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Although the lack of diversity in newsrooms and reporting remains a serious issue in the journalism industry, college journalism education and student media provide a critical opportunity for change. Yet prior research has found notable diversity gaps in both. This study analyzed the state of diversity at a Midwestern university student newspaper and found significant gaps in coverage of diverse populations. The findings suggest the need for more comprehensive diversity education within the college classroom and campus media advising. This is important not only for more representative student media, but also for the future of journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on persistent work-related problem of emotional and psychological stress in journalism practice. Topics include receiving training in trauma-informed literacy and resilience, unlike the counterparts in the police, nursing, ambulance services, and fire brigade; and verified cases of killing, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and torture of journalists and associated media personnel.

The 1990s witnessed two distinct but related trends in journalism: the rise of public journalism and the emergence of street newspapers. This article contrasts public journalism and street newspapers in an effort to explicate the distinguishing features of each. In doing so, it illuminates the distinctions between liberal-minded media reform movements, such as public journalism, and far more radical alternatives to journalistic practice as represented by street newspapers. Throughout it is argued that street papers are a unique form of communicative democracy. In their capacity as the voice of the poor, street newspapers seek to critically engage the reading public in ongoing deliberations over fundamental issues of economic, social and political justice. A brief assessment of Street Feat - a street newspaper in Halifax, Nova Scotia - provides an empirical basis for this discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A content analysis of The Washington Post and the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung revealed that both papers relied on official sources, but the German paper provided far less coverage of the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the use of Internet's interactive technologies by newspapers to improve the coverage of public affairs. "Cyber-democracy" proposes that the Internet's ability to close gaps of time and distance with electronic interactivity has the power to make institutional journalism at least anachronistic and perhaps even unnecessary. Online Web sites associated with newspapers can offer themselves as venues for greater citizen engagement because newspapers are the traditional source of the most in-depth information regarding political communication, especially at the state, regional and local levels, and also because they are the focal point for online news consumption. The study found that the promise of online journalism to create conditions for improved political communication is largely untapped. It found that only three of the 13 devices used to operationalize online facilitation of cyber-democratic practices were present at more than 50 percent of the papers surveyed in the study.

Web sites are increasingly more sophisticated in news presentation, revenue-generating features, multimedia and interactive elements. Small papers lag significantly behind medium and large ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the closure of local paper "Chronicle and Echo" in Northampton, England. It narrates that the National Union of Journalists has demanded a better mileage rate for old Beetles and Minis around the villages of Northamptonshire from general manager Bill Rodgers. Rodgers lamented about missing out on real journalism with the freedom to write about the people and events in hometown.

Analysis of the editorials in The Lousiville Courier-Journal before and after its 1986 sale to Gannett reveals little change in editorial ideology or frequency, but it shows a reduced emphasis on local issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has attributed media convergence to, among other things, where the news was originally published. That research, however, has struggled to identify causal relationships between a news item's publication in a particular outlet and journalists' perceptions of a story's newsworthiness. This relationship is difficult to identify because of the correlation between publication in a particular outlet and many other factors that also impact newsworthiness. This paper uses an experiment embedded within a survey of over 1,500 U.S. political journalists to test the impact of a news story's previous publication history on journalists' views of the newsworthiness of that news item. Compared with previously unpublished stories, the publication of a news story in a national paper has no significant positive effect on the perceived newsworthiness of a story. The origin of a story in a local outlet, however, causes journalists to perceive that story to be less newsworthy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papurau bro (Welsh language local newspapers) break all the rules in helping to keep the Welsh language alive - but is their revolution running out of steam? From a small seed sown in Cardiff in 1973, some 56 publications still exist, which implies they've earned their place in contemporary