Climate change was the most covered issue in the media in Sweden during 2019 and the use of terms such as “climate emergency” and “climate crisis” increased significantly (Vi-skogen, 2020). These developments and the climate issue pose questions of future practices and purpose of journalism and therefore also its professional boundaries, not the least towards other social actors and institutions. This study focuses on journalists professional boundaries with their sources, specifically non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Environmental NGOs play an important role in climate- and international politics, such as for instance in the setting of United Nations’ climate summits (COPs), and are themselves engaged in producing public information (Powers, 2015b; Wozniak et al. 2017). The study therefore explores journalists’ conceptions of NGOs for climate journalism and these organizations’ roles in the climate reporting during COP25 in Madrid. It uses a theory of boundary work in journalism and applies a methodology of online interviews with journalists from Swedish national news organizations and with two representatives from environmental NGOs based in Sweden. The findings demonstrate four overlapping roles of NGOs in climate journalism based on the practices and views of the participating journalists: dependency; established source; partnering watchdog; and agenda-driven player. It further concludes that the climate issue and COP25 offer a context for blurred boundaries between the two actors, however, it is limited as journalists maintain control over NGOs’ participation in the news making process.

Although the Nordic countries have consistently ranked at the top of the Press Freedom Index for the last decade they aren’t a monolith, untouched by the rise of populism, authoritarianism and its frequent attacks on the press; a scourge of democratic nations during the last vestiges of the 2010s. Nor have their media managed to escape the rocky seas of finding viable market solutions in an increasingly accelerating and expanding digital reality.  Intimidation and harassment, heavy workloads and job insecurity are tangible threats for journalists. The aim of this study was to examine to which extent these factors are sources of stress, vulnerability and feelings of insecurity for some Swedish journalists working in the field and within editorial environs today. A qualitative approach of in-depth interviews with a few active journalists, editorial department safety representatives as well as union representatives comprise the main, albeit small, chunk of this paper’s empirical data. The results were then analysed and compared to prior research including but not limited to; Threats towards journalists, public trust and views of Swedish media, the labour market, economic prospects of Swedish media and the technical requirements and workloads of today’s journalists in Sweden.  The results showed that although threats and intimidation tactics towards journalists were commonplace – and risks stifling media discourse – it was not the main cause of the interviewed journalists’ perception of insecurity; mainly due to its intermittency and subject-related predictability. Heavy workloads were instead put forth as a major component of everyday stress, this was in part explained by personnel downsizing without corresponding reductions in production as well as a trend towards less niche multi-role journalists. Job insecurity and employer sided exploitation of employment laws were also cited as main sources of discontent and stress, leading to a high degree of job vulnerability and diminishing work satisfaction.  Although the scope of this paper did not allow for a large sample size the findings still gives an interesting insight into the real working environment of some Swedish journalists.

Sports journalism is a traditionally male-dominated environment. Previous research has shown that women sports journalists were outnumbered in newsrooms, had less career opportunities, have been exposed to harassment and must negotiate identity contradictions in order to succeed in their career. Most previous studies have explored English-speaking countries and little was done in Scandinavia and Latin America. This study aimed to analyze the perceptions and experiences of Swedish and Brazilian women sports journalists from gendered journalism cultures perspective, drawing a comparison between these countries. Through qualitative approach, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with seven women sports journalists from Sweden and Brazil and found that there are more similarities than differences between the two countries. Despite the different contexts, Swedish and Brazilian women sports journalists who participated in this study are overall satisfied with newsroom environment, they claimed that women journalists have gained more space, respect and voice in sports departments in comparison to when they started working in the field. However, they also pointed to some remaining issues such as sexist jokes and a feeling of having to prove their knowledge and capability. Another similarity observed was the perception that sports journalism has highly improved in relation to gender equality and, although the challenges still exist, they are less visible now. This study also found that the biggest difference observed between participants from Sweden and Brazil was the understanding of sexism and woman identity. While Swedish interviewees showed a more complex awareness of these concepts, Brazilians participants demonstrated some confusing comprehension, exposing more contradictions regarding these matters.

