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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Journalism remains a vital, irreplaceable institution in the public sphere, even though technology, political and economic trends, and globalization continue to impact it in negative ways.
An Introduction to Journalism is the new go-to textbook for journalism studies. Organized around three thematic sections – structures, practices, and change and continuity – this textbook covers a broad range of issues central to the study of journalism. These include the nature of news as a socio-cultural construct; the impact of social forces (political, economic, technology, cultural) on journalistic practices and news content; the origin and the impact of journalistic norms, values, and ideologies; patterns of news access and consumption; the relation between journalism and public life; and the role of the press in democracy and authoritarianism. Taking a global perspective throughout, the textbook is grounded in the conviction that we need to examine developments across countries and regions, and understand how global forces shape news, journalism, and the news industry.
Supported by extensive examples and clear case studies throughout, this accessible textbook, written by a leading scholar in the field, provides a comprehensive and analytical survey of the key themes that shape journalism. It is essential reading for undergraduate students of journalism studies.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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CONTENTS
Cover
Table of Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Keywords
What is journalism studies?
A time of deep transformation
This book
Pedagogical features
Further reading
Part I Purpose
1 News and Journalism
Summary
Keywords
What is news?
Why is time a central aspect of news?
What makes time a distinctive aspect of news?
What is journalism?
Was the emergence and consolidation of journalism unique to western societies?
Is there a single definition of journalism?
What are normative definitions of journalism?
Who defines what is journalism?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
2 Journalism and Democracy
Summary
Keywords
What journalism ought to be?
How does journalism contribute to democracy?
Does journalism meet democratic expectations?
What does real/existing journalism do?
Is journalism synonymous with democracy?
Does journalism only have a democratic role?
What are the communicative functions of journalism?
Journalism as news gatekeeper
Journalism as sense-making institution
What is the relationship between journalism and democracy?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
3 Press Freedom
Summary
Keywords
How are power and journalism connected?
What is press freedom?
What is the purpose of press freedom?
What are the western origins of press freedom?
From whom should the press be free?
Can the press be completely free?
Who benefits from press freedom?
What explains the fraught and convoluted history of press freedom globally?
What are the current challenges to press freedom?
How should press freedom be promoted globally?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
Part II Structures
4 The Press and Political Power
Summary
Keywords
Introduction
What is political parallelism?
How has political parallelism evolved?
Is political parallelism stable or dynamic?
How does political parallelism affect journalism?
Is political parallelism still dominant?
Is political parallelism good or bad for journalism?
What are the roles of the state in news and the press?
What is public broadcasting?
What are press subsidies?
What are press laws?
What is the impact of state interventions?
How does statelessness affect the press?
What are the relations between the press and organized politics?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
5 The Press and Economic Power
Summary
Keywords
Introduction
What is news as an economic and public good?
What are the particularities of news as an economic good?
What is the impact of commercialism on news?
Are generalizations about the impact of the commercial model valid?
What is media concentration?
What is media capture?
What has been the impact of the digital revolution on commercial news?
Who pays for news?
What are the funding models and options for news?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
6 Journalism and Ideological Power
Summary
Keywords
What are ideologies?
What is the role of ideologies in journalism?
What are dominant ideologies of journalism?
What is the ideology of objectivity?
What are the criticisms of journalistic objectivity?
What is advocacy journalism?
What are examples of advocacy journalism?
Can journalistic ideologies be diffused around the world?
What are hybrid ideologies?
What explains hybrid journalistic models?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
Part III Practices
7 The Organization of News Production
Summary
Keywords
What is news as a “social construction”?
What are news beats?
Why do news sources matter?
How do sources seek to influence news?
What are news values?
How influential are news values?
What are the blind spots of organizational routines?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
8 Work Conditions
Summary
Keywords
What are work conditions in journalism?
What are the contemporary conditions of journalistic work?
What is work precarity?
How do journalists and news organizations respond to work precarity?
How do work conditions impact journalistic skills?
What are deskilling, reskilling, and multiskilling?
Who is a journalist now?
Who are journalists and news interlopers?
Can anyone be a journalist?
How does the automation of news affect journalistic work?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
9 Violence against the Press
Summary
Keywords
Why does anti-press violence matter?
What is violence?
What is anti-press violence?
What are the forms of anti-press violence?
How has online violence affected anti-press violence?
How are digital technologies used in anti-press violence?
What drives anti-press violence?
Are all journalists similarly vulnerable to violence?
How do journalists cope with violence?
Can journalists be safe?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
10 News Diversity
Summary
Keywords
What is news diversity?
Why does news diversity matter?
What factors limit news diversity?
Is news diversity limited in the digital society?
What are strategies to promote news diversity?
Levels of intervention
What lessons can be drawn for efforts to promote news diversity?
Should the news cover all forms of diversity?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
11 Professional Ethics and Trust
Summary
Keywords
How should we think about journalistic ethics?
What is journalistic ethics?
What are the classic principles of journalistic ethics?
What is the relation between journalistic ethics and professionalism?
What is situational ethics?
Are there universal journalistic ethics?
How should we think about universal and relativist ethics?
How is journalistic ethics related to public trust?
What explains trust in news and journalism?
How can journalism be trusted?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
12 News Audiences/Publics
Summary
Keywords
What are news audiences/publics?
How do news organizations know their news audiences/publics?
How has journalism studies approached news audiences/publics?
Where do audiences access news?
What is news platformization?
What is audience engagement?
What is participatory news?
How do news companies use audience metrics?
What do news audiences/publics do?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
Part IV Changes and Continuities
13 Global Journalism
Summary
Keywords
Journalism, global risks, and global problems
What is global journalism?
