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Though most of the literature suggests that competition in the media market is positive, this paper argues otherwise. Drawing on a small number of studies from emerging media markets, the authors argue that the relationship between competition and the quality of the journalistic product is curvilinear, with an optimal level of competition producing a quality media product and higher levels of competition–such as the hyper-competition existing in many emerging media markets–producing journalistic products that do not serve society well. The paper examines this question empirically through use of existing data from a small sample of countries where measures of media performance and of market competition exist. The findings are consistent with the expectation of a curvilinear (inverted U) relationship between competition and the quality of journalistic products in that country. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of journalism in shaping the meaning and outcomes of collective reparative rituals, and the ways in which such rituals are used to negotiate and repair journalists' own cultural authority. Using the case study of the publication of the Winograd Commission Report on the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah, and integrating different theoretical frameworks for understanding mediatized rituals and the memory work of journalism, the paper analyzes the complex web of interactions between journalists and other social players, between competing news outlets, and among the different cultural roles of journalism. The analysis shows that while the Israeli news media built the publication of the report as a crucial historical event and worked to fill in some of the missing pieces of a successful collective ritual, it also constructed it as a doomed-to-fail, and ultimately unsatisfying, ritual. This dialectical construction allowed the Israeli news media to reconcile its conflicting roles as news provider and ritual agent; repair its own failures in covering the second Lebanon War; and position itself as better qualified than the commission to both investigate and remember the war. The paper also demonstrates how competing media players advanced different reparative narratives, collaborated with different social and political players, and invoked the memory of the war in ways which served these different interpretations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most democracies, the public reputation of journalists is on the decline. However, other than with attitudes towards parties and politicians, the concrete cognitive map that people have of journalists has received rather little attention. This paper describes the results of a representative telephone survey of the German population (N=1,054) that was designed to explore the public's perception of journalism. The paper contains a first analysis of these data. Our results confirm a rather negative public reputation of journalists, particularly concerning the profession's trustworthiness and here especially among the younger population. While two thirds of respondents have esteem for journalists, only a third trust journalist. We further found large gaps between the public's expectations and the public's perceptions of journalistic goals and values, characteristics of news content, as well as journalists' behavior in ethical dilemmas. In the final part of the paper we test the effects of some of these variables on trust and esteem. Our work is based on the assumption that the relationship between the people and the press deserves more research because a functioning relationship between both actors is the basis for a functioning democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a case study of the BBC, and the attitudes of its news workers towards Audience Material, or as it is more commonly referred to, User Generated Content (UGC). It is based on a major study of Audience Material at the BBC, co-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC. A team of five researchers spent ten weeks in nine different newsroom across the BBC, both in London and across the United Kingdom, and as part of these observations undertook interviews with 115 journalists and ten senior editors. A typology of the different types of Audience Material is offered, along with descriptions of the different roles they play within the BBC, the tensions which exist between them, and the different attitudes journalists hold towards them. It becomes clear that news workers are enthusiastic about certain types, and perhaps unsurprisingly, these are the types which fit the traditional model of journalism: audience footage, audience comments and experiences, and are types of Audience Material which the BBC has always received, and used. However, there are certain key people based in individual newsrooms, and some holding senior management positions, who are also enthusiastic about types of Audience Material which challenge traditional models of journalism: collaborative and truly participatory models of journalism. But while it is true that there are a number of impressive examples of collaborative and participatory journalism that exist throughout the BBC's UK operations, most news journalists perceive 'UGC' as simply another newsgathering tool. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the career and work of journalist Elmo Scott Watson, describing the role of his syndicated feature stories in standardizing discourses about American Indian people in the popular press of the early twentieth century. Situating Watson's work against the backdrop of professionalized news, I argue that it was not merely the emerging technologies which led to the reproduction of the noble and ignoble savage binary in the popular press, but the "internal logics" of such discursive formations which made them so easily reproduced. In addition, I suggest that while scholars have focused a great deal of attention on hard news stories and the ideal of objectivity, we can learn more by exploring the productivity of "entertaining" newspaper content such as Watson's stories. Watson was an agent in reproducing the standards of his discipline, and looking to his work can tell us a great deal about the exigency of his field as journalism was becoming professionalized. I argue that while Watson's stories were considered entertaining, he and others in his field believed such content served an important educational function; in particular, Watson believed he was correcting negative misconceptions about American Indian people through the noble savage identity construct. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores tehelka.com as a critical turning point in Indian investigative journalism. Tehelka.com, an independent and alternative news website, setup a fake defense deal for shedding light on how rampant corruption was devouring democracy at the highest levels. In this sting operation code named "West End" reporters from Tehelka.com contacted top army officers and politicians, by posing as traders of defense equipment.

