16 European countries. One interesting result of the study was that 70 per
cent of online news coincided with the print newspaper stories at the time.
Research questions
This PhD-study applies structural approach to the actual content of news websites.
The purpose is to examine different methods of news presentation online compared
to print media. The study scrutinizes two key dimensions: news values and the
structure of the news stories by combining quantitative and qualitative content
analysis.
The main research question of this study is: What are the main characteristic
features, news values and story structures used in online news presentation
compared to those used in print newspapers? Secondary research questions are: In
which ways and to what extent online journalism is a kind of transformation of
journalism in the ‘old’ media, concerning styles, genres and technical journalistic
elements? Is it possible to detect certain innovative elements that have emerged in
online journalism and if yes, what are they?
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The final aim of the study is to develop a model describing the transformation,
convergence and intermediality of the content, news values and story structures in
the print and online versions of newspapers. This study also explores the distinction
between Finnish online and print news journalism compared to their counterparts in
the United States and Great Britain. There are probably some trends in United States
and British online news journalism which may also come to Finnish online journalism
after short delay.
Media economics affects journalistic news content in many ways. One part of the
study is to contextualize Finnish media landscape and its profitability in different
media sectors. Online newspapers have very weak profitability in Finland and this has
reflections for the whole media industry.
Method
The methodology involves several steps:
1) Examination of the research literature and collection of empirical material using the
constructed week sampling method. Empirical material consists of print and online
versions of the news in the Finnish newspapers Helsingin Sanomat, Aamulehti,
Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat, and the U.S. International Herald Tribune, and the British
Guardian. Helsingin Sanomat and Aamulehti are the most significant and widespread
broadsheet newspapers in Finland and Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti are the largest
tabloid papers in Finland.
The International Herald Tribune is the global edition of the New York Times. The
International Herald Tribune and The Guardian are internationally significant
developers and innovators of online journalism. The Guardian’s website,
guardian.co.uk, is one of the highest-traffic English-language news websites.
According to its editor, The Guardian has the second largest online readership of any
English-language newspaper in the world, after the New York Times and the
International Herald Tribune. (Reid & Teixeira, 2010)
Empirical material is collected in seven weeks during the period 25 April – 5 June
2010. The news material is collected in week 16 on Sunday, in week 17 on Monday
and so on. Online newspapers are saved two times a day: at ten o’clock a.m. and at
six o’clock p.m. The online versions are compared to printed newspapers of the next
day. The analysis contains the homepage of the online versions, the front page of
printed newspapers and five main news stories in each outlet.
2) The quantitative content analysis is the main method of this study. Using
quantitative analysis it is possible to describe typical features of contemporary online
news story, like the structure, news values, length, pictures and number of technical
journalistic elements. Content analysis as a method implies that the researcher
defines a set of codes that are given numeric values which are “ticked of” on, for
instance, a spreadsheet document during the analysis of each text. The method
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generates numeric data that can be manipulated and analysed in a quantitative
fashion. (Riffe et al., 2005)
3) Empirical material will be complemented by the expert interviews of ten online
news producers and editors-in-chief. Qualitative interview is a valuable supplement to
empirical journalistic material, for finding out the decision makers’ interpretations and
opinions concerning the development of online news presentation and their visions of
the future of it.
4) Compilation of the findings and exploration of the differences between Finnish
online and print news journalism compared to their counterparts in the United States
and in Great Britain. A part of this will be a discussion about possible innovations in
the content and intermediality, which online news journalism and print news
journalism will probably utilize in the future.
Tentative conclusions
The study is currently in the stage of the analysis of the empiric material. The final
analysis will contain the main characteristic features, news values and story
structures used in online news presentation compared to the print versions of the
news.
Although online journalism is still dominated by breaking news coverage, new genres
are emerging that differentiate it more and more from old media journalism. It should
be noted that the form of online news presentation continues to be in formation,
especially in relation to the more established forms of its print counterpart.
In the beginning of online journalism there was no significant difference between print
journalism and online journalism. Online newspaper stories were mostly the first
sentences from newspaper stories. The only difference was that online stories were
usually shorter versions from printed stories. This first phase of online journalism can
be called ‘copy paste journalism’. (Pavlik, 2001; Van der Wurff and Lauf , 2005)
Journalists are at the moment trying to make innovations to create differences
between print newspaper writing and online newspaper storytelling. My hypothesis is
that online journalism and print journalism will have totally different formats in the
future, like radio news journalism and television news journalism have. In the future
the tablet computers such as iPad will also have their own journalistic format,
combining characteristic features from print and online media. The news content
provided for tablet computers and tablet computers position in media system
‘between’ online and print newspapers will affect to the intermedial relationship
between online and print newspapers.
Online journalism has taught readers that they don’t have to pay for news journalism.
If only well educated elite is willing to pay for their journalism, it is a real threat for the
economic basis of printed newspaper and the quality of journalism. That is the reason
why ‘tabloidization’ is spreading also to some pages of quality papers. Tabloidization
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means that the news are presented in a simplified, personalized and dramatized way
and the most important news value is the attractiveness of the story. Tabloidization as
a contemporary media trend has effects for the common information basis for
democratic society.
Another strategy for old media to respond to the challenge made by online journalism
is to offer more detailed stories in the print versions, using various dramaturgical and
visual ways of telling stories and trying to foresee subsequent news events and
contextualizing the news. My argument is that printed newspapers can not be only
newspapers in the future but they have to find new ‘ecological niche’ to survive in
changing media system. The future of newspapers is being more context-papers,
analyse-papers, speculation-papers and foresee-papers.
Online journalism at the present makes greater use of the ‘inverted pyramid’ structure
in combination with hyperlinks. The news topics are in general ‘softer’ but stories are
more dramatised and try to offer stronger reading experiences than the news in the
print media. Online news stories are typically glancing media, they are not written for
concentrated reading. Search engine optimization affects headlines, because
journalists are trying to write most interesting and best selling headlines.
One interesting online journalism innovation is online feature journalism. When
journalism in new media proliferates and becomes increasingly diversified, old styles
and genres of journalism will transform and new ones will emerge. Online feature
journalism is still strongly developing journalism genre and probably it will grow into
one significant genre of the future of online journalism. The adaptation of feature
genre family to online newspapers may enhance the status of online journalism and
the professional role of online journalists.
To summarize, online news journalism is becoming more commercialized, more
localized and softer, while at the same time opening up towards a more deliberative,
and more opinion oriented approach to news: news comments, like blogs and
interactivity between journalists and readers have more significance in online news
journalism than in print journalism. At the same time commercialization leads online
news presentation towards to the ‘tabloidization’: the news are presented in a more
simplified, personalized and dramatized way and the most important news value is
the attractiveness of the story.
End Note
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to doctoral student
Panu Uotila, Department of Communication, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of
Jyväskylä, Finland. E-mail: [email protected]
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Convergence at Dutch regional Newspapers: An Explorative
Study
Marco van Kerkhoven, Piet Bakker
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Abstract
Regional news media are facing tough times, as they lose readers and advertisers
rapidly. In The Netherlands, circulation decreased from 2.7 million in 1990 to 1.8
million in 2010, household penetration declined from 47 percent to 25 percent, and
the number of titles went down from 35 to 18 in the same period. We interviewed
managers and executives (2009 - 2010) of nine of the eighteen regional newspapers
in The Netherlands, to analyse if and how they consider convergence (the transition
to an integrated newsroom) a significant option to regain readers and advertisers.
This study is part of a research project on the potential (long-term) consequences of
convergence for the organizational structure, the work procedures, journalistic quality,
and business models of regional news media. Our first results show that convergence
is, indeed, embraced as a solution. However, views on how to approach the new
market for online news through an integrated newsroom differ significantly.
Management tends to operate safely, experimenting with small projects that can be
discontinued easily, while editors and journalists on the work floor wish to invest
heavily in both the education of employees and technical convergence on a more
structural basis. In its examination of how convergence is strategically and
operationally changing regional media in The Netherlands this study is the first of its
kind.
Introduction
News media are preparing for a future that will be highly digital. Readers, viewers and
listeners are predominantly online, print sales are decreasing, and the broadcasting
audience is declining. Regional newspaper media have been hit the hardest. Their
business model seems to be the least prepared for the times to come and needs to
be reviewed fundamentally (Mensing & Rejfek, 2005; SCP, 2006; Thurman & Herbert,
2008; Currah, 2009; Bakker, 2010).
In the Netherlands, six different publishers publish eighteen regional daily
newspapers. Fourteen of them have their own editor-in-chief.
Table 1. Publishers in the Netherlands and the regional newspapers they produce.
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Het Parool is the only newspaper that is also delivered outside its designated area of
Amsterdam and surroundings. Approximately 17,000 of the total circulation of 87,000
finds its way all over the Netherlands. Algemeen Dagblad is distributed as one
national paper, with seven regional editions.
In 1980, 2.7 million newspaper copies were distributed in the Netherlands. The
numbers hardly changed until the mid nineties but have steadily declined since then.
In 2000, the regional publishers sold 2.4 million copies, in 2005 only 2.1 million, a
decrease of twelve percent in five years’ time. Today, sales balance around 1.9
million.
In 2006, the regional circulation of newspapers showed a marked fall when Algemeen
Dagblad merged seven independent regional titles with the national paper, only to
redistribute the papers as subtitles to the national Algemeen Dagblad. Because of this
merger, only half of the almost 400,000 circulation of AD can be technically
considered regional newspapers, which explains the sudden slump in circulation.
In the years that followed, circulation continued to drop nationwide with an average of
three percent a year. Also, the level of household penetration decreased. For
example, in 2000, the Nieuwsblad van het Noorden (current title: Dagblad van het
Noorden) sold 36 copies per 100 households in Groningen compared to eighteen
copies in 2009. In Leeuwarden household penetration of the Leeuwarder Courant
dropped from 45 to 32 in the same period; in Maastricht Dagblad de Limburger went
from 55 to 29. For the entire country regional newspaper household penetration
dropped from 35 to 23 in the period 2000-2010 (excluding Algemeen Dagblad).
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
The impact of decline
Changes in the function of regional media can have an effect on democracy on
national, regional and local democracy (Bakker, 1998; The Netherlands Press Fund,
2004; Jenkins, 2006; SCP, 2006; Allan, 2007; Committee on Innovation and Future of
the Press, 2009, Currah, 2009). The Dutch Committee on Innovation and Future of
the Press (2009) stated in its review:
… the impact in the region [is] heavier felt since there are no alternative institutions
that can play the necessary role of the press in the democracy. (p. 6)
When regional news publishers lose the battle for survival, other losses occur as well.
Currah (2009) says about the risk of such a news gap: ‘when a city loses an
established paper it loses far more than a tax-paying business and employer. It also
loses an institution’s memory […] an institution that is equipped to raise the profile of
a community, inform citizens and campaign on issues of local relevance’ (p. 7).
In the Netherlands, the effects of declining regional news coverage have yet to be
investigated on a large scale. Currah (2009) reviewed what he calls ‘the crisis in local
and regional news in Great-Brittan’. However, local and regional newspapers in
Great-Britain still make a combined turnover of 4 billion pounds and only few of them
manage to make a profit. Due to the smaller market, in terms of advertisers as well as
consumer potential, regional news media are more vulnerable when traditional
sources of revenue (for example car, property and job adverts) decline. Currah claims
that it is not the quality of the news that is to blame for the decline in readership.
Rather, the current recession combined with a structural shift in media consumption
are to blame here, as consumers and advertisers migrate to the web. According to
Currah, three problems are significant in this respect (p. 3):
The digital generation tends to skim and view, rather than read and explore
News
consumers
expect
Internet
news
to
be
free
Advertisers expect a big and well-defined audience that they can reach for as
little money as possible.
But, making news is a costly business, while online news consumption proves to be
difficult to define in terms of marketing profitability (G. Bakker 2007). At the same
time, Currah argues, ’publishers of news, especially at a local and regional scale, are
struggling to win a share of audience attention in a market that is increasingly
dominated by a handful of web platforms, notably Google’ (p. 3).
Most so-called Cebuco regions (predetermined distribution areas) in the Netherlands
have only one regional newspaper left. If the remaining newspaper also vanishes, an
increasing number of regions in the Netherlands will have no newspapers at all. See
figure 1.
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Figure 1. Competition, monopoly or lack of newspapers in regional newspaper
regions.
Not all bad news
However, there are also positive sides to this picture. Jane B. Singer (2001) and
Currah (2009) suggest that regional and local newspapers are most likely to survive
the digital crisis due to their functionality in the community and their fundamental role
as a source for need to know public-affairs information.
In their analyses of British and American newspapers Quinn (2005) and Thurman &
Herbert (2008) reach similar conclusions. As did Lin, Salwen, Garrison & Driscoll
(2005) who analysed many case studies, and conclude: ‘the rapidly evolving state of
online newspapers can be characterized by considerable experimentation with
content, technologies, and distribution […] the result is frequent changes and oftenradical site redesigns’.
Still, numerous case studies (Singer 2003; Killebrew, 2005; Dupagne & Garrison,
2006) show that regional media feel that they are forced into the direction of
multimedia and cross-media publishing as an answer to a changing audience, the rise
of digital technology and the long-term economic setback. The term multimedia refers
to being presence with different media on different platforms; cross-media
publications go beyond this in their ambition to create synergy between the media
through cooperation. According to Jenkins (2006), extension (broadening media
scope), synergy (profit from control over the wide range of media outings), and
franchising (same content, different product) are pushing media industries into an
acceptance of convergence.
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Convergence as a solution
In their response to their market share loss, regional newspapers in The Netherlands
have attempted to create synergy through multiplatform publishing, or cross-media
productions – for a printed newspaper, its online version, for radio and even
television. This transition to the integrated newsroom model, or convergence, as it is
also branded, is widely expected to be an answer to today’s media consumption
patterns (Quinn, 2005; Jenkins, 2006; Nguyen, 2008): people are connected to social
online networks 24/7 and are used to instant news on offer. The PC as a web tool is
the primary instrument here, but other publication platforms such as mobile phones,
pads, net books or e-readers are impending too.
Convergence directly affects four key aspects of mass media industries: the content
of communication, the relationship between media producers and consumers, the
structure of firms, and ultimately how communication professionals do their work
(Deuze, 2007).
The reasons for the high expectations directed towards convergence are:
•
For one, that multiplatform publishing might offer synergy (see Deuze, 2007, p.
68) - which could lead to more efficiency and hence to reduced costs. Standardization
of media platforms and tools makes it possible to streamline media work and, by
doing so, makes media production easier; conveniently bridging the differences in
media skills for media workers, as it offers flexibility, control over workflow, and
efficiency (Dupagne & Garrison, 2006; Jenkins, 2006; Quinn, 2005).
•
Secondly, there is the prospect of expansion into new markets; a regional
newspaper which ‘goes local’, e. g., with a community video project, might find new
customers.
•
Thirdly and finally, two-way communication between news providers and news
consumers will enable the former to improve their understanding of what it is the
consumer wants (Mensing & Rejfek, 2005; Jenkins, 2006; Deuze, 2007; Nguyen,
2008; Thurman & Herbert, 2008). Since the consumer is changing, it seems obvious
that advertising agencies might want to use cross-media platforms to reach their
audience (Mensing & Rejfek, 2005; Jenkins, 2006; Deuze, 2007; Thurman & Herbert,
2008; Curah, 2009).
A role model for the transformation from regional newspaper to multilevel-converged
company is the creation of the Tampa News Center by Media General in 2000. The
company put the Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV, and Tampa Bay Online (TBO.com)
under the same roof and made them work together (Dupagne & Garrison, 2006). In
2005, Media General owned 21 newspapers, 13 television stations and a hundred
weeklies which operated from one editorial center receiving input from that same
center.
However, the question remains whether the Tampa experiment will be sustainable,
and if so, how it can be reproduced. Are the expectations mentioned above actually
that realistic? Will cross-media convergence at regional news media generate
sufficient and much needed extra income while maintaining a high level of quality
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journalism? In a number of cases the convergence of print, radio, television and
Internet publications into cross-medial concepts produced by integrated newsrooms,
has already become a reality. But we do not know yet what the (long-term)
consequences of this transition will be for the organisational structure of regional
media, work organisation and procedures, the economic position of regional news
publishers, or the employment rates (Quinn, 2005; Jenkins, 2006; Deuze, 2008).
Already, there are fears about the negative consequences of convergence.
Convergence comes at a price
Firstly, convergence worries scholars as it might compromise journalistic quality
(Allan, 2004; Jenkins, 2006; Deuze, 2007; Nguyen, 2008; Currah, 2009). People fear
that the synergy process will lead to tabloidization (Gans, 2003). Gans warns that
vulgarization (see also Bourdieu, 1989: ´dumbing down´) of the news must be
expected (see also Allan, 2004) .
Journalistic quality might also suffer when executives believe that commercial models
of news media simply need to be re-engineered into a more cost-efficient,
collaborative and integrated - i.e. converged – form, focussing on short-term profits,
as Currah (2009) fears.
Bromly (1997), Im (1997), Deuze (2007) and Örnebring (2010) are critical of
convergence for another reason. They suggest that it destroys craftsmanship and
hence results in a degradation of media workers and their labour. This so-called
deskilling is a process that has been going on for quite some time already. Until the
mid-nineteenth century for example, it was common practice that the work of editor
and printer was done by the same person. But then, a rigid division of labour was
established (Örnebring, 2010). Im (1997) remarks for instance that the linotype in the
late nineteenth century ´enabled management to substitute less skilled linotype
operators for skilled compositors and debased the general skill requirement of printing
jobs. As printing gradually became a subsidiary and mechanical part of newspaper
production, printers lost control and knowledge over journalism practices´ (p. 35).
Solomon (1985, 1995) analysed the influence of computers in the newsroom in the
seventies, eighties and nineties. He concludes that the work of the copy-editor (or
sub-editor) was actually devaluated because management changed its concept of the
copy desk (1985). While one would have expected the copy desk to become a more
crucial decision-making point in the production process, and thus demanding a higher
ranked editor, in fact the criteria for hiring copy editors rarely improved. Im (1997)
concludes, therefore, that technology alone is hardly a significant factor in the
changing of media work processes. It is the way management operates that directs
the change.
Deuze (2007) takes these consequences of convergence a step further as he states
that ’commercialization and cross-media mergers have gradually eroded the distinct
professional identities of newsrooms and their publications (whether in print of
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broadcast)’. So: ‘Journalism as it is, is coming to an end’ (p. 141). Bromly (1997) fears
´the dismantling of demarcations between journalists and technicians, writers and
camera operators, news gatherers and news processors, and between print, radio
and television journalism´. This will inevitably undermine basic journalistic skills and
standards and fosters so-called “multi-skilling” in newsrooms, which Bromly sees as
the result of economic pressure that cuts back on resources while increasing
workloads.
Allan (2004) adds to that the fear of a standardization of news production, as a result
of a concentration of ownership. Journalistic judgment as such no longer determines
what is valued (as) news, ‘what counts as ‘news’ will be severely constrained within
the limits of corporate culture’ (p. 191).
Research questions
The main and most important research question of this study are:
What does convergence mean for the organisation and for the editorial process at
regional newspapers in the Netherlands
To answer this question, we need to determine the levels of convergence at regional
newspapers in the Netherlands and the key factors and actors influencing the
convergence process.
Method
In 2009 and 2010, surveys were conducted at nine regional newspapers in the
Netherlands. For that purpose, eighteen newsroom journalists and managers
(publisher, editor-in-chief or managing editor) were interviewed about their
multiplatform publishing, but also their cross-media ambitions, cross-media training,
newsroom staffing, and workflow.
Specifically, our respondents where interviewed on the following topics:
•
Convergence strategy
•
Management strategy
•
Experience with cross-media publication in the last five years
•
Editorial and organisational consequences of the convergence to the
newsroom model
•
Financial performance, online and offline
•
Staff training.
The surveyed regional newspapers were: Eindhovens Dagblad, Dagblad van het
Noorden, Leidsch Dagblad, Brabants Dagblad, BN/De Stem, Noordhollands Dagblad,
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De limburger, Het Parool, and Algemeen Dagblad). The choice of newspapers in this
research phase was based on location (division over north, south, Randstad (west)),
and a balance in the three major Dutch regional publication companies: Telegraaf
Media Groep, NDC Mediagroep and Wegener. All interviews were audio or video
taped.
In our analyses of the level of convergence we distinguish between organizational
convergence (number of staff, company policy, business approach etc.) and editorial
convergence (use of UGC, cross-media cooperation, SEO and online traffic etc.).
Results
Organizational convergence
Asked after the typical features of organizational convergence, all interviewees said
that they aimed for a broadening of their Internet presence with different new media
outings. All news media say they employ blogger-journalists.
In this respect exemplary remarks are:
We no longer are a newspaper editorial board anymore. We are a multimedia
newsroom.
It is all about the recognition that the world is changing [...] This means that journalists
need to change to.
Which convergence strategies are embedded in the structure of a publishing
company differs greatly. At several newspapers, the online editorial board is part of
the hard copy newsroom, forming an integrated newsroom with different levels of
convergence. In other newsrooms, the online journalists are physically separated
from the hard copy editorial board. We also came across newspapers with a fully
integrated newsroom that was then dismantled because of a change in ownership; its
online editorial board moved to another city. Or, an online office that is solely
responsible for website structure and advertising, while the journalists all have access
to the site and publish according to their own insight and timing.
In some cases, journalists voluntarily used tools such as RSS, video productions, live
blog, or Twitter. In all these cases, the communication between the online and the
hard copy editorial board was characterized as below standard.
In this respect exemplary remarks are:
Cooperation is not the way it should be. There is too little cohesion.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Some are very flexible, others distrust Internet and say: listen, I am from the
newspaper.
We found little or no policy on professional multimedia training for journalists at the
hard copy newsroom. In some cases more experienced colleagues offer internal
training and guidance. This seems to be an ad hoc solution. Most online journalists
have had a multi media education or extra training. People mostly help each other.
