China’s official media are nearly a decade into a global expansion programme to challenge the dominance of Anglo-American news organisations and their framing of world events. This research tackles the questions of whether Chinese media abroad deserve to be dismissed as channels for Communist Party propaganda, whether their output has journalistic merit, and whether Chinese journalism has a different character from that of the Anglosphere. The focus is on CCTV-News in English, whose ‘hard news’ output is compared with that of BBC World News TV between 2014 and 2016: previous studies of the channel have concentrated on single regions or events, political strategy or current affairs. Comparative quantitative content analysis of five constructed weeks of news is followed by frame analysis of selected events with a framework adapted to accommodate Chinese political and cultural proclivities. Subconscious editorial judgements are made manifest through a pioneering experimental technique, ‘cross-editing’, in which journalists from Britain and China swap broadcast news scripts and re-edit them as if for output on their own channel. Topics of strategic importance to Beijing are the focus of the research: news about China, and coverage of Africa including China in Africa. The empirical analysis confirms that these politically sensitive areas are handled by CCTV-News mainly in ways that are alien to editorial principles in the Anglosphere, either through lack of journalistic rigour (partial reporting and ‘positive news’) or through differences in framing such as solution-focused reporting and aversion to conflict. The analysis demonstrates the uneven editorial imperatives across CCTV-News and the improvised nature of journalistic professionalism, including how far Chinese reporters dare push the boundaries of information control. In the BBC World News output, the comparative methods reveal weaknesses in the Corporation’s professed tenets of balance and impartiality, and highlight the difficulties of telling nuanced, non-pictorial stories from distant countries while shackled by Anglo-American television ‘grammar’. The research confirms the considerable impediments to credibility occasioned by political control over CCTV’s English news output: however, it also indicates that the journalism of the Anglosphere, in the form of BBC World News, is not the universal standard many believed it to be.

Orientador: Murilo Cesar Soares / Banca: Maximiliano Martin Vicente / Banca: Danilo Rothberg / Resumo: A pesquisa analisa a cobertura jornalística de temas relacionados ao governo do presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) realizada pelo Jornal Nacional da Rede Globo, o mais importante telejornal brasileiro. Por meio da análise de enquadramento de reportagens sobre as reformas constitucionais (previdenciária e tributária), a definição da taxa de juros e o caso Waldomiro Diniz, temas direta ou indiretamente relacionadas ao governo Lula, verifica-se como o Jornal Nacional destaca ou atenua aspectos favoráveis ou desfavoráveis à gestão federal de modo a torná-los mais ou menos visíveis. Ao final do estudo, conclui-se que o telejornalismo da Rede Globo pratica enquadramentos pouco críticos ao governo federal, fenômeno observado em outros trabalhos a respeito de governos anteriores. / Abstract: The research analyses the journalistic coverage of issues related to president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government (PT) carried out by Jornal Nacional of Rede Globo, the most important Brazilian news-bulletin. By means of analyzing the framing of reformas (social security and tax policy), the adjustment of the interests' rates and Waldomiro Diniz case, issues directly or indirectly related with Lula's government, it is verified how Jornal Nacional exaggerates or attenuates favorable or unfavorable aspects about federal government in order to make them more or less apparent. At the end of study, the conclusion is that news-bulletin of Rede Globo conducts quite uncritical frames about the federal government, phenomenon perceived in other studies about previous governments. / Mestre

The Swedish National Agency for Education has revised the national curriculum in order to emphasize the importance of digital competence within the Swedish public school system. One part of becoming digitally competent is to be able to critically review material from digital sources. In this study, four Swedish language upper secondary school teachers have been interviewed about their experiences in teaching digital source criticism, when a need for digital source criticism arises and how they didactically organize their teaching methods. All four informants believed that there is a need for digital source criticism although their motives and teaching methods differed. One teacher saw the use of applying the subject to democratic values, two others wanted the students to learn how to research facts and develop a more nuanced view on information, the fourth teacher wished to introduce debate and reflection. Only one of the teachers integrated digital source criticism in the teaching of the Swedish language. The other three taught it independently, as a stand-alone subject. All four teachers shared the same view on teaching digital source criticism: They need to teach the students the definition of a source and that there are different kinds of sources with a different degree of reliability.

