The more you know, the less you like: A comparative study of how news and political conversation shape political knowledge and affective polarization

The contemporary communication ecology contributes to affective polarization by presenting us with extreme exemplars of disliked groups. News exposure that is associated with political discussion networks is related to greater political knowledge, yet unlike previous eras where political knowledge and tolerance went hand in hand, this is no longer the case. We employ a comparative design to examine this idea among two democracies with differing levels of journalistic professionalism and political system: Mexico and the United States. Results show that greater political knowledge is associated with affective polarization, especially for the United States. Furthermore, there was a significant indirect path between media use and affective polarization, mediated through homogeneous political talk and political knowledge, but not in Mexico.

THE ETHICAL DIMENSION OF JOURNALISTIC PROFESSIONALISM: VIEWS OF LITHUANIAN JOURNALISTS

When evaluating the normative dimension of journalistic professionalism, researchers note that it is related to the core values of professional journalism, manifested in the recognition and application of common professional ethical principles in journalistic activities. This allows us to identify the existence of the ethical dimension of journalistic professionalism. This study examines the ethical dimension of journalistic professionalism by analysing the attitudes of Lithuanian journalists towards the importance of ethical aspects, codified in the Code of Ethics in Providing Information to the Public of Lithuania (2016) for journalistic professionalism.

“We always report under pressure”: Professionalism and journalistic identity among regional journalists in a conflict zone

This study explores how regional journalists in Pakistan conceptualize journalistic professionalism, how they perceive their journalistic identities, and how local socio-political and economic realities shape their professional identification. Analysis of interviews with 33 journalists working in Pakistan’s Pakhtunkhwa province indicated a tension between striving for professionalism as defined by Western journalistic standards and meeting the demands of their local conditions. Participants described professionalism as providing clear, accurate, objective, and ethical coverage of issues. However, constraints including unavailability of funding, the need to hold multiple jobs, threats to personal safety, and absence of education and training prevented them from meeting their professional goals. The journalists discursively negotiated and constituted their professional identities in response to the conditions in their respective areas.

Journalistic Professionalism and Objectivity in the Age of Digital Media: A Case Study of the United States

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we have been greatly impacted by the shift from the Internet to the mobile Internet for that the emergence of the mobile Internet indicates that the channels for audiences to receive information will become extensive and more pluralistic. Traditional media, such as newspapers and television, which had a high market share and viewership, are facing an unprecedented crisis. Today, the essence of many conflict crises in the world lies in the distortion of values caused by the bias of the truth in the process of communication. Therefore, this paper argues that in today’s noisy public opinion field and post-truth era, it is necessary to discuss the objectivity of news again for it is an important part of journalistic professionalism, and only a good grasp of the methods and concepts of objectivity can reduce the occurrence of conflicts to a certain extent. In the following, I will analyse the definition, cases and development history of objectivity in America by externalizing the philosophical concept into real cases, and explore the practical significance of the existence of journalistic objectivity in the digital media era.

Journalism as a profession of conditional permeability: A case study of boundaries in a participatory online news setting

Journalistic professionalism served as a semantic tool for journalists to draw boundaries and to demarcate their profession. This research builds on Andrew Abbott’s (book The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor, and his assessment of journalism as a ‘permeable occupation’. By way of a strategic case study of a German-language news organization, it puts forth the notion of journalism as a profession of conditional permeability in certain participatory online settings. This research traces how journalists at a case organization used professionalism to delineate their own job from two groups of interlopers in online news spaces: Community managers tasked to moderate user comments, as well as audience members who participate by way of commenting on the news. The study draws on a case study of a market leader and early adopter in community management and comment moderation – with evident limitations as far as generalization to other contexts. Journalists used concepts deeply entrenched with journalistic professionalism, such as writing skills, gatekeeping and the application of news judgment to invoke boundaries between professionals and nonprofessionals, but also acknowledged unboundedness within particular subdomains of their work. While journalists asserted control over a journalistic epistemology, practice was partly open for other professionals, such as community managers, but closed for nonprofessionals. Some identified a hierarchy of professions, with community management serving an assistant function to journalism. The concept of conditional permeability accommodates both blurred boundaries towards other professional actors and distinct boundaries towards nonprofessional actors.

