What follows is an investigation of unusual media behaviour. The 2003 Iraq War precipitated a series of demonstrations of unprecedented scale in a cause that often had majority support and challenged the authority of the government. The media’s well documented tendency to marginalise or ignore protest was at least partly suspended as newspapers cleared their front pages to report on demonstrations and the BBC sent senior journalists to interview marchers. For once, protesters were making the news. My research has revealed a very different pattern of reportage to that anticipated by the widely used ‘protest paradigm’ that predicts the marginalisation and even criminalisation of protest. Although the record shows great unevenness across different media outlets, the coverage of some of the anti-Iraq War protests appears more comprehensive, even-handed and at times sympathetic, than any equivalent example in the literature. The central task was to investigate the nature of the divergence and find ways of explaining it. In the process, this exceptional moment could be used to probe the media’s role in modern democracy and its attitudes to dissent at times of mass mobilisation and social stress. A combined textual and quantitative analysis of my research raised some interesting conclusions. Though important, structural or technological developments cannot explain the changes to the way protest was handled, as some of the literature argues. The evidence suggests that a contingent complex of social, ideological and political factors created a perfect storm that scrambled normal lines of communication. Interviews with participants and research into the context of the protests allowed me to fill out these suggestions and draw out more definite conclusions. At the same time, the analysis provided a test of theoretical models of media function, including versions of the ‘propaganda model’, broadly post-structuralist approaches, and more recent work suggesting a greater openness to dissent. Analysis of various theoretical approaches suggests, however, the importance of a model that can combine emphasis on the hegemonic role of the media, with sensitivity to contradictions that emerge between the moments of ‘maintaining consent’.

This commentary first explains why it is important to study media representations of uncertainty around climate change. It then surveys the extensive literature on climate change and the media, and within this, the two bodies of scholarship relevant to media representations of uncertainty: i) ‘uncertainty’ as a dominant frame or discourse in media treatments; and ii) the presence of scepticism, in its various manifestations, in traditional and new media. The commentary then shows how the four submitted works have added to the existing literature: i) they have deepened understanding of the country differences between a wide variety of ‘Anglosphere’ countries and non-‘Anglosphere’ countries. Three of the works stand out for including three of the BRIC countries (Brazil, China and India) who are major emitters and major players in international negotiations; ii) they were the first to apply a taxonomy of scepticism to the content analysis, which gave a more nuanced appreciation of what type of climate scepticism can be found in which part of which newspaper in which country; iii) together they provide very large data sets over a period stretching from 2007 to 2012, which have not been replicated in the academic literature; and iv) one of the studies was the first to compare an uncertainty framing with other dominant frames such as ‘disaster’ and ‘explicit risk’. A critique is then given of the heavily quantitative approach used in the content analysis found in the works. It argues that a combination of a quantitative and a qualitative approach would have supplied more nuanced results. It revisits articles in the UK print media in 2009/10 and applies a different research method. The results suggest that a newspaper’s ideological leaning is an important driver of the treatment of climate science and scientists not just in its opinion pages, but in its news pages too. It concludes by placing this finding and others demonstrated in the submitted works within future priority areas of research identified by other scholars: the global characteristics of climate reporting and the drivers of country differences; the changing nature of sceptical discourse; and the role the media plays in fuelling, or reflecting, the political polarisation around climate change.

In the early 21st century, the Government in Taiwan was criticised for interfering with journalism via governmental product placement. In response, the government proposed a new relationship to work with journalism, and that is the government uses third parties, such as PR companies or media buyers to promote policies on the news media. Meanwhile, journalism also proposed a new approach, and that is news is not for individual sale but sold in a package with advertisements. It is argued that the power relation between the government and journalism has influenced by governmental paid-for news production. Using Foucault’s notion of governmentality, this argues that this emerging relationship is indicative of a new form of journalism: neoliberal journalism. In order to explore the idea of neoliberal journalism, this thesis investigates the relationship between the government and journalism with regard to the practice of governmental paid-for news in Taiwan. Semi-structured interviews and documentary data collections were adopted as research methods. 29 television journalists were interviewed and two governmental documents were analysed. Grounded theory, thematic analysis and narrative analysis were drawn on as analytical approaches. The research identified four key areas. First, it is argued that the government uses governmental paid-for news and transitions of regulations to extend its power to influence journalism. Second, the professional autonomy of journalism is relatively limited. Third, a public service ethos might not be fulfilled; instead, the interests of the government and business might be prioritised. Fourth, the role of the fourth estate is compromised and the resistance of journalists is restricted as a result of market-oriented rationality. The thesis concludes by suggesting that neoliberal journalism is a new characteristic of journalism refers to ‘relatively limited’ autonomy, ‘unfulfilled’ public service, the ‘compromised’ fourth estate, ‘restricted’ resistance of journalists, and a ‘blurred’ line between news, advertisements and PR. It is suggested that reform movements are expected to challenge neoliberal journalism in the future.