According to the interviewees, online activities have not generated income thus far.
Web shops sometimes do make a turn over.
In terms of economic activity exemplary remarks are:
The web shop works well. Bu we should focus more on online advertising.
Nobody knows the golden formula. And you can’t say: it doesn’t work so we will stop.
Editorial convergence
Asked how convergence was established, media admitted that they were still in an
experimental phase. The UGC has not lived up to expectations. Two out of nine
newspapers said that journalists increasingly worked with blogs and responses from
the public as a new type of news source. However, they considered these responses
to be of limited value. One newspaper stopped service to UGC altogether.
In this respect exemplary remarks are:
In most case public response is useless.
Ninety-nine percent of the comments are useless.
But our interlocutors also mentioned scoops that originate from tips through the
website.
The limited cooperation between online and hard copy journalists is illustrated by the
reluctant attitude towards the use of online content:
There is hardly cross-referencing and scoops are kept a secret sometimes.
We’d like to keep our readers at our website so we do not refer to other sites or even
to our own newspaper. Neither does the paper, by the way.
We have referencing to the online newspaper website as a structural policy, but don’t
expect much of it.
Hardly any newspaper makes video productions on a substantial scale. However, the
general idea is that viewers expect news video online. In some cases, cooperation
has been established with regional television and radio stations.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Conclusions
A survey of nine out of the eighteen regional newspapers in The Netherlands showed
that convergence is embraced. Views on how to approach the new market for online
news through an integrated newsroom differ significantly. Management tends to
operate safely, experimenting with small projects that can be discontinued easily;
while executives on the work floor are willing to invest in both the education of
employees and the technical convergence to a newsroom model on a more structural
basis.
Editorial convergence at regional newspapers in the Netherlands has a limited
ambition level. There are big differences in the way convergence strategies are
embedded in the structure of the publishing companies. Some news media keep the
hard copy and the online newsroom apart, in order to stimulate them to develop
independently and make a profit on their own merits. In these cases it will be difficult
to reach synergy.
The fact that regional newspapers in the Netherlands follow different approaches
towards convergence is consistent with research on convergence processes at
newspapers by Quinn (2005) and Garrison & Driscoll (2005) who concluded that no
two media go through the convergence process the same way.
Within publishing companies different convergence strategies are propagated. Editors
and online journalists have a much more forward approach while management takes
a more reluctant position.
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Thurman, N.; Herbert, J. (2008). Paid Content Strategies for News Websites: An
Empirical Study of Britisch Newspapers’ Online Business Models, unpublished
manuscript. City University, London.
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Abstracts
Paper panel 1 – Journalism and politics
Monday, July 4th 11.00 - 12.30 (Room 1)
Audience Participation Motivated by Media Politics: First data about a newly
introduced participatory TV channel in Germany
Sehl, Annika; Steinbrecher, Michael
Institute of Journalism, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany
While journalism has traditionally been attached to media institutions and based on
the work of professional journalists, in the past decade new communication
technologies have made it possible for everybody to publish content for a
potentionally global audience. A lot of promises were linked to this citizen journalism,
especially regarding its democratic potential (e.g., Gillmor, 2004). The first scientific
findings, however, paint an ambivalent picture (e.g., Neuberger et al., 2007).
In this situation, a unique participatory TV channel has just been introduced by media
politics in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Its central aim is not only to add to the
diversity of producers and reporting, but also to strengthen the media competence of
the producers. While these are mainly ordinary citizens, some are students from all
backgrounds and others are emerging media professionals. In this way, the project
takes a third path between the total autonomous citizen journalism approach and
unilateral traditional journalism as the TV organises and guides the participation
process.
Against this background, this paper adresses the question: How does this channel
add to the diversity of the producers and their media competence? Furthermore, the
paper reveals the first data about the diversity of the content delivered by these
producers.
The theories the paper examines are the concept of diversity (e.g., McQuail, 1992)
and the public sphere theory of deliberation (Habermas, 1992).
The data for this empirical study is mainly based on an analysis of programme
schedules for all of 2010.
One central finding is that most of the content is not up-to date news. In contrast, the
producers focus on niche topics neglected by professional TV journalism. The first
data about this participatory TV channel reveals a unique approach, but it is
necessary to explain the challenges and changes in citizen journalism as well as in
traditional journalism.
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Monitoring study of two main Spanish political figures during a month of precampaigning prio to local elections scheduled for May, 2011, using Nostracker
– system for management & follow-up of online conversations
Campos
Freire,
Francisco;
Fernandes
del
Pozo,
María
University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Dolores
This paper presents a monitoring study carried out using the online reputation
management tool Nostracker, of the two main Spanish political figures, President
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Opposition Leader Mariano Rajoy Brey, during a
month of pre-campaigning prior to local elections scheduled for May 2011.
Nostracker is an automatic system for researching and evaluation of online
reputation. This intelligent tool performs follow-up and management of contents
published on internet social networks, blogs and mass media platforms. It has been
designed, created and registered by three researchers from the Faculty of Science &
Communication, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
The principal use of this new system is to automatically monitor, classify and research
certain objects (such as brands, personalities or current day figures) in the so-called
Social Media (blogs, social networks and online mass media). It allows us to identify
objects and traces of internet conversations, define each actor, learn about temporal
evolution and establish ranking in function of presence in network.
Research carried out through Nostracker enables us to measure the repercussion of
new self-communicating mass media (social and personal networks) on agenda
setting and framing as well as relationship marketing. There is a clear difference
between conventional media and personal and social networks despite their having a
common starting point, where the former tend to be a more institutionalised version of
the latter.
Results to be presented in the paper will be obtained after screening nearly 10,000
blogs from a local and a national network, with 2,600 users from popular social
networks (Twitter) and about 40 online media, that include the main Spanish online
newspapers.
Online News Comments: A Sense of Community from an Ethical and Legal
Perspective
Carlos Ruiz*, Javier Díaz Noci**, Pere Masip*, Josep Lluís Micó*, David Domingo***
& Koldo Meso ****
*Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain
**Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
***Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain
****University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain
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This study assesses the quality of comments in news of five online newspapers from
a normative perspective of Habermas’ discursive ethics. Our main goal is to analyze
the ethical and legal norms that regulate audience participation in five international
quality online newspapers: The Guardian (UK), Le Monde (France) The New York
Times (USA), El País (Spain), La Repubblica (Italy). We compared their legal texts
and participation guidelines
From an ethical and legal perspective, audience discussions in news are not just
about journalism becoming more participatory. As online newspapers incorporate
user-generated content (UGC) to their production routines, an ethical approach must
consider which are the criteria that guide participation, and a legal analysis will reveal
how media companies consider user input as part of their products. At the same time,
we captured a sample of stories and associated comments using software designed
ad hoc for this project.
The five news sites have guidelines that orientate conversations in a moral sense, in
order to make citizen contributions comply with democratic principles. Concretely, the
following aspects were considered: Rules to foster coherence and logic of the debate,
Rules to foster the cooperative search of truth, Users’ consideration both as
consumers and as authors (thus, intellectual property is considered as well), and,
finally, the problems that globalization poses to legal systems and its concrete
translation as a quasi-contractual norms in online media.
The analysis of conversations in the sample reveals to what extent the moderation
teams manage to keep the debates within the limits the newsrooms have set.
Social networks and journalism: how audiences can set the media agenda
Morais, Ricardo
University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
In more recent years, we have assisted to the rise of social networks and microblogging platforms. These new Internet tools represent a huge change for the news
and information sphere, especially to the way how media are produced, distributed
and consumed. This changes means that we should give much greater attention to
online spaces, particularly to the relationships between journalists and audiences.
This paper examines how journalists are increasingly involving audiences in the way
they have information and knowledge about events to which the journalists had no
access if not through the audience. So, this study explores how audiences from the
main Portuguese newspapers can set the media agenda, introducing topics and
themes through the social media.
However, this analysis also emphasizes ethical questions, as the nature of the
information, if it is public or private, the publication and distribution of the contents
from the audiences by journalists.
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To achieve our goal, we use different methods, because no single methodology can
hope to capture the rich complexities of life on the Internet. The most effective
research strategy is to triangulate among diverse sources of evidence, attempting to
understand the Internet…” (Norris, 2001, p. 35-36). As the preceding quote have
implied, social research implies the combination of observation, content analysis and
interviews.
The choice of this theme provides insights for understanding and acting on the
changing new media and journalism landscapes.
Paper panel 2 – Media convergence
Monday, July 4th 11.00 - 12.30 (Room 2)
Convergence and Diversity
Kinnebrock, Susanne; Kretzschmar, Sonja
Institute for Language and Communication Studies, RWTH Aachen University,
Germany
Digital technologies have facilitated convergent journalism. Today websites, video,
radio and print products can be produced at a single news desk. And media
organizations currently implement integrated newsrooms to foster convergent news
production and enlarge the range of products they offer.
The adoption of new technologies and the implementation of convergent journalism is
a process that is managed very differently among journalists. An embracement of the
new possibilities among “early adopters” can be identified as well as strategies of
avoidance among “laggards” who react on the change of production processes and
collapse of long-established hierarchies within the newsrooms with great scepticism
and increasing uncertainty. To find out more about the reactions on the
implementation of integrated news desks we conducted two surveys. Using
qualitative interviews we firstly identified the main areas of change that affect the daily
production of news deeply – at least from the perspective of German print journalists.
The analysis of these qualitative interviews could show that the adoption of new
technologies and their integration in daily routines is connected to diversity in
demographics (i.e., gender and age) and certain professional role perceptions (e.g.,
objective reporting). The attempt to foster diversity within the newsrooms (in order to
promote multifaceted perspectives on social issues) seems to be foiled by the
implementation of integrated news desks. To find out how representative these
qualitative results are, in a second step a standardized survey among German print
journalists is currently conducted. Results will be ready for the ECREA conference.
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In Pamplona we want to present the results of these two surveys. While typifying
diverse reactions to implementation of convergent journalism we will take a closer
look on the different demographics, lifestyles and professional profiles of journalists.
Thereby the relation between convergence and diversity will be illuminated and
backed by empirical evidence.
Mass Media and Multimedia Convergence: A Research Proposal for Content
Analysis in Spanish Online Newspapers
de la Fuente Soler, Manuel*; Llorca Abad, Germán*; Codina Bonilla, Lluís**; Díaz
Noci, Javier**
*University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
*Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
This paper analyses the content of Spanish online media through a specific database.
The study is a result of the project “Evolución de los cibermedios españoles en el
marco de la convergencia. Análisis del mensaje” (CSO2009-13713-C05-04), financed
by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. We focus on the process of data
collection, which includes the selection of the media corpus, the evaluation of
websites, the application of methodology, the creation of databases and the contrast
of results according to homogenous patterns. This process intends to propose a new
model for content analysis originating in the multidisciplinary fields of the members of
the research group (Linguistics, Semiotics, Documentation and Media Studies).
Prior to the content analysis, a data gathering protocol was applied during the first
semester 2010 covering four weeks and twenty-five of the most relevant online
media. Fifteen of these media were Spanish, while the rest were chosen amongst the
most representative international online newspapers (notably France, Italy, England,
Argentina, Brazil and the United States) so as to carry out a comparative analysis of
their contents.
The results will be contrasted with a second data collection to be undertaken in March
2011. The corpus of research – which includes the three most relevant news in each
newspaper and its homepage – will help design an accurate mapping of online media
writing strategies.
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Convergence at Dutch Regional Newspapers: An Explorative Study
van Kerkhoven, Marco*; Bakker, Piet**
*University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
**University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Regional news media are facing tough times, as they lose readers and advertisers
rapidly. In The Netherlands circulation went down from 2,7 million in 1990 to 1,8
million in 2010, household penetration declined from 47 percent to 25 percent, and
the number of editions went down from 35 to 18 in the same period. We have
interviewed managers and executives (2009 - 2010) from nine of the eighteen
regional newspapers in The Netherlands to analyze if and how they see convergence
(the transition to an integrated newsroom) as a significant option to regain readers
and advertisers. This study is part of an extensive research project on the question of
what the (long-term) consequences of convergence will be for the organizational
structure, the work procedures, journalistic quality, and business models of regional
news media. First results show that convergence is indeed embraced as a solution.
However, there are significant differences of the preferred strategy to approach the
new market for online news by an integrated newsroom. Management tends to
operate safely, experimenting with small projects, which are quite easily discontinued
sometimes; while executives on the work floor are willing to invest into the education
of employees and the technical convergence on a more structural basis. For the first
time it is determined how convergence strategically and operationally changes
regional media in The Netherlands.
Towards converging media structures?
Blöbaum, Bernd; Kanthack, Eva; Middendorf, Hannah
Department of Communication, University of Muenster, Muenster, Germany
While the term diversity, which today is often used to characterize the emerging
media landscape, is evident in spheres of journalism such as content or audiences,
the paper asks whether the same applies to the structure of media organisations.
Therefore, selected findings of a three-year research project on journalism in
Germany which analyzes the change of journalistic organisations, roles and programs
since 1990 will be presented as well as the research design.
To answer the research question 15 journalists working at leading mass media
newsrooms in Germany were observed for one week each. These observations were
followed by in-depth interviews. All types of media were covered: Print, broadcast and
online journalists described the structure of the editorial offices including the
processes of communication, decision making and coordination.
The findings reveal that new forms of organisation dominate German editorial
departments: 80 percent of the interviewees underlined that decisions concerning
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what to publish in which form were made at a newsdesk. This result applied to all
different types of media.
Thus, as for the structure of journalistic organisations changes of the media
landscape did not lead to diversity. During the last 20 years the structure and
organisation of news production happened to be similar throughout different types of
media. Hence, the paper emphasises that change does not necessarily mean
diversity: instead, convergence processes with regard to the structure of editorial
offices are a striking result generated by the research project. Additionally, an
increasing cooperation and collaboration of staff as well as the exchange of media
content between the print, broadcast and online departments of a media company
could further be examined – results that also show convergence developments.
Paper panel 3 – Journalism practice in the World
Monday, July 4th 11.00 - 12.30 (Room 3)
Producing a New(s) View of the Arab World? Studying the Professional
Knowledge and Practices of Al Jazeera Journalists.
Al Habsi, Maiya
Media and mass communication, Leicester University, Leicester, United Kingdom
This presentation reports on ongoing PhD research into the professional production of
the Al Jazeera news programme. On entering their newsroom in Qatar, the project
has sought to examine the significant differences between Al Jazeera and other news
provision in the Arab region in relation to journalistic understandings and practices in
the news production domain. Its specific aim to explore how Al Jazeera news outputs
are shaped in accordance with this unique news form is new to Arab news studies
generally; an approach that developed more recently in UK news scholarship. This
approach rejects assumptions that news programmes and their production can be
understood as homogenised and standardized, respectively and embraces news
differentiation as an important aspect of the Arab news ecology. This paper will
introduce the unique characteristics of Al Jazeera news programme, commenting on
their ongoing formation in accordance with journalist’s understandings of their
communities’ culture, audience images, knowledge of ongoing politics and experience
of political pressure and how such a news form shapes and delimits the progressive
possibilities of the programme. Additionally, it will introduce the project’s unique
methodology which combines the use of observation, in depth interviews and content
analyses in the effort to capture the connection between professional understandings,
practices and the shaping of the news programme.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
The Absence of Americanisation—media systems development in six developed
democracies, 2000-2009
Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University, Oxford, England
“Americanisation” is one of the most frequently used and mis-used terms in
discussions of international media developments, a supposed trend much feared by
Europeans who are (sometimes justifiably) proud of the distinct qualities of their
media systems. In this paper, I present a comparative institutional analysis drawing
on media and communications studies (Hallin/Mancini 2004), political science
(Hall/Soskice 2001) and sociology (Campbell/Pedersen 2001) and based on data on
developments in media markets, media use, and media regulation in six developed
democracies (the US, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Finland) from 2000 to
2009. I argue that, despite frequent predictions of progressive “system convergence”
(Humphreys 1996; Hallin/Mancini 2004; Hardy 2008), the last decade has been
characterized by an “absence of Americanisation” of the news institutions in the five
European countries considered. National institutional differences have remained
persistent in a time of otherwise profound change. This finding is of considerable
importance for understanding journalism and its role in democracy, since a growing
body of research suggests that “liberal” (market-dominated) media systems like the
American one increase the information gap between the advantaged and the
disadvantaged, have lower electoral turnout, and may lead large parts of the
population to tune out of public life. The finding also has theoretical implications, since
the supposed drivers of system convergence—commercialisation and technological
innovation—have played a very prominent role during the period studied, suggesting
we need to rethink the role of economic and technological factors (and their interplay
with other variables) in media system developments.
The Global Journalist in the 21st Century: A Comparative Look at the
Backgrounds, Beliefs and Values of Journalists Around the World
Willnat, Lars; Weaver, David
School of Journalism, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
This paper is based on a forthcoming book entitled The Global Journalist in the 21st
Century, which includes chapters that describe the demographic backgrounds and
role perceptions of journalists in more than 30 nations. The data for each chapter
come from representative surveys conducted in these countries during the past 10
years. Overall, the various national surveys include responses from more than 30,000
journalists who work in Asia, Europe, South and North America, and the Middle East.
We propose to present a summary of the findings we have collected in the book. We
are primarily interested in providing an overview of who the global journalists are and
what kind of role perceptions and values they might share. Based on our findings, we
will compare the basic demographic characteristics (age, gender, education, etc.) of
journalists from 30 nations as well as their role perceptions (watchdog, objective,
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active, analysis, etc.) and reporting methods (paying for information, harassing news
sources, etc.). One of our main findings is that journalists across the world share very
few common perceptions of what they believe in. After reviewing some of the main
findings we will turn to some recommendations for future studies based on our
perceptions of gaps in our knowledge about journalists and their work, as well as the
changing roles of journalists in the new media environment of this turbulent first
decade of the 21st Century.
What Shapes the News around the World? How journalists in 18 countries
perceive influences on their work
Hanitzsch, Thomas*; Mellado, Claudia**
*Institute of Communication Studies and Media Research, University of Munich,
Munich, Germany
** University of Santiago, Santiago, Chile
Professional autonomy is assumed to be one of the most fundamental requirements
for journalistic practice. It is for this reason that research on the forces that limit the
journalists’ professional latitude is a long-standing theme in journalism and mass
communication research. This paper compares journalists’ perceptions of influences
on news work across 18 societies. Evidence is based on survey responses of 1800
journalists’ to a six-dimensional scale developed in an earlier study. The six
measured dimensions covered political, economic, organizational, professional and
procedural influences, as well as influences from reference groups.
Across the sample, procedural and professional factors turned out to have the
strongest impact on news work in the view of the interviewed journalists, followed by
organizational influences with some considerable cross-national variation. Political
factors, on the other hand, seem to have the weakest influence in the view of the
journalists, after economic influences and reference groups that have only a modest
impact. These findings tend to be relatively consistent across societies. The results
also confirm the expectation that political and economic factors are clearly the most
important denominators of cross-national differences in the journalists’ perceptions of
influences. Furthermore, perceived political influences are clearly related to objective
indicators of political freedom and ownership structures across the investigated
countries. Economic influences seem to have a stronger impact in private and stateowned media than in public newsrooms, but they are not related to a country’s
economic freedom. With respect to organizational, professional and procedural
influences, as well as the impact of reference groups, the differences between the
countries turned out to be smaller. Overall, the findings point to important differences
between journalistic cultures across the globe. If there is such thing as a global
homogenization of news work, we believe that it has still a long way to go.
Paper panel 4 – Standards of journalism practice
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Monday, July 4th 11.00 - 12.30 (Room 4)
French war correspondence: An original model of journalism or a case of
Americanization/globalization of norms and practices?
Boudana, Sandrine
New York University, New York City, USA
Scholars, such as Rodney Benson, have defined French and American journalisms
as opposite ideal-types. Since the 19th century, American journalism had advocated
objectivity and empiricist focus on facts, while the French model had been rooted in a
political and literary tradition. However, it seems, as Jean Chalaby argues, that the
American standards came to define professional journalism as early as the beginning
of the 20th century, and that there has been an Americanization of the French
journalistic norms and practices. However the rejection of objectivity as a standard in
the past decades might have, in turn, stopped this Americanization or led to the
definition of a globalized model.
Focusing on war correspondence, this paper aims to evaluate to what extent French
standards are still original, in what they diverge from and in what they converge with
the American standards.
The study is based on interviews with 25 French and American war correspondents
and the analysis of newspaper articles covering violent foreign conflicts.
The interviews show that French and American war correspondents identify the same
fundamental values, accuracy and fairness. They also mention the same criteria for
the definition of good journalistic practices, such as evidence-based statements or fair
characterization of the protagonists in news reports. Although the importance granted
to each of these criteria might diverge, as well as the way of evaluating them, the
findings indicate a convergence of American and French practices.
However analysis of French newspaper articles covering foreign conflicts reveals a
gap between what the interviewed journalists say that should be done and what
journalists actually did. French war correspondents are essentially authors, whose
personal presence is more marked than the American’s and who ultimately fulfil a
bardic function.
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User-Generated Content in online print journalism: Literature review and
suggestions for a new research agenda
Milioni, Dimitra L; Papa, Venetia; Vadratsikas, Konstantinos
Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus
Although User-Generated Content (UGC) has only recently emerged as a new
feature of online print journalism, it was rapidly adopted by a wide range of online
news publications, mainly in the form of readers-originated comments that are
attached to news articles and may be radically transforming the core journalistic
product (the news). This development generates new riddles and opportunities for
mainstream media, as it challenges traditional public broadcasting models by raising
citizens’ ability to participate in public discussion and allowing them greater
engagement in news production. Many researchers favor that a new generation of
media “prod-users” is emerging (Bruns 2005), where citizens, assisted by new ICTs,
assume a major role in information gathering and reporting in the online public sphere
(Bazalgette 2006). Yet scarce but growing evidence has so far shown that this
phenomenon takes the form of citizen, open-source (Deuze, 2001), participatory
(Bowman and Willis, 2002), networked (Javis, 2006), and grassroots (Gilmor, 2004)
journalism.
The paper’s first aim is to look at how we study the phenomenon of User-Generated
Content. Through a comprehensive literature review, we seek to answer the following
questions: What do we currently know about UGC uses and effects on multiple
aspects of journalism and citizen engagement in the public sphere? Which aspects
have been thoroughly examined and which remain unexplored? Which methods have
UGC researchers employed so far and what are the limitations of these methods?
Drawing from the conclusions of the literature review, this paper argues that future
research should go beyond the one-sided approach prevailing so far (focusing mainly
on how news organizations integrate UGC in the professional news making process)
and attempt to understand the multidimensional character of online textual and
discursive activity developed by readers in online news environments. A new
research agenda for exploring the uses and effects of content production by news
readers is presented and discussed.
Narratology of (online) news
Díaz Noci, Javier
Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
We aim to explain how news in the digital environment are constructed and
presented, applying some related methods to the study of discourse and the
message. We will take into account the different trends of narratology. The
methodology consists on analyzing online newspapers trying to determine which kind
of narratology and thematic recurrence strategies are being used in nowadays news.
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If news are nothing but a narration, then items such as voice, narration situation,
mood, time and characters can be analyzed just as it would be done in any other
narrative text. Following Jahn, Bal and other scholars, we will underline the use of
descriptive and narrative forms, levels of narrations and enbedded narrative texts
(especially, the way hypertext extend this capacity), sequence, rhythm (a couple of
aspects hypertextual narrations can modify as well) and frequency. Events, actors,
time (duration, chronology, etc.) and location will be also studied. Most especially, we
will try to deeply distinguish features inherent to online journalism as a media, apart
from these other traditional invariants and features.
We also try to explain which are the structures of the hypertextual news. As professor
Teun van Dijk did in his book News as discourse, we will try to explain if the structures
(macro and microstructures) of news remain the same after all these years and if
hypertextual construction has introduced some kind of changes in this structures.
And, after all, whether all these changes are creating a particular rhetoric of online
news. Finally, we will try to find out whether we can propose a typology of online
news (online cybertexts, using Espen Aarseth’s words) and whether a catalogue of
criteria to define online information genres can be offered as well. International online
media are analyzed: Nytimes.com, Lemonde.fr, Larepubblica.it, Guardian Unlimited
Clarín.com and Asahi Shimbun.jp (English version).
The influence of Anglo-American Journalism in the Spanish Journalism
tradition
López Pan, Fernando
School of Communication, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
It is well known the thesis that Journalism, as we know it, is an Anglo-American
invention (Chalaby: 1996, 303). In Chalaby´s view, the concept of news, the
discursive practices of the reporter, the interview, the fact–centered story build in a
specific way, the separation fact–opinion and objectivity –characterized as the sum of
several factors: neutrality, impartiality, balance and fairness, reluctance to take sides
in the political process, truthfulness, factuality, accuracy and completeness- (1998,
130)– are products originated in the Anglo-American journalism, that then influenced
other traditions.
Although that from a global perspective, taking into account the empirical reality, not
the normative one, that model do not fits the rest of the World (Josephine, 2005), it is
clear that for various reasons (including international dominance), the AngloAmerican model has influenced at least in the Western journalism. Chalaby showed
that influence in the French case, which considers "the first manifestation of the
hegemony of Anglo-American culture throughout the world" (1996, 323), but nothing
has been published in the Anglo-American academic world about the undoubted
influence of that model in Spanish journalism. This paper will study the influences of
Anglo-American model in Spanish Journalism tradition through the textbooks of
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journalism professors and some of journalistic writing, at the same time it will identify
some peculiarities of that tradition.
Paper panel 5 – Inside de newsroom
Monday, July 4th 14.00 - 15.30 (Room 1)
Maps of the technologies available in the phases of the communication process
Cabrera González, Mª Ángeles*; Villada Rojo, Pedro Antonio**; Bernal Triviño, Ana
Isabel*
*Departament of Journalism, University of Malaga, Malaga, Spain
**University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
Information technologies are a major source of diversity in journalism. Not only
because of the different media that arise, but by the new dynamics of work and
incorporate new requirements imposed on expressive journalistic message (design,
writing ...) The social context of globalization, new technologies have led to other
forms production, distribution and reception of information, the three phases which
divides the process of journalistic communication.
Every day new devices and tools are added to the above, in an exponential growth
that sometimes appears to cause an excess of choices and opportunities for
journalists and the audience know.
The aim of this paper is to categorize the new technologies in the work of the
journalist, to realize the impact they have had in each and the role that new
technologies play. We carried out this study from a descriptive and exploratory
approach to structure in the new technologies employed categories.
This list of technologies arises from two perspectives: from the media and from the
audience. In the production examines the impact of information technology in preproduction, production and postproduction. In analyzing the distribution channels,
transmission technologies and formats. Finally, at the reception, performing a
registration of new portable devices or new media.
Media companies and their adoption of radical technologies
Leiva, Ricardo
School of Communication, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
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This article presents an updated review of some discoveries in the field of disruptive
and emerging technologies and how they are faced by companies. The specialists in
new technologies have come to the conclusion that established companies should act
differently depending on whether the innovation with which they must deal is
incremental or radical. If companies do not act differently depending on the nature of
innovation that threatens them, they may lose their market share before new
competitors, more agile in finding unconventional customers that may be dissatisfied
with the current product offering.
The study of emerging technologies is useful to extract lessons that can be applied by
media companies that have undertaken or are seeking to undertake projects on the
Internet. This article presents some proposals to be considered by media companies
seeking to develop or upgrade their digital publications.
Still specific ? – The press agency AFP among the diversity of colleagues,
partners and amateurs, in the digital era
Nicey, Jeremie
lab. CIM, Univ. Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France
International news agencies are traditionnaly considered – with truth – as providers of
information to diverse media customers. With AP and Reuters, the Agence FrancePresse (AFP) is one of the three major agencies; and the oldest. For centuries, AFP
has adapted to media and society evolutions, as well as it participated in shaping
some of those changes – especially regarding to information/news flows. Yet, it has
had a specific role to play, being in the beginning of the news chain: collecting news
that other actors – more visible, newspapers and mainstream medias at a top place –
publish and broadcast.
In the Internet era, is this specificity continuing? What are the strategies of AFP
towards recent and major online actors, such as Google, Twitter, Facebook and
towards amateur practices (egg. the agency Citizenside)? Is AFP reluctant to web
transformations and towards‘competitors’ of a new kind, or is still adapting/shaping to
such changes? How does its choices meet with the interests of both its usual
customers and informed citizens at a larger extent?
This communication, based on researchs at Agence France-Presse (post-doc at
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, with the support of the French Agence Nationale de la
Recherche), will highlight some recent cases in the agency’s practices, in order to
measure its singularity and challenges in the digital world.
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Paper panel 6 – Online journalism
Monday, July 4th 14.00 - 15.30 (Room 2)
Changing news formats in online newspapers
Uotila, Panu
Department of Communication, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
This paper examines the different methods of news presentation online compared to
print media in three different countries: Finland, Great Britain and United States. The
study scrutinizes two key dimensions: news values and the structure of the news
stories by combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis.
The main research question of the study is: What are the main characteristic features,
news values and story structures used in online news presentation compared to those
used in print newspapers? Secondary research questions are: In which ways and to
what extent online journalism is a kind of transformation of journalism in the ‘old’
media, concerning styles, genres and technical journalistic elements? Is it possible to
detect certain innovative elements that have emerged in online journalism and if yes,
what are they? Empirical material consists of print and online versions of the news in
the Finnish newspapers Helsingin Sanomat, Aamulehti, Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat,
and the U.S. International Herald Tribune and the British Guardian.
My argument is that online news journalism makes greater use of the ‘inverted
pyramid’ structure combining it with hyperlinks. Online news journalism is becoming
more commercialized, more localized and softer, while at the same time opening up
towards a more deliberative, and more opinion oriented approach to news.
Commercialization leads online news presentation towards to the ‘tabloidization’: the
news are presented in a more simplified, personalized and dramatized way and the
most important news value is the attractiveness of the story. This paper is based on
the tentative conclusions of my PhD study. The study is currently in the stage of the
analysis of the empiric material. The final presentation will contain the analysis of the
main characteristic features, news values and story structures used in online news
presentation compared to the print versions of the news.
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Diversity in news linking styles: a case study of ElPaís.com
Salaverría, Ramón
School of Communication, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
In the recent years, the online publications have incorporated progressively the use of
hypertextual links as a way of improving their users’ experience. Unlike the
‘shovelware’model that characterized the beginnings of online publishing in the late
90’s, during the first decade of this Century the most developed publications have
tried to stress the differentiation between their print and online content. One of the
most evident signs of that distinction lies in the hypertextual enrichment of news
stories on the web, thanks to the increasing use of links inside the texts.
This tendency, which is especially noticeable among the leading online publications,
faces however a problem in its practice: the lack of rules for journalists about what,
when, and how should be linked. Indeed, very few stylebooks have mentioned so far
any single explanation about how the links should be used in the news stories, from a
stylistic point of view. This lack style guidelines lead journalists to take very
heterogeneous ways when embedding links into their news stories.
This paper presents the results of a comparative study of news pieces published by
ElPaís.com, the online edition ofthe leading Spanish newspaper ‘El País’. Based
upon a broad sample of news stories captured in 2011, the research examines the
usage of links within the text of different types of information: common news stories,
blog posts published in newspaper’s blogs, and microblogging updates published in
Eskup (a Twitter-like platform of news publishing used by ElPaís.com for spreading its
breaking news). In 2011, all these three types of news pieces are regularly used by
ElPaís.com to spread its information. Using webmetrics techniques, the comparison
of different patterns of linkage in each of these three platforms –amoun of links in
each news piece, destination, position, anchor-text, etc.- gives clear evidences of a
growing stylistic diversity when using hypertextual links in online newswriting.
To link or not to link? An ethnographic inquiry into newsroom dynamics.
De Maeyer, Juliette
Department of Information and Communication Sciences, Université Libre de
Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
The possibility to add hyperlinks to news items is one of the key elements
distinguishing online journalism from its offline counterparts. Since the beginnings of
the world wide web, hyperlinks are said to improve the quality of news in several
ways. For instance, by pointing directly to sources, they guarantee transparency as
well as credibility. By leading to a virtually infinite variety of opinions, they ensure
diversity. Even if a consensus exists on the alleged qualities of linking for online
journalism, previous research repeatedly highlighted that news sites link scarcely and
therefore fail to fully embrace hyperlinking.
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This paper aims at investigating what happens in the newsroom that could explain
such gap between expectations and what the news sites actually propose. It focuses
on one case study: a qualitative, ethnographic inquiry into the newsroom of lesoir.be,
i.e. Belgium French-speaking leading news site. Findings underline the diversity of
factors influencing the decision to add a link to a news item: they are of technical,
organizational, economical, ideological or personal nature. We argue that studying
hyperlinks constitutes an enlightening way of grasping what is at stake in today’s
online news production. If links are ultimately about a complex set of commercial
interests, organizational orders, professional routines, journalistic identities, technical
constraints, etc., linking could constitute a unique lens through which modern online
journalism can be understood and assessed.
Paper panel 7 – Digital challenges for journalism practice
Monday, July 4th 14.00 - 15.30 (Room 3)
Getting personal: Personification vs. data-journalism as an international trend
in reporting about Wikileaks
Czepek, Andrea
Jade University of Applied Sciences, Media Management and Journalism,
Wilhelmshaven, Germany
Data-journalism has been hailed as a new trend in reporting, but the case of
WikiLeaks shows that due to economic, political and media-related conditions,
personification prevails in journalism. Instead of investigating into the large amount of
information WikiLeaks has made available, most mainstream-media soon focused on
the hunt for WikiLeaks’ representative Julian Assange.
Based on a comparative content analysis of main news media in five countries
(Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, UK) in December 2010, this presentation will
show that the emphasis on personified, un-political aspects of a story rather than indepth analysis of complicated contexts is an international trend. Despite different
journalism cultures, media systems, political and economic conditions, there is an
internationally homogeneous trend towards superficial, sensational, conflict-oriented
and personified news, rather than a diversity of approaches.
The Internet provides new possibilities for investigative journalism (publication of
masses of data, crowd-sourcing their evaluation). This entails chances for the
democratic role of journalism: Grievances can be disclosed, and it becomes harder to
hide irregularities. Aside from political concerns such as disclosure of securityrelevant secrets, there are also difficulties: Data-journalism is resource-intensive.
Many skilled investigators are needed to evaluate and double-check data. Data-
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evaluation is time-consuming and defies short-term deadlines. The processes
revealed may be considered less “newsworthy” and more complicated to explain to
readers than spectacular crime news. Economic aspects are twofold: Personified
news is easier and cheaper to produce (less effort, time and personnel needed for
research; less complicated matter to understand and analyze). And personified news
is more popular, draws more immediate attention and thus readers and potential
advertising revenue.
The WikiLeaks-example shows that despite a potential for more diversity due to more
outlets and different media cultures in Europe, similar economic and political
constraints lead to very similar, homogeneous types of reporting.
How the media covered and released WikiLeaks's diplomatic cables? Analysis
of the news production process and implications for investigative journalism
Carvajal, Miguel; García Avilés, José Alberto; González, José Luis
Miguel Hernández University, Elche, Spain
From November 2010, five news organizations around the world began to publish
reports about the 250,000 diplomatic documents released by WikiLeaks. The
Guardian, The New York Times, El País, Le Monde and Der Spiegel were involved in
investigating the material contained in such a vast amount of official documents from
U.S. Embassies. The so-called “Cablegate” has sparked the debate about the
journalistic nature of WikiLeaks and about issues such as transparency and free
speech.
This case is a great opportunity to analyse how the press covered and reported these
documents, focusing on the journalistic processes and practices in the selected
international media. It provides comparative material to establish differences not only
among news outlets’ editorial decisions, but also about media cultures and journalistic
practices.
The methodology uses comparative data gathered from each publication (both print
and online) and a series of questionnaire interviews with editors in each newsroom,
that address the main aspects of the news production process: negotiations with
Wikileaks’ representatives; the publication schedule; the decision making aspects and
the ethical implications about the publication of compromising material; how the staff
was managed and coordinated and what kind of guidelines were given; ombudsmen
policies related to the cable's publication; etc.
This paper shows how five large news organizations organized their news production
in a different situation from a regular daily basis and to research how different editors
drew up a plan for publishing one of the most important leaks in the recent history of
public opinion. And it also discusses to what extent the Cablegate reinforces
investigative journalism.
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Investigative journalism and transparency. Three cases of study.
Manfredi Sánchez, Juan Luis
IE University, Segovia, Spain
The good journalism is not a question related to the channel, i.e, people can find
excellent stories in printed, audiovisual o digital media. The key question is the
definition of these stories based on the public interest and the journalistic truth
(Rosenstiel and Kovach, 1997). In order to do a good job, journalists need access to
the main sources without the intervention of the intermediaries. Indeed, the
multiplication of public relations advisers, the rise of political marketing and events
killed news stories and, consequently, the credibility of contemporary journalism. By
definition, we know that power will not share information when it could jeopardize its
integrity (e.g. Foucault or recently Manuel Castells). The power interest may be driven
by political, economic or another own concern (public opinion?).
The challenge of investigative journalism is to break this monopoly of the main
sources and to create again stories based on public interest. In recent years,
technology has fostered the liberalization of data and public sources of information
that allow the creation of such stories.
The paper aims to analyze different cases of success, which has improved the
credibility of the media and their profitability. Top Secret Research America (The
Washington Post), the ProPublica business model or the impact of Wikileaks on
elpais.com are some examples of the new possibilities of investigative journalism.
Media and journalists in Twitter: Corporatizing the personal and personalizing
the professional
López-Hermida Russo, Alberto; Claro Montes, Cecilia
Facultad de Comunicación, Universidad de los Andes (Chile), Santiago, Chile
Social Networks like Twitter have turned into platforms that people – as well as
corporations – use to approach a universe of people that a decade ago, seemed
unimaginable. Journalism has also been affected by this phenomena and journalists,
as well as media corporations, make use of these social networks.
Media and journalists existence in platforms as Twitter inevitably generates a wide
variety of ways to present themselves to society. While media faces the challenge to
upkeep their informational end, journalists have to find a balance between their
personal and professional profile.
A comparative usability analysis between media and journalists Twitter accounts
makes this an evident problem that will allow studying the phenomena and proposing
certain guidelines for action.
Questions emerge rapidly: Can a media corporatize a social tool that is essentially
personal? Must a journalist inform, give his/her opinion as a common citizen in an
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account created under the wing of his professional image? Can media and journalists
profiles co-exist in the same Social Network?
The previous implicates new professional and ethical challenges that are important to
study.
The paradoxical diversity of online news: the case of Quebec’s infomediairies
Goyette-Côté, Marc-Olivier
Université du Québec à Montréal, Faculté de Communication, Marc-Olivier GoyetteCôté, Canada
With the alleged democratization of digital tools and lower distribution costs for
digitalized contents, observers saw the Internet as a medium able to break the longstanding stronghold of news corporations’ role as gatekeepers . The Web was
believed to foster a broader span of news outlets. However, where the Internet
succeeded in bringing more companies and individuals into the journalism realm, it
did so mostly in the distribution and reproduction end of the spectrum. Indeed, it
appears that whilst there is a vast array of non-professional journalism practices
online, we are witnessing a paradoxical movement of news content concentration.
In this presentation, we will address the growing importance of the “infomediairies” in
the reconfiguration of the news sector online, with a focus on the case of Quebec.
The “infomediaries” are composed mainly of aggregators and portals, including
Internet pure players (Yahoo! or Google) and telecommunication and information
conglomerates (Sympatico and Canoë). This category of actors use their knowledge
of the network’s architecture and mechanisms to aggregate contents produced by
third journalistic parties in their web pages, and offer it to a public constituted of
regular users of their services (emails, search engines, software debugging, etc.). The
advantages for the “infomediairies” lies in the fact that 1) they already have a
technological knowledge of content circulation and syndication on the Internet, 2) they
have web platforms that generate vast amounts of user traffic and 3) they possess
the know-how of making profits with their visitors through advertising.
Hence, this presentation, based on a research funded by the FQRSC, explores how
news circulates on the web and how the new technological tools linked with the socalled “web 2.0” have contributed to a paradox - the way we access news have been
broadened, but the amount of sources the public consumes is limited.
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Paper panel 8 – Gender and social diversity on journalism
Monday, July 4th 14.00 - 15.30 (Room 4)
Diversity in journalism approaches: Media’s search to take “the man on the
street” into account
de Haan, Yael
Amsterdam School of Communication Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Media and journalism across Europe have been subject to higher degree of external
scrutiny. This has been intensified by substantial structural media changes in the past
decades including a fiercer competitive media climate. Media are accused of not
verifying facts, acting like parrots following each other, taking incidents out of context
and creating media hypes. Moreover, they are criticized for failing to see the concerns
within society creating an ever-widening gap with the public. The accusations on
media performance have fed an ongoing debate about the social responsibility of the
media and how they can be held accountable and responsive for serving the public
interest.
This research answers how media are responding to these accusations and growing
demand for accountability and responsive measures to come to terms with the public.
Data was collected through three in-depth case studies of a Dutch newspaper, the
news broadcast of the Dutch PSB, and a Dutch commercial broadcasting news
organization. Spending a total of one year in the field, data was gathered, using
multiple sources of evidence, including document analysis, observations and more
than 100 interviews.
Results show that where there is a growing demand among politicians for media to be
more accountable to the public, this study shows that media are more preoccupied
with amending the gap with the public by providing a diversity of responsive
journalism approaches, including interactive journalism, forms of public journalism
and news forms of research journalism, to tailor to the concerns of “the man on the
street”. However, these new public oriented approaches have created dilemmas for
journalist of how to find a balance between taking the public into account and the
potentially conflicting norms of independence and journalism responsibility.
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Gender as a source of diversity in journalism: media coverage during the PREC
period in Portugal (1975/1976)
Batista, Carla
Faculty of Social and Human Sciences - University Nova of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
This paper is part of an ongoing research project called “Feminine Politics – Gender
policies and strategies oriented toward the visibility of female members of Parliament”
(PTDC/CCI-COM/102393/2008).
The project focuses on women’s representation and gender issues in the parliament
throughout three political cycles of the Portuguese democracy, spanning from 1975 to
2002.
The intersection between politics and media is essential to understand how female
parliamentary tried to highlight their specific agendas. The project analyses the extent
of media representation of female Members of Parliament (MPs) within the overall
news coverage of parliamentary activities.
We constructed three historical cycles deemed to have brought significant
developments regarding the participation of women in the political institutions and
within the public sphere, namely: the Ongoing Revolutionary Process or PREC, from
1975 to 1976; Cavaquismo (1985-1995); and Guterrismo (1995-2002).
For the purpose of this paper, we will focus in the PREC period, a phase of
consolidation of the Portuguese democracy and ideological distancing from the rightwing dictatorship period that preceded it (Estado Novo). The discussion of gender
issues, within the context of the newly acquired equal rights, democracy and freedom,
flourished throughout the years that followed the Revolution of the 25th April and
women started to claim full legitimacy for their own public participation, as they were
empowered to by the newly enacted Constitution of 1976.
Our analyse shows that, despite the new political and social environment, the old
media frames regarding the representation of women, prevailed. Media’s approach to
gender issues were scarce and not a relevant part of the political discussion. Limited
happenings of positive news coverage of female MPs innitiaves contrasted vividly
with an overall journalistic indifference or even hostility regarding gender issues.
