scholarly journals The ignored audience: A multi-method reception study on children and television news in Albania

Childhood ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emiljano Kaziaj ◽  
Sofie Van Bauwel
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
News Media ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Broadcast News ◽  
Emotional Maturity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Reception Study ◽  
The Public Sphere

Children are not considered to be an appropriate audience for news coverage based on their presumed lack of emotional maturity, critical thinking and proper knowledge. This article challenges these views by presenting the opinions of children aged 10–15 who report having watched broadcast news nearly every day. Additionally, the views of adults aged 25–62 are investigated. Children contest to the ways they are being portrayed by the news media and demonstrate their need to be considered as active participants in the public sphere, which is presented by the news media as an exclusive domain for adults.

Global Constructions of ‘Korupsi’ in a Local Public Sphere: A Cross-Cultural Malaysian Reception Study

2002 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-125
Author(s):  
Tony Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Television News ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Audience Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Reception Study ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Audience Responses ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
News Programs

Audience responses to television are at the heart of sense-making in the public sphere. Research on viewers' readings of economic, political and social events in news programs, invariably constructed around the activities of ‘significant’ individuals, is of particular consequence for understanding the functioning of a democracy. This paper is a cross-cultural reception study of how audiences come to interpret the program genre of television news. In a process of comprehension characterised by fusing/feuding horizons of understanding the world, viewers playfully accommodate the meaning of programs in their everyday lives. Analysis of television's reception should be tested against audience activity. Theory must be corroborated. Drawing from a significant literature discussing the phenomenology of ludic experience, the article theorises trans-cultural reception of Western (British) television by Asian (Malaysian) viewers as seriously ‘playful’. Academic assertions are assessed as illuminating audience response.

Elite News Coverage of Climate Change

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell Boykoff ◽  
Gesa Luedecke
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

During the past three decades, elite news media have become influential translators of climate change linking science, policy, and the citizenry. Historical trends in public discourse—shaped in significant part by elite media—demonstrate news media’s critical role in shaping public perception and the level of concern towards climate change. Media representations of climate change and global warming are embedded in social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions that influence individual-level processes such as everyday journalistic practices. Media have a strong influence on policy decision-making, attitudes, perspectives, intentions, and behavioral change, but those connections can be challenging to pinpoint; consequently, examinations of elite news coverage of climate change, particularly in recent decades, have sought to gain a stronger understanding of these complex and dynamic webs of interactions. In so doing, research has more effectively traced how media have taken on varied roles in the climate change debate, from watch dogs to lap dogs to guard dogs in the public sphere. Within these areas of research, psychological aspects of media influence have been relatively underemphasized. However, interdisciplinary and problem-focused research investigations of elite media coverage stand to advance considerations of public awareness, discourse, and engagement. Elite news media critically contribute to public discourse and policy priorities through their “mediating” and interpretative influences. Therefore, a review of examinations of these dynamics illuminate the bridging role of elite news coverage of climate change between formal science and policy, and everyday citizens in the public sphere.

The Public Sphere and the Telangana Movement

2014 ◽  
Vol 152 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Padmaja Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
News Media ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Television News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Other Information ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Television Coverage ◽  
Political Turmoil

The 60-year-old demand for a separate state for the Telangana region was an instance in India's recent history when political turmoil resolved itself primarily through the force of argumentation and public discourse. News media and other information forums played a complex role in this process. The multi-pronged debate on Telangana helped revitalise the public sphere, setting in motion what Habermas calls ‘a critical process of public communication through the very organisations that mediatize it’. Live coverage of events on television news channels triggered intense debates on other forums, where inclusive, independent argumentation could take place. The intense television coverage was part of a continuum of political discourse on various platforms, transforming and being transformed in the context of a history of oppositional politics. This article argues that it is the availability of spaces for critical rational debate that is crucial for democratic practice.

‘The Democracy of Conversation’: The Panel and the Public Sphere

2005 ◽  
Vol 116 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
News Media ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fundamental Part ◽  
News Program ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Worrying Trend

If news is a fundamental part of the public sphere and ideals of democracy, then continuing assertions about the public's lack of engagement with its topics is a worrying trend. However, much of this worry may be conflated by a lack of understanding about both the lived experiences of audiences (particularly youth audiences) and the news media environment more generally. This paper examines The Panel, a Ten Network ‘new’ news program which appears to have a significant deal of power in the mediatised postmodern public sphere. Through its discursive format, and by making news more comprehensible and interesting, the program is able to increase the potential for everyday ‘rational-critical’ debate at the heart of the public sphere (Habermas, 1989: 117). This theory is examined here through the use of interviews with members of The Panel's production team and focus groups conducted with youth audiences.

Editorial Journalism and Newspapers’ Editorial Opinions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Firmstone
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Physical Geography ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Advocacy Journalism ◽  
The Public Sphere

