Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies - Volume 4, Issue 3, 2015

The Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies (AJMS) is devoted to research with an applied angle in which a clear link is made between the prevalent theories and paradigms that media and communication scholars work with, and the real world where media and communication activities take place. Media and journalism scholars rarely cooperate with the actors with a say in media production. The actors broadly ‘resent’ or discard scholarly work that theorizes and interprets their practice. In an attempt to bridge this gap, AJMS has been and will be open to submissions by both practitioners and academics. It has published many articles by practitioners, which broadly have been critical of academic writings about journalism as theory and practice. Dr Jairo Lugo-Ocando of the University of Leeds, who himself was a reporter and editor before joining academia, comes to academia’s defence. While not absolving academics of the blame for lack of cooperation, he believes journalists also bear the brunt of the failure in rendering scholarly material useful and relevant to their profession.

On 26 October 2011, it was announced that the BBC coverage of the so-called Arab Spring would come under an internal BBC Trust review. The review was led by Edward Mortimer, former UN Director of Communications and an expert in Middle Eastern affairs. Its chief aim was to determine the level of impartiality to which the BBC rose during what Mortimer described as an apparently ‘exciting’ time for journalists. The report was described as ‘remarkable, given the challenges involved, and was generally impartial’. This article will present some notes which contradict the BBC Trust’s self-review while acting as advice for practitioners on misrepresentation and things to avoid while reporting abroad.

Fundamental to the litany of Africa’s development issues is the crisis of governance. Naturally, good governance resonates as a panacea for this situation. In this, the role of the media as the bastion of democracy is indubitable. This article with focus on Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, situates the interplay of good governance and media practices within the media ownership debate. It argues that ownership patterns, pressures and politics have, for a long time, challenged the consistent and committed role of the media in deepening our march towards good governance. With clear case studies of media performances in the country over time, the article contends that the media might not totally be ready to take on the saddle of driving the democratic goals, as a result of the influence of ethnic/religious affiliation, political interest/affiliation and economic interest arising from the ownership shackles. The article returns a verdict of collective responsibility – viewing the failings of the media within the larger context of the failings of the social system in which the media are embedded.

The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion describe a Jewish conspiracy against the world. In 1921 they were proven to be a forgery, but are still used for anti-Semitic purposes. On the Internet the Protocols can easily be spread and discussed. This study aims at exploring the use on the Internet today, by whom, for what purposes and in what contexts. The first twenty web pages found through the search engine Google (www.google.se) when searching for sions vises protokoll were analysed based on the concept of The Hypertextual Dialogue with three levels: a technical level, an intertextual level and a discursive level. The result focuses on the function of the links as well as the use of different types of texts. There are discourses related to history, media, rhetoric, ideology/religion and literature, and, on a wider perspective, to a discourse about freedom of speech on the Internet.

Under normal circumstances scandals are negative events for the scandalized persons or institutions. The communication of transgressions of norms or values, followed by public outrage is the beginning of a scandal. Media plays the most important role in what science calls ‘media scandal’, ‘mediated scandal’ or ‘mediatized scandal’. The scandalized players have to react to the accusations; therefore they have to use the media to reach a broad public. Journalists have the power to control which players have the right to speak and how the scandal is communicated to the public. This article will show a new form of scandal, the so called intentional self-scandalization.1 That type of scandal, which will be shown in the field of political communication, is produced on purpose by the scandalized politicians to achieve certain communicative goals. The theory will then be demonstrated using a concrete example, the scandal of a racial campaign in Switzerland in the year 2007. The article identifies three possible reactions by journalists to this special form of scandal: Scandalizing the intended transgression, ignoring it or thematizing the strategy of the scandalized player. The text will also analyse the advantages and disadvantages of the patterns.

This study utilizes a comparative, content analysis of coverage of the Obama ‘Birther’ controversy from 2008 to 2012 in newspapers from relevant geographic locales – Hawaii, Kenya and Washington, DC – in order to determine whether and how localism impacted the framing and portrayal of the dispute to different audiences, as well as to see how responsibly journalists treated this topic. There were geographic differences in the amount and nature of coverage, though all the outlets gave more space to the anti-Obama side than the President’s. In other respects, however, the Kenyan and Hawaiian papers appeared to be more factual and responsible in debunking the false claims about Obama’s birthplace, while the DC papers viewed it more as a political conflict. The article concludes that while localism can lead to more responsible journalism, the case may instead suggest that media organizations are driven by audience more than truth concerns, even in coverage of conspiracy theories.