Photojournalistic coverage of portuguese women MP’s: the dificult issue of
diversity in two case studies.
Mendes Flores, Teresa
CIMJ - UNL, Lisbon, Portugal
This paper is part of an ongoing research project called “Feminine Politics _ Gender
policies and strategies oriented towards the visibility of female members of Parliament
in Portugal” (PTDC/CCI-COM/102393/2008), funded by Fundação Ciência e
Tecnologia (FCT).
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The project traces the history of both women representation and of gender issues in
portuguese parliament since the democratic period starting with the 25th April
Revolution and throughout three political cycles of the portuguese democracy,
spanning from 1975 to 2002.
We than aim at characterizing jornalistic mediation of women deputies and gender
issues on five major newspapers during the oulined periods drawing an analisys of
both text and images used by the press.
This particular paper will concentrate on photojornalistic coverage of women MP’s
comparing two different periods of our corpus: the PREC period, immediatly after the
democratic revolution, when gender issues were part of both political and media
agendas as the democratic rigths were at stake in the discussions conducing to the
new democratic Constitution; and the mediatization of The Paritary Parliament that
received major press coverage during the right wing liberal government conducted by
Cavaco Silva (the Paritary Parliament took place on January 1994).
Our analisys will show that women MP’s increased their political representation but
their “invisibility” (Tuckman, 1969) persisted in the media, including the
photojornalistic coverage where women MP’s, when appeared, were portrayed mostly
in a traditional frame as a “diligent domestic woman”, focusing on their social
interpersonal skills and rarely on their professional skills as members of the
paliament.
Today’s News Diversity and the Public Sphere
Mitu, Bianca-Marina
PHD Student in Communication Sciences, Faculty of Journalism and Communication
Sciences, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
The purpose of this paper is to analyze today’s construction of news, and to see the
way that media present today’s life diversity. We started with the theoretical
background and we analyzed the Tv news discourse, the storytelling forms.
Television has the greatest influence on the general public. Today television
privileges the events with the strongest impact on viewers' sensibility. The purpose of
this paper is to analyze today’s construction of news content, and to see the way that
media emphasis the live political events, events that have a great impact on the
public sphere and on the civil society. News is becoming an element of spectacle that
has to attract, to shock the viewers. The main content of the news is not the story
itself, but the show. The selection of the TV news and formats have political effects.
News reception processes are driven by partially personal knowledge and political
motivations. Differences in interpretive complexity should be related to the subject
matter reported in the news. Most analysts who dedicated their studies to news
theory seem to favor either an informational modle or a cultural one, some of them
have a critical perspective, others praise the media, but all of them seem to agree
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when it comes to the essential role of news - news is an accessible form of public
knowledge.
Paper panel 9 – Foreign news in the age of diversity
Monday, July 4th 16.00 - 17.30 (Room 1)
Changing relations in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 2005-2010:
A comparison of coverage and mutual representation in Aruban, Curaçaoan
and Dutch newspapers.
Kreykenbohm, Birgit
University of Aruba, Oranjestad, Aruba
The constitutional reform of the Netherlands Antilles that took place during the period
2005-2010 had a profound impact on the relations between the countries in the
Kingdom of the Netherlands. The changing constitutional relations and shifts in the
traditional political landscapes influence the local dynamics of Aruba, Curaçao and
the Netherlands as well as the dynamics of the Kingdom as a whole. In a construction
as far apart as the Kingdom, with its Caribbean and European part, media are
important sources of information for each country and its people. The impact of
worldwide as well as national, regional and local transformations like globalization,
technological innovations and political discourse leaves the parallel landscapes of
journalism and politics to become more and more volatile. Established mainstream
media reflect these shifting dynamisms and can even shape or intensify them. Social
reality and local perception of ongoing development or incidents in Kingdom relations
are mirrored in press coverage and even can trigger a dispute in those relations. As
part of a larger study of changing relations and mutual representation in the Kingdom
of the Netherlands, this article compares and analyzes media coverage in Aruba,
Curaçao and the Netherlands. While the Aruban and Curaçaoan press frequently
report on events in the Netherlands, the Dutch press covers less and reports on mere
incidents in Aruba and Curaçao. This comparative analysis of Aruban, Curaçaoan
and Dutch mainstream news coverage, illustrates the ease with which political
rhetoric, historical images and stereotypical representation can be reinforced and
even created in the written press. At the same time it shows, in spite of the collective
constitutional bonds, the differences between the states and their own social,
historical and political development, but also the distinct cultures of journalism in
Aruba, Curaçao and the Netherlands.
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Diversification of Foreign News
Correspondents based in Turkey
Reporting:
The
example
of
Foreign
Yanardagoglu, Eylem
Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey
Foreign news reporting or foreign correspondence is an area within diverse
journalistic practices which has developed on its own right since the 19th century.
Although foreign news lost its appeal after the end of the Cold war, the events of
September 11th has changed the value and importance attached to international
news reporting. In this respect, recent studies on international news have begun to
consider working experiences of foreign correspondents in authoritarian states such
as such as Russia or like those in the Middle East. Others (such as a research
conducted recently under the auspices of the Reuters Institute) question whether
foreign correspondents are becoming redundant and focus on the technological as
well as economic pressures on contemporary journalism. In this paper I would like to
offer some initial findings of a research on foreign correspondents based in Turkey.
This research focus on their experiences and explores the diversity within their
professional background, gender, ethnicity, approaches and values to foreign news
reporting. It aims to map the experiences of journalists in order to explore the
similarities and differences on the professional level. The data are derived from small
questionnaire and semi-structured in-depth interviews with foreign correspondents
who are based in Istanbul.
International On-Line News. A mediological analysis of diversity versus the
traditional
Tous-Rovirosa, Anna
Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences, Autonomous University of
Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
The aim of this paper is to analyze International On-Line News from a mediological
point of view. That is, determining to which extent themes, genres and myths are
intertwined in cybernews construction. The methodology (tested before: Tous, 2008;
2010) is being applied in news analysis, divided into Diachronic analysis (relationship
to the Genre, History, Optional and Compulsory Regularities, according to Ryan,
1979) and the Synchronic analysis (Thematic Recurrence, Myth). Quotation and
references are being classified according to the following typology (serious/ironic;
descriptive/metaphoric; quotation or punctual allusion, explicit/implicit).
The methodology consists on analysing online newspapers trying to determine which
kind of thematic recurrence strategies are being used in nowadays news. Towards
this objective, we will try
1) to determine the use of invariable ingredients (Calabrese 1987; Villanueva, 1991),
using the mythological comparatism (Lévi-Strauss, 1958; Ginzburg, 1989; Dumézil,
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1970, Nagy, 2006), Rastier’s textual analysis and themathology (Brunel, Dabézies,
1992; Guillén, 1985 and 1998), myth in media (Silverstone, 1981);
2) To identify the homological structural features using semiotics, formalism (Eco,
1984; Calabrese, 1987; Greimas, 1979; Propp, 1928) and narratology (Genette,
1982).
3) To distinguish features inherent to online journalism as a media, apart from these
other traditional invariants and features.
The paper also tries to determine to which extent journalists deal with traditional
references (such as literary, mythic, erudite, biblical, religious, thematic recurrence)
and to which extent do they use references which constitute a new sphere (cinema,
music, advertising, radio, television, newspapers, the Net itself), that is, dealing with
novelty (diversity) versus the traditional.
The media analyzed to test this methodology will be chosen from a sampling list
provided by the research group this paper is included into: BBC News.co.uk, The
Guardian Unlimited, Clarín, Globo, NYTimes.com, LeMonde.fr, LaReppublica.it,
Público.pt and Rue89, and compared with some similar Spanish media.
Journalism and global governance: the portrayal of non-state political actors
La Porte, Teresa
Public Communication Department, School of Communication. University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
This paper examines journalism practices in covering some of the new non-state
player’s actions in international politics and analyzes the image portrayed on
mainstream newspapers. Taking in account that most of their power and legitimacy
lays on regular citizen support, public image is a relevant factor.
In an age of global governance, external political relations have undergone a
profound modification. One of the most significant alterations is the crisis of the
national state. The state power is being undermined, among other causes, by the
emergence of new political actors which seek to defend specific interests by
themselves, to raise their voice without governmental mediation and, at the end, to
redefine the global system. In a sense, they obtain ‘political authority’ from their
efficacy on advocating human rights, moving forward new regulations or setting the
agenda of political institutions. NGOs, transnational companies, religious groups,
think tanks, social movements or university experts have a say (and power) on most
of the global issues (and conflicts) affecting civil society.
Journalism has to deal with these new actors. Easily, any coverage of an
‘international’ (global) issue has to report activity from these players. But non- state
institutions have a more complex structure and organization than other traditional
actor/source correspondents used to deal with. They put forward their proposals,
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press governments, and activate public opinion in different ways as former
international players used to do.
Through news qualitative content analysis of a selection from last significant actions
performed by non-state players, the paper tries to describe main features of their
portrayal and professional practices in covering them. The analysis will include
coverage on Google& China relations; Israel & “humanitarian flotilla” affair; role of
NGOs in Haiti earthquake and last threats from radical Islamic groups.
Paper panel 10 – Journalism and religion
Monday, July 4th 16.00 - 17.30 (Room 2)
Catholic Journalism in Russia: from institutional rapid development through
self-silencing to informal blogging
Khroul, Victor
Moscow State University, Faculty of Journalism, Moscow, Russia
Among “journalisms” in Russia religion’s journalisms with all their the variety have at
least two common features: a) they still are marginal in terms of audience and,
therefore, - influence and b) their form-factor is “iceberg-like”: under the comparatively
small official (mostly boring) number of publications (religious TV and radio is still
rather exception) there is much bigger agglomeration of local community and private
initiatives (most of them are Internet-based).
But, at the same time, different religions have different trends of development:
dominant Russia Orthodox Church (claiming up to 80% of Russian population to be
Orthodox) tries to introduce more strict and vertical control with the procedure of
Synodal office approvement of any Orthodox medium. Extensive development of the
Orthodox journalism is more and more visible.
Catholic journalism during last decade had different development trajectory: from
institutional rapid development through self-silencing to informal blogging. The top of
the iceberg almost disappeared from the public sphere and the underwater part
became the only tool for horizontal communication of Catholic community in Russia.
From the moment of the re-establishment of Catholic hierarchy in 1991 the period of
media rapid development based on religious freedom have started. Almost every
catholic structure in Russia (dioceses, monastic orders, charitable foundations etc)
launched a publication. After 2002, according our observations, the development
slows, then stops, then media are getting closed one-by-one. The period we consider
to be the time of "self-silencing". With the possibilities of Web 2.0 local private
initiatives are developing during last years.
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The explanation of such a trace of Catholic media in Russia is impossible without
taking into consideration many extra-journalism factors, such as Church-State
relations, ecumenical context and so-called Vatican “Ostpolitik”.
New participatory-friendly media technologies and low cost possibilities diminished
the influence of extra-journalism factors and brought new chances for the
development of Catholic journalism in Russia.
Conversational News and Conversational Relationship: The Way Our Symbolic
World is Formed
Kim, Minha
Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Sungkyunkwan University,
Seoul, South Korea
Compared with the mass mediated news via newspapers and television in modern
societies, interpersonal communication is becoming a primary channel of news flow
between members of the public as shown by a variety of Internet platforms such as
social networking service sites and microblogs. By expanding the notion of news to
include the information that flows between individuals engaged in conversation, this
study proposes the theory of news communication and attempts to explore a
prototype of the news becoming more microscopic in the digitized social networks. In
this study, social relationship formed and mediated by conversation, which is likely to
be dynamic and fluid, is termed as ‘conversational relationship’. News exchanged
between individuals in conversational relationship is conceptualized as
‘conversational news’. The purpose of the present study is to examine how types of
conversational relationship are related to diverging characteristics of conversational
news. Types of conversational relationship are classified in accordance with
homogeneity and heterogeneity of social relationship as well as modes of
conversation. Modes of conversation are determined depending on goals and
motivations of conversation, which include chat, discussion, debate, interview, and
negotiation. Yet, this microcosmic pattern of news communication is believed to
reflect disparities between various ethnic groups. This study, therefore, investigates
how news is communicated between members of societies by taking ethnographic
approach. To this end, anthropological field observation has been conducted to
investigate characteristics of conversational news and patterns of news
communication in several selected groups of foreigners residing in Korea. Following
the field observation, a sentential analysis is performed by using the transcription of
the conversations. In order to visualize how types of conversational relationship are
associated with conversational news, a correspondence analysis is employed to
demonstrate how homogeneous between categories of the primary variables of
conversational relationship and conversational news. This study is also meaningful in
that it proposes a new look into methodology to study conversation and deliberation
by combining qualitative and quantitative approaches.
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Historical diversities: The covert influence of religious legacies on the
formation of journalistic practices.
MacGregor, Phil
Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
This paper examines the possibility that journalists' sense of justice may be informed
by legacies of religious influences. As the secularisation of social practices
accelerates in some parts of Europe, it is possible to miss and ignore the long social
traditions that inform the value systems of journalists, and their own selection criteria
of news. It is proposed that some concepts of blame and punishment may be
deduced from the past and the senses of what constitutes wrongdoing. The Puritan
influence on the social production of guilt, of which journalists form a key part, may be
paramount in Northern Europe, but less pronounced in Catholic countries. The paper
would examine the arguments and sample content to help discuss whether such
attitudes can be marked and compared, even in theory. The theoretical underpinning
starts with Max Weber's account of the supposed influence of Puritan spirit on the
development of capitalism, also suggested by Hallin and Mancini (2004). In addition
in the UK there is a pronounced infuence suggested on the formation of the mass
press by Evangelicalism (Goldsworthy), 2006). There may also be differences in the
epistemological underpinning on journalism when comparing journalisms in different
European countries - perhaps with the Protestant countries maintaining a harder
edged version of 'truth', which is perhaps more definite, and less pluralistic and
complicated than that found in countries that did not experience the reformation. If
citizen journalism is breaking free of older journalistic moulds, we might expect some
departure from the norms and values of traditional journalisms in this respect. This will
be considered, although, in such a complex theme as this, no one argument or
method is likely to be decisive. Nevertheless, over-secularisation of the analysis of
journalism may lose us a useful insight on the way media interpret social change.
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Paper panel 11 – Science journalism
Monday, July 4th 16.00 - 17.30 (Room 3)
Balance as a source of misinformation. A study of the coverage of the
Copenhagen summit on climate change in the Spanish press.
León, Bienvenido
Journalism Projects Department, School of Communication, University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
Among traditional journalistic norms, balance has played a key role, as it is often seen
as a criterion that portrays the pursuits of objectivity. Balance reporting is seen by
journalists as a tool to present the views of legitimate spokespersons of the conflicting
sides in a dispute and provide both sides with equal attention.
However, in the coverage of climate science, balance has also been regarded as a
factor that can contribute to misinformation by way of disguising bad journalistic
practices (vg. when journalists lack the necessary scientific knowledge). In the
coverage of misinformation of the public, as it has enabled that the views of the so
called ´climate climate change, following the norm of balance has contributed to a
significant change skeptics´ have had a more relevant position in the media than
within the scientific community. However, as the scientific consensus on climate
change has been more steadily established, after 2005, the coverage of this topic is
more inclined towards the scientific consensus.
This paper analyzes the coverage of the International Conference on Climate
Change, promoted by the United Nations, which took place in Copenhagen in
December 2009, by the two leading Spanish newspapers (El País and El Mundo).
Results indicate that the importance given to balance (and controversy) is subject to
the editorial line of each newspaper. Although, scientific consensus is not directly
disputed, balance can still be used as a tool to support the editorial line, thus
becoming a possible source of misinformation. While one of the newspapers backs
established scientific knowledge, the other one maintains an ambivalent position, by
supporting the scientific consensus on the editorial articles, and presenting the
skeptical point of view, specially in opinion articles.
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Making Sense Out of Newspaper Humour - The Swine Flu Pandemic in Portugal
Pereira Rosa, Gonçalo
Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Cultura, Universidade Católica Portuguesa,
Lisboa, Portugal
It has been demonstrated that newspaper cartoons are a valuable resource to study
social trends and shared meanings, while providing information about the way social
meaning is attached to specific risk events.
Simple, easy to interpret and decode, cartoons reach a section of the audience
usually not influenced by written news and therefore not included in the overall debate
over the impacts of the risk society. In this perspective, they have a relevant potential
to understand how the public construct meaningful narratives during moral panics. Its
study can provide clues to design better communication strategies for events marked
by uncertainty.
Using semantic methodologies to uncover denotative and connotative meanings,
following the method proposed by Roland Barthes, our research analysed newspaper
cartoons published in the Portuguese press about two different disruptive events –
the Prestige oil spill in 2002 and the global build-up of the swine flu (H1N1) scare of
2009-10.
Results demonstrate that, through humour, newspapers have assembled
responsibilities, depicted side effects of each event and, at a later stage, managed to
restore confidence in safety systems, reassuring the public that each risk was, by
then, hugely diminished.
Organized Sources: a news-worthiness priority in Health Journalism
Lopes, Felisbela
Communication and Society Research Centre, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
To whom does the Portuguese press resort when they wish to discuss health issues?
We analyzed all the news sources quoted in 4415 health news articles published in
three Portuguese newspapers (a weekly broadsheet, a daily broadsheet, and a daily
popular) between 2008 and 2010. The results seem to indicate a sources
brotherhood, orchestrated by well prepared, yet not really visible, public relations
technicians. Professional news sources seem to be more valuable to reporters than
others, when covering health.
Between 2008 and 2010, almost all stories refer to news sources. Looking at each of
the articles, we were not able to find a wide-ranging number of sources. This scenario
does not seem to promote a diversity of opinions that should be made available by
the press. Geographically, a quarter of the sources used by almost every newspaper
comes from Portugal. International sources do not seem to be the priority. A closer
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look at international sources shows very high asymmetries. Europe and the USA are
privileged while the rest of the world is silenced.
Health related articles tend to highlight sources related to the field. However, not all
health sources are treated equally. Official sources, meaning those who hold political
positions or head public organizations, are always very important. Another group that
earns the attention of journalists is specialized sources. Notwithstanding, there is a
difference to be considered: a source linked to an institution is more valuable than
one who is not. Within specialized and institutional sources there are dissimilarities.
Reporters seem to prefer doctors to other health care professionals. This is a result of
a highly elaborate communication strategy, devised by public relations specialists
who prepare sources to face the public but are absent from the news articles. They
are information sources but journalists rarely quote them in their reports.
Science journalism in the bloggosphere:
Narrowing or diversifying voices?
Hornmoen, Harald
Oslo University College, Oslo, Norway
Science journalism faces major challenges in new media. Commentators have
pointed out how digital technologies limit the possibilities of practicing critical science
journalism. In a period of economic recession, traditional media are shedding full-time
science journalists. At the same time, researcher-run blogs are growing. Researchers
and research institutions are presumed to gain increasing influence over what the
public read about science.
Other scholars point out how digital media invite lay voices to comment upon issues
in a different manner than in traditional media, thus making diversified discussions of
research possible.
But do science journalist’s blogs reflect an independent and critical journalism about
science? One mark of such independence is the ability to select voices. The presence
of multiple voices in news stories about emergent science indicates a journalistic
control how the science is to be understood in public.
My paper asks: What characterizes journalism in blogs about scientific research? My
case is the Norwegian web site forskning.no. Their editorial staff publishes in
accordance with the Norwegian declaration of rights and duties of the editor, and is
thus obligated to promote an impartial and free exchange of information and opinion.
At the same time, forskning.no is owned by 65 research institutions. Both researchers
and journalists publish on the site.
I analyze a selection of blogs produced by the web site’s journalists by applying
categories from Critical Discourse Analysis. I examine to what extent and how
different voices and participants are represented in the blogs and the power
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relationships set up between them. The journalist’s blogs are compared to a selection
of blogs at forskning.no written by scientists. In order to provide a good basis for
comparison, the sample will consist of blogs addressing the same issue, namely
environmental change and environmental research.
Paper panel 12 – The changing business of journalism
Monday, July 4th 16.00 - 17.30 (Room 4)
News behind the paywall: the editorial strategy of WSJ.com
Vara Miguel, Alfonso
Media Management Department. School of Journalism. University of Navarra (Spain),
Pamplona, Spain
The debate around the new business models at media industry has been focused on
the dichotomy between paid model and advertising model. The defendants of the first
one usually mention the online edition of The Wall Street Journal as a successful
reference, although data shows it is an hybrid model.
This research set a description of the editorial contents included in the digital edition
of WSJ, based on a content analysis of all the news published in its homepage for a
month. The research put particular focus on the paid news, analysing and setting a
typology of the topics and issues tend to be charged by the financial newspaper.
Spanish media in the App Store. New ways in the iPhone’s Kingdom
Toural Bran, Carlos; de la Hera Conde-Pumpido, Teresa
University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
The landscape of media has seen howthe boom in mobile devices has caused a
change in consumption patterns of the audience. The technological evolution of these
devices, their low costs, mixed with the falling cost of mobile Internet connections,
have allowed an exponential increase of users who use their mobile devices to
access the Internet at any time with multiple objectives.
Social networks and the frantic refresh that the users maintain, the penetration of this
kind of devices -such as smartphones- on the market and the interest that eolocation
systems provoke in the society, are largely to blame for the increased mobility
connections. With the emergence and expansion of this new consumer model, the
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media have also had to broaden their strategies to face the audience through new
paths for consumption of their products related to mobility.
In the context of this new landscape, there is no doubt that Apple and its iPhone and
iPod Touch are leading in terms of the attention they are generating in the hearings
and resources that a lot of companies -media and outside the world of
communication- are devoting to create their own applications for users of these
devices. According to Gartner, 97.5% of mobile applications downloads made during
2009 were made from the Apple Application Store, store that has already passed the
3,000 million downloads as the company's Cupertino confirmed in early 2010.
