Journalism – theory class 1a
- Ambush journalism (for example Kees van der Spek), catching scammers
- Confrontation (for example POW News)
- Censorship, controlling the way media is spread (military, national security)
- PR (companies want free publicity from journalists)
- Power of words (expertise in getting info from a source)
- The fourth estate → watchdog journalism (go beyond and investigate) vs lapdog
journalism (doing what they expect you to do)
- Objectivity (and subjectivity) is creating a standpoint based on all the evidence.
- Neutrality is looking at things without an opinion, without polarization.
- Four models to conceptualize media (McQuail):
1. Transmission model (politics, ads)
Sender → message (through a channel) → receiver
Who says what to whom, through what channel and with what effect?
Receiver is passive
There is feedback from receiver (result of vote or sales for example)
Little room for interaction, outdated (they assume that receiver immediately
understands the message)
General news media and advertising
The first version was 1. Sender 2. Message 3. Channel 4. Many potential
receivers
The second version is 1. Events and voices in society 2. Channel /
communicator role 3. Messages 4. Receiver. This gives access to views and
voices of those who want to reach wider public.
Three most important features:
1. Emphasis on the selecting role of mass communicators.
2. The selection is undertaken according to an assessment of what the
audience will find interesting. (Problem is that it might not be truly
reflecting the audience’s preferences.)
3. Communication is not purposive, media do not aim to persuade,
educate or inform.
1
, 2. Ritual or expressive model (CNN, news)
Media are the place where shared values (emotions, understandings,
symbols) are represented.
It is outdated. National symbols and flags are used. There is a lot of framing.
The goal is not to give information, but to represent shared beliefs. It is meant
to satisfy the receivers.
Ritual communication is relatively timeless and unchanging.
A consequence can be integration.
Is used in politics and advertising. Art, religion, ceremonials, festivals.
3. Attention model / publicity model
Sensational journalism (Telegraaf). Celebrities / gossip.
Seeking attention, because they want to gain audience revenue.
The fact of attention matters more than the quality of attention (which cannot
be measured).
The fact of being known is more important than the content of what is known
and is the only necessary condition for celebrity.
Additional features of this model:
• Attention-gaining is a zero-sum process. The audience has
limited time
• Communication in the display-attention mode exists only in the
present. There is no past that matters, and the future matters
only as a continuation or amplification of the present.
• Attention-gaining is an end in itself and in the short term is
value-neutral and essentially empty of meaning. Form and
technique take precedence over message content.
4. Reception model (encoding / decoding)
Encoding is telling a story, a code is a set of rules (grammar, things that are
known or you think they know. Previous knowledge, biases, rules, preferred
reading).
Message is sent to everyone, but only target audience can decode.
Interpreting the text. Reader is active. Reading between the lines.
There can be misunderstanding because of background.
Media messages are always open and polysemic (having multiple meanings)
and are interpreted according to the context and the culture of receivers.
Intended meaning is built into (encoded) symbolic content in both open and
concealed ways that are hard to resist, but recognized the possibilities for
rejecting or re-interpreting the intended message.
Communicators choose to encode messages for ideological and institutional
purposes and to manipulate language and media for those ends (media
message are given a ‘preferred reading’ or ‘spin’).
Receiver can decode a message without encoding.
Theory class 1b – what is journalism?
- Journalism is an ideology. Ideology is a system of beliefs / characteristic of a
particular group, including – but not limited to – the general process of the
production of meanings and ideas (within that group).
2
- Ambush journalism (for example Kees van der Spek), catching scammers
- Confrontation (for example POW News)
- Censorship, controlling the way media is spread (military, national security)
- PR (companies want free publicity from journalists)
- Power of words (expertise in getting info from a source)
- The fourth estate → watchdog journalism (go beyond and investigate) vs lapdog
journalism (doing what they expect you to do)
- Objectivity (and subjectivity) is creating a standpoint based on all the evidence.
- Neutrality is looking at things without an opinion, without polarization.
- Four models to conceptualize media (McQuail):
1. Transmission model (politics, ads)
Sender → message (through a channel) → receiver
Who says what to whom, through what channel and with what effect?
Receiver is passive
There is feedback from receiver (result of vote or sales for example)
Little room for interaction, outdated (they assume that receiver immediately
understands the message)
General news media and advertising
The first version was 1. Sender 2. Message 3. Channel 4. Many potential
receivers
The second version is 1. Events and voices in society 2. Channel /
communicator role 3. Messages 4. Receiver. This gives access to views and
voices of those who want to reach wider public.
Three most important features:
1. Emphasis on the selecting role of mass communicators.
2. The selection is undertaken according to an assessment of what the
audience will find interesting. (Problem is that it might not be truly
reflecting the audience’s preferences.)
3. Communication is not purposive, media do not aim to persuade,
educate or inform.
1
, 2. Ritual or expressive model (CNN, news)
Media are the place where shared values (emotions, understandings,
symbols) are represented.
It is outdated. National symbols and flags are used. There is a lot of framing.
The goal is not to give information, but to represent shared beliefs. It is meant
to satisfy the receivers.
Ritual communication is relatively timeless and unchanging.
A consequence can be integration.
Is used in politics and advertising. Art, religion, ceremonials, festivals.
3. Attention model / publicity model
Sensational journalism (Telegraaf). Celebrities / gossip.
Seeking attention, because they want to gain audience revenue.
The fact of attention matters more than the quality of attention (which cannot
be measured).
The fact of being known is more important than the content of what is known
and is the only necessary condition for celebrity.
Additional features of this model:
• Attention-gaining is a zero-sum process. The audience has
limited time
• Communication in the display-attention mode exists only in the
present. There is no past that matters, and the future matters
only as a continuation or amplification of the present.
• Attention-gaining is an end in itself and in the short term is
value-neutral and essentially empty of meaning. Form and
technique take precedence over message content.
4. Reception model (encoding / decoding)
Encoding is telling a story, a code is a set of rules (grammar, things that are
known or you think they know. Previous knowledge, biases, rules, preferred
reading).
Message is sent to everyone, but only target audience can decode.
Interpreting the text. Reader is active. Reading between the lines.
There can be misunderstanding because of background.
Media messages are always open and polysemic (having multiple meanings)
and are interpreted according to the context and the culture of receivers.
Intended meaning is built into (encoded) symbolic content in both open and
concealed ways that are hard to resist, but recognized the possibilities for
rejecting or re-interpreting the intended message.
Communicators choose to encode messages for ideological and institutional
purposes and to manipulate language and media for those ends (media
message are given a ‘preferred reading’ or ‘spin’).
Receiver can decode a message without encoding.
Theory class 1b – what is journalism?
- Journalism is an ideology. Ideology is a system of beliefs / characteristic of a
particular group, including – but not limited to – the general process of the
production of meanings and ideas (within that group).
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