Is global journalism a form of international/ foreign news?
What does global journalism cover?
What factors facilitate global journalism?
What obstacles does global journalism confront?
Is global journalism a form of advocacy reporting?
What are the contributions of global journalism?
Does global journalism matter?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
14 Journalism and Its Futures
Summary
Keywords
What lies ahead for journalism?
Should we try to forecast “the future of journalism”?
Does journalism have multiple futures?
Why is the future of journalism uncertain?
How should we think about possible scenarios for news and journalism?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
15 Why Journalism Is Still Relevant
Summary
Keywords
Is journalism dead?
Was journalism relevant in the past?
What was the impact of news and journalism?
What changed the social position of journalism?
Is journalism relevant today?
What are the signs of the relevance of journalism?
Where is journalism relevant?
How does journalism combat authoritarianism and propaganda?
A world of shrinking journalism and original reporting?
Conclusion
Review questions
Further reading
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Begin Reading
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
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Dedication
To students, everywhere
An Introduction to Journalism
Thinking Globally
Silvio Waisbord
polity
Copyright © Silvio Waisbord 2025
The right of Silvio Waisbord to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2025 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-6273-2
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024945210
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website:politybooks.com
Acknowledgments
Books are written in the invisible company of others who inspire and provoke ideas. The further reading lists and bibliography attest to the fact that no book exists in a vacuum. They are suspended in webs of ideas, arguments, writings, and conversations with others. Authors may write alone and search to be disconnected from the world. However, books stand at the intersection of flows of ideas, and relationships between past and current works. This book is no exception. I am grateful to many scholars whose work has stimulated my curiosity, opened new intellectual horizons, and made significant contributions to global journalism studies. Referencing their work is the most sincere form of appreciation.
Big thanks to students who have taken my courses for more than three decades. I have learned so much from them, especially how they think and engage with news and the world, and what they care about as citizens. I have written this book with them in mind, hopefully to capture their passion and inquisitive spirit.
Finally, I am indebted to editor Mary Savigar for inviting me to consider writing this book for Polity, and for her insights and support throughout the process. I am fortunate to have worked with her on several book projects, and this is no exception. I am grateful to Gail Ferguson for her outstanding copyediting and spot-on comments and suggestions. I am also thankful to Stephanie Homer and everyone else at Polity for making this possible.
Introduction
Keywords
Data journalism
De-westernizing
Investigative journalism
News deserts
Social forces
This book offers an introduction to journalism studies for undergraduate students. It understands journalism studies as the study of the structures and the practices of journalism and the news industry. It covers questions such as the nature of news as a sociocultural construct; the impact of social forces (political, economic, technological, cultural) on journalistic practices and news content; the origin and the impact of journalistic norms, values, and ideologies; patterns of news access and consumption; the relation between journalism and public life; and the role of the press in democracy and authoritarianism.
An Introduction to Journalism offers a global perspective on journalism studies – a field of research primarily grounded in scholarship concerned with a relatively small number of western countries. Taking a global perspective means approaching news, journalism, and news industries in their multiple dimensions, shaped by their local, national, regional, and international contexts. A global perspective probes topics, questions, and answers by examining developments across countries and regions, and understanding the role of global forces.
The book examines fifteen key topics in journalism studies and is organized in four thematic sections: purpose; structures; practices; and change and continuity. Each chapter is built around key questions for each topic and presents a focused perspective and set of arguments, drawing analytical insights and examples from original and secondary sources.
What is journalism studies?
Colombian literature giant Gabriel García Márquez observed that “journalism is the most wonderful craft in the world.” This book is driven by the same conviction about journalism studies – a sprawling, unwieldy, vibrant, interdisciplinary field of research, education, and practice.
Journalism studies addresses the impact of social forces on journalistic practices, news content, news economics, and other issues – that is, external structures and dynamics that may be political, economic, technological, cultural – that affect the news industry and journalism. It provides foundational knowledge for undergraduate education and careers in news media. In a world of news abundance and communication chaos, it offers essential analytical skills and knowledge for understanding basic aspects of contemporary society. The discipline is a pillar of news/media/digital literacy, examining the competencies and skills that citizens need to live in the digital society surrounded by myriad forms of communication, media, (dis)information, and content. It also provides fundamental insights for students interested in careers in journalism and media, as well as other fields that demand creative thinking and abilities.
Why write this book? At a moment of economic troubles in news industries globally, it is timely to consider why the study of news is important, and why journalism remains a vital, irreplaceable institution in the public sphere. Understandably, educators and researchers often focus on troubling, current trends to raise awareness about problems. This is necessary for understanding fundamental aspects in the current context. Yet we also need to remind ourselves, students, and the public why journalism is worth pursuing and studying in the first place. Younger generations, accustomed to worrisome news, may not be aware of or know the ways in which journalism continues to make singular contributions to society and democracy.
Paeans to journalism remind us that it offers a “window on the world,” punctures social illusions, tells us engaging stories that otherwise we would not know, and probes the inner workings of power. These arguments are valid and worth remembering, even though journalism comprises the good, the bad, and the ugly. Indeed, plenty of bad journalism exists – the kind of reporting that is a stenographer to power, spreads lies and partial truths, and validates and exploits social prejudices and fears about economic profit and political gain. Sloppy journalism exists, too, the kind of reporting that provides imperfect representations and superficial explanations of the world and distorts social perceptions and beliefs.
However, in its best moments, journalism does what no other social institution can do – it connects us regularly to people, places, stories, and events beyond the confines of our private lives, and sparks our curiosity about interesting and important developments.