This paper presents an analysis of the use that the main Spanish mass media make
of the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch applications. Starting from an initial selection of
media, it is identified which of them have an application designed for these devices.
On the other hand it is presented a comparative study of these applications, which
analyses the information architecture, the usability and the social participation
possibilities these tools provide.
The sample of analysis consists of a total of fifteen mass media: the five newspapers,
radios and free televisions with better ratings during 2009, as reported by Estudio
General de Medios (General Media Study) audited by the Spanish Asociación para la
Investigación de Medios de Comunicación (Association for Media Research).
The Digital Treasure Quest: How UK newspaper publishers are diversifying
their revenues online and on mobile
Nel, François
School of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Central Lancashire,
Preston, United Kingdom
Having seen their traditional businesses battered by forces that include the structural
changes wrought by rapid growth of networked digital technologies and the cyclical
shifts in the economy, mainstream news publishers in the UK (and elsewhere) are
intensifying efforts to generate new income by diversifying their offerings online and,
more recently, on mobile.
A longitudinal study of digital activities of the largest-circulation newspapers in each of
the 66 cities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland shows that “the
fightback” which the UK Society of Editors called for at their annual conference in
November 2009 is underway. While the majority of publishers attempted to support
their expanded digital offerings by transferring familiar print revenue models online,
innovative companies were looking beyond traditional income sources.
Launched in 2008 and repeated in 2009 and 2010, the study took as its starting point
41 distinct configurations of value streams, logistical streams and revenue streams
identified in earlier research. The results, which were grouped into nine revenue
stream categories, illustrate the extent to which publishers have been taking
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advantage of the variety of digital business opportunities generally available – and
which categories are ignored.
The findings support observations about the extent to which the industry is
undergoing a Darwinian evolution, or a Kuhnian revolution.
Verlagsgruppe Passau, Orkla Media and Mecom – different business strategies
in Polish press market.
Szynol, Adam
Institute of Journalism and Social Communication, University of Wroclaw, Poland,
Wroclaw, Poland
After socio-political breakthrough in 1989 foreign companies entered Polish media
market. Firstly, investors appeared in the press sector, later on in electronic media.
One of the first groups presented in Poland was Orkla Media. The Norwegians
launched a brand new regional daily, which was a kind of exception in Orkla’s
strategy. After subsequent failure they changed the pattern of business activity. From
1991 to 2006 Orkla bought a dozen or so regional dailies and took over shares in a
nationwide newspaper. During that period the Norwegians followed their well-known
path to run media business.
When in 2006 Mecom bought out Orkla’s shares, a new era began. British fund was
mainly interested in making their assets more profitable. Thus, some mergers were
carried out. Consequently, many journalists had to be dismissed. Unlike the
predecessors, Mecom eagerly diverted toward the Internet and it seems to be the
most important direction of their strategy.
The biggest shareholder of the regional press sector, however, is still Verlagsgruppe
Passau (VGP). The German group appeared in 1993 in disguise of a Swiss company
and next year took over eight regional dailies from Robert Hersant, a French
newspaper tycoon. In due course, VGP bought out a couple more regional titles and
became the leader of this sector of the market. Although the Germans were
competing against the Norwegians and the Brits, they showed a different style of
managing their assets. Originally a family firm, they kept running the business very
tightly and under the strict control of the owner.
The author is trying to describe different patterns of business strategy in press sector
in Poland, examining each investors’ behaviour and results of their efforts. This can
lead to some conclusions not only about the past activities but also to predictions
about the future of the market.
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Paper panel 13 – Broadcast media facing diversity
Tuesday, July 5th 8.30 - 10.00 (Room 1)
Creating radio waves: lessons from a content analysis of diversity in student
journalism
Bahfen, Nasya; Wake, Alexandra
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Journalism educators face challenges when teaching their students how to
adequately cover the diversity of their communities, stemming from either resistance
at institutional levels or a lack of structured approaches and guidelines (Nicholson
2003). The conclusion many educators reach is that future journalists emerge from
university ill-equipped to deal with reporting stories that reflect the diversity of their
communities (Curtis, 2010; Hernandez, 1995). Journalism students at a university in
Melbourne completed two newsroom production sessions for one of the city’s major
community radio stations, as part of their assessment in a semester-long subject.
Each session involved the preparation and presentation of a five-minute news
bulletin. The students made specific choices about their bulletins in the stories they
chose to cover on a particular day, the interviewees they contacted to assist them in
telling the story, the angle of each story, the way interviews were edited, and the
order of the bulletin. This paper looks at the students’ choices of story and
interviewee/talent, over a six week broadcast period in 2010. It reflects on the nature
of the news organization for which the bulletins were produced, and the level of
diversity or homogeneity found in the stories and the talent used to tell them. It also
discusses what lessons may be contained for journalism educators, in the breakdown
of stories chosen by students and the composition of interviewees/talent contacted by
the students.
Diversity and deliberativeness in TV news
van der Wurff, Richard; Verhoeven, Pieter
The Amsterdam School of Communications Research ASCoR, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
"In science there are always many sides... the trouble with journalism is you only have
space for two sides." Scholars regularly appear on TV as expert sources in general
news items where they comment on policy and social issues. This paper investigates
what, if anything, their appearance adds to television news. Do scholars contribute
substantiated arguments, independent reflexivity, diverse view points, and balanced
judgements to public affairs debates? Or is their appearance embedded in a media
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logic that demands TV news to be personalized, unambiguous, two-sided, and easily
told, and consequently leaves little room for factual or deliberative elaborations?
Theoretically, the paper is based on a review of literature dealing with deliberative
qualities and journalistic frames of TV news, the role of scientists as news sources,
and the conflicting cultures of scientists and journalists. Using a representative
sample of news broadcasts from public and private channels in Europe, we
subsequently investigate what type of scholars appears in what type of news items,
how these scholars are introduced and their credentials established, what content
contribute, how the items in which they appear are framed, and – ultimately – to what
extent the appearance of scholars contributes to the diverse and deliberative qualities
of TV news. Results indicate –unfortunately – that scholars tend to criticize or
recommend particular causes of actions proposed by other societal actors without
much room for substantiation. Their appearance fits the popular practice of issue
dualism in which journalists "reduce a complex and many-sided issue to two opposing
positions upheld by 'two familiar, predictable, and legitimate groups of actors'". The
implications of these findings for diversity and quality are discussed.
News Continuity of Spanish General-Interest Radio On-Air and on the Internet:
An Analysis of the Top Three Reports from 12.00 to 14.00 pm in the 2008/2009
and 2009/2010 Broadcasting Seasons
Amoedo, Avelino; Martínez-Costa, María del Pilar; Moreno, Elsa
Journalism Projects Department, School of Communication, University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
General-interest Radio has acquired a new status when the news and current affairs’
contents published on the internet and the sound message broadcast on the air have
been made compatible. Then, radio standards on the internet are prompting changes
in the areas of work involving conceptualisation, production and narration of the
contents of Radio, including “news continuity” as a service of constantly updated
issues and news that are included in every radio broadcast at any time, not only in the
hourly bulletins. So, with regard to the continuity of information broadcast, Generalinterest Radio faces new challenges on the internet. Both platforms (on-air and
online) are designed for news broadcasting, because they can immediately and
simultaneously narrate and update the news. The delivery of the news through on-air
broadcasting is also compatible and complementary on the internet. Hence, online
news can easily break the punctuality and regularity concepts of the traditional hourly
news bulletin.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolving status of the main 3 news stories
broadcast on General-interest radio stations in Spain (available on their websites and
on the traditional on-air format) –SER, COPE, Onda Cero, Punto Radio and Radio
Nacional– between midday and 2 pm (on the 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00 hours’ news
bulletins) on the 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 broadcasting seasons. The research
approach was partial and progressive, covering different periods of time in each
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broadcasting season. The websites were monitored during several periods. Then, we
analyzed the content (the news information) and the narrative approach. So, it will be
possible to provide the synergies and divergences of the news edition criteria, by
which news and stories are selected, and so as to redefine the informational status of
General-interest Radio in a context of digital convergence.
The Constitutional Court on the Catalan Statute: Radio Diversities
Montagut, Marta
Department of Communication Studies, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Reus, Spain
This research will present part of the results on the analysis of radio journalism about
the sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court on the Catalan Statute, the June
28th 2010, and is part of the project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and
Innovation CSO2010-20047, “The media construction of political and territorial
conflicts in Spain: a study on discourses and narratives”. Prior to the radio content
analysis, we have conducted in-depth interviews with radio editors and political party
public relations in order to know about editor’s strategies to get privileged information
and parties’ strategies to have influence on the political news. The media reported on
this topic during days with a wide diversity of treatments which depended on several
factors. In particular, we focused on the main four morning talk radio shows aired
during the first week after the sentence. We applied a frame analysis framework to
the content of the prime time programs with the aim of establishing the main frames
that appear in the news and compare them with those spread by Catalan parties. The
preliminary results offer a great diversity of treatment among the main radio stations
regarding the framing. Moreover, this research stresses the intense role of radio
journalists’ reframing in order to adapt the different arguments to the program and/or
radiostation editorial line. We propose the concept of reframing as a central role in the
journalist practice and define the concept as the journalists’ competence to read,
understand, contextualize and transform the frames provided by political parties (or
other sources) acting as frame sponsors. This skill can vary in intensity (weak/strong
re-framer) and it will allow us to analise a wide diversity of journalistic practices and to
clarify the dependent attraction-rejection relationship between journalists and political
PR’s.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Paper panel 14 – Convergence and the newsroom
Tuesday, July 5th 8.30 - 10.00 (Room 2)
News Games and
rapprochement
Mobile
Journalism:
a
proposal
for
a
theoretical
Cappelletti Junior, Milton
University of Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain
With the development of the game industry and its growing importance to the
entertainment industry, most media companies are starting to use the games as a
new way to inform and entertain your audience, especially through online platforms,
which led to the emergence of the newsgames concept, the format in which video
games are produced and used to explain current information in a ludic way, putting
complex information into context and allowing greater interactivity through the use of
the practical elements of journalism applied to game design. This ludic information
can also be found in the core of Mobile
Journalism, owing to the fact that it finds here the technological support to adapt itself
to the user context and its ubiquity, being strongly linked to the user's identity and
their everyday social interactions within primary groups. Thus, this paper seeks to
establish the coordinates of a theoretical rapprochement between the Newsgames
and Mobile Journalism, aiming to establish relationships that enable the development
of common practices to suit the changing needs of the public to contemporary media
compounds.
The growing impact of video in online news genres
Negredo Bruna, Samuel
Journalism Projects Department, School of Communication, University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
The addition of video unleashes several simultaneous movements in the system of
online news genres: it stimulates diversity, enabling the generation of new branches,
and it brings some aspects closer to broadcast journalism, while making them diverge
further from their counterparts in print. This ongoing transformation is both part of and
shaped by media convergence, through a number of technological, corporate,
professional and narrative factors.
This paper looks at various ways of analyzing and conceptualizing such changes in
the production, consumption, and format of multimedia messages, and provides both
continuity and further development to existing classifications, in a way that also
assumes common roots, traceable constant features, and shared purposes.
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Video suits informative, interpretative, dialogic and argumentative genres on the web
in various ways, both reinforcing and enhancing their distinctive features and enabling
their evolution and growth in effectiveness and expressive wealth in a way that text
and still pictures could not provide by themselves.
The aforementioned is part of an ongoing PhD thesis research project that explores
the editorial impact of the development and growth of video production in online news
operations in Spain. Such effort is relevant both to updating the news genres
framework for online journalists, and to reinforcing the audiovisual mindset in the
education of aspiring online journalists, fitted to the technical possibilities and
expressive features that the internet currently provides.
The journalistic message within the convergence framework: a case study
analysis of hypertextual news stories in quality online media
Larrondo Ureta, Ainara
Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication, Univesity of the Basque Country,
Bilbao, Spain
Media convergence promotes an integration of languages previously dispersed and
the creation of innovative products with consequences in the traditional form of the
journalistic message. This scenario requires more thorough studies developing quality
criteria on issues such as the structuring of informa¬tion within a news site and the
combination of data in different media formats. This line of research is thus currently
one of the most productive in online journalism, as hypertextuality has turned into a
key element for studying the potential of web content and genres, as with multimedia.
Considering it, this paper discusses the effect of convergence in online journalistic
language, bearing in mind the foremost characteristics of communication in this
changing framework: complexity, depth, non-linearity, divergence, multimediality and
interactivity. This argument supports the case study presented in this paper, carried
out in the framework of the I+D project “Evolution of Spanish online media facing
convergence Message and content analysis” (CSO2009-13713-C05-04), funded by
the Spanish Government. This analysis examines structure, style and function of
hypertextual new stories published in worldwide online media which have been
selected by means of quality criteria: Clarin.com (Argentina), Guardian.co.uk (United
Kingdom), Elpaís.com (Spain), Lemonde.fr (France), Nytimes.com (United States),
Oglobo.globo.com (Brazil) and Repubblica.it (Italy). The research methodology is
based on a qualitative message analysis procedure focused on hypertext rhetoric:
types of links and non-linear reporting patterns, particularly those related to
coherence strategy of hypertextual narrative. The data codification has been carried
out using a database with a combination of fields, following the indicators proposed.
The study results make it possible to contrast data and establish significant
conclusions that show an enrichment of news message on the Web.
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Tradition and Innovation in Online Journalistic Genres
Tellería, Ana Serrano
University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain
The narrative of internet news is still mainly textual even when information comes
from different previous media (press, radio, tv) or it is an “online native” cybermedia.
Also its design is more related to a press one rather than an audiovisual one, bearing
in mind internet potentialities. Only when we paid attention to infographics or some
kind of specials, we could appreciate clearly an innovation in online journalistic
genres.
We propose a methodology to analyze online news from different type of cybermedia:
only online and previous one come from press, radio or tv. Methological approach will
be based on content analyses and Information Architecture and Visualization,
Interactive Design, Usability and Genre will be applied as main Academic principles.
Our aim is to focus on informative treatment and conclude which characteristics and
at what level is cybermedia influenced by their previous counterpart (press, radio or
tv). We will select one topic everyday and we will compare it between different
cybermedia. The selection of topics will include all sections offered and we are
planning to carry on it during one month.
Paper panel 15 – The future of newspaper journalism
Tuesday, July 5th 8.30 - 10.00 (Room 3)
IPad journalism - revolutionary or a canard?
Merja, Drake
Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Journalist Programmes, Helsinki, Finland
Background:
Journalism faced many challenges during the last decades. Maybe one of the
greatest influences has been the invention of the Internet. Online journalism has
played a very important role in the Internet’s growth (Foust 2005). According to Paul
(2008), the Internet is not the first disruptive technology that news organizations have
contended with, but it may be the widest reaching.
In recent years, there has been much discussion about what is the role of social
media and Web 2.0 in journalism. (Aunesluoma, Majava & Wilenius 2010; Kaplan &
Haenlein 2010; Kim, Jeong & Lee 2010; boyd & Ellison 2008; Burns 2008; Domingo
et al. 2008; Castells 2007; Lietsala & Sirkkunen 2008; Deuze 2006; Gillmor 2006;
Rosen 2005; 2004; Bowman & Willis 2003; Pavlik 2001.)
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Year 2010 was very glorious for Apples’s IPad e.g. over 2 million iPads were sold in
two months. Many newspapers and magazines have published their stories in IPadformat.
The research questions and method:
This research project investigates the role of IPad in Finnish magazines, with focus
on identifying how IPad is changing the journalistic procedure and what are reader’s
reactions to this new type of a journalistic product.
The research questions are:
1)
How revolutionary is IPad journalism?
2)
What is changing in journalistic procedures?
3)
What kind of a reader experience is IPad journalism?
The data will be collected by means of thematic interview. The interviewees are 40
journalists, photographers and chief editor. Readers (100) opinions will be collected
with a survey. Data will be analysed using Grounded Theory and Content Analyses.
Online and print news media: Comparative analysis on content, forms and
modes of presentation
Doudaki, Vaia
Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology,
Limassol, Cyprus
The debate on whether the internet has been the hub for a new journalism or even for
the death of journalism as it has developed in the last three centuries is far from over.
On the other hand, what can hardly been debated is that the online journalist engages
in new practices regarding information gathering and management and that novel
modes of news delivery and presentation have appeared online, a reality that cannot
have left unaffected the final product, the content of news.
Previous research in the field has shown that online news writing produces short
texts, fewer genres (compared to print), minimum originality of content, scarce source
attribution and authorship. At the same time, according to various researchers, new
formats of news delivery and presentation emerge online and the amount of
information offered through personalized and customized tools rises.
Aim of the proposed research is to study whether there is diversity of content between
print and online media and whether distinct common modes of news writing and
presentation can be located between media of the same kind.
For the purpose of the study comparative content analysis will be performed in four
newspapers and their corresponding web sites in Greece and in Cyprus (the two
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newspapers with the leading circulations in each country and their websites). These
countries of southern Europe constitute small media markets with delayed internet
adoption by (traditional) media organizations and subsequent late development of
online journalism.
Research will focus on diversity of journalistic content, forms, tools and modes of
presentation (or lack of it). In this context, issues of reproduction/originality of content,
storytelling forms, genres, sources and authorship, as well as of employment of
internet tools for immediate, personalized and customized information, will be
addressed and examined.
The development of local online journalism in South-Western France: the case
of La Dépêche du Midi
Smyrnaios, Nikos; Bousquet, Franck
University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France
Since the advent and consolidation of the web as a news medium, expectations about
its positive role in journalism diversity were high - especially when it comes to local
public space. News websites are generally thought as benefiting from low distribution
costs online in order to challenge well established players such as local newspapers,
TV and radio stations. This is particularly true in the case of France where the media
market is highly concentrated. At the same time, local news sites are expected to
innovate in the field of proximity services, citizen participation and journalistic formats.
Our study aims at verifying these hypotheses in the particular case of the MidiPyrénées Region of South-Western France (with a population of approximatively
2,5M, out of which about 1M lives around the city of Toulouse). The Midi-Pyrénées
Region is second in France regarding the number of corporate emplyees, intellectual
professions and students, thus theoretically a very appropriate field for the
development of local online journalism. Our study examines a diversified sample of
five local online news players (the dominant regional newspaper La Depêche, a local
venture of nationwide newspaper Libération, two city guides, Toulouseweb et
Toulouseblog, and a local online TV pure-player, AriegeNews).
In each case we conducted interviews with chief editors and journalists as well as
ethnographic observations in online newsrooms. The results of our study show that
eventhough the local news sector is developing rapidly on the web, it is still in
difficulty in becoming profitable. At the same time, editorial and journalistic innovation
seems to be more likely to emerge inside pure-players and marginal structures rather
than inside dominant media.
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The Metro revolution and beyond; 15 years of free daily newspapers
Bakker, Piet
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The launch of more than 300 free daily newspapers worldwide during the last 15
years defies the idea that newspaper markets are impossible to penetrate. Although a
third of papers closed down in the last ten years, newspaper circulation in most
countries with free newspapers is actually higher than before their entry. Readership
analysis of free newspapers shows that these papers have a younger audience than
paid newspapers, contradicting the notion that young people don’t read newspapers
anymore.
At the same time it is questionable whether the content of free dailies equals that of
paid dailies. Free dailies are smaller in size, count fewer pages than paid dailies, offer
no feature sections, have a smaller staff, do not publish on weekend days, often stop
publishing altogether during summer, rely heavily on news agency material and
allegedly focus on entertainment, sports and human-interest news. In terms of
content they seem to be a poor substitute for paid newspapers, which puts the ‘higher
total circulation’ and younger readership’ arguments in a somewhat more realistic
perspective. It could even be argued that free newspapers are responsible for the dire
situation paid papers are in, as they could lure readers away from serious news and
spoil advertising markets for ‘real’ newspapers.
In this article we will map the development of free newspapers after which we
concentrate on content and comparing free dailies with paid newspapers. Issues of
diversity and whether free newspapers actually add something to the general news
production will be raised as well. We will also research readership, concentrating on
differences between readers of free and paid newspapers and ask whether there is
substitution between free and paid newspapers; do free newspapers take away
readers of paid newspapers or do free newspapers ‘educate’ new readers for paid
newspapers?
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Paper panel 16 – The future of newspaper journalism
Tuesday, July 5th 8.30 - 10.00 (Room 4)
A multifaceted study of online news diversity: issues and methods
Marty, Emmanuel
CIM University of Paris 3 / LERASS University of Toulouse 3, Paris, France
Evaluating the pluralism of online journalism is both a major issue for democracy and
an academic challenge for researchers. The multiplicity of online news outlets and the
complexity of news consumption patterns make it particularly difficult to estimate the
degree of pluralism that the web is supposed to embody. Thus, only a combination of
multileveled analyses combining quantitative and qualitative research methods is able
to give a satisfactory response.
Our research project called IPRI (Internet, Pluralism and Redundancy of Information)
aimed at measuring the diversity of online news in France, through a transdisciplinary
study of several categories of websites (online newspapers, portals, blogs, pureplayers). Our purpose here is to present essentially the issues and methods of our
study.
Its main aspect was a quantitative analysis of a sample of thousands of articles: we
created a software called IPRI News Analyzer (IPRI-NA) to collect automatically
headlines from tenths of news sites through RSS feeds. We then developed a manual
classification method based on the data collected by IPRI-NA as means to test the
agenda-setting effect in the sector of online news. This revealed the variety of issues
and the types of websites generating diversity, compared to those leading to
redundancy.
In order to deepen our overview of French online journalism landscape, several other
analyses were led. First, the “offered pluralism”, as measured by the initial
quantitative study, was confronted to “consumed pluralism” through traffic analysis
based on statistics of news sites audiences. Then, a qualitative study of full text news
articles allowed us to identify the use of particular media frames, strategic cues and
linguistic routines. Finally, we made a comparison between our results concerning the
internet and another study related to TV news, to understand how the internet
contributes to the diversity of news in a larger media landscape.
