Traditional Journalism in Transition

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Ann Lambert ◽  
H. Denis Wu

Although Taiwan instituted press freedom in 1987, media professionals in the island nation continue to experience a myriad of internal and external pressures in the overcrowded market. Rather than merely conform to unethical industry expectations, some media professionals have reconstructed the rules by which they operate. The purpose of the present study is to explore how Taiwan media professionals have reshaped their work roles to make sense of their workplace realities. Results generated from 20 in-depth interviews indicate that their realities now include Internet-driven media shifts, changed reporter traits, dramatic licence due to stiff competition, departure from conventional news and reporters coping with mandatory coverage. Study participants have reconstructed the rules of the media environment to contend with the new realities.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-544
Author(s):  
Daniel Zomeño ◽  
Rocío Blay-Arráez

Media convergence and the incorporation of new narratives typical of the consumption habits of younger audiences in the social media environment have led to the proliferation of a wide variety of formats and types of content in the media ecosystem through which the editorial content offered to brands is being distributed. This qualitative research, using in-depth interviews with a qualified sample of branded content managers from the main Spanish media, allows us to determine the main characteristics of the native advertising demanded by advertisers. The results corroborate observations that content channelled through more sophisticated consumption experiences, using both multimedia and interactivity with a clear transmedia approach, tends to be better received by the audience and, therefore, in greater demand by brands. It also confirms that both video and social media formats have grown exponentially when it comes to providing an outlet for branded content. Based on the results obtained, a proposed classification of these products, including definitions, has been drawn up so they can be publicised to the professional world, offering the reflection and precision that their rapid development has not allowed until now.


2013 ◽  
Vol 149 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Markelin ◽  
Charles Husband

Although one people, the Sámi live in four different countries with different laws and regulations. The Sámi media landscape is thus shaped by four different political and economic frameworks, creating unique nationally defined environments. Simultaneously, the Sámi people are internally diverse, both in terms of language and identity. The media professionals within Sámi media need to navigate in an environment where there are several indigenous and majority languages, which raises questions about the fragmentation of potential audiences, and also about the role of the Sámi media in sustaining or undermining particular Sámi languages. Drawing upon recent interviews (2012) with Sámi media professionals, this article seeks to provide insight into the development of an expanding indigenous media infrastructure within the Nordic states and the homelands of Sápmi. It points particularly to the centrality of the national public service broadcast system in providing the political and infrastructural context for this development. The different political settlements between national governments and their Sámi populations significantly shape the wider political will that has framed this process. At the same time, while seeking to shed some light on the diverse Sámi media environment, this article also provides some insight into the professional and personal identities of the individuals working within the Sámi media world. The synergy between the wider media environment and the personal and professional endeavours of Sámi media professionals is central to the future development of the Sámi media environment of Sápmi.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Erin Duffy ◽  
Megan Sawey

Despite the staggering uptick in social media employment over the last decade, this nascent category of cultural labor remains comparatively under-theorized. In this paper, we contend that social media work is configured by a visibility paradox: while workers are tasked with elevating the presence—or visibility—of their employers’ brands across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more, their identities—and much of their labor—remains hidden behind branded social media accounts. To illuminate how this ostensible paradox impacts laborers’ conditions and experiences of work, we present data from in-depth interviews with more than 40 social media professionals. Their accounts make clear that social media work is not just materially concealed, but rendered socially invisible through its lack of crediting, marginal status, and incessant demands for un/under-compensated emotional labor. This patterned devaluation of social media employment can, we show, be situated along two gender-coded axes that have long structured the value of labor in the media and cultural industries: 1). technical-communication and 2). creation-circulation. After detailing these in/visibility mechanisms, we conclude by addressing the implications of our findings for the politics and subjectivities of work in an increasingly digital media economy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hangwei Li

China has been a pivotal player throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, yet there is very little research on how China’s role and effort have been interpreted among African countries that are diverged in their crisis responses. Through content and discourse analysis of the local media and more than 50 in-depth interviews, this study investigates media representation of China during the coronavirus pandemic in the Kenyan and Ethiopian newspapers, specifically Kenyan’s Daily Nation and The Standard, and the Ethiopian Herald and The Reporter. This study finds that Kenyan newspapers adopted a more critical and problem-centred narrative, as many of its news articles are organized around problems such as the ‘debt-trap diplomacy’, and the mistreatment of Africans in Guangzhou during the pandemic. Unlike Kenyan newspapers, Ethiopian newspapers adopted a more positive and favourable tone towards China. This article also captures the dynamics behind the production of China-related news during the pandemic, and discusses how the media environment, professional norms, journalistic habitus, the ‘rules of games’ (i.e. who counts as an important source) have fundamentally shaped the news production.


Author(s):  
Twange Kasoma

Given their unparalleled histories and the dichotomous media regulatory frameworks that Zambia and Ghana have, the two countries make for an interesting pedagogical coupling for examining press freedom and the role of the media in African society. That is what this chapter strives to do. Methodologically, a textual analysis of pertinent documents as well as in-depth interviews with journalists was conducted. Some similarities and distinct differences are noted in the two countries’ media regulatory landscapes. For example, both countries continue to lapse where passage of Freedom of Information legislation is concerned. Ghana, however, exhibits more progress than Zambia. The enabling laws Ghana has instituted in the past decade are telling. Ghana’s progress is also evident in how journalists perceive their role in society in comparison to their Zambian counterparts. The former puts more emphasis on the media’s agenda setting role than the latter.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Giomelakis ◽  
Christina Karypidou ◽  
Andreas Veglis