This book is written primarily for students interested in journalism studies and/or convinced that they want to pursue a career in journalism or adjacent fields. My hope is that it helps them to understand key research themes, concepts, debates, and arguments. With that in mind, I intend to offer a case as to why we should care to read, watch, listen, and study news and journalism.
A time of deep transformation
Contemporary journalism sits at the intersection of multiple information and communication transformations around the world. It is connected to changing economics and politics, organizational decisions, technological innovations, and public agendas and priorities. Although journalism has experienced unprecedented change in recent decades, it is important to recognize that this has always been its defining feature. It is not preserved in amber.
Why? Journalism has historically been sensitive to a range of social changes – political transitions, economic downturns and upturns, social upheavals, cultural trends, and technological mutations. In turn, journalism has affected multiple aspects of social change – the way we access news and information and come to understand what is happening in our communities, countries, and the world; how political forces communicate with citizens, elites, and other groups; how advertisers try to influence markets and consumers.
Historically, communication and information technologies have transformed the press, too. Over the past two centuries, technological innovations have deeply affected the way news is produced, transmitted, and consumed. From the telegraph to artificial intelligence, technologies have made some practices obsolete and offered other opportunities. Time and time again, the news industry has adapted. But even by the historical standards of an industry extremely sensitive to change, the recent pace and scale of change has been remarkable. Everything has been shaken up. Occasional flashes of optimism, brought about by promising business models and exciting reporting innovations, are inevitably followed by pessimistic forecasts.
News economics
The digital revolution unleashed economic havoc in the news industry by dismantling the old funding model. Advertising continues to migrate away from traditional news companies to digital corporations. The economic crisis is evident: the old model is broken, and there are no proven, viable replacements that are valid for all news companies. The news industry faces bad economic headwinds. Global advertising revenue for print news continues to collapse. According to a 2023 report by the World Advertising Research Center, global advertising revenue for total print will experience a 7.7% reduction from 2022 (with US$47.2 billion in total for 2023). Considering the persistent failures of the commercial model, many scholars and policymakers have called for revamping news economics in support of public funding. As long as news is primarily left to commercial forces, they argue, there will be significant market failures, with troubling consequences for democracy and public life.
Financial losses are followed by cutbacks and massive layoffs. A shrinking workforce and widespread shutdown of newspapers, particularly at the local and regional level, chip away at one of the foundations of original reporting and employment. In the United States, the closing of local newspapers has continued apace for several decades. In France, sales of national dailies were down 8.6% in 2023 compared to the previous year. It is estimated that two-thirds of newspaper jobs (43,000 positions) were eliminated between 2005 and 2023. The growth of jobs in digital news organizations has not compensated for significant losses, mostly in the newspaper industry. Layoffs have been common across the national and regional press amid the reduction of news outlets from 28,579 in 2011 to 20,232 in 2022. According to a 2021 report by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, almost 78% of jobs were lost in the media and publishing industry in five years. It is estimated that 20–25% of journalism jobs have been lost in Sweden over the past decade. The Australian news media industry has also experienced a dramatic contraction that has resulted in the loss of an estimated 3,000 journalism positions since 2011.
Given current economic difficulties, the news industry in several countries is not as profitable as it used to be. Yet some companies continue to expect to extract profit from news in ways that basically decimate the capacity of newsrooms to produce original content. Notably, hedge fund companies in the United States insist on squeezing gains by continuing to downsize newsrooms and prioritize low-cost reporting before selling off remaining assets. This is not an insignificant matter, considering that hedge funds and financial companies control half of US daily newspapers and large newspaper groups, such as McClatchy, Media News Group, and Tribune.
Social position
As digital news and information proliferated, and news consumption steadily migrated to social media platforms, the social position of the press has also changed. During the heyday of the mass media in the twentieth century, the press sat atop the pyramid of modern public communication. It was the backbone of mass information and culture. High barriers to entry in the old information order, embodied in the costs of setting up and running news companies, put the press in a powerful position. The structure that catapulted journalism to the heights of mass communication is crumbling. The digital society has not completely knocked the press off that position, but it has certainly destabilized the old order. News organizations currently struggle to remain relevant in crowded and chaotic communication environments as they compete for public attention with myriad sources of information and entertainment.
However, to argue that journalism and the press are becoming irrelevant amid the digital deluge is wrong. This ignores the fact that leading news organizations continue to command significant audiences, funding, and elite attention at the local, national, and global levels. However, how and why the press and journalism still matter is not immediately obvious. Paradoxically, at a time of news abundance, growing segments of the public avoid it. This is not strictly a novel challenge. Before the digital revolution ushered in massive changes in the size of news audiences, news organizations were trying to figure out how to attract younger audiences who were proving less likely to consume news than previous generations.
Work conditions
Another troubling aspect is the global deterioration of the conditions for practicing journalism. In recent years, democratic backsliding around the world has undermined basic press freedoms. Autocratic and illiberal governments have been openly hostile to critical journalism, and they continue to try to silence journalists and news organizations. Even in democratic regimes, journalists’ safety is not guaranteed, given the upsurge of multiple forms of online and offline harassment and violence. Simultaneously, the growing precarity of news labor negatively affects journalists’ well-being, as well as the quality of news. Although labor precarity has been a historical feature in many newsrooms around the world, the situation has worsened throughout the raging economic crisis in the news industries.