Wales. Yet they break every rule of design, of news values and competition. They rarely seek advertising and few have paid staff to produce the goods. They are furiously independent and regard the advent of "new" - for which read "relatively old" - technology with a perhaps not altogether healthy degree of scepticism... Yet the papers are being dragged slowly into the 21st century - some now have their own web presence. But even if, together, they form the largest single readership of anything published in the Welsh language, their future is not guaranteed. Research shows that 60 per cent of papers fear for their future. Their continued antipathy towards anything commercial and anything that might constitute a "scoop", plus that unbending independence, could spell doom for something that has been nothing short of a phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the editorial process on papers submitted to a scientific journal. Design: Descriptive and correlational analysis. Setting: A single specialist rehabilitation journal from mid-1999 to mid-2003. Subjects: The Editor, peer reviewers and authors. Interventions: Submitted papers were initially screened, the majority were subject to review, and a decision was made on whether or not to publish. Reviewers scored papers on 11 items using a 0 (bad)-10 (good) scale. Measures: Time delays and rating of each paper on a pro-forma. Results: The number of papers submitted each year increased from 136 to 209. Between 19% and 31% were rejected without review and 17-24% were rejected later. The proportion accepted dropped from 64% to 47%. The median delay between arrival and first author contact in papers subject to review was stable between 67 and 76 days. Agreement between reviewers was low with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) varying between 0.12 and 0.27 and disagreement of 3 or more points in 32-51%. The main factor associated with eventual acceptance was the sum of the 'overall recommendation score' given by the two reviewers, but 20% of the variance in final decision was unexplained by the reviewers' scoring. The number of randomized trials published increased from 5 in 1996 to 21 in 2002. Conclusions: The influence of the Editor on final decisions remains significant, particularly for papers 'on the margin'; decisions on publication in this journal are guided by but not determined by reviewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the institutional changes in China's journalism reforms. These reforms involve the introduction of market forces into news operations without a fundamental change in the communist political system. Situated in this macro environment, journalists, as entrepreneurial actors, transform the internal tensions in the existing journalism institution into resources for carrying out their improvised and innovative practices. By doing so, they reconfigure the institutional space of the party-press system and create a unique dynamic of center versus periphery and front versus back regions in China's party press. Although the paper is based on an observational field study in China, it is written to present a more general argument on the institutional significance of journalistic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the collection of articles published in MIA to mark 50 years of The Australian offers a critical assessment of the literature on The Australian. It covers the miracle of the paper's conception, its struggle to survive amid widespread doubts that it could, and the conditions that enabled it to flourish at various times. It discusses the paper's original vision as well as its early reception, some of the market research and the changing profile of its readers. It examines arguments and evidence about The Australian's coverage of elections, notes the contention over its positions on other issues and lists a large number of studies that have explored various aspects of its journalism. It also situates The Australian in relation to other parts of News Limited and scrutinises claims about the paper's influence on other publishers and other media. Finally, it offers an outline of the articles in this theme section - four from industry and three from the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A list of publications received for the May 1, 2013 issue of "Contemporary Sociology" is presented, including "Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan Journalism in the Digital Age," by C. W. Anderson, "Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life," by Adam Phillips and "Becoming Intimately Mobile," by Paul Bialski.

This article examines the struggles, actions, and challenges of the journalist organizers at two Florida legacy newspapers – the Lakeland Ledger and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune – who unionized in 2016 with the NewsGuild – Communication Workers of America. In-depth interviews with journalists from both papers suggest that unionizing can help to counter the effects of media concentration, corporate practices, and the resulting changes in organizational structure and their impact on the working conditions of reporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the implications of market-driven journalism for daily newspaper content. Impact of market-driven journalism on U.S. news organizations; Reasons for the controversial nature of market-oriented journalism; Topics covered in papers with relatively strong and weak market orientations.

