This thesis, titled “Normative Media Theory and the Rethinking of the Role of the Kenyan Media in a Changing Social Economic Context,” is a theoretical study that discusses the role of normative media theory in shaping and guiding debate on the role of the media and attendant policy making processes in a changing Kenyan social economic context. This is done against the background of acknowledgment of the general state of flux that characterizes normative media theory in a postmodern, globalized and new media landscape. The study thus extensively describes the Kenyan media landscape, with a view to demonstrating how it has and is continuing to be transformed by a variety of developments in the social economic set up of the Kenyan society. In order to provide a theoretical basis for explaining these developments, the study then indulges in an extensive theoretical discussion that presents a synthesis of current arguments in the area of normative media theory. This discussion fundamentally brings to the fore the challenges which characterizes normative media theory in a changing social economic context and therefore the inability of traditional normative theory to account for new developments in the media and society in general. In an attempt to integrate normative media theory and practice, the study then discusses (against the backdrop of theory) the views and opinions of key role players in the Kenyan media landscape, in regard to how they perceive the role of the media. Particular attention is given, inter alia, to matters such as media ownership, media accountability processes, changing media and communication technologies, a changing constitutional landscape, the role of the government in the Kenyan media landscape, the place of African moral philosophy in explaining the role of the media in Kenya, and the growth of local language radio. Finally, on the bases of theory, experiences from other parts of the world and the views of key role players in the Kenyan media landscape, the study presents several normative guidelines on how normative theory and media policy making in Kenya could meet each other, taking into account the changes occasioned by globalization and the new media landscape. These proposals are essentially made to enrich general debate on the role of the media in Kenya, as well as attendant media policy making efforts. / Communication / D.Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

La présente thèse s'intéresse à la couverture de l'information lors de crises, soit des événements brutaux et inattendus, attribuables « à une situation très difficile, voire dangereuse, pour un individu, une organisation, un corps social, un système économique ou un pays » . Elle a pour objectif de définir en quoi les pratiques journalistiques et le contenu des médias diffèrent du quotidien à la situation de crise. L'hypothèse de départ, sur laquelle elle s'appuie, est qu'en situation de crise, les pratiques journalistiques seront affectées par l'émotivité, l'impulsion du moment et la recherche d'exclusivité. S'agissant du contenu, il y aura saturation de certains thèmes liés à la crise, alors que plusieurs sujets abordés quotidiennement seront évacués et que le risque d'erreurs ou d'inexactitudes sera exacerbé. Ce travail doctoral emprunte la voie de la comparaison entre la France et le Québec, deux pays présentant une structure de chaînes télévisées similaire, laquelle permet d'établir des bases de comparaison valables. Pour répondre au questionnement initial, une triple stratégie méthodologique a été adoptée. Cette stratégie inclut des entretiens semi-directifs sous forme d'histoire de vie professionnelle, réalisés avec différents acteurs de l'information. Suivent les résultats d'une analyse quantitative du contenu des journaux télévisés qui s'appuie sur un corpus composé de reportages présentés lors de trois types de crises survenues en France et au Québec, soit des crises « sociales », des crises « naturelles » et des crises « mixtes ». Enfin, une analyse de contenu des 1 676 décisions issues de la jurisprudence du Conseil de presse du Québec a été effectuée. / This thesis focuses on the news coverage during abrupt and unexpected events, due to "a very difficult situation, even dangerous, for an individual, an organization, a social body, an economic system or a country" and aims to determine in what journalistic practices and media contents in a crisis situation differ from the ordinary daily practices. The assumption on which this thesis rests is that in a crisis situation, journalistic practices will be affected by emotions, the spur of the moment and the search for exclusivity. Regarding content, there will be saturation of certain issues related to the crisis, while many daily topics will be removed and the risk of errors or inaccuracies will be exacerbated. This doctoral work follows the path of a comparison between France and Quebec, as both countries present a similar language and TV channel structure, which allows us to establish valid comparison bases. To answer the question of the research, a triple methodological strategy was adopted. First are presented the results of semi-structured interviews we made, in the form of professional life stories, with different actors from the information sector. These are followed by the results of a quantitative content analysis of television news which is based on a corpus formed of reports presented during three types of crises in France and in Quebec: "social" crisis, "natural" crises and "mixed" crises. Finally, a content analysis of 1,676 decisions from the jurisprudence of the Quebec Press Council was conducted.