New methods to analyze journalistic change on a micro-level. Thoughts,
examples and experiences
Keel, Guido
Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland
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In order to study journalism on the micro-level, standards for research projects have
evolved over the last decades (Weaver 1998).
This contribution wants to discuss which aspects of change can be measured in the
traditional way, which aspects need other methods, and what kind of other methods
would be suitable to measure change on the micro-level. The contribution is based on
the author’s journalism research projects analyzing change in journalism in
Switzerland. This was mainly done in two projects:
a)
A quantitative longitudinal journalism survey
b)
A qualitative research project aimed at describing how the internet has
changed journalism
Research has shown that traditional quantitative methods are still suitable to measure
some aspects of journalism and change on a micro-level. These methods have the
advantage of yielding results which are comparable to similar surveys. Aspects that
can be measured this way include socio-demographic data: education, political and
cultural background, career patterns etc.
However, some aspects can hardly be measured using quantitative surveys. This
concerns questions like individual orientation or journalistic identity. Here new
methodological approaches such as standardized journalists’ diaries or combinations
of interviews with content analysis or observation to validate data gathered in
interviews are needed to understand change. However, these approaches often do
not allow comparisons across space and time. Consequently, the resulting studies
often do not get the same attention like the seemingly hard facts from quantitative
research, ignoring the question how valid the data from standardized surveys actually
is, and how suitable it is to describe change.
In the trade-off between comparability of data thanks to standardized quantitative
methods, and more innovative methods, it is desirable that journalism research
focuses more on relevance than scientific tradition in order to stay relevant itself in a
fast changing world of journalism.
The Diversity of Scholarship on Journalism: How journalism journals reflect
theories, methods, and topics of journalism research – a content analysis (2008
– 2009)
Löffelholz, Martin; Rothenberger, Liane
Ilmenau University of Technology, Ilmenau, Germany
Over the course of time various changes in journalism created a diverse media
landscape. Since generally journalism studies are closely linked to its object, this
leads to the question whether the diversity of journalism is reflected by journalism
studies.
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To answer this question, we conducted a content analysis of academic articles
published in seven peer-reviewed English language journalism journals. The sample
comprises articles published in the following journals (volumes 2008 and 2009):
Brazilian Journalism Research, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, Journalism
& Communication Monographs, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly,
Journalism Studies, Journalism – Theory, Practice and Criticism, Pacific Journalism
Review.
Not only abstracts but complete articles were encoded. The code-book consists of 18
quantitative and qualitative variables pointing at the following questions of which the
results are indicators of the diversity (or uniformity) of journalism studies:
• Which theoretical approaches are applied? Above all, theoretical concepts relating
to analytical empirism.
• Which field of journalism research do most of the studies belong to? Communicator
research and research on media content prevail.
• Does the academic research address the multifaceted media environment or does it
focus on few specific topics? The articles show by some means diversity, but the vast
majority dealt with classical mass media (particularly newspapers).
• Which methods are used? Content analysis is the predominant research method
while surveys, observations, and other research methods are less represented.
• Do researchers apply multi-methodological research designs? Rarely.
• Do they stick to a national perspective or do they resort to international
comparisons? Journalism research mostly sticks to a national perspective.
• Do researchers rather turn towards user-generated or professional content? Even
those who chose the internet as research object mostly examined professional
content.
• How many articles do treat gender questions? Very few.
In sum, the paper will lay open gaps and desiderata, draw conclusions and suggest
possible improvements for future journalism studies in an emerging media landscape.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Tools to analyze interactivity in online news
Codina, Lluís; Díaz Noci, Javier
Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
Interactivity is one of the most intuitive concepts, but at the same time, one of the
most difficult one to be defined with some rigor. Anyway, when studying online media,
there is some agreement in order to focus the concept around four axes:
1. Navigation / Access: from this axis a user can develop some interactive actions to
move across the contents. Although these are in fact different concepts from different
points of view, in this first group information research and navigation are usually
included.
2. Communication / Participation. This axis is about communication amongst medium
and user, or amongst journalists and readers. It is also referred to citizen journalism,
defined as content contributions by users to the medium.
3. Adaptation: Adaptive interactivity is about a system capability which allows users to
adapt it to their needs or interests. Obviously, aspects related to the interface, content
selection and hierarchy are also important in online media.
4. Contents. Digital environment comprehends also an interactivity dimension linked
to the different information morphologies in which contents are expressed: text, sound
and video. Each one of these morphologies can appear through different interactive
actions. For example, video is a communication system which incorporates a time
flow.
But, today, an unresolved aspect, we are interested in developing an integral
approach to interaction, because most of the academic work on this subject treats just
some of the mentioned axis, but not all of them as a whole and not even researching
the logic relations amongst them.
The objective of our communication will be to present some tools to analyze
interactivity, taking into account the different axis explained above, and the primary
results of their application to a sample of relevant online national and international
newspapers to check and, eventually, to prove the validity of these tools.
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Paper panel 17 – New interpretations of classical concepts of journalism
Tuesday, July 5th 10.30 - 12.00 (Room 1)
Investigating at the grassroots: An analysis of the Slumlords investigation
storytelling strategies
Lunga, Carolyne
Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
The Daily Dispatch, a small daily commercial newspaper serving the eastern half of
the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa, has shown a strong historical commitment
to investigative and grassroots driven journalism. The Slumlords investigation won the
CNN Africa Award for digital journalism in 2009. Through the Slumlords investigation
which this paper is based, an investigation that shows housing problems in South
Africa and the mushrooming of slums, I argue that the Daily Dispatch has been able
to create a platform for a broader public discussion about issues in the public domain
and to bring readers into that discussion particularly sub-altern civil society. Through
qualitative content analysis and in depth interviews, I establish that the newspaper’s
employment of grassroots driven journalism shown when the paper goes to research
at the level of ordinary people resulted in the production of a diverse investigation.
This diversity is seen in the online platform where the story is told in the voices of the
marginalised groups and employs creative internet tools that enriches the
investigation. The map of Southernwood in which the investigation is based is
included. One can explore the slum houses and look at the living conditions that slum
dwellers are subjected to including overcrowding and other elements of ‘moral decay’.
One can listen to the interview clips of the people who live in the slums. One can also
click on positive and negative to zoom in and out of the area. There is a ‘tip us off if
there are slums in your area’ section which allows readers to share their own
experiences and help inform the paper’s news agenda by stating areas where there
are other slums. I also argue that a comparison of the offline and online investigation
of Slumlords shows that it is through these capacities of online media that the moral
argument has value added to it.
Personal communication freedom as a research project
Korkonosenko, Sergey G.
Faculty of Journalism, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia
The report is based on the project completed at present time, which full name looks
so: “The personal freedom in a mass communication”. This chain of words includes
some concepts, each of which separately is a theme forever, though they were
extremely sharpened in a changing media landscape. But special subject of analysis
is concluded in a combination of concepts because a personal communication
freedom (our short terminological version), literally, does not belong to a traditional
set of research themes.
Some general hypotheses were proposed and proved in the project. Firstly, personal
freedom and media exist in inseparable phenomenological unity. This unity has the
same significance both for person and for communication processes as their integral
property. Thus, there are bases to study an indivisibility of freedom, personality and
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media. Secondly, in continuation of the first: the personal communication freedom
represents a value of highest level. According to our assumptions, in a genre of
declarations few if any authors are ready to openly deny this value – mainly, those
who is inclined to extreme demonstrations or paradoxes. However the logic of close
ideological, administrative or economic interest leads to denying de facto. Here the
conflict of values proves itself. As the third hypothesis we put forward an opportunity
to construct an optimum model of communication freedom which should be organic
for certain nation. The theoretical idea was developed regarding to Russia in a
context of its social and cultural peculiarities.
One of cornerstones of the project is the determination – what kind of person (whose
freedom) is placed in analysis? The short answer is – each and everyone, without
unequal division into active and passive participants (“writer” and “reader”). Every
mature person is obliged to build responsibly own media behavior and to provide own
information safety.
The Photography as representation of the real: The visual identity created by
images of people in the middle east in the published national geographic
Meirinho de Souza, Daniel
Universidade Nova de Lisboa - Portugal, Lisboa, Portugal
The present work intends to bring up the reflection upon the function of the
photographic image as document and window to a world yet to discover, full of exotic
places and people with singular habits. From concepts based on the image theory
and photojournalism, it will be traced an analysis about photography as a mirror,
representing a reality, and its processes of reproduction of the real. As a case study
and thought a structured semiotic and symbolic analysis, it will be studied the
imagetic representation of the people of the Middle East in the Portuguese edition of
the National Geographic magazine. Some concepts regarding visual anthropology will
be used as theoretical bases to an empirical analysis of esthetic techniques and
narrative structures of the non-verbal language showed in the images on that
publication referring to Arab, Muslim and Islamic societies.
Individual experience as breaking news
Berezhnaya, Marina
Faculty of Journalism, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia
New technologies make information space accessible so each person can take part in
mass communication. It changes substantially journalistic practices as well as the
relations between those who produce news and those who consume news.
Personal experience becomes public without any journalistic mediation,
no
preliminary evaluation of a story is needed to meet the audience. It promotes diversity
of agenda items, story subjects, new topical trends which were ignored by media
before (in Russia there are examples of corruption, breaking law, home violence, civil
activities which came from the social network). Covering social aspects personal
stories become news themselves and are often the bases of further journalistic
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reports, investigations and public discussions. Original publicity makes it impossible
for media to ignore the story, competition forces them to cover it and journalists face
inevitable new practices.
They should be able to find out news in blogs and networks quickly.
They acquire the new source which information becomes public before being
checked. They have to promote some one else stories being not aware about the
truth. They need to investigate along with the process of new public information. They
compete not only with colleagues, but with the audience as with an equal participant
of media content.
There are media projects aimed at using the audience activity and involving it in
creative process of professional work. Special formats make amateur journalists
focus on definite aspects of life. Mostly they cover something shocking, curious or
funny leaving the details and interpretations to professionals; sometimes they take
functions of social control. Trying to adjust to the new communication reality media try
to channel civil activity of the people and make it more predictable.
Paper panel 18 – Journalism in Eastern Europe
Tuesday, July 5th 10.30 - 12.00 (Room 2)
Business media in an interstate conflict
Gavra, Dmitri; Savitskaya, Alena
Saint-Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Contemporary journalism exists in a variety of forms, depending on the functions
performed, targeted audiences, main subjects and specification of the discourse,
produced by mass-media. Parameters of the discourse (Teun A. van Dijk, 1988)
determine the format for the content, a style of argumentation, stylistic means, used
by journalists. The features of the business media discourse are easily recognizable:
the economic subjects are placed in the focus, evaluation of events is based on the
criteria of efficiency and benefits, journalists use some special terms and rational
arguments. But there are some sorts of events, which are beyond the usual practice
of business informing – conflicts, especially with the state institutions and
governments involved.
In the survey we analyze the conflict media discourse, produced by Russian
journalists during the economic conflicts between Russia on one side and Ukraine,
Georgia and Moldova on the other in years 2005 – 2009. Basing on our theoretical
typological model of media functioning in the conflict framework (Gavra, Savitskaya,
2010) and by means of content analysis we studied the content and contexts of
publications, the quality of argumentation, the composition of sources cited, the use of
manipulative technologies, the factual base and interpretations and the ratio of
“economic” and “political” dimensions of the media discourse. The “economic”
component was connected with the description of business practices and economic
context. The “political” component of media discourse appeared in case of
interpretation of the events from a political and conflictological point of view.
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The results show how the media discourse in cases analyzed transforms from
business towards political one. The empirical referents of this transformation are the
selection and interpretation of facts, the desire to dramatize the events, usage of
emotional arguments and untypical vocabulary. Thus, we fix the changes in the
functions, traditionally exercised by the business media.
Chasing the Unicorn.
Professionalization
Romanian
Journalism’s
Quest
for
Quality
and
Coman, Mihai; Gross, Peter; Ilie, Rad
University of Bucharest, Romania, Bucharest, Romania
The 2009 World of Journalism surveys of journalists’ perceptions of institutional roles,
journalism epistemologies, ethical ideologies, internal and external influences on their
work seems to suggest similarities among Eastern European countries, as well as
between them and countries in Western Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle
East and the United States. There is little evidence offered by studies about Eastern
European journalism to suggest that such sameness exists.
On the basis of focus group interviews with Romanian journalists, and a thorough
review of the existing literature on Romanian journalism published in the last decade,
this paper exposes the discrepancies between the answers provided in the Worlds of
Journalism survey and the reality in the field of news and information and
dissemination in that country. What surfaces in the study is the unmistakable
intersection between professional ideology and the extant economic, political and
cultural ideologies. The findings give rise to two important questions: What do the
findings say about (1) professionalization in Romania and (2) about the integration of
Romanian journalism into the exigencies of a democracy and of the European Union.
Diverse interpretations of media transparency: reformulating ethical journalism
in Ukraine
Grynko, Anastasiia
Mohyla School of Journalism, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv,
Ukraine
The study examined transparency and non-transparency (opacity) of media practices
in Ukraine as they were experienced, understood and interpreted by Ukrainian editors
and journalists during the presidential elections 2009-2010.
Based on the qualitative data collected from leading journalists and editors (method of
focus-group discussion), the author explores diversity of non-transparent influences
that challenge independent journalism in the country and analyzes how media
practitioners perceive and interpret these influences.
The study indicates the gap between the normative conceptualization of media
transparency (or how it is presented by professional rules and standards) and the
ways this phenomenon is evaluated, understood and interpreted by the individuals,
involved in media practices. Research findings showed that Ukrainian media
practitioners continue to experience multiple, mainly indirect, influences from news
sources, which are often perceived as acceptable, and find the ways to “keep
balance” between professional ethics and temptation to earn monetary “bonuses” for
coverage. Journalists tend to not only justify the influences on media content, but also
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reformulate ethical norms and concepts adjusting them to existing practices. It causes
further conflict between normative standards, their interpretation and implementation
in practice that is, according to Voltmer K. &Dobreva A. (2009), typical for new
democracies in which old structures and values coexist with new, democratic norms
(or what is understood to be democratic norms).
How does internet influence the professional practices of the gatekeepers?
Evidence from a national survey of the Romanian journalists
Vasilendiuc, Natalia
University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
The fact that the Internet has disrupted the traditionalist system of functioning of the
media is not a piece of news anymore. It has been shaped in the last decade by new
business models, consequently developing new journalism practices and permiting to
the public to participate and even produce news (citizen journalism, participatory
publishing) (Scott 2005, Nguyen 2006, Nip 2006). Thus, Internet is not a simple
source of information or space for public debate. It has become a place where a
number of media interweave, creating the premises for the production of a global
newsroom where the main actors are not so much journalists, as the consumers who
have the power to interchange information (the Content generation, Jarvis 2006) In
this context, a number of questions are necessary. How have these evolutions
influenced the professional practices of the journalists in general, but especially of the
gatekeepers from the newsrooms? What role does the public have today in the
production of the news in the traditional media and in the online media? How do
journalists see the future of the traditional media?
In my presentation for this conference, I will try to give an answer to all these
questions, by usins the results of a qualitative study carried out during December
2010 – January 2011 on a sample of 75 Romanian journalists, with roles of
gatekeepers in the newsrooms, which represent 50 national and local media
institutions (tv, radio, written press, news agencies and online media). The preliminary
results of the research prove that Romanian journalism outlets do not allow a
significant amount of participation from the public, while media organizations engage
in multimedia adoption in a different manner depending upon the organizational
structures, work practices, and the users’ representations.
Polish journalists two decades after political transformation: professional
standards and values
Stepinska, Agnieszka; Ossowski, Szymon
Faculty of Political Science and Journalism, University of A. Mickiewicz, Poznan,
Poland
This paper provides an update empirical data on professional features, values and
standards of Polish journalists. The study is based on 329 telephone interviews
conducted with a random sample of journalists in October and November 2009. The
comparison of the most recent data with results of the previous studies (conducted in
the 1980s and the 1990s) revealed that professional values of journalism in Poland
are shifting from a traditional profile (a social educator and a watchdog) to new ones
(such as a news provider). The survey also clearly showed differences between three
generations of journalists, that is those who entered the profession right after the
political transformation in the late 1980s, those who just recently graduated from the
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universities, and those who have been working for the media organizations for
several decades now. Interestingly, both the youngest and the oldest journalists seem
to share some of their characteristics (among others, they believe that journalists
should provide solutions to the problems of the ordinary people), while journalists who
entered the profession two decades ago seem to be more interested in investigating
claims and statements made by politicians. Since their professional career started
during the political transformation period, they still perceive themselves as an
adversary of the public officials. At the same time, despite of the facts, hardly any
journalist accepts the fact that the journalists provide entertainment and relaxation, or
that they should concentrate on news that’s of interest to the widest possible
audience.
Paper panel 18 – Journalism in Africa and the Middle East
Tuesday, July 5th 10.30 - 12.00 (Room 2)
Diversified sources, diverging agendas? Social networking and mediatisation in
TV news coverage of the 2010 Tunisian protests
Madrid Morales, Dani
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Barcelona, Spain
From the publishing of the McBride report onwards there has been scholarly interest
in examining the dynamics of an apparent process of homogenisation of content in
news outlets around the globe. Research has shown that convergence of content has
been particularly acute, theme-wise, in foreign (global) news items and, medium-wise,
in TV broadcasting. Multiple factors have been identified in such a process but
amongst them, reliance on news-agency served television footage appears to be
pivotal. Access to video material scores high in any classification of newsworthiness
in television news. This study aims at looking how the advent of social networking and
the easing of distribution of non professional video through social networks might be
able to modify the existing dynamics of news gathering and event mediatisation.
Based on an analysis of how four ‘global’ news outlets (CNN, BBC World, Al Jazeera
and France 24) covered the 2010 Tunisian protests, this paper tries to assess the
influence that social networks (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook) can have in setting the
news agenda. Whilst some mainstream media were slow in picking up the story of
Tunisian protests, others relied on audience generated content to report on the
events. Comparing the findings with other existing studies, I will put forward some
possible implications and areas for further research.
Investigating at the grassroots: An analysis of the Slumlords investigation
storytelling strategies.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Lunga, Carolyne
Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
The Daily Dispatch, a small daily commercial newspaper serving the eastern half of
the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa, has shown a strong historical commitment
to investigative and grassroots driven journalism. The Slumlords investigation won the
CNN Africa Award for digital journalism in 2009. Through the Slumlords investigation
which this paper is based, an investigation that shows housing problems in South
Africa and the mushrooming of slums, I argue that the Daily Dispatch has been able
to create a platform for a broader public discussion about issues in the public domain
and to bring readers into that discussion particularly sub-altern civil society. Through
qualitative content analysis and in depth interviews, I establish that the newspaper’s
employment of grassroots driven journalism shown when the paper goes to research
at the level of ordinary people resulted in the production of a diverse investigation.
This diversity is seen in the online platform where the story is told in the voices of the
marginalised groups and employs creative internet tools that enriches the
investigation. The map of Southernwood in which the investigation is based is
included. One can explore the slum houses and look at the living conditions that slum
dwellers are subjected to including overcrowding and other elements of ‘moral decay’.
One can listen to the interview clips of the people who live in the slums. One can also
click on positive and negative to zoom in and out of the area. There is a ‘tip us off if
there are slums in your area’ section which allows readers to share their own
experiences and help inform the paper’s news agenda by stating areas where there
are other slums. I also argue that a comparison of the offline and online investigation
of Slumlords shows that it is through these capacities of online media that the moral
argument has value added to it.
Mongrel newshounds for the rainbow nation? Exploring mutuality and mutual
exclusion between the ‘watchdog’, ‘guide-dog’, ‘attack-dog’ and ‘lapdog’ roles
in a South African public journalism project
Amner, Rod
School of Journalism and Media Studies, Grahamstown, South Africa
South Africa is currently witnessing bruising stand-off between the state and the
media over the appropriate role of the press in its nascent democracy. The ruling
African National Congress (ANC) has become increasingly critical of the South
African commercial media for its adversarial ‘watchdog’ stance towards the postapartheid government, its alleged neglect of poorer sections of the media market, and
for its seeming unwillingness to support the goals of the ‘developmental state’. In
2010 the ANC proposed a number of legal interventions, including the Protection of
Information Bill and a Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT), which could have negative
implications for freedom of expression, media freedom, and independent regulation of
the media. Meanwhile, the commercial media has strenuously resisted these
interventions, suggesting that the ANC is attempting to shield its leaders from criticism
and arguing that a more collaborative relationship between the state and the media
would render the media vulnerable to state propaganda.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Meanwhile, Christians et al (2009) have identified four key roles for the press in a
democracy:
the monitorial (‘watchdog’) role, including the carrying out of a strong
watchdog role (for example, through investigative journalism)
the facilitative (‘guide-dog’) role, where journalism is used to widen access and
promote active citizenship by way of deliberation and participation (for example,
through public journalism)
the radical (‘attack-dog’) role, which exposes abuses of power and aims to
raise popular consciousness of wrongdoing, inequality, and the potential for
fundamental change (for example, through radical alternative journalism); and
the collaborative (‘lapdog’) role, which involves some sort of partnership
between state and media (for example, through development journalism).
This paper explores the way in which these diverse roles intersected with one another
through South Africa’s first fully-fledged public journalism experiment (Dispatch Civic)
successfully run by a daily commercial newspaper (the Daily Dispatch). While certain
oppositions and conflicts of role emerged, the roles were often held in dynamic
tension to produce some surprisingly positive results. In so doing, the experiment
suggests that new ‘hybridised’ normative models of press conduct may be optimal in
South Africa’s emerging democracy.