News diversity is increasingly gaining momentum and relevance in academic research, but quantifying and qualifying the term remains problematic. This paper presents the results of a structured meta-synthesis literature review, in which all relevant publications dealing explicitly with news diversity, media diversity or content diversity of the 21st century found on Scopus (n = 61) are coded and analysed. Findings reveal that studies dealing with these concepts are on the rise in absolute numbers, but also that their theoretical foundations predominantly still lie in the 1990s. From the viewpoint that said foundations have become inadequate to study and understand news diversity in the digital era, we propose an integrated conceptual framework, model and definition to operationalise news diversity, which takes into consideration recent changes in journalism as media concentration dynamics and changing patterns in news production and consumption. It does so by developing a typology of five categories of diversity (ownership, brand, production, content, consumption) and presenting three levels from which news diversity can be studied (the macro level of the media market, the meso level of the media company and the micro level of the media brand). Ultimately, the paper proposes the adoption of mixed methods research to reveal more about the characteristics, contexts and constraints within any media market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the five-decade legacy of a classic volume, Current Perspectives in Mass Communication Research, edited by Kline and Tichenor, published in 1972. After charting the epistemological origins of the book, the paper describes the particular confluence of factors—conceptual, university-based, interpersonal, and the forging of a propitious professional relationship between the book's co-editor and Sage Publications—that explain the provenance and critical impact of the book. The paper notes the contributions, shortcomings, and strengths of the 1972 volume, reflecting on the unique role the book played in the development of journalism and mass communication research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American newspaper editorial boards occupy unusual positions within their newspapers as the only journalists at the papers who may openly express their opinions. When they exercise their opinion-making power in the form of candidate endorsements, they potentially intervene in the democratic process by influencing readers' voting decisions. This article examines American newspaper endorsements of political candidates from the point of view of editorial board members who were involved in endorsement processes during the 2002 and 2004 campaign seasons in Pennsylvania. Through ethnographic observation and interviews with four newspaper editorial boards and 16 editorial board members, this article explores the purposes and roles with which editorial board members believe they undertake the endorsement process, the ways in which they envision the consumers of their endorsements and the challenges they encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data journalism (DJ) stands out as a distinguished contemporary form of news storytelling in which data are simplified and communicated via visuals. It can disseminate knowledge on complex phenomena and contribute to the advancement of journalism. Understanding the motives of readers' DJ consumption is vital to the understanding of three focal elements in the journalism equation: society, journalists, and news-media institutions. This paper fills a gap in the knowledge about studies in DJ – audience interrelationship, contributing to the understanding of the twinning relationship between domesticating everchanging communication technologies and DJ consumption. The theoretical framework draws on news consumption and domestication theory in examining the way media and communication students in Palestinian universities (hereinafter MC students) interact with DJ-based stories communicated via social media platforms. Surveying MC students (N = 99) at four prominent Palestinian universities in the West Bank, the paper explores the motivations behind MC students' DJ consumption, and how recent media technologies might induce its levels of consumption. Targeting Facebook, results show that MC students' engagement with DJ stories is primarily induced by their interest in the topics presented, with social and human stories as primary topics. Other inducers included visuals, proximity to topics discussed, and familiarity with the publishing source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of Malaysian media in the revitalisation of familism, which seems to descend in most Asian societies. The examination of news articles published in English-language Malaysian newspapers between 2011–2021 through critical discourse analysis reveals that newspapers in Malaysia are playing a moral guardianship role by warning readers of the slipping of filial responsibility and the dangers of the alternatives. The papers construct a discourse in support of an established social norm of traditional family roles in caring for family members – particularly, elderly people who are on the rise throughout the world – something the government supports as well, as it relieves it of any obligation to elderly citizens. The role of journalists in the rekindling of familial piety can be linked to development journalism that emphasises the media's partnership with the government as care of older family members absolves the government from the cost of care associated with an increasingly ageing population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of media and journalism in the context of Serbia, a European country which has undergone politically turbulent transition from authoritarian to democratic rule over the past 20 years. Despite the long process of the EU integration, the country has been recently downgraded to a partly free hybrid regime with rapid decline of press freedom, high political and media polarization and raising political and economic instrumentalization of media. Against this background, the paper problematizes how the main structural transformations of the media environment, such as the transition from state to public broadcasting, the introduction of new media