In sum, journalism and the news industry are facing a complex tangle of difficulties: economic downturn and uncertainty, anti-press violence, massive labor losses, news avoidance, and public indifference. Given the combination of troubling political, economic, and social transformations, to say that journalism and the news industry are in turmoil is an understatement. To describe the current situation in terms of downcast spirit, malaise, and uncertainty is not hyperbole. The conditions are grim; the future looks bleak. Gale-force winds of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” continue to disrupt the news industry. In 2023, Reporters Without Borders affirmed that journalism was in a “decisive decade.” There are no easy technological, economic, or political fixes, especially considering the scope of the challenges on multiple fronts across the globe.
News abundance
Yet it is also an exciting moment to practice journalism. It is a time of opportunities for deploying innovative reporting and storytelling techniques as reflected by collaborative, data, and investigative journalism. Reporters bring different skills and expertise to collaborative teams that report on complex issues. Data journalism entails compiling and analyzing large datasets, and producing visual stories in a compelling and accessible manner. Investigative journalism uncovers information about wrongdoing and crimes that powerful individuals and institutions want kept secret from the public. The establishment of a wide variety of news beats offers potential recognition of critical global issues that have long been relatively invisible – the environment, energy, water, violence, global health, and migration. News organizations can build personal connections with publics in ways that were impossible until not long ago.
It is also a great time to be a news consumer, too. A wealth of news and information about every conceivable subject is readily accessible online (despite walled-off, subscriber-only digital sites). Remarkable pieces of reporting are produced – news stories on rich, fascinating topics about people’s lives and developments in the world. Valuable forms of investigative and global journalism have germinated across the world, which in many cases demand not only collaboration within and across news organizations but also brave journalists to ferret out information that powerful actors want to conceal. Immersive journalism puts publics in contact with issues and communities. Citizen or first-person reporting provides unmediated testimonies and perspectives about issues that rarely receive wide, in-depth coverage.
A wealth of news does not mean that every possible issue is similarly covered, with equal amounts of attention, depth, and sophistication. The troubling growth of news deserts in communities around the world reflects huge disparities in news production and availability. News deserts refer to areas without original production of local information about current events. No matter how much news and information flow in the digital ecology of contemporary societies, a host of topics fall by the wayside – topics that are not regularly covered or are systematically invisible in daily news. The causes are many: shrinking numbers of news organizations and insufficient reporters or lack of dedicated news beats; overworked journalists; lack of resources and time; absence of issues that comfortably fit conventional definitions of newsworthiness; political and commercial pressures; and lack of interest among audiences and funders.
Globalization
The globalization of news, journalism, and news industries has been another remarkable development. Globalization refers to the intensification of multiple connections between societies, politics, economics, and cultures around the world. News globalization is, certainly, not a recent process. The modern international expansion of news went hand-in-hand with European colonialism during the Age of Empires. In the nineteenth century, European and international news agencies played a critical role in creating flows of information, fostering global communication, and aiding geopolitics and capitalism. Their development was possible due largely to technological innovations, such as the telegraph and transoceanic cables. Since then, multiple aspects of journalism have been global: news as commodity and cultural object, the political economy of news organizations, the flow of professional ethics and normative frameworks, the consolidation of transnational corporations, management, and industrial practices. During the last century, the globalization of journalism featured pivotal moments, shaped by revolutionary technological innovation that changed the production, distribution, and consumption of news, as well as political and business developments.
In recent decades, especially since the consolidation of the digital society, globalization has taken novel forms that have altered news production, distribution, and use. These include: the consolidation of global tech platforms and corporations as news gatekeepers; the multiplication of government and private news outlets with international editions and global reach; the continuous expansion of media corporations and capital across the world; easier access to news content beyond language barriers and other traditional obstacles; global collaborative projects among journalists and news organizations; and hybrid forms of journalism that blend professional and citizen reporting.
Notwithstanding the impact of globalization, journalism and the press remain a profession and institution essentially grounded in local and national developments. This is due to factors such as the significant influence of states and politics, the local/ national nature of business and funding models, the pull of professional cultures, and audience demand for stories that resonate with domestic places, characters, and events. Journalism around the world continues to demonstrate significant differences. Journalists work for news organizations with different ownership structures and funding mechanisms – private, public, and mixed. Journalists embrace different professional ideals and views about their preferred roles – politically neutral, partisan, and advocacy. Understanding essential aspects of journalism requires the analysis of its linkages to power and social forces – politics, economics, and culture.
In summary, the combination of monumental technological change, political and economic trends, and globalization continues to refashion key aspects of journalism and the news industries.
This book
This book is not meant to be a comprehensive primer of academic research on journalism. The goal is neither to “cover the world” nor to provide a wide-ranging summary of journalism studies. That would entail discussing everything from “augmented reality” to “diminished returns” in news economics. Such an encyclopedic task would be virtually impossible and better suited for an AI-powered A-to-Z guide or a Borgesian library. Journalism studies covers multiple dimensions of news, journalism, and the press that cannot be discussed in depth in a single book or college course.
The list of themes and chapters in this book reflects this. The book examines key themes by drawing primarily from published studies about news and journalism across the world. I tend to use examples from countries and regions that I know better, given my research and teaching interests. It also distills lessons from my teaching and research on journalism, as well as conversations with reporters and editors around the world.
A question-and-answer format is the closest one can get to what I find a productive way of learning: figure out what a topic is about and why it matters, identify interesting questions, and produce plausible answers based on available arguments and evidence. Academic scholarship demands knowing what questions are important, interesting, provocative, and stimulating. Such questions invite reflection and dialogue. We cannot explain, respond, or argue without knowing what questions are important or how to ask relevant ones.