This thesis highlights the importance of ethical awareness amongst photojournalists, their complex professional practices and digital photography in relation to photographs submitted for publication in UK national newspapers. At the current time in the UK photojournalistic context, the ethical significance of photojournalists' practice is often silenced. This thesis aims to bring their voices to the surface. By adopting a social constructivist approach, this study draws on data collected from semi-structured interviews from twenty-five professional photojournalists. The interviews provided data which reflect the thoughts, opinions and views of professional photojournalists currently practising and that have submitted photographs to UK national newspapers. Below are the key themes of this study: - In constructing the importance of ethical practices in relation to newspaper photographs, I developed a representation that conceptualises the ethical relationship photojournalists have regarding challenges they face, being an eyewitness to history and their photographic identity. This representation positions practices relating to ethical activities conducted and understood by photojournalists; encapsulating the 'ethical eye'. - Ethical awareness amongst professional photojournalists is evident in the acts of both taking and working on photographs. I developed the idea that photojournalists utilise an 'ethical eye' while taking and working on photographs. - In further examining the 'ethical eye', I constructed the 'deontological ethical eye' which conceptualises the ethical duties faced by professional photojournalists. This research suggests that these duties aid in guiding them when taking action in ethical situations. - Photojournalists take 'care' while taking photographs, exhibiting excitement and dedication to their profession. I contend that even though photojournalists take 'care' with their photographs, this may be in vain because newspapers may make their own changes to the photographs. - I argue that photojournalists are socialised despite the lack of a structured working environment. In addition, I argue that they act as ethical role models for their professional peers; aiding in deterring unethical behaviour and helping to maintain the 'traditions' of photojournalism. - Photojournalists' personal views relating to the complex changes within their industry reveal challenges faced by photojournalists. I assert that although digital photography has been a great benefit to photojournalism; it has also brought about pressures, difficulties and concerns for photojournalists. - Throughout this study, I draw upon the perspectives of photojournalists, and I establish that there is a lack of communication between photojournalists and newspaper staff. - It is also established that photojournalists do not receive ethical codes or guidelines from newspapers regarding photo manipulation. However, there is an unwritten 'code' within the photojournalism community; the socialisation of photojournalists is a key factor in dictating their ethical practices. The implication of this study goes beyond a consideration of professional comradery between photojournalists and newspaper staff. To establish ethical boundaries, I argue that photojournalism is becoming increasingly boundless in that anyone can submit photographs, from anywhere, making the management of the profession difficult. Yet, through the optimistic views of photojournalists, newspaper photographs will remain at the forefront of visual communication. The findings of this research were considered in light of existing theory as discussed in Chapter Two. The research findings for this research were highlighted in Chapter Four. In Chapter Five, I discuss digital photo manipulation, ethical views of photojournalists regarding their practice and digital photographs. Chapter Six discusses the judgment values and views of photojournalists on the current challenges and future state of photojournalism; as well as the way in which photojournalists are socialised into their profession. Limitations of this research study were reviewed, and recommendations for future research were outlined in Chapter Seven. Photographic discussions are important; especially those concerning ethics within photojournalism because it can help improve and may spark participation in photographic discussions. Discussions could create awareness, guiding professional photojournalists and those involved in photojournalism on how they conduct themselves while performing their professional ethical duties. Photography is a topic of interest to many people, not only because it is fascinating, but because most people at one point or another have picked up a camera and taken photographs.

This study of radio news stations adds to the field of Twitter research into broadcasters' use of this social media microblogging platform; previous research has predominantly focused on television. This case study, based on a survey with numerous open-ended questions completed in face-to-face interviews, begins to fill in data on how Twitter is being used in major market radio station newsrooms. Limited in scope, this exploratory study used answers from seven members of two radio newsrooms in trying to find out if there were stated goals for tweets; if separate, unique content was being tweeted or was content tied to the stations' on-air product; how tweets seek to increase station listenership and/or increase station website traffic; what were the most frequently tweeted topics; what hyperlinks were included in tweets for internal or external web content; and were tweets personal and/or opinionated, or kept more professional with just factual material. From a strategic management theory standpoint, there is neither a stated plan nor goals sought with these newsrooms' use of Twitter. Unique tweet content includes sending out photos which add visuals to the pictureless world of radio news and live-tweeting of ongoing news events, while complementary content is promotional to push audience members to on-air or website products. There are no analytics in place to try to determine whether the stations' listenership or web traffic increases based on tweets. Promotional teases of upcoming on-air guest interviews or news content and/or web content are the most frequently tweeted topics. Hashtags rather than hyperlinks are more often included in the stations' tweets. News personnel stay away from expressing opinions, or being too personal in tweets, but remain more objective and professional by sticking to facts which is in step with the traditional role of journalists.