The journalism profession has changed dramatically in the digital age as the internet, and new technologies, in general, have created new working conditions in the media environment. Concurrently, journalists and media professionals need to be aware and possess a new set of skills connected to web technologies, as well as respond to new reading tendencies and information consumption habits. A number of studies have shown that search engines are an important source of the traffic to news websites around the world, identifying the significance of high rankings in search results. Journalists are writing to be read, and that means ensuring that their news content is found, also, by search engines. In this context, this paper represents an exploratory study on the use of search engine optimization (SEO) in news websites. A series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews with professionals at four Greek media organizations uncover trends and address issues, such as how SEO policy is operationalized and applied inside newsrooms, which are the most common optimization practices, as well as the impact on journalism and news content. Today, news publishers have embraced the use of SEO practices, something that is clear also from this study. However, the absence of a distinct SEO culture was evident in newsrooms under study. Finally, according to results, SEO strategy seems to depend on factors, such as ownership and market orientation, editorial priorities or organizational structures.


Author(s):  
Ana Carolina Vimieiro

This article analyses media production projects run by football supporters in Brazil. From in-depth interviews and analysis of the material produced by fans of a singular club, Clube Atlético Mineiro (also known as Atlético-MG or Galo, its nickname), the article explores the ways supporters appropriate the journalistic language and create innovative narratives that enrich and pluralize the media environment. Formats vary from blogs to running web radios with regular programming. Motivations for engaging in the projects are also diverse, from improving writing skills to helping the club. The supporters and initiatives here considered promote innovative approaches especially in three ways: (1) placing ordinary supporters at the centre of their narratives; (2) adopting unconventional methods of reportage that challenge the dependency of journalism on regular productive routines and that are able to provide unusual angles of sport-related stories; and (3) creating texts that resort less to the increasingly rational and bureaucratic language that has notably characterized sporting chronicles over the past few decades. Besides, these texts and their parallel circuits of fan production have played an important role in sustaining contemporary alternative football fan cultures in an increasingly hypercommodified football context.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-383
Author(s):  
Adibah Ismail ◽  

Investigative journalism has been an American phenomenon, heavily embedded with their values. Scholars mentioned individualism and press freedom as two founding values of investigative journalism practice in the West. This study attempts to explore values influencing the practice of investigative journalism from a different viewpoint, by investigating Malaysia as a democratic country, but having a controlled media environment. Malaysia is also an interesting research subject because it is a developing country with strong Eastern values. Using local yardsticks, this study explores values influencing the practice of investigative journalism in Malaysia from local media practitioners’ perspectives. This research aims to explore more than just the differences between Western and Eastern culture, but also to understand how those different values influence the practice. In-depth interviews were used to explore the perspectives of 16 media practitioners from various backgrounds including editors and journalists who work in mainstream and alternative media in Malaysia. Vast data generated from the interviews pointing to a different viewpoint from current literature. The data, which was thematically analysed, revealed interesting findings which differentiate between Malaysian and Western practices of investigative journalism. The Eastern perspective was found to be dominant, especially in terms of collectivism culture, value of press freedom, and religious teachings influence. This study also highlighted the importance of considering the cultural factor in evaluating any journalism practice in the world. The study concludes that local values and culture must be included as research elements to understand a country’s journalism practice. Keywords: Investigative journalism, media culture, guiding values, press freedom, Malaysia.


Author(s):  
Halyna Budivska

The article deals with the normative principles of journalistic professionalism and professional standards, comparing them with interpretation of Ukrainian media professionals. The purpose of the study is to outline the professional standards of Ukrainian journalists dealing with sociopolitical issues. Based on ten interviews with the journalists as the respondents aged 21 to 50 from different national and regional media outlets, the author indicates several peculiarities how the Ukrainian media practitioners perceive this problem. It is revealed that the so-called “western model” of journalism is superimposed on the complicated socio-political conditions of journalists, and therefore it is not accepted unconditionally by the part of media practitioners. The situation of turbulence where the Ukrainian journalists find themselves today, affects their perceptions of journalistic professionalism and professional standards. According to the results of the survey, recognition of importance of journalistic standards prevails among the respondents, but in practice unconditional adherence to these standards is complicated or is impossible for the interviewers taking into account sensitivity of coverage of transformations and the war in the country, as well as the challenges connected with media owners’ political interests and difficult financial situation in the media. Also, based on the findings obtained, it is concluded that there is insufficient institutionalization of professional standards in the Ukrainian media environment.


Author(s):  
K.E. Goldschmitt

Bossa Mundo chronicles how Brazilian music has been central to Brazil’s national brand in the United States and the United Kingdom since the late 1950s. Scholarly texts on Brazilian popular music generally focus on questions of music and national identity, and when they discuss the music’s international popularity, they keep the artists, recordings, and live performances as the focus, ignoring the process of transnational mediation. This book fills a major gap in Brazilian music studies by analyzing the consequences of moments when Brazilian music was popular in Anglophone markets, with a focus on the media industries. With subject matter as varied as jazz, film music, dance fads, DJ/remix culture, and new models of musical distribution, the book demonstrates how the mediation of Brazilian music in an increasingly crowded transnational marketplace has had lasting consequences for the creative output celebrated by Brazil as part of its national brand. Through a discussion of the political meaning of mass-mediated music in chronologically organized chapters, the book shifts the scholarly focus on the music’s transnational popularity from the scholarly framework of representing Otherness to broader considerations of a media environment where listeners and intermediaries often have differing priorities. The book provides a new model for studying music from culturally rich countries in the Global South where local governments often leverage stereotypes in their national branding project.


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