This qualitative research study explores the relationship between reducing uncertainty and assigning source credibility in the context of social media sites (SMS) and examines the effect of uncertainty reduction within the social media environment on the development of relationships between journalists and their sources. For this study, interviews were conducted with professional journalists to determine whether uncertainty was reduced and credibility was established with sources via SMS (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) and what theoretical strategies journalists used to reduce their uncertainty. The study also aims to determine if correlations exist between a reporter's age, beat, and/or personal adoption of SMS and the reporter's usage of SMS for source development. The interviews were conducted with 15 journalists of The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Florida), using a standardized interview protocol. Subjects were asked to voluntarily participate in a face-to-face interview with the researcher. Reporters were selected based upon their gender and cultural ethnicity, which was representative of the newsroom demographics of The Palm Beach Post at that time. This research aims to contribute to the uncertainty reduction theory in the realm of computer-mediated communications, specifically with regard to the use of SMS in forming and maintaining journalist-source relationships. / by Michelle D. Brown. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:22:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edney Mota Almeida.pdf: 2477208 bytes, checksum: 0d0b4f18e1ae448c9c944cf2aea0cc43 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-06-25 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The entail - or not - about to the journalist job to the merchandising with the marketing and propaganda, has making many discussions in the last times. With the advanced of the publicity and the marketing in many entertainment areas and the editorials journalisms, the opened TV in Brazil does not resist the constant investments of the publicity money designed to their programs. The sort "round sportive table" looks to be the privilege focus where you may verify these kinds of things. The television companies (tv senders) use their famous presenters to make easiest to get financial recourses. However a part of the journalistic c1ass doesn't accept and resists articulating its jobs with the publicity and the merchandising. After the and of the 1990 decade this discussion increase and the more resistant journalists to be as a "merchandising boy" lost their spaces in the opened tvs that show the sort "round sportive table". Only those professionals whose have accepted the new economic order and the marketing imposition would continuous in their functions. In some analyses made, excepting by the Globo and Cultura TVs (the first one because it doesn't have in their exhibition the sort program named "round sportive table" and the second because it has a character of a public tv ) the other opened tvs - Rede TV, Bandeirantes TV and Gazeta TV - have adopted this articulation between the both languages, journalistic and publicity,. ln this context, this dissertation has the objective to presents, the historicity of the "round sportive table" on the tv, between Rio - São Paulo, as well a critical observation about the insertion of the merchandising in this kind of tv show. It had evaluated an hypothesis that exists two "schools" of sportive journalisms and for that , make the analysis of the professional trajectory profile of the following journalists: Milton Neves, as well a publicist and Juca Kfouri outstanding journalist because bis militant position ahead of the denunciations of irregularities in the world of the sport. The research grew with the method of for the Critical Analysis, with theoretical approach based in the area of the Social Sciences by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu ideas; in the Theory of Communication, of journalist Eugenio Bucci; in the Political Theory, of Antonio Gramsci in what he refers to the study of the process of symbolic fights in the midia field while social phenomena. They are gatered like this and discussed the authors different texts, among other that they dialogue with the interviewees of this work, in order to if they obtain knowledge on the discussion in subject / A vinculação - ou não - do trabalho do jornalista ao merchandising, ao marketing e propaganda, tem provocado inúmeras discussões nos últimos tempos. Com o avanço da publicidade e do marketing em todas as áreas do entretenimento e de editorias do jornalismo, a TV aberta no Brasil não tem resistido aos constantes investimentos de verbas publicitárias destinadas as suas grades de programação. A mesa-redonda esportiva constitui-se como lócus privilegiado onde se pode verificar esse estado de coisas. As emissoras de tevê se valem de seus apresentadores "famosos" para facilitar a captação dos recursos financeiros. No entanto, uma parte dos profissionais do jornalismo se recusa a articular seu trabalho à publicidade e o merchandising. Esse debate se intensificou, desde o final da década de 1990, e jornalistas esportivos mais resistentes ao papel de garoto-propaganda perderam seus espaços nas tevês abertas que exibem mesas-redondas esportivas. Os que aderiram à nova ordem econômica, e aceitaram imposições mercadológicas,permaneceram em suas funções. Nas análises feitas, a exceção das TVs Globo e Cultura (a primeira, por não incluir a mesa redonda esportiva em sua grade de programação; a segunda, por seu caráter de rede pública de televisão), as demais tevês abertas - Rede TV, TV Bandeirantes e TV Gazeta - adotam a articulação entre as linguagens jornalística e publicitária. É neste contexto que esta dissertação objetivou apresentar um histórico da mesa-redonda esportiva na tevê, no eixo Rio-São Paulo, bem como um levantamento crítico de informações sobre o surgimento e incorporação do merchandising nesse tipo de programa. Avaliou, ainda, a hipótese da existência de duas "escolas" de jornalismo esportivo e, para tanto, acompanhou as trajetórias e os perfis profissionais dos seguintes jornalistas: Milton Neves, também publicitário e Juca Kfouri, destacado por sua postura militante diante de irregularidades no mundo do esporte. A pesquisa desenvolveu-se metodologicamente pela Análise Crítica, com abordagem teórica fundamentada na área das Ciências Sociais pelas idéias do sociólogo Pierre Bourdieu; na Teoria da Comunicação, do jornalista Eugênio Bucci; na Teoria Política, de Antônio Gramsci, no que se refere ao estudo do processo de lutas simbólicas no campo midiático, enquanto fenômenos sociais. Assim são reunidos e discutidos diferentes textos dos autores, entre outros, que dialogam com os entrevistados deste trabalho, a fim de se obterem conhecimentos sobre o debate em questão

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:57:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edney Mota Almeida.pdf: 2477208 bytes, checksum: 0d0b4f18e1ae448c9c944cf2aea0cc43 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-06-25 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The entail - or not - about to the journalist job to the merchandising with the marketing and propaganda, has making many discussions in the last times. With the advanced of the publicity and the marketing in many entertainment areas and the editorials journalisms, the opened TV in Brazil does not resist the constant investments of the publicity money designed to their programs. The sort "round sportive table" looks to be the privilege focus where you may verify these kinds of things. The television companies (tv senders) use their famous presenters to make easiest to get financial recourses. However a part of the journalistic c1ass doesn't accept and resists articulating its jobs with the publicity and the merchandising. After the and of the 1990 decade this discussion increase and the more resistant journalists to be as a "merchandising boy" lost their spaces in the opened tvs that show the sort "round sportive table". Only those professionals whose have accepted the new economic order and the marketing imposition would continuous in their functions. In some analyses made, excepting by the Globo and Cultura TVs (the first one because it doesn't have in their exhibition the sort program named "round sportive table" and the second because it has a character of a public tv ) the other opened tvs - Rede TV, Bandeirantes TV and Gazeta TV - have adopted this articulation between the both languages, journalistic and publicity,. ln this context, this dissertation has the objective to presents, the historicity of the "round sportive table" on the tv, between Rio - São Paulo, as well a critical observation about the insertion of the merchandising in this kind of tv show. It had evaluated an hypothesis that exists two "schools" of sportive journalisms and for that , make the analysis of the professional trajectory profile of the following journalists: Milton Neves, as well a publicist and Juca Kfouri outstanding journalist because bis militant position ahead of the denunciations of irregularities in the world of the sport. The research grew with the method of for the Critical Analysis, with theoretical approach based in the area of the Social Sciences by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu ideas; in the Theory of Communication, of journalist Eugenio Bucci; in the Political Theory, of Antonio Gramsci in what he refers to the study of the process of symbolic fights in the midia field while social phenomena. They are gatered like this and discussed the authors different texts, among other that they dialogue with the interviewees of this work, in order to if they obtain knowledge on the discussion in subject / A vinculação - ou não - do trabalho do jornalista ao merchandising, ao marketing e propaganda, tem provocado inúmeras discussões nos últimos tempos. Com o avanço da publicidade e do marketing em todas as áreas do entretenimento e de editorias do jornalismo, a TV aberta no Brasil não tem resistido aos constantes investimentos de verbas publicitárias destinadas as suas grades de programação. A mesa-redonda esportiva