This dissertation advances previous research on the journalistic interpretive community by placing news at the center of a community's construction of place. By focusing on the construction of Iowa City, Iowa's "Southeast Side" - neighborhoods home to predominantly newly arrived black residents from Chicago and other urban areas - this study identifies dominant news characterizations of the Southeast Side that mark the place as a "ghetto" or "inner city." Beyond providing information about community issues and social conditions from southeastern neighborhoods, the term Southeast Side performed a singular ideological purpose: to identify and maintain dominant community values throughout the rest of Iowa City. Racialized and stereotyped news narratives of urban people, places, and problems in a place called the Southeast Side created an ideological boundary between those in and outside the Southeast Side. Such a boundary subjugated the Southeast Side's cultural diversity and its people, presenting them as being counter to Midwestern values and a threat to notions of a safe, white and historically homogeneous community. Indeed, the creation of Southeast Side was just as much about creating an "inner city" as it was about constructing notions of Iowa City itself. Through mental mapping, this project then compares dominant news characterizations to those made by Southeast Side residents, journalists, and public officials. In the end, this study explores cultural meanings that emerged from examining the similarities or differences between the place-making of residents, journalists, and news sources. This study reveals place-making as a fundamental role of the journalistic community and identifies another ideological function of the press in that they assign power and meanings by describing news by where it happens. Journalists and media scholars have long talked about the press as improving community journalism to meet the notion of the public sphere. Yet, this dissertation is not another such study that only encourages journalists to alter how they report on local news and communities. Instead, this study suggests that journalists and scholars recognize the cultural power of journalistic place-making and the challenge to their authority to do so by residents from a particular place.

This dissertation explores the effects of mass-mediated taxpayer discourse on citizen perceptions of citizen-government relations in the context of the United States, a country where media and political discourse is heavily saturated with taxpayer talk. Specifically, this study considers two contrasting rhetorical constructions of the taxpayer. The first portrays the taxpayer as subordinate to the state by framing taxpaying as a citizen’s obligation through discussing it in legal and procedural terms of tax collection. The second constructs the taxpayer as a partner to which the government is accountable by emphasizing spending tax revenues and thus foregrounding the role of taxpaying in citizen’s claims for greater control over government actions. Drawing on a variety of perspectives from political science, mass communication, tax compliance research, history, and social cognition, I developed and tested two models to predict the effects of these contrasting constructions on two dimensions of citizen-government relations: power and trust. To test the models, I conducted two randomized controlled experiments: one that utilized a student sample recruited from a large undergraduate class at the University of Iowa (N=207), and one that replicated the results on a nationally representative adult sample (N=617). An additional experiment on a student sample (N=154) validated the experimental treatment. Taken together, the findings show that taxpayer discourse can affect citizen political judgement, but those effects do not operate through perceptions of power but instead through changes in political trust. When exposed to the tax-collection rhetoric, individuals in the nationally representative sample responded by deeming the government less trustworthy, which made them more motivated to monitor its actions. Notably, when participants were exposed to the public-spending frame, their reactions were statistically indistinguishable from those who did not read any taxpayer-related headlines at all. This suggest that in the context of the United States, where people are socialized into a public discourse that portrays the taxpayer as the ultimate sponsor and judge of government performance, this perspective can be internalized and become the default framework that citizens rely on in forming political judgement. However, when rhetorically denied this privileged position and placed in a subordinate role, citizens can push back by penalizing the government with greater distrust and reclaiming their right for citizen oversight. Importantly, the distrust-generating effect of the tax-collection frame is mitigated by the perceived scope of government reliance on taxes. The more reliant on taxpayer money participants perceived the state to be, the more trust this frame generated, which is consistent with a cognitive-dissonance explanation. Finally, changes in trust were triggered by taxpayer framing among actual taxpayers, leaving individuals with no actual experience unaffected. This study advances political communication research by refining the understanding of politically consequential citizen roles in communication scholarship to include that of the taxpayer as one of the most fiscally significant, personally relevant, media-salient, and — as this dissertation demonstrates — politically meaningful citizen roles. The project also contributes to political-science scholarship by suggesting that taxpayer discourse can prevent democratic backsliding in an established democracy and by making a case for considering the news media as an important element of the taxation-democratization nexus. In addition to scholarly significance, the dissertation has clear policy implications because it suggests new ways to communicate the benefits of democratic governance in more tangible, relatable terms of paying taxes and claiming greater accountability for government performance.

The development of digital networks has allowed the largest news media organisations to consolidate and centralise their publishing businesses in flourishing capital-city markets. This has resulted in a withdrawal from other less-viable markets, especially those which are geographically remote, and the subsequent emergence of the 'digital divide' with its attendant negative effects. This thesis proposes that the combination of technologies, theories and processes which has brought about the 'digital divide' can now be realigned to reverse those negative effects, and to enhance the possibility of focussed participatory communication taking place within and between those previously less-viable markets. This enhanced participatory communication - which I have named 'integrated journalism' - brings with it measurable and positive effects, generally known as community capacity building effects, which lead to better outcomes for the members of enhanced communities, a more innovative and flourishing approach to life and business, and a more innovative and forward-looking atmosphere within enhanced communities. Two new models are devised and presented: the first allows members of audience communities to learn and implement the process of publishing a community newspaper under the tuition of an experienced journalist; the second enables both journalists and audience members to measure and direct the effects of news publication within communities.