KOMITMEN ORGANISASI: FAKTOR-FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHI WARTAWAN DALAM PENERBITAN BERITA AKHBAR CETAK DI MALAYSIA

Komitmen terhadap tanggungjawab kerja dipengaruhi oleh pelbagai aspek psikologi seseorang wartawan dalam dunia kewartawanan. Kajian ini bertujuan meneliti faktor-faktorinternal dan eksternalorganisasi yang mempengaruhi tugas seseorang wartawan sepanjang proses penerbitan berita. Sarjana seperti Scheufele (1999) pernah berhujah sekurang-kurangnya terdapat lima faktor yang berpotensi mempengaruhi bagaimana seseorang wartawan membingkai sesebuah isu yang diberikan iaitu nilai-nilai dan norma-norma sosial, halangan dan tekanan di tempat kerja, tekanan daripada kumpulan-kumpulan berkepentingan, rutin kerja kewartawanan dan orientasi ideologi dan politik diri wartawan. Hasil dapatan kajian menggunakan kaedah survei dengan 393 orang responden yang terdiri daripada wartawan-wartawan dan editor dari 18 buah organisasi akhbar arus perdana di Malaysia menunjukkan komitmen kerja wartawan lebih dipengaruhi oleh faktor-faktor kognisi diri individu berbanding faktor-faktor eksternal organisasi. Aspek internal yang paling berpengaruh adalah daripada kluster sentimen profesionalisme wartawan disusuli oleh sentimen kerja dan kepuasan kerja. Aspek-aspek sifat organisasi, latihan yang diperolehi dan demografi wartawan turut dikenalpasti memainkan peranan penting menentukan komitmen wartawan terhadap kerja mereka. Kaedah penilaian kerja yang digunakan oleh organisasi berita telah ditunjukkan paling berpengaruh mempengaruhi komitmen organisasi. Di bawah kluster aspek kognisi individu wartawan, ideologi individu mempunyai hubungan signifikan dengan komitmen organisasi tetapi aspek ini merupakan aspek yang paling lemah berbanding aspek-aspek lain seperti menghormati ketua dan toleransi. Daripada segi faktor eksternal, perundangan komunikasi massa yang berperanan mengawal selia produk kewartawanan mempengaruhi kerja seseorang wartawan. Commitment to work responsibilities is influenced by various psychological aspects of a journalists in the journalistic world. The purpose of this study is to examine the internal and external factors of the organization that influence journalist’s works throughout the process of news production. Scholars such as Scheufele (1999) have argued that there are at least five factors that may influence how a journalist framed a given issue, namely social values and norms, barriers and pressures at work, pressures of interest groups, routines journalistic work and the ideological and political orientation of journalists themselves. The findings of the study using a survey method with 393 respondents consisting of journalists and editors from 18 leading mainstream newspaper organizations in Malaysia showed that journalists' work commitments are more influenced by individual cognition factors than by the external factor. The most influential internal factors are from the cluster of journalistic professionalism followed by work sentiment and job satisfaction. Aspects likes journalist’s demographics, training, and the nature of the organization, also play an important role in determining journalist's commitment to their work. The work evaluation methods used by news organizations have been shown to have the greatest impact on organizational commitment. Under the cluster of individual cognitions of journalists, individual ideologies were shown to have a significant relationship with organizational commitment, but this aspect is also the weakest aspect compared to the other aspects such as respect to the leader and tolerance. In terms of external factors, mass communications legislation that regulates journalistic products affects the work of a journalist.

Stupidity in the Media and the Poet’s Silence: Tadeusz Różewicz’s Play with Journalism and Journalists

Media and communication, journalistic professionalism, the language of the media, the effectiveness of communication and its limitations, the importance of the press for the creative process, attitude towards journalists and journalism (including journalistic professionalism) are among the issues that inform Tadeusz Różewicz’s output as a poet, playwright, prose writer and reporter. The article presents examples of intertextual relations between literature and the formally developed and historically and systemically variable sphere of media, mediatization and the journalistic profession. The problem of the misunderstanding of the professional strategies of journalists and/or of the social crisis in media communication has also been addressed. Różewicz frames the abovementioned issues through references to philosophy and theories of communication.

Media, Social Media, and the Securitization of Mental Health Problems in Nepal

This chapter attempts to unfold the trend and nature of mainstream and social media coverage on mental health issues in Nepal through suicide case of Yama Buddha, a popular musician. Using the securitization theory and concepts of threat construction and threat neutralization, major findings through content analysis and key informant interviews reveal reputed mainstream media following cautious route towards threat neutralization and therefore, maintaining a level of journalistic professionalism. However, especially in the other online media, blogs, and other social media, there were sensationalist words and tone used to attract the audience, triggering various sorts of emotional responses, thereby fulfilling the act of securitization. Major recommendations from this chapter include more awareness and understanding about the nature and type of mental health problems; capacity building of journalists and media professionals to better understand and report on mental health problems; development and proper implementation of media guidelines on reporting mental health issues.

Provider versus navigator. News values and the journalistic professionalism

The text examines the condition of contemporary journalism in the context of professionalization and values. Presenting the analysis of different ways of defining journalism as a profession, the author notes that contemporary journalism operates within two sets of values. Those that are normally associated with the so-called “professional journalism”, which are referred to the fractographical pact (mainly constituted by such values as: truth, objectivity and independence). The second set of values is called news values. They are fundamentally different and inconsistent with the norms that are considered constitutive for journalism as a profession. In this situation, journalism as a profession and journalists as its representatives are obliged to perform simultaneously two, partly at least contradictory, functions the information provider and the navigator who guides his / her recipients through information for him / her for attractive, noteworthy.