While research on the different expressions of racism in media has been closely linked to the understanding of stereotypes in a plethora of research, little is known about the journalists' perspectives and experiences of racism. However, in 2020, an anti-racist manifesto called “Whose SR?” (Vems SR?” 2021) was published online where the Swedish public radio Sveriges Radio (SR) was criticized by current and former employees for its lack of diverse representation and for having a work-environment where non-white journalists are marginalized.  Drawing upon the framework of grounded theory (Charmaz 2006), this thesis is an attempt to respond to the lacuna in media research and add new insights to the limited understanding of how women in news practices are affected by racism. Based on data generated from interviews with eight women who signed the anti-racist manifesto, this research aims to conceptualize how female journalists with minority backgrounds experience racism at SR and how such experiences affect their working identity. Utilizing the anti-racist manifesto as a case study situates the results in a specific environment which was understood as post-racial throughout the research.  Considering the findings of this study, participants developed a journalistic working identity to counter negative stereotypes associated with their minority identity and based on their perceived position of power at SR. This case study demonstrates how the anti-racist manifesto heightened the interviewees’ post-racial understanding and that SR’s response to the manifesto can be interpreted as an expression of how post-racial societies manifest. The main takeaway from the findings is how the inability to admit the different ways racism continues to shape contemporary media will negatively affect both journalists and the media's ability to represent diverse perspectives objectively.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

No description available.

Cancel culture can briefly be described as the active attempt to silence a person that has expressed an opinion that offended someone whether it was intentional or not. This thesis will present how cancel culture is understood, perceived and experienced by journalists, communication professionals, and media experts, as well as how, according to them, it impacts freedom of expression and journalism. The findings are analyzed from a theoretical framework of the public sphere and participatory democracy. The conclusion shows that cancel culture can both serve as a means to address social injustices while also threatening freedom of expression and, by that, journalism. Cancelling journalists, because they have reported on controversial issues that others have found offensive, can result in more self-censorship among journalists which can have negative consequences for democracy itself. Further research is encouraged to investigate the impacts of cancel culture on the field of journalism and ultimately its impacts on freedom of expression and democracy.

From music fans finding new songs in a genre, graphic designers brainstorming ways to depict a message, and journalists scrutinizing documents for angles, people often conduct exploratory searches to understand complex topics. In contrast to traditional search, which is done to quickly answer simple questions, exploratory search is an iterative learning process that involves understanding an information space in order to find useful pieces of information. Exploratory search is composed of two, closely-related sub-processes: (1) information foraging, choosing sources and collecting information, and (2) sensemaking, organizing this information into a mental framework. Both of these sub-processes are cognitively taxing and heavily rely on our memory. For information foraging, users need to read long, complex resources and recognize useful pieces of information. For sensemaking, as users encounter more information, it becomes harder to relate new information to their current knowledge. The spreading activation theory of memory purports that the information we encounter materializes in our working memory, which spreads activation into our long-term memory, enabling us to recall related semantic information to make sense of newly found information. From this theory, this thesis introduces three strategies for creating organizations that better stimulate memory: (1) constructing overviews that are association networks that mimic our memory's structure, (2) incorporating our prior knowledge in these overviews, and (3) providing concrete information to help us make sense of abstract ideas. This thesis demonstrates how to employ these strategies through three exploratory search systems across three domains: (A) SymbolFinder helps graphic designers explore visual symbols for abstract concepts, (B) TastePaths helps music fans explore artists within a genre, and (C) AngleKindling supports journalists explore story angles for a press release. Through this body of work, I demonstrate that by designing exploratory search systems to stimulate our memory, we can make acquiring and making sense of knowledge less cognitively demanding.

Note:

No description available.