Opinion - (2022) Volume 12, Issue 4
Received: 01-Apr-2022, Manuscript No. jmcj-22-65346;
Editor assigned: 04-Apr-2022, Pre QC No. P-65346;
Reviewed: 15-Apr-2022, QC No. Q-65346;
Revised: 22-Apr-2022, Manuscript No. R-65346;
Published:
29-Apr-2022
, DOI: 10.37421/2165-7912.22.12.459
Citation: Ali, Haider. "Journalism Culture: An Overview." J Mass Communicat Journalism 12 (2022): 459.
Copyright: © 2022 Ali H. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
A "common occupational philosophy among news workers" is known as journalism culture. The phrase journalism culture refers to the wide range of journalistic beliefs, methods, and media products or other related media artefacts that exist throughout cultures. According to some research on the concept of journalism culture, there is a broad agreement among journalists "toward a common understanding and cultural identity of journalism."
There is scientific dispute regarding whether there is such a thing as a global journalism culture and whether it can be objectively discovered. A number of communication science research have been carried out in the hopes of discovering a hypothetical shared Western journalism culture, a common European journalism culture, or even a common worldwide journalism ideology. (Refer to the historical overview) Research into journalism cultures is particularly useful in examining the alleged effects of globalisation, as evidenced by the presence of global-spanning major media firms, on individual media cultures and their ability to set global standards. Journalism culture is also known as "journalistic culture," "news culture," "newspaper cultures," or "news producing culture" in scientific literature [1].
Types of journalism cultures
Between 2007 and 2011, Thomas Hanitzsch conducted a global study on journalism culture that included 21 countries and found that journalistic functions like detachment, non-involvement, providing political information, and monitoring the government are seen as essential journalistic virtues around the world.
Western journalism culture
Additional values like as impartiality, the dependability and factualness of information, and adherence to universal ethical norms are seen to be of major importance for Western journalists when compared to Southern, Eastern, or less democratic countries such as China and Russia. Furthermore, Western journalists were shown to be less supportive of any active promotion of certain values, beliefs, or social change in the study. The dominance of watchdog journalism in Western journalism culture is characterised, with more South- Western countries like Spain also having a strong journalistic culture of "populist disseminator."
Tendencies in developing and emerging nations
"US government and media programmes" have attempted to develop a "objective" press paradigm in emerging democracies in South America and Eastern Europe, particularly in the 1990s. This approach was based on the assumption that "US-style journalism is a natural and inevitable world model," but current research on journalism culture in Eastern European countries shows that this is not the case. Instead, the countries themselves are establishing a less impartial and more entertainment- and audience-oriented journalistic culture (e.g., "populist disseminator" journalism in Bulgaria).
Journalism research at the country level in developing or emerging countries is described as insufficient. This might be attributed to a lack of funding or the absence of research institutes in the various countries, as well as the neglect of specific research topics. Arnold S. de Beer, a journalism researcher at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, criticises South African journalism research from the 1990s and early 2000s as being too focused on areas such as "public relations, marketing, or other forms of corporate communication" and, on the critical researcher's side, as having a too strong interest in post-Apartheid specifics. Because of the overabundance of specialinterest studies, South African conclusions regarding their own journalism culture were lacking.
The study design for journalistic culture research has several difficulties in terms of methodological operationalization. Its intricacy stems from the fact that journalistic professionalism is a multi-leveled notion comprised of multiple journalistic ideals, precepts, and practises, all of which are balanced in different ways by different journalism cultures. Journalism culture study can be undertaken within a single country, with most journalism researchers coming from that country, or it can be conducted in a comparative cross-national fashion with the support of international teams of researchers. The majority of comparative journalism research is undertaken cross-nationally, with "nation" being an important level of study, resulting in country-by-country comparisons. Comparative journalism culture study is based on comparative media system research and employs the nation as a "object, context, and unit of analysis, or as a component of a broader system."
Many people, particularly in developing countries, see the application of a US- or Western-centric vision of journalistic culture to underdeveloped or developing countries as a sort of cultural imperialism that ignores specific cultural origins or socioeconomic cleavages. Furthermore, journalism research is frequently chastised for taking an overly traditional understanding of "journalism." The majority of journalism studies continue to focus on traditional and institutionalised journalism in newspapers, television, and radio. Comparative approaches of conceptualising emerging and new media, such as journalism in weblogs, podcasts, and other forms of citizen journalism, are proving difficult for journalism researchers. Aside from these specific criticisms, there is a broader methodological issue with defining the term "culture." The term "culture" is frequently employed in an ad hoc manner, which can lead to difficulties in comparing newspaper culture research [2].
Influences on Cultures
Influences on European journalism cultures: Between 2004 and 2007, the Adequate Information Management in Europe (AIM) Project, a multinational European social science project that conducted several studies on journalism structures and processes of daily reporting about the European Union, discovered that, contrary to popular belief, the impulses for European professional journalism are not found in an explicit interest in European topics or special knowledge of European issues. Rather, "day-to-day operations and subsequent media performance," structural on-site elements, or "on-the-job and trial-and-error" procedures determine them. Furthermore, reporting on Europe is shaped by national perspectives as well as national and individual journalistic techniques, resulting in a lack of consistency and context. According to the AIM study, these daily inadequacies, omissions, and misunderstandings lead to myopic reporting on European issues. The theory of a common European culture on reporting about European matters thus cannot be supported [3].
Influences of professional hierarchies: The 1996 book mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media by Shoemaker and Reese created a theoretical framework for examining the various layers of influences that shape media content. Individuals, routines, organisational level, extramedia level, and ideological level are among the levels that vary from micro to macro. In his massive cross-national journalism culture study Worlds of Journalism, Hanitzsch took a similar technique. Hanitzsch's model allows for influences on journalists' reporting decisions on a super-level (globalisation, diffusion, and interdependence), a macro-level of societies or nations (political, economic, legal, social, and cultural contexts, as well as media system), a meso-level (editorial organisation, media organisation, and the medium as a whole), and a micro-level (journalists' backgrounds and individual preferences).
"Organizational, professional, and procedural pressures are seen to be more powerful constraints to the journalists' work than political and economic forces," according to the findings of a study of 2100 professional journalists. As a result, the meso-level of professional hierarchy, aka the editorial and medium's organisations, becomes the most significant component in journalistic conduct and therefore the main influencer of journalism culture's professional part [4].
Influence of new technologies on journalism cultures: The European AIM study discovered an increasing receptivity to news methodologies and means of communication and production, particularly among younger generations of professional journalists. There is an increasing trend of not relying solely on institutionalised information systems. Further technological advancements in the Internet world indicate to a rise in the use of "non-institutionalized, non-government, non-administrative, and plainly international information" in reporting and research projects.
A spike in new technology adoption can be seen in autocratic or developing country situations, in addition to Western journalists adopting new media as a form of reporting. Increased government control of journalists' access to the media and/or freedom of expression may necessitate the development of new, less restricted modes of expression. Research on Chinese journalists' use of blogs, cellphones, and microblogging in defining current Chinese reporting culture is one of the best researched examples of suppressed journalists' inventiveness [5].
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