Editorial journalism and newspapers’ editorial opinions represent an area of research that can make an important contribution to our understanding of the relationship between the press and politics. Editorials are a distinctive format and are the only place in a newspaper where the opinions of a paper as an organization are explicitly represented. Newspapers and the journalists who write editorials play a powerful role in constructing political debate in the public sphere. They use their editorial voice to attempt to influence politics either indirectly, through reaching public opinion, or directly, by targeting politicians. Editorial journalism is at its most persuasive during elections, when newspapers traditionally declare support for candidates and political parties. Despite the potential of editorial opinions to influence democratic debate, and controversy over the way newspapers and their proprietors use editorials to intervene in politics, editorial journalism is under-researched. Our understanding of the significance of this distinctive form of journalism can be better understood by exploring four key themes. First, asking “What is editorial journalism?” establishes the context of editorial journalism as a unique practice with opinion-leading intentions. Several characteristics of editorial journalism distinguish it from other formats and genres. Editorials (also known as leading articles) require a distinctive style and form of expression, occupy a special place in the physical geography of a newspaper, represent the collective institutional voice of a newspaper rather than that of an individual, have no bylines in the majority of countries, and are written with differing aims and motivations to news reports. The historical development of journalism explains the status of editorials as a distinctive form of journalism. Professional ideals and practices evolved to demand objectivity in news reporting and the separation of fact from opinion. Historically, editorial and advocacy journalism share an ethos for journalism that endeavors to effect social or political change, yet editorial journalism is distinctive from other advocacy journalism practices in significant ways. Editorials are also an integral part of the campaign journalism practiced by some newspapers. Second, research and approaches in the field of political communication have attributed a particularly powerful role to editorial journalism. Rooted in the effects tradition, researchers have attributed an important role to editorials in informing and shaping debate in the public sphere in four ways: (1) as an influence on readers, voters, and/or public opinion; (2) as an influence on the internal news agendas and coverage of newspapers; (3) as an influence on the agendas and coverage in other news media; and (4) as an influence on political or policy agendas. Theorizing newspapers as active and independent political actors in the political process further underpins the need to research editorial journalism. Third, editorial journalism has been overlooked by sociological studies of journalism practices. Research provides a limited understanding of the routines and practices of editorial journalists and the organization of editorial opinion at newspapers. Although rare, studies focusing on editorial journalism show that editorial opinion does not simply reflect the influence of proprietors, as has often been assumed. Rather, editorial opinions are shaped by a complex range of factors. Finally, existing research trajectories and current developments point to new challenges and opportunities for editorial journalism. These challenges relate to how professional norms respond to age-old questions about objectivity, bias, and partisanship in the digital age.

scholarly journals Beyond the myth of journalistic storytelling: Why a narrative approach to journalism falls short (Introduction)

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Perrin ◽  
Marta Zampa
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
News Media ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Journalism Education ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
The Public ◽  
Thematic Section ◽  
The Public Sphere

Despite the journalism education mantra to think story, news media accounts are far more than sheer storytelling. They are more about the punchline first than suspense, more about fragments of information than comprehensive storylines, and more about story-selling than telling. News reporters do not tell stories, as such – but utilize their own narrative routines that evoke stories in people’s minds and in the public sphere. This thematic section scrutinizes the widespread storytelling approaches and techniques that journalists are taught and offers fresh and focused insights into narrative practices in the newsroom.

scholarly journals Female Soul and Feminine Spirit: Philosophical Prolegomena to a New (Women) Culture in the Interwar Radio Lectures Alice Voinescu’s and Constantin Noica’s.

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 91-101
Author(s):  
Ana Ocoleanu
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
German Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Women ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Philosophical Orientations

Female Soul and Feminine Spirit. Philosophical Prolegomena to a New (Women) Culture in the Interwar Radio Lectures Alice Voinescu’s and Constantin Noica’s. The newly founded Romanian Radio (1927) invited since 1930 the most important personalities of the Romanian culture to speak in the frame of different radio conferences. Two of these personalities were the philosophers Alice Voinescu (1885-1961) and Constantin Noica (1909-1987). Although they represent two different philosophical orientations (Alice Voinescu as a post-metaphysical thinker and Constantin Noica as a philosopher, who tries, like Heidegger in the German culture, to rebuild metaphysics), the two interwar Romanian thinkers meet each other in some philosophical topics. One of these is the critical manner, how they are thinking about the movement of the emancipation of women in the 20thcentury. Both of them agree that the female soul and the feminine spirit have not to lose their specific features in the tendency to become active in the frame of the public sphere. In their critical thinking, Alice Voinescu and Constantin Noica meet the philosophical ideas of German philosophers like Georg Simmel and Martin Heidegger.

The Watchdog Still Barks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Knobel
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Action ◽  
News Media ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Free Press ◽  
The Public ◽  
Internet Age ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter discusses the erosion of the newspaper business and presents arguments as to why the free press is important, even in the Internet age. It also details the research behind this volume, and argues that no other function of a free press is as important as its ability to monitor the work of the government. The presence of a vibrant press to monitor government is not just important on the micro level but is essential to the proper functioning of our democracy. In fact, the work of the news media is valued because it helps empower the “public sphere,” meaning a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Here, the public sphere is not just a virtual or imagined place to discuss public affairs, but it is also a mechanism to enable citizens to influence social action.

scholarly journals The Māori public sphere

2005 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Stuart
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
News Media ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
General Aspects

At this moment in New Zealand’s history there is a need for healthy political debate on a range of issues. Specifically, the foreshore and seabed issue has created division and fears between Māori and Pakeha and brought the Treaty of Waitangi to the fore again. As well, settlements of historic grievances with Māori have added to growing Pakeha unease. In this climate there is a need for wide-ranging public discussion of these issues, and the news media seem the obvious site for those discussions. But how well are the New Zealand news media fulfilling that role? This commentary takes the public sphere to be the sum total of all visible decision-making processes within a culture and uses this concept as an analytical tool to examine aspects of the health of New Zealand’s democracy. It uses discourse analysis approaches to show how the mainstream media are in fact isolating Māori from the general public sphere and, after outlining some general aspects of the Māori public sphere, argues that the news media’s methodologies, grounded in European-based techniques and approaches, are incapable of interacting with the Māori public sphere. I am arguing that while there is an appearance of an increased awareness and discussion of cultural issues, the mainstream media are, in reality, sidelining Māori voices and controlling the political discussion in favour of the dominant culture. They are therefore not fulfilling their self-assigned role of providing information for people to function within our democracy. Keywords: 

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document