The book presents critical summaries of themes in journalism studies but is not intended to offer exhaustive, in-depth discussion. As an introduction to a vast field of research, reflection, and pedagogy, my goal is to present condensed arguments and debates, and to discuss key concepts that can be supplemented with additional material and exercises (such as the readings included in the references).
A global perspective is an intellectual disposition interested in finding connections, similarities, and differences among cross-national developments by acknowledging historical and contemporary legacies and contexts. It directs attention to political, economic, historical, social, and cultural factors that help us explain structures and practices. It means opening an analytical lens to get a broad and comparative view, paying attention to nuances and particularities, and pointing out the pitfalls of universal generalizations. Thinking globally demands being aware that what happens in certain contexts may not be relevant or applicable elsewhere. As media scholar Sonia Livingstone (2012: 421) argues, “[I]t is no longer plausible to study one phenomenon in one country without asking, at a minimum, whether it is common across the globe or distinctive to that country or part of the world.” Awareness of difference is the first step in stimulating global curiosity in understanding how journalism and the news industry work, and what explains similarities and differences.
A global perspective also entails taking a skeptical approach to universalism in journalism studies – that is, the assumption that core elements of western scholarship, including theories, subjects of study, arguments, and methodologies, are relevant and applicable globally. It invites paying attention to analytical blind spots and being skeptical about self-assured universalism that either assumes “things are the same” around the world or woefully ignores the possibility of difference. It demands studying and speaking with nuances, and being aware that what happens and applies in certain contexts may not be the case elsewhere. It aims to stimulate curiosity about how journalism works in a variety of contexts.
A global perspective is therefore necessary to break away from a geographically bounded, compartmentalized approach to studying journalism that sets up old binary options between national/international journalism and research. Thinking globally means asking questions that are valid across national boundaries and considering arguments and analytical frameworks carefully and skeptically, no matter where they originate. This approach is particularly necessary in journalism studies, given that the analytical scaffolding (theories, concepts, findings, arguments) has been primarily built in the Global North based on western studies, experiences, and intellectual traditions. Ideas are logically grounded in specific contexts – political, intellectual, academic; they do not exist in pristine, abstract conditions, even if they are endowed with universal pretensions. It would be remarkable if they applied directly in contexts that are markedly different from their original homes. Thus it is necessary to take a perspective that asks questions and seeks explanations that are relevant across settings – that need to be informed with insights from around the world.
This is what de-westernizing knowledge aims to achieve: to explore the global relevance and applicability of knowledge produced in the West, a region with a particular historical trajectory that has shaped news and journalism in unique ways, and to develop arguments informed by global studies, evidence, and arguments.
Pedagogical features
I hope that this book helps readers in the following ways.
Learning to think about journalism – what it is, how it works, why it works in certain ways; how and why it continues to change.
Mastering essential concepts, theories, and arguments related to journalistic practice, structures, and trends.
Knowing and understanding the range of journalistic approaches and practices.
Asking critical questions about journalism and the news industry.
Understanding similarities and differences in journalism in both national and global contexts. Developing a global intellectual disposition is necessary for understanding key aspects of news and journalism, asking questions, and finding answers.
The book is not intended to be read in a linear fashion. Each chapter is written as a standalone analysis of specific subjects, although I make minimal reference to aspects discussed in other chapters. Readers can hopscotch, dip in and out, depending on course sequence and interests.
Each chapter features questions to help readers think about key arguments and to stimulate critical thinking. Spotlighted debates and cases are intended to help critical thinking and class discussion. A short list of further readings at the end of each chapter may help readers explore and delve deeper into specific topics. An inventory of key concepts highlights the fundamental ideas in each chapter.
Further reading
Alexander, J. C., Breese, E. B., and Luengo, M. (eds.) (2016) The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Conboy, M. (2023) Journalism, Technology and Cultural Practice: A History. London: Routledge.
Perloff, R. M. (2019) The Dynamics of News: Journalism in the 21st Century Media Milieu. New York: Routledge.
Part IPurpose
The purpose of journalism is a central theme in journalism studies. It refers to the political and social mission of journalism and the press. Since its modern beginnings, the press has been endowed with specific tasks by authorities, observers, publishers, journalists, scholars, and the public – from serving democratic government to fostering freedom of expression. One key question is whether the press should exclusively serve democracy, or has it other social functions and uses, particularly considering the political, economic, and social interests that shape structures and functions? The long-standing debate has generated different arguments about why the press and journalism have important, irreplaceable functions, and it has laid out normative positions that inform academic and popular criticism about the quality and expectations of press performance.
1News and Journalism
Summary
This chapter provides definitions of news and journalism, and the historical context for their emergence in modern societies.
Keywords
Immediacy
Journalism
News
News industry
The press
Timeliness
News and journalism are intertwined. One cannot be understood without the other. News is journalism’s distinctive product and, in turn, journalism is identified with news. Historically, a whole vocabulary in the news industry and popular culture reflects this symbiotic relationship. Journalists used to be called “newsmen.” “Newsboys” hawked dailies. “News desks” are metonyms for the institutional and spatial organization of journalism in news organizations. For centuries, newspapers were the dominant format for news until the arrival of radio broadcasting. “News” has figured prominently in the mastheads of newspapers, as well as in the names of television and radio programs. So how are news and journalism connected? What do these concepts mean?
What is news?
Literary scholar Stephen Wittek (2015: 8) defines news as “the distinctly modern notion of ephemeral, narratively structured, ostensibly truthful discourse standing in relation to a continuous, public present.”
Wittek’s definition highlights key dimensions.
News is a product of modernity – it expresses the emergence of a sensibility increasingly conscious of an open, connected world.