constitui-se como lócus privilegiado onde se pode verificar esse estado de coisas. As emissoras de tevê se valem de seus apresentadores "famosos" para facilitar a captação dos recursos financeiros. No entanto, uma parte dos profissionais do jornalismo se recusa a articular seu trabalho à publicidade e o merchandising. Esse debate se intensificou, desde o final da década de 1990, e jornalistas esportivos mais resistentes ao papel de garoto-propaganda perderam seus espaços nas tevês abertas que exibem mesas-redondas esportivas. Os que aderiram à nova ordem econômica, e aceitaram imposições mercadológicas,permaneceram em suas funções. Nas análises feitas, a exceção das TVs Globo e Cultura (a primeira, por não incluir a mesa redonda esportiva em sua grade de programação; a segunda, por seu caráter de rede pública de televisão), as demais tevês abertas - Rede TV, TV Bandeirantes e TV Gazeta - adotam a articulação entre as linguagens jornalística e publicitária. É neste contexto que esta dissertação objetivou apresentar um histórico da mesa-redonda esportiva na tevê, no eixo Rio-São Paulo, bem como um levantamento crítico de informações sobre o surgimento e incorporação do merchandising nesse tipo de programa. Avaliou, ainda, a hipótese da existência de duas "escolas" de jornalismo esportivo e, para tanto, acompanhou as trajetórias e os perfis profissionais dos seguintes jornalistas: Milton Neves, também publicitário e Juca Kfouri, destacado por sua postura militante diante de irregularidades no mundo do esporte. A pesquisa desenvolveu-se metodologicamente pela Análise Crítica, com abordagem teórica fundamentada na área das Ciências Sociais pelas idéias do sociólogo Pierre Bourdieu; na Teoria da Comunicação, do jornalista Eugênio Bucci; na Teoria Política, de Antônio Gramsci, no que se refere ao estudo do processo de lutas simbólicas no campo midiático, enquanto fenômenos sociais. Assim são reunidos e discutidos diferentes textos dos autores, entre outros, que dialogam com os entrevistados deste trabalho, a fim de se obterem conhecimentos sobre o debate em questão

Thesis (MPhil (Journalism))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Abstract: This study analyses the reporting of the Iraqi prisoner abuse issue at Abu Ghraib as reported upon by two South African newspapers from an ethical point of view. The focus falls on the issue of accuracy. Accuracy in war reporting of geographically distant conflicts as exemplified with this case study is a delicate and important matter, the media often being the only window for the public to learn of and about a conflict. In this case study, the two South African newspapers Cape Times and Mail&Guardian will be analysed to show the extent of their adherence to codes of conduct and exemplify the problematic practicalities in ethical reporting on international news. With the main focus of the study being on the ethical issues concerning accuracy, other relevant topics, such as ‘objectivity’, balance, fairness and truth telling, as well as more practical concerns will also be partially considered. The selected case studies are contextualized within the South African media environment so as to yield a better insight into the choices made on an editorial and/or newsroom level. As case studies, selected articles from the Cape Times and the Mail&Guardian during a three-month time-span are analysed using Day’s Situation/Analysis/Decision (SAD) model. Each article will further be analysed from the point of view of the newspaper’s own code of conduct and overarching ethical codes such as the South African Press Ombudsman’s Code of Conduct as well as in terms of the South African laws relevant to the media industry.

On May 16 2006 the government of Zimbabwe embarked on a clean-up programme of urban centres, destroying informal human settlements and informal businesses. This operation, which the government called operation "Restore Order", resulted in the displacement of nearly one million people and left thousands of families homeless. This study is a discussion and an analysis of the coverage of the clean-up operation by two of Zimbabwe's leading Sunday newspapers, The Sunday Mail and The Standard. The Sunday Mail is owned by the Zimbabwe government and The Standard is privately owned and perceived to be oppositional to the current Zimbabwe government. The two newspapers, therefore, covered the clean-up operation from different perspectives and often presented conflicting reports explaining why the clean-up operation was carried out and the extent of its impact on the lives of millions of Zimbabweans. The chosen research approach is the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework as developed by Fairclough (1995). Using CDA, this study seeks to find out and expose the underlying ideological struggles for hegemony between different social and political groups in Zimbabwe and how the newspapers became actors in this process. This process is made possible by looking at how news reporting is organised in the two newspapers, issues of language use, sourcing and external factors that influenced the coverage of the operation.

