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  5. Volume 46, Issue 1, 2024

Australian Journalism Review - Volume 46, Issue 1, 2024

Volume 46, Issue 1

Volume 46, Issue 1, 2024

Language: English
  • Commentary

      • Trove: Still a buried treasure

        Authors: Kerry Green and Candice Green
        https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00145_7

        The process of digitization has proven to be a boon for researchers, and especially for historians, because producing a digitized record of a thing allows researchers anywhere in the world to have access to artefacts. Digitization is especially important for mass communication researchers studying issues surrounding news. Digitization of news publications enables researchers to conduct word, phrase or other thematic searches using appropriate software. But where content has not been digitized, researchers must undertake cumbersome searches by physically reading through the original documents or some analogue record, like microfiche, and then they are limited by the assiduity of themselves, their teams and by the degradation of the originals as they age. Researchers in Australia are considerably assisted by the existence of the Trove database, which has digitized the content of Australian newspapers up to the end of 1954. The National Library of Australia considers Australian copyright law, which says content must be at least 70 years old, limits what may be digitized. Researchers who want to look at more recent news content must do so via state libraries’ microfiche records, limiting access. To make access equitable and democratic, Trove should digitize newspaper content into the twenty-first century.

  • Research Articles

      • Changing journalists’ occupations: An analysis of Australian Census 2021

        https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00146_1

        The crisis in the news industry is affecting journalism as a profession. There are concerns about the increasing precarity of the job, with fewer opportunities of full-time employment and a clear career path. Through an analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census 2021 data, this study examines the current state of journalists’ occupation. Since 2011, there was an overall decline (19 per cent) in the number of journalists in Australia. The largest reduction occurred in print media, where the number of journalists halved. In contrast, the number of ‘journalists not further defined’ increased by 39 per cent. This category reflects the increase in the number of journalists who would not typically be working in a traditional journalism role. Workers in these categories of ‘not further defined’ and ‘not elsewhere classified’ earn less, are younger and are less likely to be employed full-time. Overall, the data reveal that many journalists in 2021 are facing precarious work arrangements.

    • Younger audience perceptions of journalists on social media

      https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00147_1

      Impartiality has been a core ideal of traditional journalism, and one that audiences say they want the news media to uphold. However, generational shifts in news consumption and attitudes towards news, combined with evolving media technologies, are changing audience expectations around the traditional separation of impartial news from opinion. Drawing on the , this article finds audiences generally prefer journalists to stick to reporting while on social media and refrain from expressing their opinions. However, there are significant differences based on age, education, political orientation, news motivation and if they pay for news. The data shows that under 35s, well-educated, left leaning and paying news consumers are the most supportive of journalists expressing their personal views while on social media. Through the lens of Expectancy Violation Theory this article highlights the impact of growing up with digital technologies on audience expectations of normative journalistic practice and the tensions this creates for the news industry which is facing ongoing economic pressures.

    • ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’: A pilot study of reflections on diversity and inclusion in the news media

      https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00148_1

      This article reports on a pilot study that examined representational and content diversity in Australian media through semi-structured interviews with experts in the field and secondary documentary analysis of available public reports, news articles and websites. Of the eleven axes of diversity explored in the wider project, this article focuses on ability, ethnicity, religion and class, based on the experience and expertise of the interview participants. The analysis revealed four common themes: (1) the media’s tendency to narrowly and predictably portray diverse groups; (2) the lack of diversity in newsrooms and management, and its impact on content and representation; (3) commercial imperatives and (4) the value and impact (or not) of policies. While there are some areas of the media that are seen to be doing a better job, the overwhelming consensus among the participants supported community advocacy and academic literature that finds Australian news media can do better when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

    • An examination of factors influencing journalism educators’ perceptions on the role and future of news reporting

      https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00149_1

      This article explores how educational qualifications, age, gender and regional context affect journalism educators’ perceptions of journalism’s normative roles and the future needs of journalism students. It draws on Australian and New Zealand/Aotearoan responses to the 2021 World Journalism Education Council (WJEC) Survey . It shows that holding a Ph.D. diminishes support for traditional observer and disseminator roles and predicts support for the mobilizer role. Age also predicts role perception; it diminishes support for the disseminator and mobilizer roles for both the current position of journalists and journalists in the next ten years. These age and education effects are independent of each other. The findings point to the need for more detailed research on the effects of further education on journalism teachers’ professional conceptions and teaching strategy.

  • Emerging Scholar Research Article

      • Hearing the voice: Coverage of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum in Australia’s multi-ethnic public sphere

        https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00151_1

        In the present study, we compare coverage in mainstream English and minority ethnic media in Australia of the Uluru Statement proposal for a Voice and later referendum announcements, over the period from 1 January 2018 to 31 March 2023, to compare any changes over time within and between these two sets of media. With the election of the Labor government in 2022 and subsequent referendum announcements in early 2023, we are provided an opportunity to study the influence of key actors, in this case an incoming government with a signature policy, on discourse in the multi-ethnic public sphere. Our overarching aim is to compare the extent to which an issue of national, political and civic importance is addressed across both the mainstream English and the minority ethnic public sphere in contemporary, multicultural Australia. The results of keyword searches show that, while there were significant increases in mainstream English media coverage of the Voice referendum proposal, corresponding to the election of the Labor government in 2022 and then subsequent announcements of an upcoming referendum in early 2023, there was inconsistent coverage across the minority ethnic media we studied: while significant increases in coverage in the Chinese media mirrored those in the mainstream English media, there was only a small increase in one of the Vietnamese media over the same period, and no increase in the other Vietnamese media. The findings presented here have implications for scholars and others interested in the development of a truly multicultural public sphere in Australia and elsewhere.

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