The Photography as representation of the real: The visual identity created by
images of people in the middle east in the published national geographic
Meirinho de Souza, Daniel
Universidade Nova de Lisboa - Portugal, Lisboa, Portugal
The present work intends to bring up the reflection upon the function of the
photographic image as document and window to a world yet to discover, full of exotic
places and people with singular habits. From concepts based on the image theory
and photojournalism, it will be traced an analysis about photography as a mirror,
representing a reality, and its processes of reproduction of the real. As a case study
and thought a structured semiotic and symbolic analysis, it will be studied the
imagetic representation of the people of the Middle East in the Portuguese edition of
the National Geographic magazine. Some concepts regarding visual anthropology will
be used as theoretical bases to an empirical analysis of esthetic techniques and
narrative structures of the non-verbal language showed in the images on that
publication referring to Arab, Muslim and Islamic societies.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Paper panel 19 – Journalism in Spain & Portugal
Tuesday, July 5th 10.30 - 12.00 (Room 3)
European press representations of the Basque sovereignist plan
Cristina Perales García, Laura Filardo Llamas, Ludivine Thouverez
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona (Communication Department), Torelló
(Barcelona), Spain
This paper will analyse the national and international representation on the media of
the only statutory and sovereignty-based proposal within democratic Spain, known as
“Ibarretxe Plan”. This proposal was discussed on the Parliament on February 1, 2005,
and it was arranged around 10 issues, which eventually proposed a new political pact
within the Spanish state.
We will study those media representations of the Ibarretxe Plan– and therefore of the
Basque question – which can be found in two of the most important newspapers in
Spain (El Pais and El Mundo), France (Le Monde and Libération) and the British Isles
(The Irish News and The Telegraph).
In this research the media are understood as political actors whose actions have an
influence on how conflicts evolve (as they can either increase or decrease conflictperception). This can be done by means of the (de)legitimisation of both the
discursively implied participants and the actions done by them. The discourses found
within these newspapers usually follow a polarization strategy which results from the
positive or negative representation of certain social groups.
We will analyse news and editorials published in the six mentioned newspapers
between January 31 and February 2, 2005. A Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
approach will be followed in order to uncover how ideological beliefs are spread and
whether they are dependent on power abuse by any of the selected newspapers.
This article is part of the research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science
and Innovation CSO2010-20047, “The media construction of political and territorial
conflicts in Spain: a study on discourses and narratives”.
The case of Paritary Parliament: Media visibility of the strategies of the
Portuguese parliamentary deputies during the Cavaquismo period (1991/95)
Cabrera, Ana
Centro de Investigação Media Jornalismo/Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
This paper is part of an ongoing research project called “Feminine Politics – Gender
policies and strategies oriented toward the visibility of female members of Parliament
in Portugal (PTDC/CCI-COM/102393/2008), funded by Fundação Ciência e
Tecnologia (FCT).
Assuming the benefits of women's participation in politics, namely in terms of
enrichment and diversity, this communication focuses on the obstacles women must
overcome to be elected and more, to be hear, in the media (Ballington e Karam 2005;
Sawer, Marian et al. 2006; Paxton e Hughes 2007; Norris e Inglehart 2001).
Our goal is to characterize both the profile and the activities carried out by the female
members of Parliament (MP’s) in various cycles of Portuguese political life. Our
analyses focuses on the epiphenomena related to gender issues and examines how
the press covered the female parliamentary initiatives and their strategies for visibility
in the public sphere.
The methodology is based on a triangulation of methods, namely: a prosopographical
study of the female MP’s and a discursive analysis of the interviews conducted with
the parliamentarians and the journalists based at the Parliament.
The Paritary Parliament was an initiative from female MP’s taking place in
January/1192, during the right wing liberal government conducted by the Prime
Minister Cavaco Silva. The general goal was to raise public attention for the gap
between man and women regarding political representation and to force political
leaders to legislate in order to revert this situation.
The Paritary Parliament received major press coverage and thus configures one of
the epiphenomena constructed and selected by and for our analysis. Our conclusion
leads to the idea that it was a successful initiative, resulting in an increasing reflexion
around gender issues and forcing politicians to start a very productive discussion that,
shorter later, resulted in the implementation of quotas for female parliamentarians.
The influence of new persuasive and narrative techniques in local political
journalism. A case study of the local 2011 Spanish elections.
Gómez Baceiredo, Beatriz; Rodríguez Salcedo, Natalia
School of Communication, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
One of journalism’s current challenges lies in determining how much the strategies of
political consultants are influencing press coverage and information processes.
Political consultancies have gained not only presence but also influence and
competencies by enhancing their narrative techniques in order to produce information
more easily and make it more rapidly acceptable by the media. Sometimes, this
acceptance is so fast that the media forgets to appreciate that in addition to being a
source of information, consultants are also meant to be a source of persuasion.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Consultancies are no longer an enemy but rather a valuable source, capable of using
techniques such as storytelling. This successful American technique has just started
to be adopted by some Spanish communication strategists with different results. The
use of classical narratives - those that contain myths, rituals and archetypes- is not
only a good way to guarantee information about a candidate in the media, but also a
mean of making a story more acceptable and easier to understand to readers.
The aim of this paper will be to tackle the question of whether political consultants’
messages get through local print media and thus interfere in political journalism and
political events coverage. The research focus will be local and will be threefold. First,
it will analyze the political parties’ election programs to check what kind of profile they
are willing to promote in the press for their candidates in the 2011 local Spanish
elections next May. Secondly, the research will make a quantitative and qualitative
analysis of newstories and reports about the main political candidates appearing in
the top local Spanish newspapers –La Vanguardia and El Correo, representing two of
the Spanish local political melting points- during a fortnight –the last pre-electoral
week and the first electoral week-. Thirdly, it will try to detect the use of new
persuasive strategies such as storytelling. Therefore, the content analysis will outline
the kind of personal profile the local media offers the main political candidates and in
what sense it corresponds to the strategies of political consultants.
Whose is the agenda? Contents, practices and values in Portuguese regional
newspapers
Carvalheiro, José Ricardo; Correia, João Carlos; Canavilhas, João; Morais, Ricardo;
Sousa, João Carlos
Departamento de Comunicação e Artes, Universidade da Beira Interior, Covilhã,
Portugal
Portuguese national newspapers, according to Hallin and Mancini models, historically
remained as a media for dialogue between elite factions only, and never attained an
overarching public sphere that would include wider popular segments of the
population (role played by television).
Regional press, on the other hand, only in the last few decades developed modern
professionalism and partly incorporated market orientation, whilst adopting also new
technologies. Nevertheless it arguably keeps an important role in regional public
spheres (in the absence of regional television channels), and other characteristics
such as a strong sense of belonging to territory and proximity to elite sources at local
level.
This context of recent professional-market-technological environment calls for
research on what kind of public spheres Portuguese regional press is actually
constructing today and how it is using, or not, old and new tools for providing a range
of actors presence and voice in the media. What role does the regional press attribute
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
itself? Who are the actors that really define and feature the agenda? Which means do
the newspapers comprise for civic life?
This paper shows results from the project “Citizens’ agenda: journalism and civic
participation in Portuguese media”, involving research on a sample of nine regional
newspapers geographically distributed throughout the country.
Through content analysis of items such as sources, subjects and framing, we first
sketch the general picture painted by the regional press. Secondly, drawing on
inquiries to journalists and directors we aim to understand which professional
practices and values are prominent in regional press, paying special attention to
questions linking the journalistic ethos to democratic systems.
A further step of the research will involve the same set of newspapers in a public
journalism project, to be merely presented here.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Paper panel 20 – Journalism Worldwide
Tuesday, July 5th 10.30 - 12.00 (Room 4)
Content Analysis applied to Digital Media: A Comparison of News in The
Guardian, Clarín, and Asahi Simbun
Odriozola, Javier*; López, Guillermo**
*University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain
**University of Valencia, Spain
This study aims at estimating the intercoder reliability in content analysis of
international online media. The study is part of the research project "Evolution of the
online media in the context of convergence: message analysis" (CSO2009-13713C05-04-sub-SOCI-). It is important to note that intercoder reliability is a critical
component of content analysis and that neither the resulting data nor their
interpretation can be considered valid until a thorough preliminary examination is
undertaken.
According to the rules for these types of tests, at least 10% of the units of analysis
must be examined. In order to measure this rate agreement, we have selected three
of the twenty-five online media that configure the corpus of the research. Our decision
to analyse the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/), Clarín (http://www.clarin.com/)
and Asahi Shimbun (http://www.asahi.com/english/), was based upon their being
written in the two most relevant languages within the corpus.
The study encompasses two types of indexes. On the one hand, Holsti’s liberal
Method has been used to calculate the general reliability of our analysis and those
variables that have more than two categories. On the other hand, we have resorted to
Cohen's Kappa index, a conservative approach measuring the reliability of all "Yes" or
"No" variables both individually and as a whole.
Ethnolinguistic Framing
Vincze, Laszlo
Department of Media Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki,
Helsinki, Finland
This presentation explores how the ethnolinguistic identity of journalists with minority
language newspapers affects the frames in which they construct, present and
interpret media contents. The paper reveals new and important insights into how
minority language media contribute to ingroup identification and intergroup
relationships through constructing their own “minority realities” in three different
European settings from a comparative perspective.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Based on an integration of Ethnolinguistic Identity Theory (Giles and Johnson 1981,
1987) and Framing (e.g. Tuchman 1978, Scheufele 1999), the paper proposes the
approach of Ethnolinguistic Framing suggesting that ethnolinguistic identity can be a
powerful factor in building and developing frames.
The empirical part of the research builds on qualitative interviews conducted with
journalists of three minority language regional daily newspapers in Europe: Dolomiten
(a German newspaper in South-Tyrol, Italy), Vasabladet (a Swedish newspaper in
Ostrobothnia, Finland) and Háromszék (a Hungarian newspaper in Transylvania,
Rumania). Four interviews were carried out in each newspaper and analysed by
meaning categorization, meaning interpretation and narrative structuring (Kvale
1996).
The results indicate that in different contexts, ethnolinguistic identity in different ways
contributes to frame building. Yet, the major differences between the newspapers can
be traced back to how the journalists perceive the (1) sociohistorical status of their
language group, (2) the status and institutional support of the minority language (3)
and the structure and permeability of the intergroup boundaries between the minority
and majority language groups.
The observations suggest that ethnolinguistic frames are outcomes of the interaction
between ethnolinguistic identity on the one hand, and the authority/autonomy of the
objective professional norms on the other. The study points toward that by the means
of Ethnolinguistic Framing, minority language newspapers structure and organize the
social reality in a way through which they head to form actively the salience of
ethnolinguistic identity of their readers, the perception of the status of the minority
language group and the perception of the dynamics of intergroup boundaries.
References
Giles, H. & Johnson, P. (1981). The role of language in ethnic group relations. In J.C.
Turner & H. Giles (Eds.), Intergroup Behavior (pp. 199−243). Oxford: Blackwell.
Giles, H. & Johnson, P. (1987). Ethnolinguistic identity theory: a social psychological
approach to language maintenance. International Journal of the Sociology of
Language, 63, 69−99.
Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews. An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing.
Thousand Oaks: Sage
Scheufele, D.A. (1999). Framing as a theory of media effects. Journal of
Communication, 49(1), 103−122.
Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York:
Free Press
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Framing Drugs: Media coverage of cocaine in Spanish Press. The case of El
Pais, El Mundo, ABC and La Razón (January-June 2009)
Paricio Esteban, Pilar
Department of Audiovisual Communication and Public Relations. University CEU
Cardinal Herrera, Valencia, Spain
Spain is at the top of consumption of cocaine in Europe as it has been reported in
several European and international studies elaborated by United Nations and the
European and Monitoring Center for Drug and Drug Addition (EMCDDA, 2009;
UNODC, 2009, 2010). Taking into account that mass media may generate and
support public opinion climates (Muñoz Alonso, Monzón, Rospir, & Dader, 1992;
Wolf, 1994), this study presents the results of analyzing 126 texts about cocaine in
the Spanish daily papers El País (28), El Mundo (48), ABC (20) y La Razón (30) from
January to June in 2009. The methodology applied is double. From one hand, it is
developed an structural analysis following the model of Kayser and adapted by others
(Canga Larequi, Coca García, Peña Fernández, & Pérez Dasilva, 2010; Kayser,
1982; Núñez-Romero Olmo, 2009) and from the other hand, it is applied a content
analysis using Framing theory, previously used in studies related to biotechnology
(Durant, Bauer, & Gaskell, 1998; Nisbet, Brossard, & Kroepsch, 2003; Nisbet &
Lewenstein, 2002; Rodríguez Luque, 2008, 2009) and adapted to the issue of drugs
(Paricio Esteban, Núñez-Romero Olmo, & Sanfeliu Aguilar, 2010; Paricio Esteban,
Sanfeliu Aguilar, & Sanfeliu Montoro, 2002; Rodríguez Luque & Rabadán Zaragozá,
2010). It has been obtained a reliability of the 67 variables of .90 in Kappa Cohen’s
coefficient. The texts dedicated to cocaine used to be news (71.42%) dedicated
mainly to this substance in 84.95 % of the sample and with an average score of
graphic treatment of 31.33 over 100 points. The main topic of the texts used to be
related to crime (59.52%) with elevated quantities of haul (39.95%) and the main
frames used is also crime (54.76%) which contrast with very few texts dedicated to
prevention (11.11%).
Bibliography
Canga Larequi, J., Coca García, C., Peña Fernández, S., & Pérez Dasilva, J. (2010).
Terrorismo y política dominan las portadas de la prensa vasca. Análisis de contenido
y superficie de las primeras páginas de los diarios autonómicos. Revista Latina de
Comunicación Social, 65, 61-70. Retrieved from
http://www.revistalatinacs.org/10/art/883_UPV/05_J_Canga_et_al.html.
doi:10.4185/RLCS-65-2010-883-061-070
Durant, J., Bauer, M. W., & Gaskell, G. (1998). Biotechnology in the Public Sphere. A
European Sourcebook. Londres: Science Museum.
EMCDDA. (2009). Informe Anual: El problema de la drogodependencia en Europa.
Lisboa: Observatorio Europeo de las Drogas y las Toxicomanías.
Kayser, J. (1982). El diario francés. Barcelona: ATE.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Muñoz Alonso, A., Monzón, C., Rospir, J. I., & Dader, J. L. (Eds.). (1992). Opinión
pública y comunicación política. Madrid: Eudema.
Nisbet, M. C., Brossard, D., & Kroepsch, A. (2003). Framing science: The stem cell
controversy in an age of press/politics. Harvard International Journal of Press-Politics,
8(2), 36-70.
Nisbet, M. C., & Lewenstein, B. V. (2002). Biotechnology and the American Media.
The Policy Process and the Elite Press, 1970-1999. Science Communication, 4, 359391.
Núñez-Romero Olmo, F. (2009). La formación de las secciones de deportes en los
diarios de información general españoles antes de 1936. Análisis hemerográfico
estructural comparado. Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, Valencia.
Paricio Esteban, P., Núñez-Romero Olmo, F., & Sanfeliu Aguilar, P. (2010).
Tratamiento informativo de las drogas en las revistas para adolescentes 2008-2009.
Paper presented at the V Congreso Internacional Prensa y Periodismo Especializado.
Historia y Realidad Actual.
Paricio Esteban, P., Sanfeliu Aguilar, P., & Sanfeliu Montoro, A. (2002). Las
campañas de comunicación y publicitarias sobre sida y drogas. Revista española de
drogodependencias, 27(3), 489-513.
Rodríguez Luque, C. (2008). Research Note: Tratamiento periodístico de las 'células
madre' desde la perspectiva del Framing. El País y ABC (1996-2006). Doxa
Comunicación, 7, 165-171.
Rodríguez Luque, C. (2009). Tratamiento periodístico de las "células madre". Un
análisis desde la perspectiva del Framing (El País y ABC, 2002). In J. J. Fernández
Sanz, C. Sanz Establés & Á. L. Rubio Moraga (Eds.), Prensa y Periodismo
Especializado 4 (Vol. 2, pp. 197-208). Guadalajara: Asociación de la Prensa de
Guadalajara.
Rodríguez Luque, C., & Rabadán Zaragozá, M. J. (2010). Tratamiento periodístico de
las drogas en laprensa española desde la perspectiva del framing. El País, El Mundo
y La Razón (enero-juncio 2009). Paper presented at the V Congreso Internacional
Prensa y Periodismo Especializado.
UNODC. (2009). World Drug Report 2009: Oficina de las Naciones Unidas conta la
Droga y el Delito.
UNODC. (2010). Word Drug Report 2010: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Wolf, M. (1994). Los efectos de los medios. Barcelona: Paidós.
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
List of authors
Alphabetical list of contributors
Name
University
email
Paper
Panel
Adams,
Catherine
Agirreazkueanag
a Onaindia, Irati
Nottingham Trent University,
Nottingham, UK
catherine.adams
@ntu.ac.uk
Sport is King : Media
Coverage of Women’s Sport
Panel 20
Faculty of Social Sciences
and Communication,
Univesity of the Basque
Country, Bilbao, Spain
martuba555@ho
tmail.com
The journalistic message
within the convergence
framework: a case study
analysis of hypertextual
news stories in quality online
media
Panel 14
Al Habsi, Maiya
Media and mass
communication, Leicester
University, Leicester, United
Kingdom
[email protected]
k
Producing a New(s) View of
the Arab World? Studying
the Professional Knowledge
and Practices of Al Jazeera
Journalists.
Panel 3
Amoedo, Avelino
Journalism Projects
Department, School of
Communication, University
of Navarra, Pamplona,
Spain
avamoedo@una
v.es
News Continuity of Spanish
General-Interest Radio OnAir and on the Internet: An
Analysis of the Top Three
Reports from 12.00 to 14.00
pm in the 2008/2009 and
2009/2010 Broadcasting
Seasons
Panel 13
Araújo, Rita
Communication and Society
Research Centre, University
of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Organized Sources: a newsworthiness priority in Health
Journalism
Panel 11
Ashton, Matt
Nottingham Trent University,
Nottingham, UK
Sport is King : Media
Coverage of Women’s Sport
Panel 20
Bahfen, Nasya
RMIT University, Melbourne,
Australia
[email protected]
u
Creating radio waves:
lessons from a content
analysis of diversity in
student journalism
Panel 13
Bakker, Piet
University of Amsterdam,
Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
piet.bakker@uv
a.nl
Position, strategy and future
of regional news media
Panel 2
The Metro revolution and
beyond; 15 years of free
daily newspapers
Panel 15
Batista, Carla
Faculty of Social and Human
Sciences, University Nova of
Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
carlabaptista@o
niduo.pt
Gender as a source of
diversity in journalism:
media coverage during the
PREC period in Portugal
(1975/1976)
Panel 20
Berezhnaya,
Marina
Bernal Triviño,
Ana Isabel
St. Petersburg State
University, Russia
marinaberezhna
[email protected]
Individual experience as
breaking news
Panel 17
Maps of the technologies
available in the phases of
the communication process
Panel 5
Blöbaum, Bernd
Department of
Communication, University
of Muenster, Muenster,
Germany
[email protected]
Towards converging media
structures?
Panel 2
Boudana,
Sandrine
Media, Culture and
Communication, Steinhardt
School, New York
University, New York City,
sandrineboudan
[email protected]
French war correspondence:
An original model of
journalism or a case of
Americanization/globalizatio
Panel 4
Departament of Journalism,
University of Malaga,
Malaga, Spain
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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
USA
n of norms and practices?
Bousquet,
Franck
University of Toulouse,
Toulouse, France
The development of local
online journalism in the MidiPyrénées Region of SouthWestern France
Panel 15
Cabrera, Ana
Centro de Investigação
Media Jornalismo/Faculdade
de Ciencias Sociais e
Humanas Universidade
Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon,
Portugal
anacabrera@fcs
h.unl.pt
The case of Paritary
Parliament: Media visibility
of the strategies of the
Portuguese parliamentary
deputies during the
Cavaquismo period
(1991/95)ç
Panel 19
Cabrera
González, Mª
Ángeles
Campos Freire,
Francisco
Department of Journalism,
University of Malaga,
Malaga, Spain
[email protected]
Maps of the technologies
available in the phases of
the communication process
Panel 5
Facultad de CC de la
Comunicación, Universidad
de Santiago de Compostela,
Santiago de Compostela,
Spain
francisco.campo
[email protected]
om
Monitoring Study of two
main Spanish political
figures during a month of
pre-campaigning prior to
local elections scheduled for
May, 2011, using Nostracker
– system for management &
follow-up of online
conversations
Panel 1
Canavilhas, João
Departamento de
Comunicação e Artes,
Universidade da Beira
Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
[email protected]
Whose is the agenda?
Contents, practices and
values in Portuguese
regional newspapers
Panel 19
Cappelletti
Junior, Milton
University of Vigo,
Pontevedra, Spain
miltoncappelletti
@gmail.com
News Games and Mobile
Journalism: a proposal for a
theoretical rapprochement
Panel 14
Carvajal, Miguel
Universidad Miguel
Hernández, Elche, Spain
mcarvajal@umh
.es
How the media covered and
released WikiLeaks's
diplomatic cables? Analysis
of the news production
process and implications for
investigative journalism
Panel 7
Carvalheiro,
José Ricardo
Departamento de
Comunicação e Artes,
Universidade da Beira
Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
jr.carvalheiro@g
mail.com
Whose is the agenda?
Contents, practices and
values in Portuguese
regional newspapers
Panel 19
Castelló, Enric
Department of
Communication Studies,
Universitat Rovira i Virgili,
Reus, Spain
enric.castello@u
rv.cat
The Constitutional Court on
the Catalan Statute: Radio
Diversities
Panel 13
Claro Montes,
Cecilia
Facultad de Comunicación,
Universidad de los Andes,
Santiago, Chile
Media and journalists in
Twitter: Corporatizing the
personal and personalizing
the professional
Panel 7
Codina, Lluís
Pompeu Fabra University,
Barcelona, Spain
Tools to analyze interactivity
in online news
Panel 16
Mass Media and Multimedia
Convergence: A Research
Proposal for Content
Analysis in Spanish Online
Newspapers
2
Chasing the Unicorn.
