This research aims to assess the degree of compliance of |Jornal Nacional| TV News, with the requirements of plurality ensured in the document |Editorial Principles of Globo Organizations|, on the cover of the preparations for the FIFA World Cup and Confederations Cup events. The work is divided into two parts: In the first, it is discussed the concept of plurality in journalism; how this value is related to the pluralist model of democratic theories; in which political circumstances this requirement of the journalistic activity helps to legitimize the journalism as a mediation forum of antagonistics and various positions. In parallel, we identified the editorial guidance document of |Rede Globo| Network as a tool for accountability processes, which enables the monitoring of journalistic content on the part of users, in order to check if the company delivers what ensures produce. The oriented devices to charge the journalistic processes for advertising and responsability of those who produce a public service are understood as a way of strengthening the producer-audience relationship, which competes for the extension of the social responsibility´s activity. In the second part, it´s presented the evaluation of plurality, in which was employed a methodology, developed in the framework of |Program of Research on Quality, Innovation and Technology Applied to Journalism| (Qualijor), which evaluated two aspects of the company: the editorial principles document of Globo Organizations; And the coverage of Jornal Nacional| TV News on the preparations of the mentioned events, with regard to compliance with the requirements for a plural coverage: 1) media autonomy in relation to the parties; 2) debate accessibility by agents potentially involved and 3) balance in the involved participation. The |Rede Globo| Network, as a FIFA´s partner and promoter of the World Cup, hosts the debate about the event in its TV News, but it is also interested party, setting up as well, a situation of conflict of interest that puts into question the basic condition for promotion of a plural coverage, contradicting guarantees provided in its document. In this scenario, this search looks for signs of asymmetry between what is guaranteed and what, in fact, is offered by the journalism of the broadcaster in relation to the plurality; suggesting as well, the increase in the debate on supervision mechanisms of journalistic content, in reason of the quality desired by its producers. / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo avaliar o grau de conformidade da cobertura do Jornal Nacional com requisitos de pluralidade, assegurados tanto no documento Princípios Editoriais das Organizações Globo, quanto no referencial teórico proposto. A temática da cobertura observada consistiu nos preparativos para os eventos Copa do Mundo e Copa das Confederações. O trabalho está dividido em duas partes: na primeira é discutida a noção de pluralidade no jornalismo; como este valor está relacionado com o modelo pluralista das teorias democráticas; em qual conjuntura política esta exigência da atividade jornalística ajuda a legitimar o jornalismo como fórum de mediação de posicionamentos diversos e antagônicos. Em paralelo, identificamos o documento de orientação editorial da Rede Globo como possível ferramenta de accountability, que possibilita a fiscalização do conteúdo jornalístico por parte dos usuários, de modo a verificar se a empresa entrega aquilo que assegura produzir. Os dispositivos orientados para cobrar publicidade dos processos jornalísticos e responsabilização dos que produzem um serviço de natureza pública são entendidos como uma via de fortalecimento da relação produtor-usuário, que concorre para ampliação da responsabilidade social da atividade. Na segunda parte, é apresentada a avaliação da pluralidade, na qual foi empregada uma metodologia, desenvolvida no âmbito do Programa de Pesquisa em Qualidade, Inovação e Tecnologia Aplicadas ao Jornalismo (Qualijor), que avaliou dois aspectos da empresa: o documento de princípios editoriais da Globo; e a cobertura do Jornal Nacional sobre os preparativos dos eventos citados, no tocante ao respeito aos requisitos para uma cobertura plural: 1) autonomia do veículo em relação às partes envolvidas na cobertura; 2) acessibilidade ao debate pelos agentes potencialmente envolvidos e 3) equilíbrio na participação dos envolvidos. Foram analisadas 84 matérias, veiculadas entre 15/06/2012 e 15/06/2013. A Rede Globo, enquanto parceira da FIFA e promotora da realização da Copa do Mundo, sedia o debate sobre o evento em seu telejornal, mas é também parte interessada, configurando assim uma situação de conflito de interesse que põe em xeque a condição elementar para promoção de uma cobertura plural, contradizendo garantias previstas em seu documento. Neste cenário, a pesquisa apura indícios de assimetria entre o que é prometido e o que, de fato, é oferecido pelo jornalismo da emissora no tocante à pluralidade, sugerindo assim, a ampliação no debate sobre mecanismos de fiscalização do conteúdo jornalístico em razão da qualidade pretendida por seus produtores.

Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec l'Institut d’études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence, École doctorale de Sciences Po, Programme doctoral en sciences de l’information et de la 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 d’abord 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 ». Ces reportages ont été soumis à une grille d’analyse, issue du projet Television Around the World de George Gerbner, adaptée aux nouvelles télévisées. Enfin, une analyse de contenu des 1 676 décisions issues de la jurisprudence du Conseil de presse du Québec a été effectuée. Cette dernière examine en profondeur les plaintes relatives à des situations de crises déposées au tribunal d'honneur de la presse québécoise et revient sur les griefs invoqués et les décisions rendues. Ces diverses analyses démontrent qu’il existe une complexité relative à la définition et à la compréhension des crises qui pose de nombreux défis aux professionnels de la nouvelle. Néanmoins, ces derniers font régulièrement face à ce type de situations, puisqu’elles occupent une place primordiale au sein de la programmation médiatique. Les répondants que nous avons rencontrés se sont dits préoccupés par la rapidité avec laquelle ils doivent traiter l'information, par le manque d'outils à leur disposition pour le faire lors de crises et par l'accès aux sources d’information, lesquelles peuvent tenter d'influencer ou de fausser leur jugement et ainsi nuire à leur liberté journalistique. Dans les deux pays analysés, la couverture de crise est présentée d’une façon très autocentrée, alors que les éléments qui retiennent principalement l’attention des journalistes sont ceux liés à leur pays d’origine. Néanmoins, le choix des thématiques et l’angle de traitement présentent de grandes similarités d’un pays à l’autre, alors que les journalistes ont tendance à mettre de l’avant les mêmes sujets dans les situations que nous avons observées. Des pratiques très spécifiques, qui se distinguent du quotidien, se manifestent donc lorsque vient le moment d’aborder les crises dans les médias. En identifiant ces façons de faire, la présente thèse jette les bases d’une réflexion essentielle sur la place accordée aux crises en information et révèle un manque d’outils déontologiques essentiels au travail des journalistes ainsi qu’un manque de réflexion et de recul sur la place accordée à certains sujets dans l’actualité. / 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 ways journalistic practices and media contents in a crisis situation differ from 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 share a language and similar TV channel structure, which allows us to establish valid comparison bases. To answer the question of the research, a triple methodological strategy was adopted and the results of these analyses are presented in subsequent chapters of the thesis. First are presented the results of semi-structured interviews we conducted, 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" crises, "natural" crises and "mixed" crises. These reports were submitted to the grid analysis from George Gerbner’s project "Television Around the World". Finally, a content analysis of 1,676 decisions from the jurisprudence of the Quebec Press Council was conducted. This analysis offered the opportunity to examine a certain amount of complaints relating to crisis situations, to observe the objections raised in these complaints and to analyze the different trends with respect to the complainants, the respondents and the decisions of the Quebec media self-regulatory body. The complexity of the definition and understanding of crises results from these various analyzes and poses many challenges to the news professionals who regularly face this type of situations, since they play a major role in media programming. In the two countries analyzed, crisis coverage is presented in a very self centric way, while the main elements that attract the attention of journalists are those related to their country of origin. Nevertheless, the choice of themes and the angle of treatment are quite similar from one country to another and journalists tend to focus on the same issues and to put forward the same type of elements in the situations we observed. There are therefore very clear practices that appear when it comes to address crises in the media. By identifying these, this thesis lays the foundations of a critical reflection on the place made to crises in the information world and reveals an insufficient number of ethical tools essential to the work of journalists as well as a lack of reflection and perspective on the emphasis given to some topics in the news.

This thesis examines the complex ways in which notions of the public interest and commercial imperatives intertwine in journalism practice. It does this through a study of the 2004 takeover and relaunch of the Sowetan newspaper, the highest circulation daily in South Africa throughout the 1990s and an institution of black public life. The ‘public interest’ and ‘the commercial’ are recurring ideas in journalism scholarship and practice, and the relaunch appeared to be a challenge to reconcile the Sowetan’s commercial challenges with its historical responsibility to a ‘nation-building’ public. However, the research shows that the public/commercial aspects of journalism were inextricably entangled with Sowetan’s organisational culture, which was the matrix through which its journalism practice was expressed. Conflict in the organisation over the changes was not simply a contest between commercial realities and the public interest, with journalists defending a responsibility to the public and managers pushing commercial solutions, but a conflict between the culture of Sowetan “insiders”, steeped in the legacy of the newspaper, and “outsiders”, employed by the new owners to effect change. Another conclusion of the research is that commercial “realities” – often conceptualised as counter to the public interest – are highly mutable. Basic conditions, such as a dependence on advertising, exist. However, media managers must choose from a range of strategies to be commercially viable, which requires risk-taking, innovation and, often, guesswork. In such situations, the ‘wall’ between media managers and senior editors is porous, as all executives must manage the relationship between business and editorial imperatives. Executives tend to overlook culture as a factor in changing organisations, but I argue that journalism could benefit from engaging with management theory and organisational psychology, which offer ways to understand the specific dynamics of the organisation. Finally, I argue that the case of the Sowetan throws into question the idea that there may be a broadly universal journalism culture. The attachment of Sowetan journalists to their particular values and practice suggests that forms of journalism evolve in certain contexts to diverge from the ‘professional’ Anglo-American modes. These ‘journalisms’ use similar terms – such as the ‘public interest’ – but operationalise them quite differently. The responsibility to the public is imagined in very different ways, but remains a significant attachment for journalists.

