Journal Description
Journalism is a major international, peer-reviewed journal that provides a dedicated forum for articles from the growing community of academic researchers and critical practitioners with an interest in journalism. The journal is interdisciplinary and publishes both theoretical and empirical work and contributes to the social, economic, political, cultural and practical understanding of journalism. It includes contributions on current developments and historical changes within journalism.
The journal publishes both theoretical and empirical work and contributes to the social, economic, political, cultural and practical understanding of journalism. It includes contributions on current developments and historical changes within journalism.
Journalism adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Journal Feed
- by Mirjam de BruijnJournalism, Ahead of Print. The study combines domain expertise and computational community detection to uncover what role citizen journalists and social media platforms play in mediating the dynamics of conflict in Mali. Under conditions of the growing conflict in Mali, citizen journalists are opening Twitter (rebranded as X) accounts to stay updated and tweet about the ongoing socio-political tensions, chronicling life in a conflict-ravaged context. This article conceptualizes the rapid reliance on Twitter among citizen journalists consisting of bloggers, activists, government officials and NGO’s as a form of networked conflict and networked journalism. Networked journalism emerges as professional journalists adopt […]
- by Stuart AllanJournalism, Ahead of Print.
- by Christopher CimaglioJournalism, Ahead of Print. Widespread claims charging news media with intentionally presenting false information to advance a political agenda are commonly understood as a recent phenomenon driven by the rise of right-wing populism. This article unpacks the prominence of charges of false news in the 1930s and 1940s United States among progressives who identified the commercial press as a powerful conservative force working on behalf of economic elites and against progressive movements. It argues that liberal and left critics deployed claims of falsehood in news as they sought to convince audiences that dominant news institutions were unworthy of their trust, […]
- by Christine FlammiaJournalism, Ahead of Print. Journalism instruction has long assumed curiosity is integral to the work, but there has not been a systematic study that engages psychological or sociological curiosity theory in the journalistic process. Instead, it’s assumed that curiosity means the same thing to all people, that all journalists engage curiosity in similar ways. Journalism instruction and practice therefore suffers from a shallow understanding of how curiosity affects the stories produced. Drawing on 18 semi-structured interviews with U.S. feature journalists and editors, I found feature journalists use their sense of curiosity to explore possible story ideas on multiple levels. Through […]
- by Flemming SvithJournalism, Ahead of Print. This paper proposes a new journalistic discipline, ‘Inferential Causal Explanatory Journalism’, which combines scientific insights and methods with journalistic practices and meets audiences’ need for knowledge about complex causal relationships affecting everyday life. The paper outlines the theoretical framework and methodology that allows journalists to infer relations between news events and their causes instead of the standard referential practice. Inferential causal explanatory journalism positions journalists as independent and credible producers of knowledge. It leverages the explosive growth in online access to scientific studies, as well as various other sources of digital data on current phenomena in […]
- by Denise VociJournalism, Ahead of Print. This study examines the link between media trust and consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for online news in the post-pandemic era. A 2023 survey of 1000 Austrian participants investigated how trust affects WTP and identified key predictors and moderators. Findings reveal a strong correlation between media trust and both WTP and media expenditure (ME), highlighting trust’s critical role in media organizations’ financial sustainability, as consumers favor credible news and trusted brands. Accordingly, media companies must develop a comprehensive strategy to (re)build trust, emphasizing the unique quality of their content and fostering trust in their brands to […]
- by Jannis FrechJournalism, Ahead of Print. Despite the scientific significance of journalism practice, the gap between academic and applied fields persists. In this paper, based on our project on the digital security of journalists and their sources, we argue that practice-relevant research in the form of the action-innovation model benefits both the academic and the applied realms. To this end, we provide hands-on practical training on the important topic of digital security, which remains under-researched and therefore requires an exploratory approach. A total of 23 training sessions were conducted for 230 participants representing various media outlets in Germany. The objective was to […]
- by Karoline Andrea IhlebækJournalism, Ahead of Print. The interaction between alternative and mainstream media is complex and often contentious. Mainstream journalists question the professionalism and political agendas of alternative media, while the latter criticize mainstream journalists for being biased and elitist. This paper investigates the positioning of alternative media in the journalistic field, both as a collective and as individual entities. Using the Strategic Action Field approach, we take an in-depth look at alternative media as challengers, approaching them as less privileged actors in the journalistic field. Through interviews with editors of alternative media in Norway, we engage with, and not merely discuss, […]
- by Kim SmeenkJournalism, Ahead of Print. Individual experiences have gained more prominence as a reliable alternative source of knowledge in the last decades. This personalization of knowledge has far-reaching consequences for journalism. This article studies the rise of personal journalism, in which journalists play a central role in the stories they write, and analyses how this impacts the epistemological underpinning of journalism. Through a quantitative content analysis of tabloid and quality newspapers between 1999 and 2019, we show that personal journalism has increased. Subsequently, through a qualitative analysis we examine how journalists build on and adjust existing epistemic regimes to construct their […]
- Journalism, Ahead of Print.
- by Christian RuggieroJournalism, Ahead of Print. The aim of this article is to identify the changes that have occurred in the function of the “wall” separating the newsroom from the business department in the years of the digitalization of news production, up to its platformization. To do this, we will focus on the Italian case, which is particularly interesting because it is a context in which journalism is more unlikely than elsewhere to generate revenues by exploiting the potential of digital environments, such as native advertising. We will test the strategies through which four media outlets (two legacy media outlets, The Post […]
- by Sini KaipainenJournalism, Ahead of Print. Authenticity in photojournalism as documentary evidence differs from Instagram-created authenticity as “sincere” self-presentation that equates self-branding with self-expression. Self-branding tactics can consolidate or compromise authenticity standards in photojournalism rooted in factuality, reality, and truth value. Yet, the rise of self-branding through performed authenticity by and of photojournalists on Instagram has not attracted scholarly interest. In this study, I undertake an automedial close reading of the persona performances of two established photojournalists. I probe (1) how Ed Kashi and Sebastian Rich engage with Instagram logic’s capitalist and commercial imperatives to construct an Instagram-mediated work persona through performed […]
- by Fredrik StiernstedtJournalism, Ahead of Print. Although it has been said for some decades that printed newspapers are dying, they are still in existence; however, Swedish newspapers have entered a new era. Throughout the country, the distribution of printed newspapers is slowly ceasing. In this article, we trace the process of the disappearance of printed news through ethnographic field work engaging with the perspectives of the newspaper industry, readers, and civil society. Conceptualizing the disappearance of printed news as an assemblage of imaginaries, materialities, and practices, we are interested in how this disappearance is accomplished, motivated, interpreted, and experienced. The article makes […]
- by Martin MontgomeryJournalism, Ahead of Print. The accountability interview in which a public figure is held to account for their statements or actions is a well-established armature in the delivery of broadcast news. In its broadcast canonical form it relies on questioning as an instrument for addressing issues of knowledge, responsibility, and the rightness of actions of those with public standing. However, shifts in questioning techniques have accelerated a movement towards argument in the context of the broadcast accountability interview and a corresponding loosening of its interview structure. Indeed, there are signs of a growing tendency for the interview framework itself to […]
- by Qi YinJournalism, Ahead of Print. Commencing with the distinctive institutional environment of China, this study broadens the perspective of cross-border journalism from the transnational/international dimension to the institutional dimension. Drawing upon embeddedness theory, the research delves into the forms, scope, and characteristics of cross-border cooperative relationships established by private news organizations as a means for grappling with dual legitimacy dilemmas to embed themselves in the journalistic field. Qualitative interviews with 24 Chinese unlicensed journalists in private news organizations reveal a preference for their cross-border collaboration with government and state-owned media, possessing political or cultural authority, while deliberately avoiding engagement with foreign […]
- by Ruona MeyerJournalism, Ahead of Print. This paper reveals incidents of episodic and systemic power that threaten fully virtual, remote collaboration between African investigative journalists (AJs) and their colleagues in Global North countries. Safety is conceptualized as journalists’ ability to surmount threats sparked by occupational power structures unique to cross-border journalism. The workplace is the digitally mediated, often temporal space where socialized media enables journalists co-produce and distribute investigative reports. Interviews with 25 journalists across west and southern Africa showed that tension within virtual teams causes: disagreements over media cultures and wages; downplaying of risks; de-prioritization of cultural norms and disparities in […]
- by Sandrine BoudanaJournalism, Ahead of Print. The growing body of comparative studies on journalistic role performance has generally neglected the geographic frame of the news. Based on a content analysis of 145,817 news items published in 365 outlets (print, online, radio, and television) in 37 countries, we compare the performance of six journalistic roles in four geographic frame categories: domestic, foreign, and mixed news (domestic news with foreign involvement and foreign news with domestic involvement). Findings show that the level of the four news categories is equal for the watchdog and civic roles but varies for the others: the service role is […]
- Stepping forth: Representation of people with mental health issues in Norwegian newspapers 1950-2020by Kjersti Blehr LånkanJournalism, Ahead of Print. Since 1950, remarkable changes have occurred in both mass media, mental healthcare, and mental health discourse. Despite mass media’s pivotal role in reflecting and shaping societal attitudes about mental illness, little scholarly attention has been dedicated to the historical development of media representations of individuals with mental health issues. In this study, unique historical data serve as foundation for analysis of Norwegian newspaper articles about mental illness from 1950 to 2020. Through combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the analysis of selected news stories illuminates how these stories both complement and challenge medical and journalistic authority. Two […]
- by Rhianna PatrickJournalism, Ahead of Print. Journalism has both contributed to shaping and been shaped by colonialism and has reproduced the status quo at the expense of those on the margins. Considering this reality, this study explores how journalism education and practice can be unlearned through a decolonising, Indigenous standpoint. It does this through an Indigenous co-led approach that brings together journalism students, journalism academics, and working journalists with family connections to, or extensive experience working with, 10 distinct Indigenous people groups. The participants provided provocations to journalists interested in unlearning the standard way that journalism is learned and practised.
- by Malte Egelyng SigsgaardJournalism, Ahead of Print. Classical institutionalized journalistic ethics struggle to deal with the implications of using AI tools, as these tools both create new ethical issues, and new forms of existing ethical issues. This paper reviews how the fields of journalistic research, computer science, and philosophy address emerging ethical challenges in the wake of the wide-scale introduction of AI tools to journalistic practice. It reviews the types of issues researchers attempt to solve and how they approach them from the viewpoint of three dominant ethical models. The paper finds that utilitarian – predominantly negative utilitarian – models are prevalent, and […]