News is defined by
timeliness
: something that happened relatively recently and that has fleeting existence. Novelty determines the value of news and its perishable character.
News is a narrative. It is a story rather than a staccato account of basic, isolated facts. Even the most succinct, “telegraphic” news update connects a few words into a simple, bare-bones story.
News pretends to tell us something true about the world; it is not meant to be pure fiction or a collection of absurdities. News makes a claim about the reality/ truth of something, regardless of whether the public believes those claims.
News refers to information about current affairs that shapes a sense of actuality – what is going on in the present. It is not expected to be a record of history – a collection of historical facts and happenings. Rather, it is closely related to what is current. By doing so, news synchronizes perceptions of time among publics.
The speed and the lifespan of news have changed throughout history, primarily due to technological developments that affected the time required to report events across distance. Since time immemorial, news had been transmitted through oral communication. Then, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, early forms of newspapers appeared in Europe (mostly in cities) and in the North American colonies and, subsequently, elsewhere in the world. Given low literacy at that time and a relative scarcity of printed materials, newspapers basically targeted reading elites. Early newspapers featured government announcements, advertising, political opinion, random tidbits, and stories. They lacked a unified connection to current time. Some information was old by modern standards of news, given how long it took to traverse vast geographies by horse or ship.
Before the coming of the telegraph in the 1840s, newspapers did not publish what today is considered “news” – novel, fresh information. It took a substantial amount of time for events to be recorded and transmitted. News traveled as fast as humans could move across land and sea. The telegraph ushered in a new conception of news as closely interwoven with conceptions of time. The first successful test of undersea cable between North America and Europe in 1858 made it possible to transmit information across the Atlantic in minutes. Press scholar Richard Kielbowicz (2015: 6) writes, “Telegraphy elevated timeliness to a position where it became, in many instances, the paramount journalistic value.”
Subsequent technological inventions accelerated both the speed of production and distribution of information, as well as the lifespan of individual news. Revolutionary innovations in long-distance communication, such as wireless radio, television signal transmitters, satellite technologies, and the internet, have progressively and radically changed the time nature of news. They have obliterated time and distance as constraints on news. In doing so, they transformed the understanding of news as something intimately related to time.
Why is time a central aspect of news?
As time shrank, news remained attached to temporal dimensions of content, in the double sense of recent (when did it happen?) and perishable (how long does it remain novel?).
On the timely nature of information, news is generally understood to be about something novel. News is not primarily about history or past events. News is about what is new and deserves to be noticed, as denoted in the word for news in several languages – nouvelles (French), noticias (Portuguese and Spanish), noticies (Catalan), and notizie (Italian).
Novelty also permeates standard definitions of newsworthiness. The association between news and novelty underlies the jargon of journalism, such as “breaking news” and “news flash” in reference to sudden news of “transcendent” importance, as defined by the Associated Press in 1906. What journalists generally consider news is something considered new either because of when it happened and/or when it became known. This morning’s accidents and crimes are news; last year’s events are hardly news, unless novel aspects are uncovered, let’s say in relation to crimes or investigations into political wrongdoing. Yesterday’s sports games are news while sports results from six months ago rarely make today’s headlines. Last night’s UFO sightings are exciting news (for those who care); by contrast, otherworldly apparitions from last summer are mostly forgotten. Fresh, important news, such as declarations of war, sudden health updates about heads of state, or major weather events, generally attracts significant attention.
Time defines news. The fleeting moment of news seems to be getting shorter. Today’s news is fresh, exciting, interesting, worth paying attention to; yesterday’s news is dated and stale. Writer André Gide observed that journalism is everything that will be less interesting tomorrow than today. News items that attracted huge attention last week or month are relics. Who avidly reads minuscule stock market fluctuations from five years ago? Who goes back to news about traffic jams and train delays that absorbed attention six months ago? Who cares about dramatic headlines about wild and dangerous animals in residential areas from a year ago?
Time is a factor in the duration of news – how long is news considered news? Journalism is about the jour, the French word for day, and dates from when news content was measured in cycles of 24 hours. News is a remarkably short-lived product. It is as perishable as fish. News cycles are no longer about a whole day, as was the case in the pre-digital era. News cycles are about “the now” – the ever-shortening time frame of constantly breaking news and news alerts.
Spotlighted case
Historically, the speed of news cycles was attributed to journalistic practices and norms, as well as available technologies. Journalism almost single-handedly determined how long a news story was fresh and interesting. Instead, today’s breakneck speed is driven by many different factors. Changing algorithms for social media platforms affect the lifespan of content (news included) at the top of feeds. Publics affect news cycles, too, as they engage with content. Bottomless content permanently pushes stuff in and out. News organizations are constantly trying to find ways into our mental space with clickbaits, content, and alerts. Altogether, these factors make it feel that news is overwhelming. News about tragedies, triumphs, chaos, celebration, hope, and disasters is indistinctly aggregated and changed. What shocked and awed only a few days ago seemingly vanishes into the rearview mirror.
Given the roving nature of journalism, news cycles are fast moving, jumping quickly across topics and stories. What seemed to be terribly important for journalism a few days ago is swallowed by the vertigo of subsequent news cycles. Yesterday’s news is a plain old memory for those who care to remember. Obsolescence defines news. As it bounces around headlines, front pages, the bottom of newscasts, or brief mentions in summaries, news has an abrupt and short life. News that manages to survive cyclical attention moves fast across the order of priority – from headlines, front pages, and tops of news feeds to inside pages and from there to oblivion.