laws and the lengthy process of media privatization intersected and influenced different phases and outcomes of the digital transformation of journalism and news media in the country. Unlike the digital journalism development in established democracies of the West, the real systemic change and adaptation of Serbia's media market to easy-to-use technologies, newsrooms convergence, profitable content and participatory journalism has been largely limited and overpowered by the interplay between the state and the media over the past two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of crisis, journalism's own history needs to be reflected upon, both from within and from outside the newsroom. This paper attempts both. From a scientific perspective, we examined the process of the digitalization of journalism and then asked journalists from different generations to reflect on this process. Based on data gathered from these semi-structured interviews with German journalists, our paper presents their evaluation on the evolution from analog to digital journalism—from retired male reporters who wrote most of their articles on typewriters to young female data journalists. The interviews with journalists—including local newspaper reporters, public broadcasting services and news magazines' editors, freelancers and former German Democratic Republic (GDR) journalists—are part of a larger funded research project on German journalism. Their analysis reveals a common problematization of the growing pace of news production and the hybridization of media formats. The qualitative data confirm data from quantitative surveys on journalism and can help international journalism research to get an in-depth understanding on how journalists perceive the changes over the last decades in their trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies Victor Turner's schema of 'social drama' to examine narrative rituals and the roles performed by a local and national newspaper in their coverage of the Umpqua Community College shooting that took place in October 2015. Textual analysis is used to compare stories from The Roseburg News-Review and the New York Times in terms of the narrative's movement from breach, crisis, redress and finally to either reintegration or separation. This study finds that narrative patterns for the local and national newspapers do not parallel, suggesting differences in role perceptions. Instead, journalistic ritual is subject to the crisis, proximity to the tragedy and audience. The local outlet reinforces consensus with authority by focusing on victims and the grieving process to achieve the social good of healing and recovery; and the national newspaper challenges the status quo by focusing on the shooter and legislative reform. While the News-Review reaches reintegration by achieving a sense of normalcy, the New York Times stalls in a state of liminality. Both papers move the discourse on school shootings toward a societal ideal though neither narrative reaches the transformative discourse that has invoked national reflexivity noted in past instances of tragedy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we problematize protest coverage as an epistemological challenge for journalists, based on the case of the 2019 social uprising in Chile, in which the authority of professional journalists as narrators of events was questioned by audiences. The study aims at identifying the main dimensions of news production that become altered in an extended social crisis, as well as the main repertoires of practice and justifications deployed from the journalistic field to face them. The paper is based on the analysis of episodic narrative interviews (n = 32), with journalists who participated in the coverage of the uprising in different capacities, in TV, radio, print and digital only media outlets. In our findings, we identify disruptions of epistemic consequence for news production during the coverage of the protests and riots, such as safety issues, and the relationship of journalists with space, time and the evidence recognized as appropriate for journalistic content, an issue that became particularly problematic around episodes of violence. We then identify four epistemic modes (approaches to knowledge-production) activated during the protests: detached narrator, conflict deflector, conflict mediator and involved narrator. These modes reveal differentiated responses to protest coverage inside professional journalism, which are in turn based on complementary claims of legitimacy for journalistic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how mainstream news organizations in Brazil have tweeted about Jair Bolsonaro, investigating to what extent they may (voluntarily or not) amplify the visibility of populist leaders. We also scrutinize the levels of audience engagement with posts mentioning the President. Our empirical design comprises a content analysis of 128,096 tweets published throughout 2019 by Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, and O Globo. The results reveal that such newspapers focused on controversies and negative issues involving Bolsonaro, while posts addressing public policies did not achieve high visibility or engagement. The article also discusses to what degree the newspapers may be taking advantage of users' preferences for content with populist features to reinforce their watchdog role and boost audience ratings. Our findings also contribute to understanding how populist leaders and media organizations can build a mutually beneficial relationship, even though they publicly claim to oppose each other. Finally, the paper suggests new hypotheses to be explored, such as the argument that quality papers may be loosening the division between news and opinion when using social media to satisfy audience niches in polarized environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In 1930, New York Times Washington correspondent Richard V. Oulahan described his coverage of government activities and affairs as interpretive reporting. Journalism historians have linked the rise of interpretive reporting to the use of bylines, globalism, syndicated columns, and specialized journalism education. The dean of the Washington press corps, Oulahan earned his first bylined story in 1918 for coverage of the Paris Peace