This study investigates Grocott’s Mail’s rape reporting through a participatory action research process. It draws on feminist cultural studies, sociology of news, and normative theories of the media to inform the research project. The participatory action research process explored three areas with the journalists at Grocott’s Mail: their understanding of the community they serve and their own professional identity as a community of practice, roles of the media in society which inform reporting, and rape as a social issue and problem. Through this process the study found that the pervasiveness of rape in the Grahamstown community, the complexities around rape reporting which include the significant legal challenges, the personal impact rape cases have on journalists, and the journalistic roles and approaches employed in rape reporting all influence how the paper covers rape. In analysing these matters the study found that the primary factor inhibiting a successful strategy for managing rape reporting was that Grocott’s Mail does not place gender-based violence on their news agenda as an issue requiring attention in order to develop the community they serve.

La tâche de cette thèse consiste à cerner la crise du journalisme dans un contexte propre aux pays confrontés à des crises profondes, particulièrement celui de l’espace médiatique congolais. La période de transition politique – qui s’est déroulée entre 1990 et 2006 – a été privilégiée, en raison de son ouverture au pluralisme médiatique et du foisonnement des médias dans un État marqué jadis par un quasi-monopole étatique sur le secteur.<p>Partant de l’argument selon lequel le journalisme congolais s’exerce dans un environnement de crise – celle-ci étant comprise comme un lieu d’inversion des valeurs et, par conséquent, favorable à la transgression des normes –, notre thèse se structure autour de trois hypothèses. Premièrement, serait-il moralement, mieux éthiquement acceptable, pour les journalistes, de transgresser les règles de leur profession, étant donné qu’ils évoluent dans un environnement de crise ?Dans l’affirmative, au nom de quels principes et de quelle éthique ces pratiques transgressives seraient-elles justifiées ?Deuxièmement, ces pratiques, pour autant qu’elles sont susceptibles d’être légitimées au nom d’une certaine éthique, seraient-elles préjudiciables à la qualité de l’information ?<p>Pour répondre à ces interrogations, notre démarche vise, d’abord, à circonscrire la crise congolaise ;puis à identifier, grâce à une approche empirique, les pratiques journalistiques ;enfin, à mesurer les retombées de ces pratiques sur l’information livrée au public. / Doctorat en Information et communication / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This study aims to draw on some of the ethical guidelines enshrined in the South African Press Code (SAPC 2007:10). This SAPC states that “the press shall be obliged to report news truthfully, accurately, fairly and in a balanced manner, without any intentional or negligent departure from the facts”. This insight is used in order to analyse the way in which the 2008 xenophobic attacks were reported in South Africa by the Sowetan and Daily Sun newspapers. Overall, the findings show that the two newspapers adhered to the South African Press Code (2007), and were ethical in their 2008 news reports. This specifically contradicts the dominant perception of most mainstream newspaper readers, who thought that, the Daily Sun is just a tabloid newspaper which “represents the lowest standard of journalism” (Wasserman 2012:1), because of its sensational crime and sex stories. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication)

This study aims to draw on some of the ethical guidelines enshrined in the South African Press Code (SAPC 2007:10). This SAPC states that “the press shall be obliged to report news truthfully, accurately, fairly and in a balanced manner, without any intentional or negligent departure from the facts”. This insight is used in order to analyse the way in which the 2008 xenophobic attacks were reported in South Africa by the Sowetan and Daily Sun newspapers. Overall, the findings show that the two newspapers adhered to the South African Press Code (2007), and were ethical in their 2008 news reports. This specifically contradicts the dominant perception of most mainstream newspaper readers, who thought that, the Daily Sun is just a tabloid newspaper which “represents the lowest standard of journalism” (Wasserman 2012:1), because of its sensational crime and sex stories. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication)