Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies - Volume 3, Issue 3, 2014

This editorial note focuses on why practitioners complain about academic writing. It starts with how important it is for media and journalism academics to write lively and in a lucid way to be clearly understood by their peers and the people they research. It highlights research about the correlation between the way we think and the way we write. It provides a few samples of what the author sees as poor academic writing. It discusses the impact digital and free and open access publishing is having on academic content and writing. It ends with a few suggestions.

The central objective in addressing media plurality is to ensure that no single body or person exercises an undue degree of influence over the flow of information and the formation of political opinion in the United Kingdom. David Elstein examines the media market in the United Kingdom and finds it lacks plurality and diversity since it is dominated by one actor, namely the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).

Most studies of news writing focus on what happens inside the newsroom. This study focuses on an interrelated sequence of processes involving one clearly ‘located’ authoring practice outside of the newsroom, followed by its recontextualization and some reframing. A correspondent working for a news agency decided to write one story and not to write another while working from a local bar. His decisions were made on the basis of a ‘news value’ equation with regard to ‘unusualness’ and ‘negativity’. They were also made from an economic perspective. The fact that he was working from a bar did not hinder the correspondent’s work habits too much. Because of his smartphone he was able to be given an assignment, inform himself of what had happened, write an article and send it in to the news desk without having to leave his seat. Subsequently, the correspondent’s text was (quickly) taken over by online news media and recontextualized from different deictic centres, resulting in a number of small changes. Only in one instance was it uncertain, though highly likely, that the correspondent’s article was used as a source. This is the only instance in which new information was added and in which the elite frame of the story was abandoned. Thus the article traces the genesis and meaning trajectory of a news story in a digital environment.

Starting from the 2000s, when the neo-liberal conservative AKP (Justice and Development Party) came to power in Turkey, the neo-Ottomanist idea and identity became more visible as a political discourse in the public sphere. Increased use of neo-Ottomanist references, especially within the past ten years, has also appeared through popular cultural products such as books, feature films, TV commercials and TV series. Redefining the concept of Turkish nationalism and Turkish–Islamic synthesis within the neo-Ottomanist context, these products transferred these Ottomanist references into the popular arena. These attempts are not always welcomed by the AKP due to disagreements about the definition of Turkish conservatism and have sparked criticism. In this study, press coverage of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan’s neo-Ottomanist reaction and criticism towards the very content of a TV series, titled Muhteem Yüzyl/The Magnificent Century (Tims Productions, Star TV, 2011–14), has been analysed. The research sample consisted of three national dailies, Cumhuriyet, Radikal and Yeni afak, and the newspapers were examined using the method of content analysis. As a result, it can be argued that the sample newspapers have supported different ideological backgrounds around the discussions and speculations regarding the The Magnificent Century.

The emergence of innovative ways of narrative extensions in the twenty-first century is a landmark of contemporary media writing. These experiences integrate in a complex way multiple texts to create a narrative so broad that it does not fit in a single media. In journalistic production the current feedback of audiovisual content from television and from the Internet in the construction of the news represents the most innovative expression of events referred to as Multimedia Reports on websites from different countries such as the Argentine Clarín.com, the Spanish El Mundo, and the Brazilian portal Universo Online (UOL). This work presents a mapping of those inventive news formats, questioning whether the incorporation of multimedia contributes to more diverse reports of social facts. It also proposes a reflection on journalism education, discussing the importance of providing to the students opportunities to think about journalism as a form of knowledge and to make more creative and critical news in their training of future professionals.

In an era in which corporate and governmental corruption is rife, the whistleblower has become a crucial resource in journalism’s attempts to fulfil its role of social watchdog, making accountable those who wield governmental and corporate power. Yet the relationship between journalist and whistleblower is complex with both synergetic and oppositional characteristics, which can threaten both the credibility of the final news report and the standing and well-being of the participants. This exploratory study focuses on the crucial interface between journalist and whistleblower, pursuing an understanding of journalists’ views, knowledge and attitudes towards the whistleblower as source.

The momentous events that became known as the Arab Awakening or Arab Spring, or as some even called it the Arab Democratic Spring (2011–14) – although the Arabic term is thaura – meaning a revolution – were a historic development that took by surprise and later even stunned leaders, scholars, commentators and reporters in western countries, mainly in Europe and in North America. Part of the surprise and the inability of the western media to predict the uprisings and above all their dismal and totally unexpected outcome is the subject of this article. An attempt will be made to understand why the western media got it so wrong. Since it can be safely assumed that the Arab Spring has ended its run, certain questions regarding the reporting of this event are in order.

This article discusses the quantitative and qualitative results from the research ‘The journalist profile and the discourses on journalism: Investigating the changes in the working world of professional journalists in São Paulo, Brazil’, which has as objective to understand the changes in the working world, in the professional profile of journalists and in theirs discourses. In the first part, we contextualize the research in these changes from the rise of capitalism, from media convergence and from the deep cultural changes introduced by the use of new technologies. In the second part, we report the methodological procedures that justify the composition of the sample of our research (the journalists). In the last part, we present the results of the research and the observations on the analysis of the professional profile of journalists from São Paulo, the Brazilian state that has the highest number of journalists, besides the challenges of the profession.

In this study we present an exploratory comparison of environmental journalists and environmental bloggers. Using a web survey, we compared environmental journalists and bloggers across a range of different variables that the literature shows matter in understanding the environmental discussions that they produce. This study offers important insights about the people behind the mediated messages we get about the environment. We found that environmental journalists and environmental bloggers are similar and different at the same time. They have the same level of concern and perceived knowledge about the environment. But they also conceive of different roles in society and source their information differently. We discuss the implications of these findings on the evolving nature of environmental reporting and discourse.

Media organizations in many parts of the world seek to have their staffs reflect the make-up of the communities they serve. In April 2011, the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) reported that the number of journalists of colour working in newspaper and online newsrooms declined for the third consecutive year. Findings revealed that while minorities represent 36% of the US population, they account for only 12.79% of journalists working in newspaper newsrooms (ASNE 2011). This qualitative study investigates the unique approach underway in East Palo Alto, designed to alter a backward-sliding trend in the numbers of minorities entering the journalism profession. Through field observations and one-on-one interviews with programme participants, instructors and advisors, this study examines how academic and extracurricular choices made while in high school can affect students’ perceptions about possible futures. Specifically, it looks at the efficacy of an off-campus approach to altering a school’s dominant culture.