Conference. After that time, he began receiving bylines for his coverage of government, politics, and international affairs. Thus, Oulahan's bylined reporting offers an access point for studying the post-World War I rise of interpretive reporting at The New York Times. The study examines the concept of interpretive reporting and then focuses on The New York Times, particularly the influence of Oulahan, Lester Markel, and Arthur Sulzberger. The study shows a direct link between Oulahan's authoritative voice and the editorial innovations pioneered by Sunday Times editor Markel, one of the foremost advocates of interpretive reporting. Next, the study reveals additional factors, including foreign correspondence and good old competition, that led to the emergence of interpretive reporting at The New York Times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents work surrounding INJECT, a newsroom innovation offering digital tools to support journalists. Research showing increasing time and resource pressure on journalists has led to concerns about the demise of investigative reporting and the ability of today's journalists to interrogate information adequately. Some digital innovations (e.g. tools facilitating robot journalism) have been viewed with suspicion by newsrooms. This paper reports on a research project that seeks to create an innovative tool to support the creative capabilities of time and resource poor journalists. The INJECT project used the advanced information discovery capabilities of digitisation to help journalists find new angles on stories and this paper analyses the extent to which such initiatives might harness digital innovation to benefit both the quality and range of reporting and thereby enhance creativity. It examines the potential of an information processing model of creativity derived from the INJECT tool to assist and support journalists, exploring the theoretical impact as well as the practical implications reported from the newsroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly stated that the press in China can be divided into two main categories, the party-oriented official press and the market-oriented commercial press. This article examines an official paper, China Youth Daily, which is a central organ of the Communist Youth League of China. The findings of a content analysis demonstrate that this title differs significantly from other central official titles, like People’s Daily, but also from commercial papers, like Southern Metropolis Daily. While China Youth Daily’s journalism is close to the official pole in the amount of propaganda-related material it covers, it also has a greater emphasis on watchdog journalism than does People’s Daily. It places a much greater emphasis on infotainment than do either of the official and commercial poles. It is more likely to use journalistic techniques like sensationalism and the revelation of personal details than are the other titles analysed. These findings lead to the conclusion that the bi-polar characterization of the Chinese press requires modification. At least one prominent national title is best described as ‘popular official’ media. One of the main features of this kind of journalism is that it presents the party and business elite in a human light and thus constitutes a renewal of the repertoire of hegemonic devices at the party’s disposal. What is certainly the case is that the frequent claim that there is a contradiction between popular journalism responding to audience tastes and official journalism constrained by the propaganda needs of the party is mistaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The football rivalry between Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona is one of the most popular at club level globally. In Spain, where it is known as El Clásico (the Classic), it has an unrivalled status in the sports media industry. Its significance relies in part to the historical tension between Catalonia, the region of which Barcelona is the main centre, and Madrid, the capital of Spain. The exaltation of confrontation and partisanship is the central feature of highly popular radio programmes devoted to El Clásico. This study aimed to observe how the media discourse articulated by these programmes was affected by the fact that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, matches were played in empty venues. Through the comparisons of broadcasts of two games, one from 2017 and from 2020, the paper shows that the sensationalistic style is toned down, and a less polarised and partisan sports journalism is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, the peninsula experienced a progressive transition of telecommunication and broadcasting infrastructure under Russian influence, followed by a wave of repression of Ukrainian media. Between 2014 and 2015, dozens of Ukrainian media organizations and independent journalists left the peninsula to continue working in exile. This paper explores the phenomenon of informational annexation using a mixed methods approach consisting of in-depth interviews with media and IT professionals as well as digital ethnography and network measurements. It argues that, besides pressure from pro-Russian authorities, journalistic work in the area is challenged by legal and infrastructural factors such as the absence of legal and financial protections for Ukrainian journalists traveling to Crimea, lack of holistic digital security within media organizations, and increased Internet censorship in Crimea. By analyzing the risk perceptions and digital security practices of exiled and Crimean civic journalists, this paper explores how informational annexation challenges journalistic work on the infrastructural and organizational level, enabling the rise of civic journalism, and how it affects journalists' individual digital security practices. In the context of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, this research provides insights into some of the informational annexation tactics used by Russians in the occupied Ukrainian territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One primary concern in researching journalistic practice and media production is the difficulty of gaining research access to media organizations and their media professionals. This paper theorizes Small World Sampling method