Many institutions produce information in our (dis)information society: government agencies, public relations companies, universities, and others. But only journalism produces news. Novelists, songwriters, publishers, poets, and raconteurs churn out stories; only journalism produces news stories. As a time-bound, ephemeral, and disposable product, news is a commodity and cultural product unique to journalism. It is what journalism does and what sets it apart from other social institutions.
What explains the unique temporal dimensions of news and journalism’s obsession with the now is not obvious. It is hard to attribute the velocity of “news” to a single factor. Is it a reflection of people’s constant disposition to find novel information, as we casually ask friends “What’s new?” rather than starting a conversation by asking, say, about their families? Does it reflect the perennial human search for the new to inform decisions in the present with an eye on the future? What explains journalism’s bias in favor of novelty?
What makes time a distinctive aspect of news?
Various factors have turned timeliness into a distinctive aspect of news.
Unlike people before the modern revolution and the coming of wireless communication, contemporary societies constantly produce and consume fresh news. We do not consume news in the expectation of getting history lessons; we are accustomed to receiving information about current happenings. Except for those on a historical quest or curious to know the news on the day they were born, people rarely care deeply about old news, watching old television news on YouTube, scrolling news from last year, or reading vintage newspapers.
Instead, society has always been curious about new developments and has traded news throughout history. In villages, markets, and homes, people open conversations asking for news. Whether motivated by fear, curiosity, hunger to learn, or simply to engage with others, the drive to know “what’s new” cannot be attributed to modern journalism and its perennial preoccupation with novelty. Across societies and histories, town criers, messengers, and couriers had been common purveyors of news, carrying it literally and physically. In the absence of technologies that transmitted news across distances, news from afar came from travelers.
Once the amount of time it took for news to travel distances drastically shrunk, journalism began to show a remarkable appetite for news as time-bound content. Press historian Mitchell Stephens (1988: 4) writes, “For the journalist, the previous week is history; the previous century sometimes seems not to have existed.”
Journalism often takes pride in reporting “the now”; no journalist would proudly announce that they care primarily about the old and the known and have complete disregard for breaking news. On the contrary, to know what is happening, to be up to speed with what is going on, especially on their news beats – from financial markets to football leagues – is a matter of professional pride.
Modern journalism embraced “the now” as a professional mandate. Immediacy as a key feature of news was not a demand from the public. Except for investors, sports fans, and gamblers, most members of the public hardly care if information is made public within seconds or minutes. It does not make a huge difference to their lives. Yet timeliness is central to journalism’s self-perception of quality.
Timeliness anchors journalistic claims to authority. It serves to place journalism in relation to stories. “We were there first” is a journalistic mantra; it is a sign of beating the competition on what journalism is supposed to do – deliver news fast. Being second is as good as being last. No one remembers who came third. Journalists are supposed to be fast, and faster than the competition. Sure, this is not the only consideration when newsrooms decide what to cover, as they balance novelty with a host of factors, such as the reliability and relevance of information, as well as costs and accessibility to where news is happening.
The prominence of immediacy in conventional definitions of newsworthiness is manifested in many ways. News organizations set up live broadcasts, deploy armies of correspondents where news is likely to occur (e.g., government offices, courts) and, budget allowing, send reporters to where “news is happening.” Fast-moving news tickers convey journalism’s mission to deliver updates swiftly. Scooping the competition is a time-framed badge of honor among journalists. Old stories may be resuscitated if reporters find a “new” angle. Momentous, glorified news stories feature journalism delivering information live during important, attention-grabbing moments. Vintage images and old movies portray newsrooms of the past as fastpaced workplaces, always chasing urgent news, rather than as quiet sites of unhurried labor. Newsrooms today display wall-to-wall screens with constant updates from wire services and other news organizations, and chyrons frantically emitting news alerts.
The temporal dimension of news has historically worked differently in print than in broadcast media. Technologies offer different “temporality affordances,” to use Tenenboim-Weinblatt and Neiger’s (2018) concept. These are the possibilities for producing and distributing news within certain time frames. Print has been significantly less flexible to accommodate journalism’s fondness for immediacy, given the speed and the costs of producing updated editions. Radio and television have been significantly more malleable than print in channeling journalism’s drive to report the now.
The digital era drastically accelerated the immediacy of news. Back in the day, news was sporadic and generally happened at specific planned times, as determined by scheduled news editions and publications. News was an “appointment” affair: Morning and evening newspapers, television newscasts, and radio programs. Instead, today, news is constant. Technological innovations have accelerated the time for producing, distributing, and consuming news. Immediacy has become essential to the system of newsmaking and consumption that connects news organizations, digital companies, and audiences.
Timeliness is a constant concern: how quickly news organizations need to produce and disseminate news, how often social media companies update content in their platforms, and how people check and use news. Journalists feel rising pressures to produce more news and faster. Because news websites are regularly updated to attract audiences, they need a regular supply of material. Just as news flashes originally grabbed the attention of newsrooms, news alerts regularly push out novel information and teasers to entice audiences.
Social media companies update content and send alerts to attract users. Such social media postings, including news, are notoriously ephemeral. Platforms constantly send news flashes to maximize audience traffic and advertising revenue. As social media relentlessly stream new information, fresh news may get old in the time one checks or scrolls down a news feed on a mobile phone.
Altogether, these factors have intensified the long-standing obsession with “nowness” as the essence of news.
Spotlighted debate
Check a sample of yesterday’s news on news websites, news aggregators, and/or search engines. Do you think the examples illustrate the centrality of timeliness in news and journalism? What makes those examples “newsworthy” from the perspective of news organizations? Can we think about news as other than time-sensitive information?
