Solutions Journalism: Strategies for Effecting and Managing Change

The field of journalism is undergoing epic changes at this time. With the growing impact of social media and citizen journalism, among other trends, traditional schools of journalism face a need to re-examine their most fundamental premises. Historically journalists adopted a code of practice whereby the ideal news article focused on issues and problems of consequence to society, and reporters presented both sides of the case. The gold standard was balanced reporting that investigated and uncovered abuses in society, with the mantra being “if it bleeds, it leads.”. There was no added incentive or requirement to take responsibility for solving the problems they uncovered. While print media organizations faced a backlash of criticism following the era of “yellow journalism,” they did not confront the necessity to reorient the entire profession; rather they simply had to “clean up their act” and operationalize what they already knew and believed. Today, the situation is dramatically different—largely as a consequence of the rise of citizen journalism, the impact of social media, and the trend toward an introspective look at their profession by journalists themselves and by those who train the journalists. In this article, we look at the emerging focus on a phenomenon called solutions journalism. Solutions journalism differs in both form and intent from not only the traditional standard of reporting, which focuses on problems, but also “good news reporting,” which tends to be superficial and non-solution oriented. In an effort to understand the current push for a new direction in the journalism profession, we will look at the rise of the new paradigm, pioneers in solutions journalism, characteristics of solutions journalism, and the theoretical foundations of solutions journalism. In exploring the latter point, we will examine the relationships among solutions journalism, social media, open source, systems, and open innovation theories.

The Mediatization of Public Administration: A Scoping Review

This article presents an exploratory study of the concept of political mediatization. Using the scoping review method, we survey academic writings on this subfield of political communication. This research aims to highlight the dominant topics covered in the literature on the mediatization of politics, identify gaps in research, and provide a better understanding of how studies on mediatization align within the broader literature on political communication. With this systematic approach, we aim to better conceptualize the mediatization of public administration by identifying consensus on the concept in the existing literature. The scoping review process indicates that: (1) Studies analyzing mediatization focus on political actors and institutions, and the junction between political mediatization and public administration is rarely studied; (2) Approaches used to study the mediatization of politics are mostly qualitative; (3) The mediatization of public administration has only been analyzed quantitatively in European contexts, and; (4) Indicators used to measure the degree of mediatization in public administration differ widely between studies.

David Taras and Ralph Klein (2020). The End of the CBC? University of Toronto Press, 240 pages.

Book review.

Langue et identité chez les joueurs franco-ontariens

Plusieurs recherches au fil des ans se sont penchées sur la consommation médiatique des Franco-Ontariens et les enjeux qui y sont reliés, notamment celui de la préservation de la langue française et de l’identité francophone dans un contexte minoritaire. La situation mérite une attention renouvelée aujourd’hui, vu la place qu’occupent le jeu vidéo et les pratiques de communication qui l’accompagnent dans le paysage médiatique. Notre objectif dans cet article est double : dresser un portrait actuel des usages et pratiques des jeunes Franco-Ontariens autour du jeu vidéo, et en explorer l’incidence sur les dynamiques linguistiques et identitaires. Notre recherche s’inspire de la sociologie des usages et mobilise deux méthodes : un sondage sous forme de questionnaire en ligne auquel ont répondu 33 joueurs franco-ontariens âgés de 18 à 22 ans; et des entretiens semi-dirigés réalisés auprès de six de ces derniers. L’analyse révèle que les joueurs franco-ontariens continuent de favoriser l’anglais dans leur consommation médiatique et que cette tendance vaut aussi pour le jeu vidéo, notamment en ce qui a trait aux aspects matériels, à la communication en situation de jeu, ainsi qu’à la consommation et à la production de contenus connexes. Les joueurs franco-ontariens attribuent par ailleurs au jeu vidéo une amélioration de leurs compétences en anglais et ils s’identifient davantage au terme « bilingue » que « francophone ».

Bertrand Labasse (2020). La valeur des informations. Ressorts et contraintes du marché des idées. Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 420 pages.

Book review.

Pratiques et usages de Tinder, une étude exploratoire

L’apparition récente des applications de rencontre par géolocalisation, notamment Tinder, est venue modifier les façons de faire des rencontres. Les études actuelles sont peu nombreuses et s’intéressent principalement aux moins de 25 ans. La présente étude vise à documenter les pratiques ainsi que les usages de l’application. Les résultats démontrent que les pratiques sur l’application sont diversifiées, que la séquence d’interactions est préétablie, que les critères de rejet sont nombreux et détaillés, que les qualités de l’application sont à double tranchant et que l’authenticité est un concept polysémique pour les utilisateurs. Les propos recueillis font également ressortir des usages d’intégration, de protection et de performance.

Communication Studies, Interdisciplinarity Debates, and the Quest for Knowledge

This article focuses on interdisciplinarity as a “future field” and what it means for the communication discipline. It argues that, whereas interdisciplinarity has the potential to produce “high-risk, high-reward” research outcomes, communication studies has more to gain refining the vast body of knowledge that has shaped its conceptual and institutional particularities across time and space. Whereas this argument is not anything new, I contribute to these debates by emphasizing anthropological questioning, epistemological formulations, ethical reasoning, and the quest for meaning as potential modalities of consolidating the epistemic and political views that have guided the intellectual impetus of communication studies. The proposed refinement is predicated on the assumption that communication studies is already a boundary-crossing discipline; the very reason it arguably lacks coherent historical roots and scientific rationality. The article contributes to the debates on how to operationalize communication studies as a scientific domain without losing its unique boundary-crossing appeal.

Welcome to the New Canadian Journal of Media Studies

Introduction to CJMS Series 2.