for identifying and recruiting participants for qualitative research. Based on an ethnographic interview study involving 32 journalists at six different international news organizations, our Small World Sampling method created a direct research path into journalists' professional occupational networks without having to negotiate indirect access through their non-journalist organizational gatekeepers (e.g. PR executives, HR department, managers). Small World Sampling allows the participant selection process to be guided by media practitioners' expert and in-group knowledge of their professional network of media colleagues and acquaintances. More methodologically important, our Small World Sampling protocol offers a novel technique for demonstrating the qualitative reliability of the sampling process and for establishing the qualitative validity of the sample under study. Additionally, the paper introduces the concept of 'contextual case studies' offering additional nuance and insights enriching the conclusions drawn from the project's main case studies. Beyond media and journalism research, we propose that Small World Sampling may also prove useful for other fields to facilitate research access into closed organizations, elite networks, and hidden communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How Olympics reporters understand the Games and their role within them has implications for what and how they report. At stake in journalists' storytelling choices are the representations of the Olympics themselves as well as representations of the host city and country — representations that can serve to bolster powerful institutions and dominant ideologies, or to challenge them and open new opportunities for change. Despite the importance of journalists to the production of the Olympic spectacle, there has been relatively little research that examines how Olympics reporters think about what it means to report on the Games. This paper explores what journalists' perspectives and experiences can reveal about the opportunities and challenges for reporting from a "critical stance" at the Games. I highlight three key themes from interviews with journalists who reported on Tokyo 2020 for influential English-language publications: the role of awe in Olympics reporting; impressions of what readers want; and the role of reporters' experiences at past Olympic Games. I suggest that at Tokyo 2020 there were more opportunities for critical reporting that portrayed Olympics problems as exceptional, rather than structural, although the space for structural critique may be growing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing acknowledgment by segments of the global population that it is becoming extremely difficult to ignore the negative production externalities of industrial processes. In this regard, the related concept of "sustainability" has been gaining traction, with use of the word rising considerably since the 1990s. The term itself has been defined in many different ways, however, the core components are becoming common knowledge: economic, environmental, and social--informally referred to as profits, planet, and people. As Borden has aptly noted: "Sustainability ideas are growing and maturing at many levels worldwide". One way that people come to know about sustainable development and its importance is through media coverage of the movement via various projects and initiatives that have been proposed on a theoretical or conceptual basis, as well as those models which have already been concretely realized. One such project established in 2015 is Dubai's "Sustainable City', the emirate's first net-zero energy working model, which received attention in the world press. This paper investigates and compares the coverage that the Sustainable City has received in the global and local media by utilizing a content analysis methodology guided by framing theory. The research joins the discussion on issues regarding how the media discuss aspects of "sustainability" and how it takes hold within a society, whether it be by grassroots or government policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through archival research and an intersectional thematic analysis, this paper examines three key episodes of early-2000s sensation To Catch a Predator and situates them within crime media and journalism literature. The paper analyzes themes of journalistic integrity and the subjugation of women and girls by a television program that claimed to use the former to stop the latter. Based on the analysis, To Catch a Predator engages in forensic journalism as demonstrated by the treatment of women and girls as bait, claims of ownership over women and girls' bodies, lack of nuance in reporting, and the liberties taken in their journalistic practices. Ultimately, this paper shows how To Catch a Predator acts as a spectacle of vigilantism, by creating the child pornography it claims to fight and by glorifying punishment, contributing to the ongoing moral panic around child exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tracing back to the work of Isaiah Berlin and the debates of the Hutchins Commission, discussions of First Amendment theory have long been divided into interpretations of "negative" rights protecting speakers from interference and "positive" rights ensuring that the public has the right to a quality information system. This paper explores how a First Amendment framework consisting of these two approaches breaks down in a networked communication ecosystem in which the lines between communicator and audience are increasingly blurred. The analysis explores these questions amid ongoing debates over regulating platforms and the possibility of increased public intervention in the floundering news industry. The paper builds on previous scholarship that has deemed First Amendment theory "inadequate," incorporating the work of Mike Ananny, Joshua Braun, Victor Pickard, Phillip Napoli, and others. It argues that the current information system is too complex for a simple binary approach to First Amendment theory. Instead, it calls for a reflexive approach that embraces how these perspectives interrelate, one that calls for protecting the rights of speakers, but doing so in a way that characterizes them as members of a larger collective of listeners whose interests must be served. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a comparative analysis of two media artifacts from Reuters engaging with the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis. One artifact are the 'traditional' images that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018; the second is a special report utilising several aspects of new media. Locating the artifacts within humanitarian journalism, the analysis seeks to understand whether emergent media has pronounced gains over traditional media. The study argues that moral connections through technology are not a given and that such relationships between the spectators and subjects of humanitarian communication artifacts must be continually worked on and improved upon through a vigilant media ethics. The paper hopes to contribute to knowledge about new media's intersections with journalistic refugee representations and to the broad field imaginary of humanitarian communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Azerbaijan is an authoritarian regime, whose government maintains a tight grip over the media landscape. Independent and opposition media are regularly persecuted, with journalists and their family members intimidated by law enforcement agencies via arrests, beating, threats and other forms of persecution. Defamation is considered a criminal offence. This paper addresses the impact of this restrictive media environment on reporting about Azerbaijan. As scores of journalists have fled the country in search of safety, a community of exiled journalists has emerged and a number of news media websites operate in exile. Together they continue reporting on Azerbaijan with the help of a handful of journalists remaining on the ground. This paper explores how reporting on Azerbaijan continues despite a highly restricted media environment and what this means for other media systems facing authoritarian rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whistleblowers and journalists are key democratic actors who are both concerned with the exposure of wrongdoing in corporations, organizations, and governments. For that reason, they often collaborate to bring incriminating information to public knowledge. In the standard account, the whistleblower initiates the contact to journalists who eventually publish the story. Based on a sample of 16 whistleblower cases, the paper shows that the reality of this relationship is more complex than the standard account suggests. The empirical material documents four different trajectories through which whistleblower information reaches the public sphere, only one of which conforms to the standard account. The paper explains the variation based on a theoretical framework, which highlights the main similarities and differences between whistleblowers and journalists. Seen from the perspective of whistleblowers the relationship is double-sided. On the one hand, engaging with the press entails considerable asymmetry and uncertainty for whistleblowers who do not always know the exact motives of journalists just as they enter the relationship from a much more precarious and unstable position. Whistleblowers are also wary of collaborating with the press because it entails a radical loss of privacy as the story breaks in the public sphere. On the other hand, interacting with the press can offer vital legitimacy, protection, and professional resources for vulnerable whistleblowers. Existing work on this core relationship in democracy is surprisingly small and undertheorized. The paper contributes to the debate by offering a theoretically and empirically grounded typology of the whistleblower-journalism nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines 48 digital news updates to six New York Times online articles collected through 181 captures via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (WBM), a web scraping tool, pertaining to federal military and local police responses to Portland protests published in headlines, sources, quotes, hyperlinks, the order of information presented, and articles' main thrusts of meaning. Through this analysis, we call for the notion of "ideological correction" to represent an additional element of the liquidity of journalism in this case — shifts in news explanations of single articles that altered the articles' focus on and characterizations of law enforcement and protesters — sometimes even under the same, original headline and article URL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the use of the concept of hybridity in journalism studies, arguing that the concept of hybridity has served an important role in reorienting the field in the face of important processes of social change, but that as a "sensitizing concept" in the sense that Herbert Blumer used the term, it requires critical reflection and more careful specification of its various uses. In the first sections, we map three principal contexts in which the concept has been invoked: one focusing on new media and the blurring of professional boundaries it produces; one focusing on global flows of journalism culture, and a third which treats hybridity not as a novel but as quotidian and rooted in the structural context of the practice of journalism in general. The second part of the paper focuses on issues and challenges in the use of the concept of hybridity. We consider the tendency for hybridity to become a catch-all phrase that substitutes for more specific analysis, and the problem of treating novel phenomena as derivative forms of familiar ones. We then move to critique "presentism" in the discussion of hybridity and the distortions that result from drawing dichotomies between hybrid and "pure" forms, making the argument for taking seriously the idea that hybridity is universal. In the final section, we propose the idea of the hybridity cycle as a way of thinking about stability and change in journalism studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the British media's coverage of the 2015 British Parliamentary elections and opines that the press needs to be monitored in order to prevent political bias. Information is offered about the elections and the lack of neutrality of British newspapers including "The Daily Telegraph" towards left-leaning parties like Britain's Labour Party and its leader Ed Miliband.

The terms 'indices' and 'indicators' may immediately cause eyelids to droop. How, then, might they serve to impassion publics and, ultimately, promote social change? This paper examines the extent to which indices and indicators can be considered communication tools for social movements and social change. The analysis is based on a 2018 evaluation of one index based in the United States – the Ranking Digital Rights Index, which assesses privacy and freedom of expression in the ICT space – and incorporates interviews with civil society stakeholders. Bringing theory from the fields of journalism and social movements together with the data from the evaluation, the findings suggest indices can serve as useful communication resources for social movements under certain circumstances. In particular, the analysis suggests three communication resources – legitimate information, newsworthy information, and flexible information – that human rights indices are most likely to provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers studying media innovation and local news tend to emphasise the 'here and now', focusing on digital advances as the pathway towards more efficient journalism and viable businesses. This paper argues for the importance of examining media practices that have been preserved and valued over time. It advocates for a temporal reflexivity lens to help inform media innovation strategies and policies for the local news sector in the future. We conduct a fine-grained exploration of one of Australia's oldest family-owned local newspapers, The Buloke Times in the state of Victoria, identifying three main areas of the business that have stood the test of time: respect for tradition and reputations, 'embeddedness' in place, and fostering company loyalty and collaboration. Ultimately, we suggest that an appreciation of tradition and continuation may play an important role in understanding the future of digital news in small-town communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study critically examines the notion of interpretation and interpretive practices within journalist-scientist interactions in the news production process. The linguistic ethnographic work in this paper offers rare insights into an intense and lengthy collaboration between a newspaper, university, and government agency as they set up a citizen science project on air quality in Belgium. Our analysis focuses on how journalists and scientists interpret scientific results and how they actively reflect on that interpretation. Beeman and Peterson's (2001) notion of interpretive practice is adopted as an analytical framework and operationalized by looking into how routine procedures, cultural categories, and social positions from the fields of journalism and science are adapted, negotiated or reflected on in the dataset. The findings show that the scientists go beyond providing data and expertise and are heavily engaged in the interpretive work within the news production process. The close-knit interaction between the scientists and journalists brings about a struggle over whose interpretation should be a part of the final news product and limits the interpretive power of the journalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on in-depth interviews with 57 local journalism entrepreneurs in the UK, develops the idea that these emergent and small-scale local news organizations prioritize a form of "vernacular journalism." Driven by a democratic impulse, vernacular journalism reflects the preoccupations, experiences and histories of ordinary people and their communities, providing a vehicle for representation and voice, which is often missing from more established news organizations. Vernacular journalism seeks to (1) make a difference in the local community, and (2) represent the nature of the community, providing a "first draft" of its history from its inhabitants' perspective. The ability to provide such vernacular journalism is premised on knowledge of the community, cultivated through long-standing presence. The provision of a vernacular journalism which reflects the world from the bottom up is a unique selling point for local journalism, against the top-down orientation of larger regional and national outlets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study on gender productivity in the field of mass communication. This study is a content analysis by authorship and research preference of all the refereed papers accepted to the conventions from 1987 to 1993. Variables include gender and Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication division, thus making it possible to determine not only the overall scholarship status of women within the organization but also to identify representation levels with respect to each specific area of discipline. This study indicates that women are out-producing men on a per capita basis when refereed convention papers are considered. The 28 percent of the organization's membership that is female has in recent years been producing nearly half of the refereed convention research. The study also contributes to the understanding of differences in gender research preference. By identifying paper acceptance rates by division, it became possible to determine areas of increasing scholarship by women and even areas of dominance.