Journalism in Context - Reflective Responses to Readings

S13161812 Reflective Responses to Readings MED5110
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Gemma Harris
Lewis, J (2006) European Journal of Cultural Studies: News and the
Empowerment of Citizens
The author’s focus, within this reading, is the importance of news within democratic
citizenship; the author expresses the vitality of news in order for society to function with an
appropriate knowledge of public affairs. At times I found this reading slightly difficult to
understand as it depicts broad perceptions of news and considers many alternative views;
therefore, there are a lot of opinions and information to retain.
An important concept is the relationship between knowledge, citizenship and power. For
example, if society’s knowledge is decreasing a possible cause is citizens not being active
consumers. However, the news media aren’t to blame as they “can be scarcely culpable if
people choose to read about or watch something else”. Although citizens may appear the
most powerful in mass, as the [media] “system is responsive to demand”, “as an individual
the citizen is the least powerful voice”. “they are able to express themselves only through
the monosyllabic language of consumer purchases”. Therefore, it’s the news media, the
most powerful, who encourage these consumer purchases by providing the appropriate
information and so “news is a vital part of any democratic project” (Lewis, 2006). This
means, that without the news media providing information, citizens wouldn’t have the
appropriate knowledge to ensure democratic society functions efficiently.
An example is the format in which news is featured on television and within newspapers. It’s
only ever what are considered the most important news stories that are featured within a

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Gemma Harris
short news television programme or on the front covers of newspapers because these are
the stories that make audiences engage. These are also stories that are considered most
essential for the knowledge required in democratic society. For example, during the trial of
Oscar Pistorius The Times newspaper often featured updates and information of this on
their front cover as this was considered one of the more important news stories that the
public wanted to follow (The Independent, 2014). This suggests news is filtered, by news
media, to increase active consumers, by meeting consumer needs, making the media
system obtain the power.
However, another author contrasts this. Ian Hargreaves states “In a democracy everyone is
a journalist. This is because, in a democracy, everyone has the right to communicate a fact
or a point of view” (Hartley, 2011). This implies that any news is important no matter how
trivial. It also implies that citizens are in fact powerful and that it’s not solely the news
media who provide the essential information for a democratic society to function efficiently.
Therefore, this leads to the questions ‘Who is the most powerful?’, ‘Where does the Power
stem from?’ And ‘How will this shift in power affect the future of democratic society?’ A
focus group could be used to investigate these.
In conclusion, the knowledge I gained is the reasoning behind why democratic society needs
news information to function despite the source that provides the news e.g. citizens or the
media system. I have, therefore, also understood that it’s difficult to distinguish where news
is primarily distributed from and if it’s credible.

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Gemma Harris
Bibliography:
Hartley, J. (2011). The uses of digital literacy. 1st
ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction
Publishers, p.148.
Lewis, J. (2006). News and the empowerment of citizens. European Journal of Cultural
Studies, 9(3), pp.307 – 308.
The Independent, (2014). How South Africa reacted to Oscar Pistorius verdict: 'Oscar dodges
bullet'. [online] Available at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/how-south-africa-reacted-to-
oscar-pistorius-verdict-oscar-dodges-bullet-9728929.html [Accessed 8 Oct. 2014].

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Gemma Harris
Fenton, N (2009), The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism: News
in the Digital Age. London: Routledge
The author’s focus is the transformation of the journalism industry due to the
transformation in technology. A continuing focus is the role of journalism in democratic
society but how this role is affected by the digital age. Changes in technology are perceived
from both optimistic and pessimistic angles throughout to obtain a balanced argument.
I understood this week’s reading better as it’s displayed in a clearer context with less
complex lexis. However, I believe there was more information to interpret in a more concise
manner. Furthermore, although the reading is balanced, it’s clearer towards the end that
the author has a more biased negative personal perspective.
An important concept to consider, is a pessimistic view of, the interactivity and participatory
nature of news that has derived from this transformation in the digital era. One of the main
causes of this is the internet and “the implications of the internet for journalistic practice”.
It’s implied that “civic journalism is increasing” due to the increase in accessibility to public
and government services and the communications opportunities between citizens; this
suggests anyone can be a journalist resulting in “transnational conglomerates” meaning that
people and organisations traditionally on different levels, within society, have become less
distinguishable and appear at an equal level of dominance (Fenton, 2009). This brings in the
concept of power in democratic society, relating to a previous week’s reading, (Lewis, 2006),