This research is premised on the understanding that media texts are discourses and that all discourses are functional, that is, they refer to things, issues and events, in meaningful and goal oriented ways. Nine articles are analysed to explicate the sorts of discourses that were promoted by The Chronicle during the Gukurahundi conflict in Zimbabwe between 1982 and 1986. It is argued that discourses in the news media are shaped by the role(s), the type(s) of journalism assumed by such media, and by the political environment in which the news media operate. The interplay between the roles, types of journalism practised, and the effect the political environment has on news discourses is assessed within the context of conflictual situations. This is done using insights from the theoretical position of peace journalism and its critique of professional or mainstream journalism as promoting war/violence journalism. Using the case of The Chronicle's reportage of the Gukurahundi conflict in Zimbabwe, it is concluded that, in performing the collaborative role, state owned/controlled media assume characteristics of war/violence journalism. On the other hand, it is concluded that The Chronicle developed practices consistent with peace journalism when it both espoused the facilitative role and journalistic objectivity. These findings undermine the conventional view among proponents of peace journalism that in times of conflict, the news media should be interventionist in favour of peace and that they should abandon the journalistic norm of objectivity which they argue, promotes war/violence journalism.

This study investigates how journalists experience economic and political pressures on their ethical decisions at the Nation Media Group (NMG) conglomerate in Kenya. The study uses qualitative semi- structured interviews to examine how journalists experience these pressures on their professional ethics as they make their daily decisions. Grounded in the critical political economy of the media tradition, the findings of the study indicate that economic and political pressures from advertisers, shareholders’ interests, the profit motive and the highly ethnicised political environment in Kenya largely compromise the ethical decisions of journalists. The study draws on the work done by Herman and Chomsky in their ‘Propaganda Model’ in which they propose ‘filters’ as the analytical indicators of the forms that political and economic pressures that journalists experience may take. The study explores the ways in which journalists experience these pressures, how they respond to the pressures and the ways in which their responses may compromise their journalism ethics. The findings indicate that aside from the pressures from the primary five filters outlined in the Propaganda Model, ethnicity in Kenyan newsrooms is a key ‘filter’ that may compromise the ethical decisions of journalists at the NMG. The study therefore argues that there is a need to modify the explanatory power of the Propaganda Model when applying it to the Kenyan context to include ethnicity as a ‘sixth filter’ that should be understood in relation to the five primary filters. From the findings, it would seem that the government is no longer a major threat to journalists’ freedom and responsibility in Kenya. Market forces and ethnicity in newsrooms pose the greatest threat to journalists’ freedom and responsibility. The study therefore calls for a revision of the normative framework within which journalists’ and media performance in Kenya is assessed. As the study findings show, the prevailing liberal- democratic model ignores the commercial and economic threats the ‘free market’ poses to journalism ethics as well as ethnicity in newsrooms and only focuses on the media- government relations, treating the government as the major threat to media freedom.

This thesis, titled “Normative Media Theory and the Rethinking of the Role of the Kenyan Media in a Changing Social Economic Context,” is a theoretical study that discusses the role of normative media theory in shaping and guiding debate on the role of the media and attendant policy making processes in a changing Kenyan social economic context. This is done against the background of acknowledgment of the general state of flux that characterizes normative media theory in a postmodern, globalized and new media landscape. The study thus extensively describes the Kenyan media landscape, with a view to demonstrating how it has and is continuing to be transformed by a variety of developments in the social economic set up of the Kenyan society. In order to provide a theoretical basis for explaining these developments, the study then indulges in an extensive theoretical discussion that presents a synthesis of current arguments in the area of normative media theory. This discussion fundamentally brings to the fore the challenges which characterizes normative media theory in a changing social economic context and therefore the inability of traditional normative theory to account for new developments in the media and society in general. In an attempt to integrate normative media theory and practice, the study then discusses (against the backdrop of theory) the views and opinions of key role players in the Kenyan media landscape, in regard to how they perceive the role of the media. Particular attention is given, inter alia, to matters such as media ownership, media accountability processes, changing media and communication technologies, a changing constitutional landscape, the role of the government in the Kenyan media landscape, the place of African moral philosophy in explaining the role of the media in Kenya, and the growth of local language radio. Finally, on the bases of theory, experiences from other parts of the world and the views of key role players in the Kenyan media landscape, the study presents several normative guidelines on how normative theory and media policy making in Kenya could meet each other, taking into account the changes occasioned by globalization and the new media landscape. These proposals are essentially made to enrich general debate on the role of the media in Kenya, as well as attendant media policy making efforts. / Communication / D.Litt. et Phil. (Communication)