What is journalism?
With a better understanding of news, we can move to define journalism. Because there is no canonical definition of journalism, any attempt will be incomplete and challenged. Definitions emphasize different aspects and requirements.
Defining journalism is not a purely intellectual exercise or curiosity – a matter of philosophical speculation and debate. Specific definitions underpin key aspects of everyday reporting: basic principles, work expectations, news-gathering routines, legitimate sources, writing/producing. They also shape journalism education – the skills that current and future journalists are expected to master – as well as criticism, the activity dedicated to assessing the performance of journalism.
I understand journalism as the modern institution that produces and delivers news for public consumption. Journalism produces news in an organized manner following certain rules. This is what sets it apart from other social, political, cultural, and economic organizations, and is apparent in straightforward definitions of journalism: “reportage of current events,” “information and commentary on contemporary affairs taken to be publicly important,” and “gathering and disseminating news.”
Journalism is the social institution dedicated to the production and distribution of news.
According to Seth Lewis (2019), journalism refers to the systematic gathering, filtering, and circulating of information deemed to be news and in the public interest. Michael Schudson (2012: 3) defines journalism as: “The business or practice of regularly producing and disseminating information about contemporary affairs of public interest and importance.” Henrik Örnebring (2016: 3–4) argues that journalism consists of shared norms and routines in news production, managed by specific organizations such as news agencies, newspaper publishers, and broadcasters, influenced by professional organizations and unions.
Journalism should not be confused with related terms that are often used interchangeably. The press refers to news companies as a collective, political institution. The news industry refers to economic aspects, such as the size of markets, ownership structure, the number of companies, employment trends, investments, and funding sources.
Historians agree that journalism emerged after the rise of newspapers. The Strasbourg Relation, often mentioned as the first newspaper in the western world, was started in 1605. A few decades later, newspaper publication spread quickly across Europe. However, journalism emerged in the nineteenth century in Europe, North America, and other regions of the world. Its subsequent development is inseparable from the evolution of newspapers. As a set of news-gathering and reporting practices, journalism developed in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The emergence of journalism paralleled the proliferation of mass newspapers that attracted millions of readers in Europe and the consolidation of the newspaper industry as a powerful, prominent sector in modern societies. The rapid development of newspapers was due to several factors, namely, the invention of the steam printing press (1810s), the development of the railways (1830s), and changes in censorship laws (1830s onwards). In this context, journalism emerged as an occupation with its own procedures, relatively distinct from other institutions and social practices, in particular politics and literature. Journalism’s early development paralleled the incipient industrial organization of news as a mass product for public consumption. From the 1880s until World War I, the expansion of the news industry and the rise of newspaper chains in several countries provided favorable conditions for the consolidation of journalism as a distinct set of labor practices with unique tasks and expectations.
Was the emergence and consolidation of journalism unique to western societies?
Just as Europe was the cradle of modern newspapers, journalism was an “Anglo-American invention,” as press scholar Jean Chalaby (1996) puts it. In his view, historical records convincingly demonstrate that the modern concepts of news and journalism were distinctive products of developments in England and the United States in the early 1800s. Journalism seceded from politics and literature here earlier than in other countries, where newspapers maintained close ties with both the political and literary fields for longer periods. Similar conditions in Britain and the United States, namely democracy, commercialization, and dominant positions in the world, contributed to the rise of journalism there earlier than in other parts of the world. In both countries, newspapers created original journalistic routines and techniques. Journalists developed a collective and professional consciousness, too. In other countries, including most of Europe, those conditions emerged much later. Newspapers remained largely within the sphere of influence of politics and literature even into the twentieth century, and journalists continued to straddle both worlds.
The rise of journalism represents a typical phenomenon of modern society – the emergence of institutional and occupational specialization in the provision of specific services. Journalism emerged as part of newspapers/the press as political, economic, social, and cultural organizations dedicated to the provision of news. Newsrooms have been the core of journalistic work and the news industry – the sites where news is collected, sifted, produced, and distributed.
What drove the rise of journalism was the need to organize news production in a systematic, predictable way following central tenets of industrial production. This evolution responded to a combination of political and business interests – the spread of news and information by political forces to expose and discuss public affairs, along with commercial interests in making money and transmitting business information in an efficient manner.
Since then, journalism has remained identified as an occupation, trade, and/or profession dedicated to producing and distributing news. It is different from the press or the news media/industry understood, respectively, as political and economic institutions.
News is journalism’s lodestar – a unique commodity produced for public consumption. Other institutions, such as governments, corporations, and public relations firms, regularly put out information about their activities and interests. The internet has opened enormous possibilities for groups, associations, and individuals to produce and deliver information to many people. Yet only journalism puts out news day in and day out about a range of issues of public interest.
Is there a single definition of journalism?
However, journalism is more nuanced and complicated than merely being an institution that only reports news. Like freedom, privacy, and happiness, journalism is a perennially contested concept. If journalism were simply about news gathering and reporting, it would probably be simpler to reach a standard definition. However, the complexities of journalism make it difficult to settle this matter.
Journalism is a noun with multiple adjectives. It is not a single occupation or institution, as many press scholars have indicated. Martin Conboy (2004: 3) writes, “There is not and never has been a single unifying activity to be thought of as journalism.” Barbie Zelizer (2009: 1) argues, “Journalism has always been multiple … and its multiplicity has become more pronounced as journalism has necessarily mutated.” Rather than seeing journalism as one thing, as a “unitary model,” Zelizer suggests that we should think of “various kinds of journalisms with necessarily multiple facets, definitions, circumstances and functions.”