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Gemma Harris
but how it’s changing due to new media. This also affects the credibility of journalism
because of the less distinguishable nature of multiple voices.
Alternatively, an optimistic view is presented suggesting audiences are actively engaging
with news in new media forms over traditional means: “newspaper audiences, by their
responses to news, actively shape its content”. However, “the average reader has little
impact on the consensual process”; “News online is thus open to a higher degree of
contestation than is typical of traditional print media.” (Fenton, 2009). Therefore, although
a positive outcome is new media functioning efficiently, it’s overriding traditional media
which could be seen as a negative outcome.
This is further supported by evidence from this week’s lecture that newspaper readerships
are decreasing. For example, over the space of 13 years, 2000 – 2013, newspaper
readerships, for the sun, have fallen by over 1 million people (Harte, 2014). This could be
because there is a decreased audience demand for this type of news and citizens prefer the
interactivity of new media forms that allow them to express their personal voice within
mainstream news.
In conclusion, this reading provides a clear perspective on the evolving technology and how
this is affecting an important industry within democratic society. ‘If the industry and society
are also evolving, how will all these changes combined affect the future of Journalism?’, ‘Will
citizen journalism remain or will a new form take hold?’, ‘Will this be a positive or negative

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Gemma Harris
outcome?’ These are all further areas that could be investigated; this could be done through
the process of an ethnography on newspaper organisations and how they communicate
with their audiences.

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Gemma Harris
Bibliography:
Fenton, N. (2009). News in the Digital Age. (Chapter 50) In: The Routledge Companion to
News and Journalism. London: Routledge pp.558, 559, 561.
Harte, D. (2014). Week 2: Journalism and society. Understanding the wider context of
journalism practice. [lecture]
Studies, 9(3).

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Gemma Harris
Hackett, R. (2005) Journalism: Critical Issues: Is there a democratic deficit in
US and UK journalism?
It appears the author’s focus is journalism isn’t living up to expectations of how it should
function in democratic society. The author’s main focus throughout is to investigate if the
suggested ‘democratic deficit’ is apparent within contemporary journalism.
I found this reading harder to understand as it uses more complex lexis and it’s difficult to
distinguish the author’s point of view because they present various contending concepts.
An important concept is power, a continuing concept present in previous weeks’. For
example, the power the evolving digital era entails, is causing a transformation within the
journalism industry (Fenton, 2009). Power in this reading is explored differently as a
hegemony within current society is the ‘free market’ vision of democracy. The term ‘free
market’ implies businesses are free to choose their own prices based on competition and
there is little regulation. Adam Smith’s, ‘invisible hand’, theory supports this: “He intends
only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to
promote an end which was no part of his intention” (Investopedia, 2009). This suggests
individuals choose their own prices for their own gain but unintentionally promote public
interest, therefore, contributing to society. This is why this ‘free market’ vision of

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democracy, combined with an elitist version of democracy, the “procedure for selecting
leaders, with citizen participation confined mainly to voting every few years”, (Hackett,
2005), has become a dominant ideology within society because it functions almost
automatically.
Journalism relates to power as it’s responsible for “exposing corruption and the abuse of
power”. The expectations of journalism are that it should “act as a watchdog on
government”, (Hackett, 2005), to retain individual freedom and ‘free market’ democracy.
Lukes’ ‘3 dimensions of power’ theory, focussing on the third dimension including
dominance, supports this. He suggests a basic form of power is “the power to decide what is
decided” (Lukes, 2005). Combined with the above this could suggest journalists have the
ability to manipulate news output of reports on government. Therefore, they have the
dominance and ability to shape public opinion; this coincides with liberal critique “that
media audiences are primarily consumers rather than citizens” with the implication that
citizens are active whilst consumers are passive (Hackett, 2005). This denotes consumers are
inferior.
However, it’s argued “the consumer is sovereign” implying they hold the ultimate power
over journalists because of news outlets, such as the BBC, being easily manipulated by
governments about “public service content requirements”. Therefore, audiences shape the
content they receive; this suggests journalists are not meeting expected standards because
this ‘erodes’ their “watchdog function” (Hackett, 2005).

