Industrial Journalism

Hamburg.
The final speaker in this ECREA 2010 panel is Angela Phillips, who highlights the disappearance of local news; this is a significant challenge to democracy, as it makes it more difficult for citizens to participate in democratic processes in an informed fashion. She highlights hyperlocal blogs as a potential solution here, but these sites are in the main run by enthusiasts without any financial base, and this means that their quality and reach remain limited.

Finding hyperlocal news information is difficult: we don’t know what we need to know; there is no obvious equivalent to a front page of newspaper poster; there is no obvious equivalent to a news bulletin; and there are homogenising effects of online search. So, the hyperlocal sites which do exist could be seen as speaking only to a small elite of the already converted.

Hamburg.
The next speaker at ECREA 2010 is Tamara Witschge, who examines the debates around the future of news. New media technologies are coupled with an idea of progress, and are sometimes mythologised as the answer to dwindling audience figures for journalism; this needs to be critically examined. There is very little space for working journalists to challenge how technology is implemented, which is driven often by technological determinism.

Technological determinism is rife in journalists’ understanding of current changes, in fact; technology is seen as the only way out of the current crisis in journalism. First, there is the perception of an imminent threat; second, audiences are going online, and journalists perceive a need to chase them; embracing new technologies is seen as the only way to do so. So, technology has been coupled directly with progress, and this is seen as the only salvation for the industry.

Hamburg.
The second day of the ECREA 2010 conference is about to begin, and I’m starting the morning with a session on media and democracy in the digital age. We begin with James Curran, who begins by noting that there are three standard views of media and entertainment: a diversion from the serious nature of media coverage; a new category unrelated to politics; and crossover between public affairs coverage and entertainment. Each of these are myopic, for various reasons, and fail to understand the democratic functioning of entertainment.

Rather, entertainment allows us to debate the social and moral values that underpin society; to affirm identity; to examine contrasting interpretations of society; and to debate social norms. James names the 24 series as providing a cue to debating the balance between protecting society from terrorist threats and upholding individual liberties.

Hamburg.
The next speaker at ECREA 2010 is Lina Dencik, whose focus is on BBC World News and its implications for global civil society. Global civil society has grown out of a cosmopolitan notion that privileges public deliberation and involves non-state actors as key transformative agents, resisting and overcoming the attempt at imposing a state-based international order. In this context, the media have three main functions: providing the basis for global citizenship, global public deliberation, and global public opinion and governance. This follows a globalised liberal narrative of media.

But how does this correspond with actual developments in news narratives. BBC World News provides a useful case study here: it is one of a handful of major global news broadcasters, with a substantial audience reach and a mission to provide a global news perspective to a global audience (and yet, compared to CNN and Al Jazeera it has been underresearched so far).

I spoke at an event organised by the Queensland Chapter of the Australasian Study of Parliament Group last night, in the Queensland Parliamentary Annexe – alongside Democrats leader turned Greens candidate Andrew Bartlett, On Line Opinion founder Graham Young, and Courier-Mail political journalist Craig Johnstone.

The theme of the evening was ‘whether bloggers are the new fourth estate’ – and here’s what  had to say (a bit of a rant, as is pretty much unavoidable after the election campaign we’ve had):

Canberra.
The next speaker at ANZCA 2010 is Serene Tng, whose interest is in the influence of citizen journalism on journalistic reporting; her case study are the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Citizen reporting is increasingly important in such major news events; this is social media in action. Serene examined the coverage of the attacks across four major international newspapers, in order to examine how citizen reporting affects the traditional dominance of standard institutional sources.

The role of the media is fundamental in any terrorist acts: the media could be seen as promoting the terrorist cause by reporting acts of terror, but government sources tend to dominate in the reporting and framing of such events; especially in breaking news, however, government sources are often backgrounded in favour of voices from the scene, and this may affect how stories are framed at such times.

Canberra.
The final ANZCA 2010 paper for today is presented by Felicity Biggins and Christina Koutsoukos, whose focus is on journalism education. There have long been calls for journalists to adapt to a changing media environment in which anyone can be a journalist - so what is the value of journalism education? Online, citizens can participate in unprecedented ways - and are sometimes called citizen journalists, as opposed to 'professional' journalists - in the case of major events, anyone with a mobile phone can become a journalist. If the value of journalism comes from the underlying value of journalistic activity, that value is now near zero, some contend.

Canberra.
I'll admit that I've skipped the ANZCA AGM to check out the (excellent) Museum of Australian Democracy in the front wing of Old Parliament House - well worth a visit, and I can now say that I've crossed the floor in both houses of parliament. The next session at ANZCA 2010, then, starts with a paper by Anna Daniel, whose focus is on computational journalism: a response to the changes in news consumption and production through the greater use of software and technologies that support journalistic work. The belief is that this approach can benefit the quality of journalistm, and in doing so set apart papers which use it from their competitors.

With the Internet Turning 40 and International Communication Association conferences completed, I'm briefly back in Brisbane, before setting off for the Australia/New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) conference in Canberra next week (hopefully with a recharged audio recorder!).

In the meantime, here's a quick update on some new publications I've been involved in - a number of my recent book chapters on a range of topics have now been published:

First, with a chapter on "News Blogs and Citizen Journalism" in e-Journalism: New Media and News Media I'm introducing my work on gatewatching and citizen journalism to an Indian readership - the book was edited by Kiran Prasad, who was my office mate at the University of Leeds while I was there in 2007 to do some research for the produsage book, and was published by B.R. Publishing in Delhi. I don't think the publisher actually has a Website - but there's a good overview of the collection at Cyberjournalist, and it also includes contact details for BR Publishing.

Singapore.
The next speaker at ICA 2010 is C.W. Anderson, whose interest is in debates over the US shield law for journalists. Can we see a process of professional boundary maintenance in this (protecting definitions of who is and isn't a journalist)? The shield law debate emerged from questions about what legal protections were available to journalists who were suppoenaed to release information gathered from confidential sources; the law would protect journalists and their sources and grant them immunity from particular forms of prosecution.