Journalism Studies

Chen, Shi; Tian, Xiang

doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2024.2331513pmid: N/A

“Positive journalism” is always emphasized in China, which is currently named as “ZhengNengLiang” (literally referring to “positive energy”). Such content is hoped to spread confidence, hope, and optimism. During public crises like the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is particularly highlighted. Since “ZhengNengLiang” is a term that is difficult to match perfectly with any existing concept of journalism, this study investigates its connotations by applying qualitative methods and taking Shanghai’s lockdown for the COVID-19 as an example. Adopting grounded theory, semi-structured in-depth interviews with 15 practitioners of community media were conducted, and 3016 valid subjective questionnaires were collected from audiences. All materials were coded by applying thematic analysis. It is found that content producers tended to emphasize adherence to mainstream ideology, upholding opinion climate in communities, and promoting neighborly mutual assistance. Audiences’ understandings of it were partially in line with the producers’, but they placed priorities on practicality. These findings resonate with some established theories like constructive journalism. However, China's political system and cultural traditions make the connotations of “ZhengNengLiang” complex. We suggest policymakers provide content producers at grassroots level more room to create “ZhengNengLiang” content with more practical significance.

Perreault, Gregory P.; Ferrucci, Patrick; Ficara, Grace

doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2024.2333819pmid: N/A

Throughout journalism studies scholarship, the market orientation of lifestyle journalism has been associated with its diminished place within the journalistic field. Specifically, because lifestyle journalists are often thought to entertain and not inform, they hold less social capital within the journalism industry. This study aims to explore how lifestyle journalists perceive their own market orientation and their role relative to the audience. Through the lens of market theory for news production, this study reports on semi-structured interviews with US-based lifestyle journalists (n = 30) and argues that lifestyle journalists perceive that they do feel effects of market influence, but no more than those experienced in hard news specialties. However, lifestyle journalists did perceive expectations in their newsroom that their work ought to be market-driven, and bring in revenue, in order to support the reporting of hard news.

Royal, Cindy; Kosterich, Allie

doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2024.2340570pmid: N/A

Computer programming, or what is commonly known as coding, is an emerging skill supporting the development of digital products in news media organizations. Through the application of practice theory—a hybrid approach that includes elements of field theory, actor–network theory and structuration theory—we examine the ways in which coding competencies are practiced within and across different roles, for different purposes. This exploratory study uses online interviews with 19 news product managers and leaders–or those who are tasked with the management, development, testing, and launching of digital news products–offering unique insight on coding practices across functions. Results highlight the usage, value and nuances of coding skills, providing insight into the activities, materiality, and reflexivity of computer programming as it emerges across roles in a news organization.

Bhargav, Nimmagadda; Downey, John

doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2024.2340572pmid: N/A

The precarity of journalistic labour has received significant scholarly attention globally, leading to a plethora of studies that attempt to theorise changing journalistic roles, practices, and norms. Whereas precarity in newswork is formulated as the “new normal” in the Global North, the precarious situation of marginal(ised) newsworkers in the Global South has been simply normal. Based on ethnographic research in two small-town formations in South India, this article presents how stringers working in Indian-language newspapers have developed a complex professional identity and shared norms through journalistic and extra-journalistic practices to survive in the field. In doing so, we develop, in a novel way, Bourdieu’s concept of illusio to understand the formation of a professional identity that spans adjacent fields. This paper’s critical engagement with the difficult working lives of stringers and their invisible labour has learnings for analysis of precarity in journalism across the Global North and South.

Hameleers, Michael

doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2024.2340591pmid: N/A

Although the widespread application of corrective information has been found to lower the credibility of misinformation, there may be important sources of resistance among social media users that potentially limit the effectiveness of fact-checking, warning messages, and community-based verifications. Yet, to date, we lack an inductive and context-bound understanding of users’ responses to these different applications, and the reasons why users distrust or avoid corrections online. Against this backdrop, this paper relies on an in-depth qualitative content analysis of responses to different forms of corrective information on Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. The study’s main findings inform a typology of resistance consisting of (1) expressing doubts on the selection biases of corrective information; (2) challenging the evidence and conclusions of corrective information; (3) blaming the correction for being biased and/or partisan and (4) labeling the correction or intervention as disinformation itself. The implications for journalism practice and content moderation are discussed.

Cabas-Mijares, Ayleen

doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2024.2340594pmid: N/A

This study presents a critical discourse analysis of the coverage of undocumented LGBTQ people and the Undocuqueer Movement by Spanish-language news media to examine how notions of solidarity and advocacy inform ethnic news narratives. The analysis reveals that Spanish-language news outlets construct undocumented LGBTQ identities around the notions of precarity and activism, affording the community some agency while still highlighting the interlocking oppressions that make undocuqueer life particularly hazardous in the U.S. Additionally, the coverage in Spanish-language media deploys solidarity as a news value, rendering newsworthy the perspectives of the undocumented LGBTQ community, the systemic issues that impact it, and the initiatives that undocuqueer people and their allies have taken to improve their situation. This study suggests that Spanish-language news media, as part of the legacies of ethnic media, are a particularly fertile ground for the development of solidarity reporting, which allows journalists to leverage their belonging to minoritized communities to produce more accurate, fair, impactful, and action-oriented news narratives.