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  5. Volume 44, Issue 2, 2022

Australian Journalism Review - Volume 44, Issue 2, 2022

Volume 44, Issue 2

Volume 44, Issue 2, 2022

Language: English
  • Research Articles

      • ‘Go join that radio station up there’: The role of Australian community radio in journalism education and training

        https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00102_1

        Community broadcasting represents the largest independent media sector in Australia, with over 26,000 actively involved volunteers per annum. While people come to community broadcasting at many different points in their life, there is a common, unofficial narrative that describes community radio volunteers ‘cutting their teeth’ in the sector and then ‘moving on’ in their careers. This article details research that interrogates the experiences of journalists and other people working in the creative and cultural industries, who spent significant time in the Australian community broadcasting sector. Employing a collective case study approach, this article identifies and discusses key themes describing the impact of community radio on the employment pathways and career trajectories of its practitioners, with a focus on journalism and media production. These themes provide a framework for further research into the impact of community media on journalists’ employment pathways and career trajectories, viewing community media through a rhizomatic prism.

    • Asian Australian media representation of First Nations sovereignty and constitutional change

      https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00103_1

      This study explores levels of interest in and framing of Australian First Nations constitutional reform in minority ethnic media. A keyword search of mainstream English media in Australia and of media targeted at Chinese, Pakistani, Vietnamese and Indonesian Australian communities shows a relatively low level of interest in the publication of and government response to the Uluru Statement in the latter outlets compared to the English media. Framing analysis over an extended timeframe finds some interest in and broad support for Australian First Nations’ calls for constitutional reform in the Asian Australian media, as well as variation and suggestive correlations between framing and audience such as linking First Nations history to experiences of racism and exclusion of Chinese Australians. The study has implications both for any referendum for a First Nations Voice to Parliament and for scholarship on the role of minority ethnic media in the contemporary Australian public sphere.

    • ‘It doesn’t feel right to say how much I enjoyed this’: Listener perspectives on ethics in true crime podcasts

      https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00104_1

      This research seeks a clearer understanding of listener perspectives on issues of ethics in true crime podcasts (TCPs). To do so, the study first divides TCPs into three subgenres: and . Then, it uses a mixed methods content analysis of listener reviews ( = 1200) of TCPs to ascertain listeners’ value systems and preferences when assessing podcasts, the role of ethics in audience evaluations of TCPs and the impact of subgenre on listener response. It finds that a large subsection of the reviewer audience (29.7 per cent) privileged ethics as a key criterion for evaluating and reviewing podcasts and that listeners’ level of engagement with issues of ethics is specific, careful and nuanced. It also finds that subgenre can play a role in shaping engagement with content, with and formats more likely to result in listeners relating to content as entertainment.

    • Exploring small newspaper attitudes to a collaborative approach with Australia’s primary public broadcaster (ABC)

      Authors: Kristy Hess and Angela Ross
      https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00105_1

      Collaborative approaches to news production are increasingly being trialled across the globe in an attempt to alleviate a well-documented crisis in local news. Of particular interest to Australian policy-makers is the BBC Local Democracy Reporting project which funds journalists to be based in local news outlets to provide local government reporting, as well as data journalism initiatives. There is political will that such an approach could be adopted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to support the nation’s rural and regional news provisions. This article draws on data from six interpretive focus groups involving 50 news workers from independent Australian local news publishers to consider whether smaller publishers would welcome a collaborative approach with the ABC. It finds that a one-size-fits-all collaborative approach is unlikely to be suitable for the Australian regional media landscape and that more work is needed developing an understanding of an appropriate framework that may be tailored to best meet the needs of different local news outlets.

  • Emerging Scholars

      • The ‘digital death knock’: Australian journalists’ use of social media in reporting everyday tragedy

        https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00106_7

        Newspapers regularly publish stories about people who have died suddenly or in unusual circumstances and the effect of these deaths on families and communities. The practice by which a journalist writes such a story is called the ‘death knock’; the journalist seeks out the deceased’s family to interview them for a story about their loss. The death knock is challenging and controversial. It has been criticized as an unethical intrusion on grief and privacy and shown to have negative effects on bereaved people and journalists. It has also been defended as an act of inclusion, giving the bereaved control over stories that may be written anyway, and a form of public service journalism that can have benefits for families, communities and journalists. Traditionally a knock on the door, the death knock is also done via phone and e-mail, and recently, in a practice termed the ‘digital death knock’, using social media. This article reports on the findings of a 2021 survey of Australian journalists and their current death knock practice and it will do this within the framework of research in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. In these countries, journalists are doing the ‘digital death knock’ because of time and competition pressures and available technology; however, this raises ethical concerns about their reproduction of social media material without the permission or knowledge of its owners. This article will discuss the extent to which social media has impacted death knock practice in Australia.

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