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Gemma Harris
In conclusion, several perceptions of who holds the power in society are present and it’s
become apparent the struggles journalists and governments have due to manipulation. This
produces a series of questions which could be investigated such as ‘How can journalists gain
power to reach expectations?’, ‘How can audiences gain power to express their individual
voices?’, ‘How can the ‘free market’ influence this?’. These questions could be used to
investigate the relationship of power between journalists and their audiences through the
methodology of rhetoric analysis.

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Gemma Harris
Bibliography:
Fenton, N. (2009). News in the Digital Age. (Chapter 50) In: The Routledge Companion to
News and Journalism. London: Routledge.
Hackett, R. (2005). Is there a democratic deficit in US and UK journalism?. Journalism:
Critical Issues, pp.86-88.
Investopedia, (2009). Invisible Hand Definition | Investopedia. [online] Available at:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/invisiblehand.asp [Accessed 22 Oct. 2014].
Lukes, Steven. 2005., Power: A Radical View. [online]. Palgrave Macmillan, p.111. Available
from:<http://www.myilibrary.com?ID=85996> 22 Oct 2014

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Gemma Harris
Cottle, S. (2009) Global Crises in the News:
Staging News Wars, Disasters, and Climate Change
The author’s focus is news media’s staging of global crises. He wants to focus on elements
he believes other theorists have under-theorised such as through what method the media
enact different global crises; they are identified as ‘News Wars, Disasters and Climate
Change’. He also wants to investigate further global impacts, within the constitution of
these global crises, this staging has.
I found this week’s reading easier to interpret as the author re-emphasised his point; the
structure is clear and concise with specific headings for sections discussing specific topics.
An important concept is merging of local and global aspects due to technological advances.
Technological advances mean there are currently more, widely available, processes media
outlets can use to distribute news. Social platforms can dominate the way news media
communicate global crises to wider audiences. For example, “The “network society”…
produces ““black holes” of communication” implying output and receiving possibilities of
staged news are endless and so there is a “growing impact of worldwide
interconnectedness” suggesting there is “the capability to live simultaneously in the global
and local” (Cottle, 2009). This relates to the ‘free market’ vision of democracy suggesting in
current society there are endless opportunities for everyone to have a say (Hackett, 2005).
This combined portrays the merging of national and international that’s constituted many
crises as global crises. As risks “are social constructs”, and exist upon previous knowledge,

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“their “reality” can be dramatized or minimized” suggesting news can lose clarity or be
staged and “global crises can become “cosmopolitan events” (Cottle, 2009). This denotes
news media stage global crises events and the serious nature of news can become blurred
into a superficial reality, in turn reaching wider audiences, due to the shock caused, so
global events become to belong to a worldwide single community rather than various local
communities; this re-emphasises the un-identifiable concept of global and local.
Observing a second modality as a constitution of global crises, ‘global-focusing events’, it’s
possible to recognise the staged nature of global crises and how news information becomes
blurred due to news media filtering and using the method of “selective silence”, (Cottle,
2009), to portray global crises events. This relates to David White’s concept of ‘gatekeeping’
often adopted by news media outlets. ‘Gatekeeping’ is the process in which news
information “passes through a gate to be opened for chosen information and closed for the
rejected”, (Long and Wall, 2012), implying news media choose the information they share;
therefore, this news is staged.
The reporting conducted on the 2011 tsunami in Tokyo, Japan, which became a staged
global-focused event through the news media, demonstrates ‘gatekeeping’. For example,
reporting of the hazard began in the localised area of Tokyo and awareness spread to Japan
through social platforms; it extended to a global-focused event when it was apparent Japan
couldn’t cope on their own: “Ninety-one countries and nine international organisations have
so far offered to assist with relief efforts” (Ford and Provost, 2011). This needed global

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assistance became the aspect strongly filtered globally into the news media representing
merging between a localised and globalised event.
In conclusion, it’s apparent technological advances in the news media heavily influence the
staging and constitution of global crises to the point that it’s difficult to identify a global
crisis from a local crisis.
Further areas that could be investigated are the way in which citizens within society are
supposed to be well-informed through news surveillance but this seems impossible if
citizens aren’t sure they’re receiving the reality of situations. This leads to questions such as
‘How is staging global crises affecting democratic society?’ and ‘What impact does the
growing global, technological news industry have on society?’ A rhetoric methodology could
be used to investigate these.

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Bibliography:
Cottle, S. (2009). Global crises in the news: Staging new wars, disasters and climate
change.International Journal of Communication, 3, pp.496 - 503.
Ford, L. and Provost, C. (2011). Japan earthquake: Aid flows in from across the world | Liz
Ford and Claire Provost. [online] the Guardian. Available at:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/mar/14/japan-earthquake-
tsunami-aid-relief-world [Accessed 29 Oct. 2014].
Hackett, R. (2005). Is there a democratic deficit in US and UK journalism?. Journalism:
Critical Issues.
Long, P. and Wall, T. (2012). Media studies. 2nd ed. Harlow, England: Pearson, p.191.

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Mansell, R. (2004) New media and society: Political economy, power and new
media
The author’s focus is the revitalisation of the political economy tradition within new media
due to its under-theorised nature; they believe this is a strong investigation as the economic
relations of society are unequal. The author focusses on the structural and processual
power influences on political economy in new media, building upon existing frameworks of
research, creating a holistic perspective for future investigations.
Developing existing frameworks appears to be an important aspect for the author which I
interpreted easily from the reading. I found the reading clear and concise with repetition of
the author’s intentions giving me a strong understanding.
The author makes it apparent there’s been neglect within researching the articulation of
power within new media. Therefore, an important concept is the political economy view of
new media focusing on, the frameworks behind, the shift of power, caused by development
of new media, and the consequences for citizens’ economic equality. It’s speculated
inequality and power shifts are “seen as the ‘natural’ outcome of innovations in new media
technologies” implying there are assumptions that because of the constant development of
media technologies there’s automatically power alteration. Observing aspects behind this
suggests “the production and consumption of new media in their commodity form means
that scarcity has to be created” and “through the use of payment systems”. This implies due

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to the broad nature of new media, audience numbers must be monitored; this relates to the
‘gatekeeping’ theory, (Long and Wall, 2012), and process of selection concept mentioned in
a previous response as it implies certain new media will be available to specific audiences.
This inevitably causes a shift in power as less wealthy audiences may not be able to access
certain information and as they “don’t have the capability to inform themselves” may result
in some citizens being less well-informed and those more informed dominating (Mansell,
2004). Subsequently, this causes alteration within the hierarchy of society making it
economically unequal. This also relates to another reading as it reiterates the importance of
citizen knowledge, within society, gained from news (Lewis, 2006).
Harold Lasswell’s ‘hyperdermic needle’ theory supports suggesting “the mass media could
influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by ‘shooting’ or ‘injecting’
them with appropriate messages” (Utwente.nl, 2014). In relation to political economy of
new media this could denote new media is directly ‘injecting’ audiences through
‘gatekeeping’ and, therefore, influencing certain citizens in a way that alters society’s
structural power. This relates to another model, within a theory, ‘powerful media’ which
suggests media technologies have and use power to have “important implications for the
rest of society”, (Long and Wall, 2012), re-emphasising the effect new media and its’ power
can have on society.
For example, in 2013, the BBC reported on Adam Lashinsky uploading an article, about the
3G buyout of Heinz, on LinkedIn that audiences had to pay for to view. Readers didn’t
approve of this. However, it’s reported Lashinsky replied with “As far as the readers of my

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post were concerned, I had committed the cardinal sin of social media, which was to link to
an article for which they had to pay” (BBC News, 2013). This supports evidence that due to
the wide availability of new media, such as LinkedIn, selection processes of free content
availability are made. Therefore, new media is powerful by selecting the specific information
audiences can consume. This affects society’s structure as the better informed citizens, who
can pay for content, dominate.
In conclusion, I’ve understood how power relations behind new media and developing
technologies can affect the economic equality of citizens and the consequences this has on
society’s functionality and structure.
Further investigation, built upon existing frameworks, could be ‘How will the development of
new media, its power and its resulting shift of society hierarchy affect the future of
journalism?’ The methodology of rhetoric analysis could be used to investigate this through
comparison of an older media and a new media journalistic text.

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Bibliography:
BBC News, (2013). The retreat of free internet content. [online] Available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24759239 [Accessed 19 Nov. 2014].
Studies, 9(3).
Long, P. and Wall, T. (2012). Media studies. 2nd ed. Harlow, England: Pearson, p. 191, 350.
Mansell, R. (2004). Political Economy, Power and New Media. New Media & Society, 6(1),
p.98.
Utwente.nl, (2014). Hypodermic Needle Theory. [online] Available at:
http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Mass%20Media/
Hypodermic_Needle_Theory/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2014].

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