Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2016

I was gratified to receive an invitation from the editor of the Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies (AJMS) to edit this special issue of the journal. What spurred me to accept the offer is AJMS’ thrust, with one of its major targets being greater integration between the academic and professional worlds. The construction of the special issue under the rubric of ‘Doing and thinking journalism in the twenty-first century’ was initially inspired in the dialogue Barbie Zelizer and I had in Hyderabad, India, the venue of the 2014 annual congress, which the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) organizes every year. Barbie Zelizer is a Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania and is one of the most recognized researchers in journalism today with a productivity marked by the quality of her critical reflections. Zelizer’s research focuses on the cultural dimensions of journalism, with a specific interest in journalistic authority, collective memory and journalistic images in times of crisis and war. She also works on the impact of disciplinary knowledge on academic enquiry. Here are excerpts from our conversation.

This textual analysis of Palestinian blog posts interrogates the expression of Palestinian identity online during and after the failure of the peace talks led by US Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013 and 2014. Results indicate an unyielding reinforcement of resistance narratives alongside a youthful reinvention of collective identity as the decades-long dream for an independent state fades. It also ponders how the online performance of identity allows the speakers to make the personal political as well as public for their audience and for one another.

This article investigates how the two Norwegian newspapers Aftenposten and Dagbladet framed the reporting about Anders Behring Breivik (henceforth Breivik) in the aftermath of the terror attacks at the government building in Oslo, leaving eight dead behind, and the killing of 69 young people at the AUF youth summer camp on Utøya on 22 July 2011. On the basis of critical discourse analysis, Robert Entman’s framing theory and theories about enemy images, we have analysed a selection of articles from a total sample of 1323 articles covering landmark periods related to the attacks of 22 July 2011: the immediate reaction (22–29 July); the meeting in court to prepare the trial (14–15 November); and the presentation of first psychiatric report (29–30 November). Did the media speculate, before Breivik’s identity was known, on the possibility that Muslim extremists were responsible? An analysis of the editorials in Aftenposten and Dagbladet concludes that Aftenposten hypothesized that Muslims might be behind the attack, while Dagbladet mostly avoided such speculation. The divergence in representation is reiterated in the interviews the authors conducted with the two newspapers’ editors. After Breivik’s identity became known we found three dominating frames, the perpetrator as a ‘right-wing extremist’, as an ‘insane person’ or as an ‘attention-seeker’. The framing analysis show that the ‘insane’ frame was the most usual in both Aftenposten and Dagbladet, followed by the ‘extreme right wing’ frame and ‘the attention-seeker’ frame. The article discusses how this framing might have influenced the long-term consequence for public debate in Norway.

In Latin America in the twenty-first century, journalists face daily professional and societal constraints and pressures when attempting to fulfill their role to inform the public. Concerns include a lack of press freedom, robust and growing social movements critical of the news media, and personal security on and offline. In this article, the authors examine the conceptual frameworks that can be used to understand journalism practice, and the lack of freedom of expression in Latin America. The authors use Mexico, one of the most dangerous places for journalists to work in the region, as a case study. Specifically, the authors examine and discuss the strengths and limitations of six conceptual frameworks: Hierarchy of Influences; Propaganda and Information Scarcity; Collective Action; Scale-shifting; Professional Reflexivity; and Collective Professional Autonomy.

Journalism is an essential activity for democracy and for the full exercise of freedom. However, it is threatened by several factors. The major one is the increasing fragmentation of the information environment. The phenomenon started in the 1990s with the introduction of the Internet on a large scale. From that period onwards: the main publications opened their contents, promoting the perception that information is free; instantaneity and interactivity changed the consumption patterns of information, dispersing public attention; diluted attention changed the media planning of advertisers; and proliferation of mobile devices deepened the dispersion. This article will not consider the undeniable social benefits offered by networks – or it will do it in a superficial way, as a necessary context. The focus will be on journalism dilemmas as an organized activity– as such, a private business with high public interest.

The Marshall Project is news organization focusing on the American criminal justice system. The non-profit group’s target is to pursue journalism’s lofty notions of impartiality, fairness and accuracy in its coverage of criminal justice in the United States. It has carried out numerous in-depth investigative projects, narratives and profiles, demonstrating how the media can put a human face to criminal justice and how to contextualize its coverage.

Goffman in his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), treated face-to-face interaction as a subject of sociological study in which he framed out the theatrical performance that applies to face-to-face interactions. He believed that when an individual comes in contact with other people, that individual will attempt to control or guide the impression that others might make of him by changing or fixing his or her setting, appearance and manner. At the same time, the person the individual is interacting with is trying to form and obtain information about the individual. The desired image or the desired self is the image one would like others to have of oneself. As stated by Leary and Kowalski, ‘The presentation of self among people tends to lean towards their desired selves and away from their undesired selves’ (Leary and Kowalski 1990). Since people’s desired selves and undesired selves presumably reflect their own values, they value particular characteristics and so they would desire to be a certain kind of person. Therefore, people usually convey corresponding image, which consists of those characteristics. Most of the impressions people want to form are to be liked by others. With this background, the present study attempts to examine the use of Facebook and its different tools used by participants to create and manage an online identity. The researcher also wants to explore relationship between self- presentation image conveyed on Facebook among individuals that they would tend to project certain behaviours in order to convey their desired image online. In the first phase, a quantitative approach was followed. A survey was conducted with 300 college-going students in Delhi to explore their engagements to manage their impressions by using different Facebook tools like posting photographs, status updates, joining groups and pages and displaying their likes on Facebook. The goal of this research is to ascertain the ways in which the college goers use Facebook tools to present themselves online, and to identify the consequences of these actions. Using qualitative approach, in the second phase, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 30 active Facebook users to provide insights into the decisions and analyse their use of Facebook sites to convey the desired image. Also, the relationship between the frequently used patterns on Facebook and types of self-presentation shaped were analysed. The findings establish which tools of Facebook are used to create and manage one’s identity and the consequences of online identity creation in relation to the management of diverse social networks.

Throughout the twentieth century and during the first decade of the new millennium, journalism schools have maintained a teaching model founded on the continuation of standard practices in the discipline. This model disregards the importance of applied research in supporting innovation in pedagogy and in journalism. In this article, we argue that the integration of teaching and applied research is necessary in part to overcome the current crisis media organizations are facing in relation to the outdated business models established in the previous century. One of the study’s main conclusions is that the current lack of interaction between universities and the media industry should give way to hybrid teaching models that include multidisciplinary applied research projects focused on the development of new formats, graphic languages, techniques, processes and prototypes of content production platforms.

With the rise of digital technologies and the opening-up in society, China’s journalism education has entered a period of fast growth. While the media environment is adapting to the changes, journalism education is still developing in a traditional manner, thus failing to provide up-to-date teaching for students. Meanwhile, because of gaps between academics and professionals, graduates are not appreciated by media industries. On the basis of the background of media development and social reality in China, the article endeavours to elaborate on issues and challenges of Chinese journalism education by revealing the relationship between policy, media and journalism education. The article suggests that the problems in journalism education are caused by the social system rather than by education. Therefore, instead of focusing on issues invited by the new technology, market or the conflict between the academic and professionals, it is more crucial for Chinese journalism education to face the challenge caused by the social system, balancing between policy and professionalism, in order to find a way for journalism education to develop in a Chinese context.