Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation

247 Pages·2015·1.662 MB·English

by  Matt Carlson, Seth C. Lewis

Boundaries of Journalism
Theconceptofboundarieshasbecomeacentralthemeinthestudyofjournalism.
In recent years, the decline of legacy news organizations and the rise of new
interactive media tools have thrust such questions as “what is journalism?”
and “who is a journalist?” into the limelight.
Strugglesoverjournalismareoftenstrugglesoverboundaries.Thesesymbolic
contests forcontroloverdefinitionalsomarkamaterialstruggleoverresources.
In short: boundaries have consequences. Yet there is a lack of conceptual
cohesiveness in what scholars mean by the term “boundaries” or in how we
should think about specific boundaries of journalism.
This book addresses boundaries head-on by bringing together a global array
of authors asking similar questions about boundaries and journalism from a
diverse range of perspectives, methodologies, and theoretical backgrounds.
BoundariesofJournalismassemblesthemostcurrentresearchonthistopicin
oneplace,thusprovidingatouchstoneforfutureresearchwithincommunication,
media and journalism studies on journalism and its boundaries.
Matt Carlson is associate professor of communication at Saint Louis Uni-
versity. His work examines the contested cultural construction of journalism.
He is author of On the Condition of Anonymity: Unnamed Sources and the
Battle for Journalism and co-editor of Journalism, Sources, and Credibility:
New Perspectives.
Seth C. Lewis is an assistant professor and the Mitchell V. Charnley Fellow in
the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of
Minnesota. He studies the changing nature of journalism amid the rise of
sociotechnical phenomena such as big data, social media, and digital audience
analytics.
Shaping Inquiry in Culture, Communication
and Media Studies
Series Editor: Barbie Zelizer
Dedicated to bringing to the foreground the central impulses by which we
engage in inquiry, the Shaping Inquiry in Culture, Communication and Media
Studiesseriesattemptstomakeexplicitthewaysinwhichwecraftourintellectual
grasp of the world.
Explorations in Communication and History
Edited by Barbie Zelizer
The Changing Faces of Journalism
Tabloidization, Technology and Truthiness
Edited by Barbie Zelizer
The Politics of Reality Television
Global Perspectives
Edited by Marwan M. Kraidy and Katherine Sender
Making the University Matter
Edited by Barbie Zelizer
Communication Matters
Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility and Networks
Edited by Jeremy Packer and Stephen B. Crofts Wiley
Communication and Power in the Global Era
Orders and Borders
Edited by Marwan M. Kraidy
Boundaries of Journalism
Professionalism, Practices and Participation
Edited by Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis
Boundaries of Journalism
Professionalism, Practices and Participation
Edited by
Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis
AddAddAddAdd AAAdddddAdAddddAdd
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Firstpublished2015
byRoutledge
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Boundariesofjournalism:professionalism,practicesandparticipation/edited
byMattCarlsonandSethC.Lewis.
pagescm.--(Explorationsincommunicationandhistory)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Journalisticethics.2.Journalism--Objectivity.I.Carlson,Matt,1977-editor.
II.Lewis,SethC.
PN4756.B6652015
070.4--dc23
2014032191
ISBN:978-1-138-01784-9(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-02067-2(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-72768-4(ebk)
TypesetinSabon
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
From Matt Carlson:
For Claire, with boundless love
From Seth C. Lewis:
For Jackson, Addison, Preston, and Asher—the four happy hobbits
in my life
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Contents
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction: The many boundaries of journalism 1
MATTCARLSON
PARTI
Professionalism, norms and boundaries 19
1 Out of bounds: Professional norms as boundary markers 21
JANEB.SINGER
2 Nothing but the truth: Redrafting the journalistic boundary
of verification 37
ALFREDHERMIDA
3. Divided we stand: Blurred boundaries in Argentine journalism 51
ADRIANAAMADOANDSILVIOWAISBORD
4 The wall becomes a curtain: Revisiting journalism’s
news–business boundary 67
MARKCODDINGTON
5 Creating proper distance through networked infrastructure:
Examining Google Glass for evidence of moral,
journalistic witnessing 83
MIKEANANNY
6 Hard news/soft news: The hierarchy of genres and the boundaries
of the profession 101
HELLESJØVAAG
viii Contents
7 Internal boundaries: The stratification of the journalistic collective 118
JENNYWIIK
PARTII
Encountering non-journalistic actors in newsmaking 135
8 Journalism beyond the boundaries: The collective construction of
news narratives 137
DAVIDDOMINGOANDFLORENCELECAM
9 Redrawing borders from within: Commenting on news stories as
boundary work 152
SUEROBINSON
10 Resisting epistemologies of user-generated content? Cooptation,
segregation and the boundaries of journalism 169
KARINWAHL-JORGENSEN
11 NGOs as journalistic entities: The possibilities, promises
and limits of boundary crossing 186
MATTHEWPOWERS
12 Drawing boundary lines between journalism and sociology,
1895–2000 201
C.W.ANDERSON
Epilogue: Studying the boundaries of journalism: Where do
we go from here? 218
SETHC.LEWIS
Index 229
List of contributors
Adriana Amado is Professor of Communication Theories at the University
UNLAM, Argentina. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Flacso. She
teaches, researches, and has written extensively about media, public
communication and journalism. Her latest book is the co-edited volume
La palabra empeñada.
MikeAnannyisanAssistantProfessorattheUniversityofSouthernCalifornia’s
Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, and a Faculty
Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He studies
public significances of networked news systems.
C.W. Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Media Culture at the College of
Staten Island (CUNY) and the author of Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan
Journalism in the Digital Age.
MattCarlsonisassociateprofessorofcommunicationatSaintLouisUniversity.
His work examines the contested cultural construction of journalism. He is
authorofOntheConditionofAnonymity:UnnamedSourcesandtheBattle
for Journalism and co-editor of Journalism, Sources, and Credibility: New
Perspectives.
Mark Coddington is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism at the
University of Texas at Austin. His research centers on professional jour-
nalistic values and networked journalism. He writes regularly for the
Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University.
David Domingo is Chair of Journalism at the Department of Information and
Communication Sciences at Université Libre de Bruxelles. Previously, he
wasvisiting assistantprofessorattheUniversityofIowa andseniorlecturer
atUniversitatRoviraiVirgili.Hehasalsobeenadoctoralfellowandvisiting
researcherattheUniversityofTampere.Hisresearchfocusesoninnovation
processes in online communication. He is coauthor of Participatory
Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers.