Fundamentals and Practices of International Journalism
CM2075
Course material: all readings through Canvas
This summary includes:
Berglez, P. (2008). What is Global Journalism?: theoretical and empirical conceptualizations
Galtung, J. & Ruge, M.H. (1965). The structure of foreign news: the presentation of Congo,
Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers.
Banks, D. & Hanna, M. (2009). Defamation
Crook, T. (2010). Media Law and Ethics: Four Genres of Jurisdiction.
Ward, S. (2008). Global Journalism Ethics: Widening the Conceptual Base.
Musa, A.O. & Yusha’u, M.J. (2013). Conflict reporting and parachute journalism in Africa:
A study of CNN and Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Boko Haram insurgency.
Franquet Dos Santos Silva, M., Brurås, S. & Beriain bañares, A. (2018). Improper distance:
The refugee crisis presented by two newsrooms.
Yeung, J. & Lenette, C. (2018). Stranded at sea: Photographic representations of the
Rohingya in the 2015 Bay of Bengal Crisis.
Hanusch, F. (2013). Cultural forces in journalism: the impact of cultural values on Māori
journalists’ professional views.
Kanayama, T. & Cooper-Chen, A. (2005). Hofstede’s Masculinity/Femininity Dimension and
the Pregnancy of Princess Masako: an analysis of Japanese and International Newspaper
coverage.
Samuel-Azran, T. (2013). Al-Jazeera, Qatar, and new tactics in State-sponsored Media
Diplomacy.
Zhao, X. & Xiang, Y. (2019). Does China’s Outward focused journalism engage a
constructive approach? A qualitative content analysis of Xinhua News Agency’s English
News.
Written by: Esmée Lieuw On
ESMEE LIEUW ON 1
, Week 1: Tenets of (International) Journalism
Berglez: What is Global Journalism?
• Globalization = posing challenges to news media and journalism researchers on how
to analyze and define news
• Global journalism = analyzing the relationship between news media and
globalization from both political economic, news cultural, news discursive and
ethnographic viewpoints
o The kind of journalistic practice which makes it into an everyday routing to
investigate how people and their actions, practices, problems, life conditions
etc. in different parts of the world are interrelated
o Should be considered an existing but marginalized news style, operating
sporadically in the margins of mainstream news media
o Global journalism is endowed with a particular epistemology; global outlook
(= distinctive mode of communication which interlocks people and their
practices worldwide)
▪ Technology makes global communication possible, but it cannot
provide a global outlook on its own because this outlook rests on
epistemological foundation
▪ Global outlook global culture → global culture = how particular
values spread spatially, giving rise to homogeneous culture as well as
to culture heterogenization and hybridization
▪ Global outlook global ethics → global ethics = people around the
world have different ethical values and thus not possible to provide
global outlook
• Globalization also mean ever-more complex relations between people, places,
practices, and global journalism is the news style which integrates and covers these
relations in everyday news productions
• International journalism = traditional foreign news journalism builds its news
stories on what occurs in particular spatial, political or cultural contexts (separate
from global journalism!)
• Global relations in news texts can be diachronic and synchronic:
o Diachronic = in establishing relations between past and present
o Synchronic = in interconnecting seemingly disconnected places and people in
present times
• The empirical study of a global news style could be operationalized to include
journalistic representations of:
1. Global space = spaces which previously seemed independent and separate from
each other now come closer and even become one (i.e., news stories are not
limited to an event in a particular location)
ESMEE LIEUW ON 2
, 2. Global powers = economic and political powers with the potential to influence
the entire world (the more multifaceted and multilayered the picture of power in
current news coverage, the more global it becomes)
3. Global identities = can occur in three different ways, representing
struggles/representing interests of humankind/uniting people with similar identity
across nation-state borders (identities that emanate from universal
ideologies/transnational issues)
Galtung & Ruge: The Structure of Foreign News
• The world consists of individual and national actors – international action is based on
the image of international reality (not shaped by only news media, other factors like
personal impressions matter too)
• At the interpersonal level, the relationship between events, the perception with all
selective and distorting factors are operative under different circumstances, and the
final image is relatively well explored
• At the level of collective perception, the situation is much more complicated because
perception is made on behalf of others and relayed onto others.
• How do events become ‘news’? → since we cannot register everything, we have to
select and the question is what will strike our attention
• Several factors that could impede perception:
1. Frequency: time-span needed for the event to unfold and acquire meaning
2. Amplitude: how big is the event for it to be worth it to be recorded
3. Signal: the less ambiguity, the more the event will be noticed
4. Meaning: how relevant is it to your specific location
5. Mental: what do you predict to happen if the event does take place, too far from
expectation and it will not be registered within the mind
6. Unexpected: the more unexpected/rare an event is, the higher the chances of
getting in the news
7. Long-term: once something has been defined as news, it will continue to be
‘news’
8. Composition: where is the balance within the order of news segments, there is a
desire to present the news as a coherent whole
• Within everything, some measure of ethnocentrism will be operative and there has to
be cultural proximity – paying attention to the familiar, to the culturally similar, and
the culturally distant will be passed by more easily and not be noticed
• Culture-bound factors that decide if an event becomes news:
1. Elitism: news is very elite-centered and ordinary people are not given the chance
to represent themselves
2. Personification: the more real it seems to people personally, the more likely it
will become news
3. Impact: the more negative it is, the higher chances of being news
• Selection → Distortion → Replication
ESMEE LIEUW ON 3
CM2075
Course material: all readings through Canvas
This summary includes:
Berglez, P. (2008). What is Global Journalism?: theoretical and empirical conceptualizations
Galtung, J. & Ruge, M.H. (1965). The structure of foreign news: the presentation of Congo,
Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers.