Romanian Journalism’s
Quest for Quality and
Professionalization
Panel 18
Whose is the agenda?
Contents, practices and
values in Portuguese
regional newspapers
Panel 19
Getting personal:
Personification vs. datajournalism as an
international trend in
reporting about Wikileaks
Panel 7
Coman, Mihai
University of Bucharest,
Romania, Bucharest,
Romania
Correia, João
Carlos
Departamento de
Comunicação e Artes,
Universidade da Beira
Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
Czepek, Andrea
Jade University of Applied
Sciences, Media
Management and
Journalism, Wilhelmshaven,
Germany
lluis.codina@upf
.edu
mcoman53@ya
hoo.com
andrea.czepek
@jade-hs.de
455
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
de Haan, Yael
Amsterdam School of
Communication Research,
Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
y.m.dehaan@uv
a.nl
Diversity in journalism
approaches: Media’s search
to take “the man on the
street” into account
Panel 5
de la Fuente
Soler, Manuel
Departament de Teoria dels
Llenguatges i Ciències de la
Comunicació, Facultat de
Filologia, Traducció i
Comunicació, Universitat de
València, Valencia, Spain
manuel.delafuen
[email protected]
Mass Media and Multimedia
Convergence: A Research
Proposal for Content
Analysis in Spanish Online
Newspapers
Panel 2
de la Hera
Conde-Pumpido,
Teresa
De Maeyer,
Juliette
Universidad de Santiago de
Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
teresadelahera
@gmail.com
Spanish media in the App
Store. New ways in the
iPhone’s Kingdom
Panel 12
Dpt. of Information and
Communication Sciences,
Université Libre de Bruxelles
(ULB), Brussels, Belgium
juliette.de.maey
[email protected]
To link or not to link? An
ethnographic inquiry into
newsroom dynamics.
Panel 6
Díaz Noci, Javier
Pompeu Fabra University,
Barcelona, Spain
javier.diaz@upf.
edu
Online news' comments: A
sense of community from an
ethical and legal perspective
Panel 1
The journalistic message
within the convergence
framework: a case study
analysis of hypertextual
news stories in quality online
media
Panel 14
Tools to analyze interactivity
in online news
Panel 16
Mass Media and Multimedia
Convergence: A Research
Proposal for Content
Analysis in Spanish Online
Newspapers
Panel 2
Narratology of (online) news
Panel 4
Online news' comments: A
sense of community from an
ethical and legal perspective
Panel 1
IPad journalism revolutionary or a canard?
Panel 15
Domingo, David
Rovira i Virgili University,
Tarragona, Spain
Drake, Merja
Haaga-Helia University of
Applied Sciences, Journalist
Programmes, Helsinki,
Finland
Fernandes del
Pozo, Doris
Facultad de CC de la
Comunicación, Universidad
de Santiago de Compostela,
Santiago de Compostela,
Spain
Monitoring Study of two
main Spanish political
figures during a month of
pre-campaigning prior to
local elections scheduled for
May, 2011, using Nostracker
– system for management &
follow-up of online
conversations
Panel 1
Filardo Llamas,
Laura
Universitat Rovira i Virgili,
Tarragona (Communication
Department), Torelló
(Barcelona), Spain
European press
representations of the
basque sovereignist plan
Panel 19
García Avilés,
José Alberto
Universidad Miguel
Hernández, Elche, Spain
jose.garciaa@u
mh.es
How the media covered and
released WikiLeaks's
diplomatic cables? Analysis
of the news production
process and implications for
investigative journalism
Panel 7
Gavra, Dmitri
Saint-Petersburg State
University, Saint-Petersburg,
Russia
[email protected]
Business media in an
interstate conflict
Panel 18
Gómez
Baceiredo,
Beatriz
School of Communication,
University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
bgomezb@unav
.es
The influence of new
persuasive and narrative
techniques in local political
journalism. A case study of
Panel 19
merja.drake@ha
aga-helia.fi
456
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
the local 2011 Spanish
elections.
González, José
Luis
Universidad Miguel
Hernández, Elche, Spain
jose.gonzalez@
umh.es
How the media covered and
released WikiLeaks's
diplomatic cables? Analysis
of the news production
process and implications for
investigative journalism
Panel 7
Gross, Peter
University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, TN, USA
[email protected]
Chasing the Unicorn.
Romanian Journalism’s
Quest for Quality and
Professionalization
Panel 18
Grynko,
Anastasiia
Mohyla School of
Journalism, National
University of Kyiv-Mohyla
Academy, Kyiv, United
Kingdomraine
agrynko@gmail.
com
Diverse interpretations of
media transparency:
reformulating ethical
journalism in Ukraine
Panel 18
Hanitzsch,
Thomas
Institute of Communication
Studies and Media
Research, University of
Munich, Munich, Germany
[email protected]
mu.de
What Shapes the News
around the World? How
journalists in 18 countries
perceive influences on their
work
Panel 3
Kanthack, Eva
Department of
Communication, University
of Muenster, Muenster,
Germany
eva.kanthack@g
mx.de
Towards converging media
structures?
Panel 2
Keel, Guido
Zurich University of Applied
Sciences, Winterthur,
Switzerland
guido.keel@zha
w.ch
New methods to analyze
journalistic change on a
micro-level. Thoughts,
examples and experiences
Panel 16
Kinnebrock,
Susanne
Institute for Language and
Communication Studies,
RWTH Aachen University,
Germany
s.kinnebrock@is
k.rwthaachen.de
Convergence and Diversity
Panel 2
Korkonosenko,
Sergei G.
St. Petersburg State
University, Russia
Sergey@sk4223
.spb.edu
Personal communication
freedom as a research
project
Panel 17
Kretzschmar,
Sonja
Institute for Language and
Communication Studies,
RWTH Aachen University,
Germany
Convergence and Diversity
Panel 2
Kreykenbohm,
Birgit
University of Aruba,
Oranjestad, Aruba
kreykenbohm@
gmail.com
Changing relations in the
Kingdom of the Netherlands,
2005-2010: A comparison of
coverage and mutual
representation in Aruban,
Curaçaoan and Dutch
newspapers.
Panel 9
La Porte, Teresa
Public Communication
Department. School of
Communication. Universityt
of Navarra, Pamplona,
Spain
mtalfaro@unav.
es
Journalism and global
governance: the portrayal of
non-state political actors
Panel 9
Larrondo Ureta,
Ainara
Faculty of Social Sciences
and Communication,
Univesity of the Basque
Country, Bilbao, Spain
ainara.larrondo
@ehu.es
The journalistic message
within the convergence
framework: a case study
analysis of hypertextual
news stories in quality online
media
Panel 14
Leiva, Ricardo
School of Communication,
University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
[email protected]
Media companies and their
adoption of radical
technologies
Panel 5
León,
Bienvenido
Department of Journalism,
School of Communication,
University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
[email protected]
Balance as a source of
misinformation. A study of
the coverage of the
Copenhagen summit on
climate change in the
Panel 11
457
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Spanish press.
Llorca Abad,
Germán
Fac.de Filologia, Traducció i
Comunicació, Universitat de
València, Spain
German.Llorca
@uv.es
Mass Media and Multimedia
Convergence: A Research
Proposal for Content
Analysis in Spanish Online
Newspapers
Panel 2
Löffelholz,
Martin
Ilmenau University of
Technology, Ilmenau,
Germany
martin.loeffelhol
[email protected]
The Diversity of Scholarship
on Journalism: How
journalism journals reflect
theories, methods, and
topics of journalism research
– a content analysis (2008 –
2009)
Panel 16
Lopes, Felisbela
Communication and Society
Research Centre, University
of Minho, Braga, Portugal
[email protected]
minho.pt
Organized Sources: a newsworthiness priority in Health
Journalism
Panel 11
López, Guillermo
University of Valencia,
Valencia, Spain
guillermo.lopez
@uv.es
Content Analysis applied to
Digital Media: A Comparison
of News in The Guardian,
Clarín, and Asahi Simbun
Panel 20
López Pan,
Fernando
School of Communication,
University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
lopezpan@unav
.es
The influence of AngloAmerican Journalism in the
Spanish Journalism tradition
Panel 4
López-Hermida
Russo, Alberto
Facultad de Comunicación,
Universidad de los Andes,
Santiago, Chile
[email protected]
Media and journalists in
Twitter: Corporatizing the
personal and personalizing
the professional
Panel 7
Lunga, Carolyne
Rhodes University,
Grahamstown, South Africa
carolynelunga@
yahoo.com
Investigating at the
grassroots: An analysis of
the Slumlords investigation
storytelling strategies
Panel 18
Lupton, Hannah
Nottingham Trent University,
Nottingham, UK
Sport is King : Media
Coverage of Women’s Sport
Panel 20
Manfredi
Sánchez, Juan
Luis
Marinho, Sandra
IE University, Segovia,
Spain
Investigative journalism and
transparency. Three cases
of study.
Panel 7
Organized Sources: a newsworthiness priority in Health
Journalism
Panel 11
[email protected]
m
Communication and Society
Research Centre, University
of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Martínez-Costa,
María del Pilar
Journalism Projects
Department, School of
Communication, University
of Navarra, Pamplona,
Spain
marcosta@unav
.es
News Continuity of Spanish
General-Interest Radio OnAir and on the Internet: An
Analysis of the Top Three
Reports from 12.00 to 14.00
pm in the 2008/2009 and
2009/2010 Broadcasting
Seasons
Panel 13
Marty,
Emmanuel
CIM University of Paris 3 /
LERASS University of
Toulouse 3, Paris, France
manu.marty@g
mail.com
A multifaceted study of
online news diversity: issues
and methods
Panel 16
Masip, Pere
Ramon Llull University,
Barcelona, Spain
PereMM@blanq
uerna.url.edu
Online news' comments: A
sense of community from an
ethical and legal perspective
Panel 1
Meirinho de
Souza, Daniel
Universidade Nova de
Lisboa - Portugal, Lisboa,
Portugal
danielmeirinho
@hotmail.com
The Photography as
representation of the real:
The visual identity created
by images of people in the
middle east in the published
national geographic
Panel 18
Mellado, Claudia
Institute of Communication
Studies and Media
Research, University of
Munich, Munich, Germany
What Shapes the News
around the World? How
journalists in 18 countries
perceive influences on their
work
Panel 3
458
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Mendes Flores,
Teresa
CIMJ - UNL, Lisbon,
Portugal
teresa.flores@s
apo.pt
Photojournalistic coverage
of portuguese women MP’s:
the dificult issue of diversity
in two case studies.
Panel 4
Meso, Koldo
Ramon Llull University,
Barcelona, Spain
koldo.meso@eh
u.es
Online news' comments: A
sense of community from an
ethical and legal perspective
Panel 1
Micó, Josep
Lluís
Ramon Llull University,
Barcelona, Spain
JosepLluisMS@
blanquerna.url.e
du
Online news' comments: A
sense of community from an
ethical and legal perspective
Panel 1
Middendorf,
Hannah
Department of
Communication, University
of Muenster, Muenster,
Germany
hannah.middend
[email protected]
Towards converging media
structures?
Panel 2
Milioni, Dimitra L
Cyprus University of
Technology, Limassol,
Cyprus
dimi.milioni@gm
ail.com
What do we know about
UGC? Reviewing scholarly
accounts on User-generated
content in established media
websites
Panel 4
Montagut, Marta
Department of
Communication Studies,
Universitat Rovira i Virgili,
Reus, Spain
marta.montagut
@urv.cat
The Constitutional Court on
the Catalan Statute: Radio
Diversities
Panel 13
Morais, Ricardo
Departamento de
Comunicação e Artes,
Universidade da Beira
Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
rm.ricardomorais
@gmail.com
Whose is the agenda?
Contents, practices and
values in Portuguese
regional newspapers
Panel 19
Social networks and
journalism: how audiences
can set the media agenda
Panel 1
Moreno, Elsa
Journalism Projects
Department, School of
Communication, University
of Navarra, Pamplona,
Spain
emoreno@unav.
es
News Continuity of Spanish
General-Interest Radio OnAir and on the Internet: An
Analysis of the Top Three
Reports from 12.00 to 14.00
pm in the 2008/2009 and
2009/2010 Broadcasting
Seasons
Panel 13
Negredo Bruna,
Samuel
Journalism Projects
Department, School of
Communication, University
of Navarra, Pamplona,
Spain
snegredo@alum
ni.unav.es
The growing impact of video
in online news genres
Panel 14
Nicey, Jeremie
lab. CIM, Univ. Paris 3
Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris,
France
jeremie.nicey@u
niv-paris3.fr
Still specific ? – The press
agency AFP among the
diversity of colleagues,
partners and amateurs, in
the digital era
Panel 5
Nielsen, Rasmus
Kleis
Reuters Institute for the
Study of Journalism, Oxford
University, Oxford, England
rasmus.nielsen
@politics.ox.ac.
uk
The Absence of
Americanisation—media
systems development in six
developed democracies,
2000-2009
Panel 3
Núñez-Romero,
Francisco
Department of Audiovisual
Commu-nication and Public
Relations. University CEU
Cardinal Herrera, Valencia,
Spain
Framing Drugs: Media
coverage of cocaine in
Spanish Press. The case of
El Pais, El Mundo, ABC and
La Razón (January-June
2009)
Panel 20
Odriozola, Javier
Departamento de
Periodismo II, Facultad de
Ciencias Sociales y de la
Comunicación Universidad
de País Vasco, Bilbao,
Spain
Content Analysis applied to
Digital Media: A Comparison
of News in The Guardian,
Clarín, and Asahi Simbun
Panel 20
Ossowski,
Szymon
Faculty of Political Science
and Journalism, University
of A. Mickiewicz, Poznan,
Poland
Polish journalists two
decades after political
transformation: professional
standards and values
Panel 18
javodriozola@ho
tmail.com
459
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Papa, Venetia
Cyprus University of
Technology, Limassol,
Cyprus
papa.venia@gm
ail.com
What do we know about
UGC? Reviewing scholarly
accounts on User-generated
content in established media
websites
Panel 4
Paricio Esteban,
Pilar
Department of Audiovisual
Communication and Public
Relations, . University CEU
Cardinal Herrera, Valencia,
Spain
[email protected]
u.es
Framing Drugs: Media
coverage of cocaine in
Spanish Press. The case of
El Pais, El Mundo, ABC and
La Razón (January-June
2009)
Panel 20
Perales García,
Cristina
Universitat Rovira i Virgili,
Tarragona (Communication
Department), Torelló
(Barcelona), Spain
cristina.perales
@urv.cat
European press
representations of the
basque sovereignist plan
Panel 19
Pereira Rosa,
Gonçalo
Centro de Estudos de
Comunicação e Cultura,
Universidade Católica
Portuguesa, Lisboa,
Portugal
goncalopr@netc
abo.pt
Making Sense Out of
Newspaper Humour - The
Swine Flu Pandemic in
Portugal
Panel 11
Pollack, Hanne
Nottingham Trent University,
Nottingham, UK
Sport is King : Media
Coverage of Women’s Sport
Panel 20
Rad, Ilie
University of Bucharest,
Romania, Bucharest,
Romania
Chasing the Unicorn.
Romanian Journalism’s
Quest for Quality and
Professionalization
Panel 18
Rebillard, Franck
CIM University of Paris 3 /
LERASS University of
Toulouse 3, Paris, France
A multifaceted study of
online news diversity: issues
and methods
Panel 16
Rodríguez
Luque, Cristina
Department of Audiovisual
Communication and Public
Relations, University CEU
Cardinal Herrera, Valencia,
Spain
Framing Drugs: Media
coverage of cocaine in
Spanish Press. The case of
El Pais, El Mundo, ABC and
La Razón (January-June
2009)
Panel 20
Rodríguez
Salcedo, Natalia
School of Communication,
University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
nrodriguez@una
v.es
The influence of new
persuasive and narrative
techniques in local political
journalism. A case study of
the local 2011 Spanish
elections.
Panel 19
Rojo Villada,
Pedro Antonio
Uniresity of Murcia, Murcia,
Spain
[email protected]
Maps of the technologies
available in the phases of
the communication process
Panel 4
Rothenberger,
Liane
Ilmenau University of
Technology, Ilmenau,
Germany
lianetessa.rothenberg
[email protected]
The Diversity of Scholarship
on Journalism: How
journalism journals reflect
theories, methods, and
topics of journalism research
– a content analysis (2008 –
2009)
Panel 4
Ruão, Teresa
Communication and Society
Research Centre, University
of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Organized Sources: a newsworthiness priority in Health
Journalism
Panel 11
Ruiz Caballero,
Carlos
Ramon Llull University,
Barcelona, Spain
carlesrc@blanq
uerna.url.edu
Online news' comments: A
sense of community from an
ethical and legal perspective
Panel 1
Salaverría,
Ramón
School of Communication,
University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain
rsalaver@unav.
es
Diversity in news linking
styles: a case study of
ElPaís.com
Panel 6
Savitskaya,
Alena
Saint-Petersburg State
University, Saint-Petersburg,
Russia
Business media in an
interstate conflict
Panel 18
Sehl, Annika
Institute of Journalism, TU
Dortmund University,
Dortmund, Germany
Audience Participation
Motivated by Media Politics:
First data about a newly
introduced participatory TV
Panel 1
[email protected]
460
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
channel in Germany
Serrano Tellería,
Ana
Smyrnaios,
Nikos
University of Cantabria,
Santander, Spain
anaserranotelleri
[email protected]
Tradition and Innovation in
Online Journalistic Genres
Panel 14
University of Toulouse,
Toulouse, France
smyrnaios@gm
ail.com
The development of local
online journalism in SouthWestern France: the case of
La Dépêche du Midi
Panel 15
Smyrnaios,
Nikos
University of Toulouse,
Toulouse, France
smyrnaios@gm
ail.com
A multifaceted study of
online news diversity: issues
and methods
Panel 16
Sousa, João
Carlos
Departamento de
Comunicação e Artes,
Universidade da Beira
Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
Whose is the agenda?
Contents, practices and
values in Portuguese
regional newspapers
Panel 19
Steinbrecher,
Michael
Institute of Journalism, TU
Dortmund University,
Dortmund, Germany
Audience Participation
Motivated by Media Politics:
First data about a newly
introduced participatory TV
channel in Germany
Panel 1
Stepinska,
Agnieszka
Faculty of Political Science
and Journalism, University
of A. Mickiewicz, Poznan,
Poland
agnieszka.stepin
[email protected]
l
Polish journalists two
decades after political
transformation: professional
standards and values
Panel 18
Szynol, Adam
Institute of Journalism and
Social Communication,
University of Wroclaw,
Poland, Wroclaw, Poland
adam.szynol@w
p.pl
Verlagsgruppe Passau,
Orkla Media and Mecom –
different business strategies
in Polish press market.
Panel 12
Thouverez,
Ludivine
Autonomous University of
Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
European press
representations of the
basque sovereignist plan
Panel 19
Toural Bran,
Carlos
Universidad de Santiago de
Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
carlostoural@g
mail.com
Spanish media in the App
Store. New ways in the
iPhone’s Kingdom
Panel 12
Tous-Rovirosa,
Anna
Department of Journalism
and Communication
Sciences, Autonomous
University of Barcelona,
Aachen, Spain
anna.tous@uab.
cat
International On-Line News.
A mediological analysis of
diversity versus the
traditional
Panel 9
Uotila, Panu
Department of
Communication, University
of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä,
Finland
panu.uotila@jyu.
fi
Changing news formats in
online newspapers
Panel 6
Vadratsikas,
Konstantinos
Cyprus University of
Technology, Limassol,
Cyprus
What do we know about
UGC? Reviewing scholarly
accounts on User-generated
content in established media
websites
Panel 4
van der Wurff,
Richard
The Amsterdam School of
Communications Research
ASCoR, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
r.j.w.vanderwurff
@uva.nl
Diversity and
deliberativeness in TV news
Panel 13
van Kerkhoven,
Marco
University of Applied
Sciences Utrecht, Utrecht,
The Netherlands
marco.vankerkh
[email protected]
Position, strategy and future
of regional news media
Panel 2
Vara Miguel,
Alfonso
Media Management
Department. School of
Journalism. University of
Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
[email protected]
News behind the paywall:
the editorial strategy of
WSJ.com
Panel 12
Vasilendiuc,
Natalia
University of Bucharest,
Bucharest, Romania
nvasilendiuc@g
mail.com
How does internet influence
the professional practices of
the gatekeepers? Evidence
from a national survey of the
Romanian journalists
Panel 18
Verhoeven,
Pieter
The Amsterdam School of
Communications Research
ASCoR, Amsterdam, The
Diversity and
deliberativeness in TV news
Panel 13
461
Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Netherlands
Vincze, Laszlo
Department of Media
Studies, Faculty of Social
Sciences, University of
Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Wake, Alexandra
laszlo.vincze@h
elsinki.fi
Ethnolinguistic Framing
Panel 20
RMIT University, Melbourne,
Australia
Creating radio waves:
lessons from a content
analysis of diversity in
student journalism
Panel 13
Weaver, David
School of Journalism,
Indiana University,
Bloomington, IN, USA
The Global Journalist in the
21st Century: A
Comparative Look at the
Backgrounds, Beliefs and
Values of Journalists Around
the World
Panel 3
Willnat, Lars
School of Journalism,
Indiana University,
Bloomington, IN, USA
lwillnat@indiana
.edu
The Global Journalist in the
21st Century: A
Comparative Look at the
Backgrounds, Beliefs and
Values of Journalists Around
the World
Panel 3
Yanardagoglu,
Eylem
Bahcesehir University,
Istanbul, Turkey
eyanardagoglu
@gmail.com
Diversification of Foreign
News Reporting: The
example of Foreign
Correspondents based in
Turkey
Panel 9
462
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