This research investigates the changing relationship between the courts and the news media in Australia. While providing a broad historical context for this relationship, it focuses specifically on the past decade and the significant changes in communications practice within many Australian court jurisdictions. The study critically examines the role of public information officers (PIOs) in the Australian court system from 1993. It also investigates debates around experimentation with television cameras in Australian courts. It further critically examines other initiatives, undertaken by the courts through the PIO, including the development of court-media liaison committees, judgment summaries, websites and standardised request forms. This investigation brings together a range of perspectives about the court-media relationship. The findings are based on responses from 32 semi-structured interviews, conducted across seven jurisdictions in Australia over 28 months. Those interviewed include judges, PIOs, television reporters, news directors and newspaper reporters. The findings show overwhelming support for the role of PIO in facilitating access, improving communication, fostering a better understanding between the courts and the media and enhancing accuracy in court reportage. They indicate that those jurisdictions with PIOs in office are better at meeting the needs of the news media than the single jurisdiction that does not employ a PIO. In contrast, the issue of television camera access to courts has been marked by inconsistencies across the different groups of respondents. While the courts have generally been proactive in this area, news directors are ambivalent, even dismissive, about advancing moves. Progress has been slow, to the point of stalling in this area. This research is positioned within a field described as 'under-researched' and 'incompletely theorized'. It deals with uncharted research territory, particularly in the analysis of how the news media perceive their own role in the court-media interface. In delving into how the courts and media intersect, it forces an analysis of open justice and investigates the practice, policy, theoretical and philosophical assumptions and traditions of this relationship. Central to any relationship with the media is the source-reporter connection and this is analysed in the context of courts. It is argued that, consistent with the relatively low-level of analysis into the courts-media interface in general, sources on the court round have been inconsistent and disparate, reinforcing problems and irregularities for reporters on the round. Theories of sources as bureaucratic channels of information and primary definers of news provide a theoretical position for the emergence of the PIO. Critical elements that underpin the research are the importance of the media as presenting the courts to the wider community, through open justice, as well as the news media's role as the Fourth Estate in monitoring all aspects of society, including the judiciary and the courts. While the courts and the media must work together, they must also remain separate if the are to function effectively within a democracy. The investigation concludes that they should have 'separate but interlocking functions' in the public sphere. The research is framed around ideas of courts as part of the public sphere. It argues that developments aimed at enhancing communication between courts and the media have also improved the position of courts within that sphere. The intersections are viewed through concepts of ideal speech, communicative action and shared lifeworld. Individually and collectively, these provide a solid 'best practice' approach to how courts and the media can work together. These ideas are shown as a cycle of communication, represented as a communication model between courts, media and the public. Whilst originating from the work of Jurgen Habermas, these ideas have evolved to include a variety of perspectives and have, in this thesis, been employed to provide the theoretical framework for an analysis of the changing court-media interface.

Today�s globalized network communication initiates new interactive formats, transforming not only the dissemination, but - increasingly - the production of news. The �one-way� flow of news from a news outlet to the audience has been replaced by a network structure. Following Castells� concept of the �network� (1996) as the central model of information structures, I perpetuate this paradigmatic shift and suggest that networks also transform the professional journalism sphere in many world regions. A revised sphere of journalism is taking shape in which an increasingly global flow of news is evolving and a multiple platform structure of journalism is taking shape in which boundaries between traditional media outlets of print, radio, and television and between national and �foreign� journalism are blurring. Furthermore, I argue that a globalized journalistic network sphere is emerging which involves �traditional� journalistic outlets and bloggers, media activists, so-called citizen journalists, or user-generated content providers alike. These new journalistic spheres of connectivity establish new (and continuous) links between journalists, their sources as well as their audiences. This fundamental change creates new professional levels of connectivity on one hand and on the other, has severe strategic and organizational implications for the management of print, broadcast and online news outlets. Within this new �network� sphere of journalistic practice, the roles of journalistic outlets change. This work suggests a framework that helps to understand journalistic organization today, with innovative work structures based on digital technologies transforming the character and in effect substituting the model of �top-down� journalism models by a model that is far more complicated. I argue that within an evolving global news sphere, information flows are multidirectional. Decentralization and non-linearity become the key parameters defining news flows at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The character of this network in the journalism sphere is transnational, crossmedia, and cross professions. Based on results of thirteen qualitative interviews with media practitioners in Germany, the US and the UK, I argue that a new geography of journalism is taking shape in which journalistic outlets are being transformed into nodes. These nodes are arranged in a dense net of information gathers, producers and disseminators and the interactive connections among them constitute what I want to call network journalism.