The digital transformation of 21st century news journalism

This presentation will deal with the transformations that have occurred in news journalism worldwide in the early 21st century. I will argue that they have been the most significant changes to the profession for 100 years, and the challenges facing the news media industry in responding to them are substantial, as are those facing journalism education. It will develop this argument in relation to the crisis of the newspaper business model, and why social media, blogging and citizen journalism have not filled the gap left by the withdrawal of resources from traditional journalism. It will also draw upon Wikileaks as a case study in debates about computational and data-driven journalism, and whether large-scale "leaks" of electronic documents may be the future of investigative journalism.

Et tu, George? Campaign journalism and the politics of compromise

There is a category of film about journalism in which journalism is not the star, but the supporting player, and journalists not the protagonists but the Greek chorus, commenting on and also changing the realities they report. In such films the news media are a structuring presence driving the plot, shaping the narrative, constructing what we might think of as a pseudo-reality. Like Daniel Boorstin’s notion of the pseudo-event (introduced in his still-relevant book The Image, 1962), this pseudo-reality is so-named because it would not exist were it not for the demands of the news media’s hunger for stories, and knowledge of the damage they can do with those stories, on the calculations and actions of the key actors. Pseudo-realities form as responses to what political actors think journalists and their organisations need and want, or as efforts to shape journalistic accounts in ways favourable to themselves. Films about politics often feature pseudorealities of this kind, in which the events and actions driving the plot have only a tenuous relationship with important things going on in the everyday world beyond the political arena. Everything we see is about image, perception, appearance.

A chance for diversity? Australian online journalism

Australia’s mainstream media landscape has long been recognised as highly limited – media ownership in the country has traditionally been concentrated in the hands of a very few, and (except for Sydney and Melbourne) it is common for major Australian cities to be served by only one local newspaper, usually produced by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd. This can be seen also to affect the quality and diversity of Australian journalism; additionally, the global decline of newspaper publishers’ revenues and overall adverse economic conditions exert further pressure on journalistic operations in the country. At the same time, and possibly in response to the increasing stresses on industrial journalism in the country and the implications they have for the quality of journalistic products, a vibrant and dynamic ecosystem of Australian industrial and citizen journalism publications has emerged online. Existing media organisations have built strong news brands online, while citizen journalists and political bloggers have given voice to issues, concerns, and opinions hitherto underrepresented in Australian mainstream journalism; of particular interest, however, is the increasing level of engagement and interaction between the two. While such interaction has been characterised by deep animosity at times (especially also in the context of the Australian federal election in November 2007), Australia has also seen the emergence and establishment of a number of new, intermediary online publications which act as spaces for public debate and analysis – from the public intellectualism of Online Opinion through the muckraking of Crikey to the progressive politics of New Matilda. The rise of social media as spaces for the discussion of news and politics further changes the media environment, potentially leading both to renewed conflict between professional and citizen journalists and to a greater level of engagement between journalists and audiences. Overall, then, such online developments offer a chance for a greater diversity of opinion and representation in Australian journalism, but also remain under a cloud from uncertain long-term business models and funding arrangements. This chapter outlines current trends in Australian online journalism, and speculates about their effect on the Australian news media landscape.

Narratives of the 'everyday' in Rio de Janeiro's favelas : community photographers' attempts at generating alternative news values [Narrativas do cotidiano nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro: tentativas de construção de valores-notícia alternativos pelos fotógrafos populares]

Abstract This paper presents the partial results of an ongoing research project which investigates ethnographically community (photo)journalism media initiatives, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Viva Rio and Observatorio de Favelas (NGOs) run projects that provide favela residents with skills to take, edit and print their own (photo) journalism contents that enables community-based framing and documentation of favela live, personalities and issues. Three months of fieldwork related to these projects in Rio's favelas generated remarkable theoretical issues that represent the community photographers' attempt to establish counter news values by shifting the focus from poverty, shortages, violence and criminality to images of the ordinary life which included the myriad events that occurs in the day of the favelas. Resumo Este artigo apresenta os resultados parciais de uma pesquisa em andamento que, a partir do método etnográfico, investiga os projetos de comunicação comunitária, jornalismo e fotojornalismo, no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. As organizações não-governamentais (ONGs) Viva Rio e Observatório de Favela apoiam projetos que objetivam tornar moradores de favelas capazes de produzir, editar e publicar as suas próprias narrativas sobre personagens e questões do cotidiano de suas comunidades. O trabalho de campo sobre estes projetos, realizado durante três meses nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro, forneceu questões teóricas relevantes que representam o esforço dos fotógrafos populares para estabelecer contra valores-notícia transferindo o foco da pobreza, escassez, violência e criminalidade para imagens do cotidiano que inclui uma miríade de eventos que acontecem no dia-a-dia das favelas.

Narratives of the 'everyday' in Rio de Janeiro's favelas : the construction of alternative news values by community photographers [Narrativas do cotidiano nas favelas cariocas: a problematizacao dos valores-noticia pelos fotografos populares]

Resumo: Esse artigo apresenta os resultados parciais de uma pesquisa em andamento que, a partir do método etnográfico, investiga os projetos de comunicação comunitária, jornalismo e fotojornalismo desenvolvidos por duas organizações não-governamentais na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. O trabalho de campo, realizado durante três meses nas favelas cariocas, forneceu questões teóricas relevantes para os estudos do jornalismo, destacando-se as problematizações sobre a noção de valores-notícia. Voltados para a produção de narrativas centradas no cotidiano das comunidades, os fotojornalistas populares consideram fundamental discutir os valores-notícia formulados pela grande imprensa e propor “contra-valores”.

The empire goes to war : News Corporation and Iraq

The three main contributors to the war on Iraq in March 2003 (the United States, United Kingdom and Australia) are also the three most significant countries in which Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation operates. This article examines the degree of editorial conformity (or otherwise) that existed across the news media of News Corporation in six months leading to the invasion. It compares the framing of the arguments for war and finds significant similarities across the three countries, especially in the output of columnists and commentators employed by News Corporation. While generally pro-war, however, News Corporation outlets also displayed local variations in the caution or stridency of their editorial pitch as well as the degree of toleration for debate. The extent and significance of these variations are used in the article to argue for the development of a more complex political economy model in the study of private news media bias.

Talking it through : the case for the use of conversation analytic approaches in the analysis of news journalism

This study makes out the case for the use of the Conversational Analytic method as a research approach that might both extricate and chronicle the features of the journalism interview. It seeks to encourage such research to help inform understanding of this form and to provide further lessons as to the nature of journalism practice. Such studies might follow many paths but this paper focuses more particularly on the outcomes for the debate as to the continued relevance of "objectivity" in informing journalism professional practice. To make out the case for the veracity of CA as a means through which the conduct of journalism practice might be explored the paper examines: the theories of the interaction order that gave rise to the CA method; outlines the key features of the journalism interview as explicated through the CA approach; outlines the implications of such research for the establishment of the standing of "objectivity". It concludes as to the wider relevance of such studies of journalism practice for a fracturing journalism field, which suffers from a lack of benchmarks to measure the public benefit of the range of forms that now proliferate on the internet.

Countercyclical markups and news-driven business cycles

The standard one-sector real business cycle model is unable to generate expectations-driven fluctuations. The addition of countercyclical mark-ups and modest investment adjustment costs offers an easy fix to this conundrum. The simulated model replicates the regular features of U.S. aggregate fluctuations.

Hot topic detection in news blogs from the perspective of W2T

News blog hot topics are important for the information recommendation service and marketing. However, information overload and personalized management make the information arrangement more difficult. Moreover, what influences the formation and development of blog hot topics is seldom paid attention to. In order to correctly detect news blog hot topics, the paper first analyzes the development of topics in a new perspective based on W2T (Wisdom Web of Things) methodology. Namely, the characteristics of blog users, context of topic propagation and information granularity are unified to analyze the related problems. Some factors such as the user behavior pattern, network opinion and opinion leader are subsequently identified to be important for the development of topics. Then the topic model based on the view of event reports is constructed. At last, hot topics are identified by the duration, topic novelty, degree of topic growth and degree of user attention. The experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible and effective.

The digital transformation of 21st century news journalism

This paper deals with the transformations that have occurred in news journalism worldwide in the early 21st century. I argue that they havebeen the most significant changes to the profession for 100 years, and the challenges facing the news media industry in responding to them are substantial, as are those facing journalism education. This argument is developed in relation to the crisis of the newspaper business model, and why social media, blogging and citizen journalism have not filled the gap left by the withdrawal of resources from traditional journalism. It also draws upon Wikileaks as a case study in debates about computational and data-driven journalism, and whether large-scale "leaks" of electronic documents may be the future of investigative journalism.

Extracting news blog hot topics based on the W2T methodology

Although topic detection and tracking techniques have made great progress, most of the researchers seldom pay more attention to the following two aspects. First, the construction of a topic model does not take the characteristics of different topics into consideration. Second, the factors that determine the formation and development of hot topics are not further analyzed. In order to correctly extract news blog hot topics, the paper views the above problems in a new perspective based on the W2T (Wisdom Web of Things) methodology, in which the characteristics of blog users, context of topic propagation and information granularity are investigated in a unified way. The motivations and features of blog users are first analyzed to understand the characteristics of news blog topics. Then the context of topic propagation is decomposed into the blog community, topic network and opinion network, respectively. Some important factors such as the user behavior pattern, opinion leader and network opinion are identified to track the development trends of news blog topics. Moreover, a blog hot topic detection algorithm is proposed, in which news blog hot topics are identified by measuring the duration, topic novelty, attention degree of users and topic growth. Experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible and effective. These results are also useful for further studying the formation mechanism of opinion leaders in blogspace.

Journalismus im Umbruch : Wikimedia, Bürgerjournalismus und 'Open News'

Indem sie Informationen zusammenstellt, sortiert und aktualisiert, betreibt die Wikipedia eine Form der Nachrichtenkuration. Besonders daran ist aber nicht allein, dass nicht Journalisten die Inhalte produzieren, sondern dass ein Kollektiv aus "Produtzern" dahintersteht: Der Nutzer wird zum Produzenten.

The role of the board of directors in ensuring a culture of integrity

Corporate scandals are as old as the corporate form itself. Consider, for example, the controversies surrounding the role of one of the first modern corporations, the British East India Company, in the Bengal famine of 1770 and in the Chinese opium trade. Yet it is the increasing scale and scope of unethical acts carried out by individuals in the name, and interests, of corporations that continue to be concerning. Recent revelations surrounding the extent of bribery and covert surveillance used by News Corporation journalists in its British operations continue to shock the world and undermine confidence in that organiszation and journalists in general. Yet despite the systemic nature of many of these unethical activities, corporate leaders generally plead ignorance when transgressions come to light. During the enquity into the News Corporation scandal, Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and chairman, rejected the assertion that he was ultimately 'responsible for this whole fiasco' (House of Commons, 2011, Q.230). Instead, like many corporate leaders before him, Murdoch placed blame on the employees within the newspaper. His responses poses an increasingly important question: Do corporate leaders bear responsibility for the conduct of individuals within a corporation and, if so, why?

Australian TV news : New forms, functions, and futures

Australian TV News: New Forms, Functions, and Futures examines the changing relationships between television, politics and popular culture. Drawing extensively on qualitative audience research and industry interviews, this book demonstrates that while ‘infotainment’ and satirical programmes may not follow the journalism orthodoxy (or, in some cases, reject it outright), they nevertheless play an important role in the way everyday Australians understand what is happening in the world. This therefore throws into question some longstanding assumptions about what form TV news should take, the functions it ought to serve, and the future prospects of the fourth estate.

Why new media reforms are bad news for Australian content

Two of the government’s six media reform bills passed in the House of Representatives with multi-party support on Tuesday 19 March. While most attention and debate has focused on the regulation of the news media and ownership, the changes approved on 19 March are both significant and far-reaching.