Operating as a form of visual news discourse, editorial cartoons hold a unique commentary position within the news agenda. Utilising artistic and rhetorical devices, cartoon illustrators provide supplementary (and sometimes alternate) viewpoints on current news events; their visuals becoming frames for organising social knowledge in addition to capturing the essence of issues or events. By doing so, audiences are presented with “a number of different condensing symbols that suggest the core frame of any issue portrayed” (Gamson and Stuart, 1992, pg. 60). This thesis reflects upon the evolution of editorial cartoons as a genre of socio-political commentary. Scrutinising a corpus of images taken from the 2010 British General Election, the study outlines the aesthetic, communicative and rhetorical features which enhance the form’s position within visual imagery; highlighting their capability in adapting to societal, political or aesthetic change. Drawing upon the works of Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Herrmann (2013) and Ritchie (2013), the thesis also illustrates how a conceptual approach towards editorial cartoon metaphors can amplify the forms’ convergence/divergence with the news agenda of its host publication. Lastly, a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses within a unified case study framework will highlight the capacity of editorial cartoonists to provide autonomous perspectives on evolving news events.

No description available.

This thesis examines the use of peer-reviewed data and statistics in news communication of science through a content analysis and close reading analysis of statistical data in the United Kingdom science news and in-depth interviews with science journalists. The content analysis yields three key insights into the use of science data in the United Kingdom and Brazilian press: (1) statistics are used overwhelmingly to treat science as hard news, (2) there is an immense lack of fundamental background information about how the reported data are produced and (3) science journalists tend to use peer-reviewed data in a unique fashion: their stories include either too few or too many statistics from original sources. The in-depth interviews attempt to explain this content pattern, examining how journalists access and interpret quantitative data when producing stories about science, the nature of statistical news sources that they regularly use, and how they evaluate and treat such sources in articulating science news stories. Overall, this research finds that journalists tend to see and use statistics mainly to maintain the strategic ritual of objectivity in their social construction of science. The findings will be discussed in relation to a comprehensive body of literature on the use and abuse of statistical information as a key tool in the construction of journalistic objectivity.

This is the first study of its kind about newsroom convergence and multi-skilled journalists in Saudi newspaper organisations and aimed to fill a gap in the literature about this particular issue in the Saudi context. The study investigated transformations, implications and consequences of technological convergence at four Saudi traditional newspaper organisations; Al-Madina, Alriyadh, Alyaum, and Alwatan. This thesis has explored the particular impacts of online journalistic production in traditional newspaper organisations to identify changes and perhaps challenges occurring in newspaper newsrooms. The study used the observation method in the four newsrooms and in-depth interviews with open ended questions with 60 professionals. The findings confirmed that there are ongoing transformations in the newsrooms. Yet, these transformations are challenged by regulatory, business, and cultural forces. Alyaum was the only newsroom to introduce new integrated newsroom. Journalists are observing and using new communication technologies in the workplace. However, there are difficulties in this process such as tensions in the newsrooms and shortage of qualified and trained journalists in the Saudi media market especially, multiskilled journalists. Despite embracing online and digital technology in news production and disruption, the four Saudi newspapers are still prioritising the traditional print side as it is generating more than 95 % of the annual revenue. Yet, the full integration of newsrooms between online and print newsrooms does not exist in Saudi press organisations.

This research takes three local newsrooms in London in the years 2011-2013 as the setting within which to explore and examine the nature of journalistic identity in a changing economic, technological and cultural environment. It identifies elements of this shared culture, using a combination of non- participant observation and interviews. A newsroom culture emerges which is collaborative and supportive for journalists operating within it, but also fundamentally cautious and conservative and reluctant to ask core questions about how its newspapers operate, who its readers really are, how to attract new readers and how to engage with others outside mainstream local journalism who have entered the arena of local news and comment. In other words, local newspaper journalists are in some ways their own worst enemy.

No description available.

This thesis contributes to a developing body of translation studies research that has begun to cast much needed light on the role of translation in news production. A norm for news to be translated using an acculturating strategy has been identified and argued to be necessary in the case of journalistic texts (Bassnett, 2005). This thesis considers the acculturation norm to be problematic for two reasons: 1) acculturation obscures the translation process, and therefore the intervention of the journalist-translator in translated quotations; 2) acculturation obscures, and therefore prevents the reader from engaging with, the foreign source culture. It asks whether there might be scope for introducing a degree of foreignisation, and what the impact might be on reading ease, translation awareness and the potential for news translation to facilitate cosmopolitan openness. The thesis builds on the work of Cronin (2006) and Bielsa (2010; 2012; 2014) in introducing the sociological concept of cosmopolitanism to translation studies. The potential for news translation to enable cosmopolitan connections, a normative ideal in this thesis, is considered to be fulfilled by a translation strategy that reveals rather than obscures the foreignness of the source news context (Bielsa, 2014). As prolific news content providers, the global agencies (Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse) are the focus of the research; with Reuters, British readers and news from France as a case study. A ‘foreignised’ strategy is developed as a hypothetical, yet viable, alternative to current practice. The changes impact the translation of culture-specific terms and quotations; two elements of foreign news reporting that always involve translation. A reader-response investigation is conducted using focus groups, an under-used method in translation studies. The data indicates the strategy does not have a negative impact on reading ease and illuminates the cosmopolitan potential of a foreignised approach to news translation.