Banks, D. & Hanna, M. (2009). Defamation
Crook, T. (2010). Media Law and Ethics: Four Genres of Jurisdiction.
Ward, S. (2008). Global Journalism Ethics: Widening the Conceptual Base.
Musa, A.O. & Yusha’u, M.J. (2013). Conflict reporting and parachute journalism in Africa:
A study of CNN and Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Boko Haram insurgency.
Franquet Dos Santos Silva, M., Brurås, S. & Beriain bañares, A. (2018). Improper distance:
The refugee crisis presented by two newsrooms.
Yeung, J. & Lenette, C. (2018). Stranded at sea: Photographic representations of the
Rohingya in the 2015 Bay of Bengal Crisis.
Hanusch, F. (2013). Cultural forces in journalism: the impact of cultural values on Māori
journalists’ professional views.
Kanayama, T. & Cooper-Chen, A. (2005). Hofstede’s Masculinity/Femininity Dimension and
the Pregnancy of Princess Masako: an analysis of Japanese and International Newspaper
coverage.
Samuel-Azran, T. (2013). Al-Jazeera, Qatar, and new tactics in State-sponsored Media
Diplomacy.
Zhao, X. & Xiang, Y. (2019). Does China’s Outward focused journalism engage a
constructive approach? A qualitative content analysis of Xinhua News Agency’s English
News.
Written by: Esmée Lieuw On
ESMEE LIEUW ON 1
, Week 1: Tenets of (International) Journalism
Berglez: What is Global Journalism?
• Globalization = posing challenges to news media and journalism researchers on how
to analyze and define news
• Global journalism = analyzing the relationship between news media and
globalization from both political economic, news cultural, news discursive and
ethnographic viewpoints
o The kind of journalistic practice which makes it into an everyday routing to
investigate how people and their actions, practices, problems, life conditions
etc. in different parts of the world are interrelated
o Should be considered an existing but marginalized news style, operating
sporadically in the margins of mainstream news media
o Global journalism is endowed with a particular epistemology; global outlook
(= distinctive mode of communication which interlocks people and their
practices worldwide)
▪ Technology makes global communication possible, but it cannot
provide a global outlook on its own because this outlook rests on
epistemological foundation
▪ Global outlook global culture → global culture = how particular
values spread spatially, giving rise to homogeneous culture as well as
to culture heterogenization and hybridization
▪ Global outlook global ethics → global ethics = people around the
world have different ethical values and thus not possible to provide
global outlook
• Globalization also mean ever-more complex relations between people, places,
practices, and global journalism is the news style which integrates and covers these
relations in everyday news productions
• International journalism = traditional foreign news journalism builds its news
stories on what occurs in particular spatial, political or cultural contexts (separate
from global journalism!)
• Global relations in news texts can be diachronic and synchronic:
o Diachronic = in establishing relations between past and present
o Synchronic = in interconnecting seemingly disconnected places and people in
present times
• The empirical study of a global news style could be operationalized to include
journalistic representations of:
1. Global space = spaces which previously seemed independent and separate from
each other now come closer and even become one (i.e., news stories are not
limited to an event in a particular location)
ESMEE LIEUW ON 2
, 2. Global powers = economic and political powers with the potential to influence
the entire world (the more multifaceted and multilayered the picture of power in
current news coverage, the more global it becomes)
3. Global identities = can occur in three different ways, representing
struggles/representing interests of humankind/uniting people with similar identity
across nation-state borders (identities that emanate from universal
ideologies/transnational issues)
Galtung & Ruge: The Structure of Foreign News
• The world consists of individual and national actors – international action is based on
the image of international reality (not shaped by only news media, other factors like
personal impressions matter too)
• At the interpersonal level, the relationship between events, the perception with all
selective and distorting factors are operative under different circumstances, and the
final image is relatively well explored
• At the level of collective perception, the situation is much more complicated because
perception is made on behalf of others and relayed onto others.
• How do events become ‘news’? → since we cannot register everything, we have to
select and the question is what will strike our attention
• Several factors that could impede perception:
1. Frequency: time-span needed for the event to unfold and acquire meaning
2. Amplitude: how big is the event for it to be worth it to be recorded
3. Signal: the less ambiguity, the more the event will be noticed
4. Meaning: how relevant is it to your specific location
5. Mental: what do you predict to happen if the event does take place, too far from
expectation and it will not be registered within the mind
6. Unexpected: the more unexpected/rare an event is, the higher the chances of
getting in the news
7. Long-term: once something has been defined as news, it will continue to be
‘news’
8. Composition: where is the balance within the order of news segments, there is a
desire to present the news as a coherent whole
• Within everything, some measure of ethnocentrism will be operative and there has to
be cultural proximity – paying attention to the familiar, to the culturally similar, and
the culturally distant will be passed by more easily and not be noticed
• Culture-bound factors that decide if an event becomes news:
1. Elitism: news is very elite-centered and ordinary people are not given the chance
to represent themselves
2. Personification: the more real it seems to people personally, the more likely it
will become news
3. Impact: the more negative it is, the higher chances of being news
• Selection → Distortion → Replication
ESMEE LIEUW ON 3