Journalists' blogs (j-blogs) are novel journalistic practice emerging in Chinese news industry. This study is the first step in establishing what is going on in Chinese news media in terms of j-blogs and finding out how new technology would change and transform the traditional news industry in Mainland China. Content analysis was conducted to study j-blogs on Chinese newspaper websites and investigate their implications for journalism in China. Topic, format, reader comments, hyperlinks and multimedia such as video, audio and pictures in j-blog posts were analyzed. It was revealed that the most often addressed topics in Chinese j-blogs were lifestyle, politics/government/military, crime/accidents/disasters, and business/economic activity. The most frequently adopted formats in Chinese j-blogs were the straight opinion column, the rumor-mill blog, and reporter's notebook of news tidbits and incidentals. It was shown that the formats of j-blog posts varied by topics. Significant influence of topic and format were found on the number of reader comments in Chinese j-blog posts. The use of hyperlinks and multimedia also differed in j-blogs with different topics and formats. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalists' authority over the cultural production of truth is increasingly challenged by other cultural players, who offer their versions of culturally significant news stories in an ever-growing proximity to the actual events. This article focuses on the much disputed story of the capture and rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in Iraq, and examines the ways in which the New York Times negotiated its authority vis-à-vis other cultural texts that lay claim to the story, particularly NBC's made-for-television movie Saving Jessica Lynch, and the biographical novel, I am a Soldier, Too. The analysis suggests that the Times dialectically oscillated between treating other cultural players as the "others" of journalism and as legitimate participants in a shared project of cultural production; between constructing itself as a participant in the contest over the real story and an observer of this contest; and between offering drafts and final records of the story. At a broader level, the article demonstrates the need to see the elite press as neither the other of popular culture nor its equal counterpart, and argues for a possible analogy between the ostensibly contradictory epistemologies of cultural studies and journalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blogs are suggested to be a new form of grassroots journalism, which may pose a competition to traditional journalism arenas of power, as news and politics. Most Americans, nonetheless, learn about new technologies, such as blogs, from traditional media. Ironically, it is up to the press to introduce and portray the blogs phenomenon to most of the public. This study aims to explore how major US newspapers framed blogs and blogging from 1999 to 2005. Findings show that articles framed blogs typically as a positive phenomenon but, at the same time excluded them from the public arena, where traditional journalistic societal role resides. Blogging was also rarely associated with the journalistic work. By segregating blogs to the private and personal sphere, traditional media restrict public discussion on the benefits of blogs to society, as an alternative, or even completing, source for information and opinions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. newspaper reporters and editors have heard a chorus of calls for greater transparency in recent years. Journalists are being told to lift the curtain and tell readers how the news is gathered and produced. Yet little research has shown whether journalists are heeding such calls. This exploratory study content-analyzes editor's notes at major U.S. daily newspapers and finds little evidence that they are being used to increase transparency. Although editor's notes have generally become more prevalent, that trend appears to be tapering off. Editor's notes are seldom used to explain reporting and sourcing methods. Moreover, such notes typically are written from a third-person point of view rather than taking a more conversational approach. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]