The Handbook of Journalism Studies

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Thomas Hanitzsch, Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Thomas Hanitzsch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351683142
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Media & Communications Industry
• Index: Business

This second edition of The Handbook of Journalism Studies explores the current state of research in journalism studies and sets an agenda for future development of the field in an international context.

The volume is structured around theoretical and empirical approaches to journalism research and covers scholarship on news production; news content; journalism and society; journalism and culture; and journalism studies in a global context. As journalism studies has become richer and more diverse as a field of study, the second edition reflects both the growing diversity of the field, and the ways in which journalism itself has undergone rapid change in recent years. Emphasizing comparative and global perspectives, this new edition explores:

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• Key elements, thinkers, and texts

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• Historical context

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• Current state of the field

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• Methodological issues

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• Merits and advantages of the approach/area of study

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• Limitations and critical issues of the approach/area of study

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• Directions for future research

Offering broad international coverage from world-leading contributors, this volume is a comprehensive resource for theory and scholarship in journalism studies. As such, it is a must-have resource for scholars and graduate students working in journalism, media studies, and communication around the globe.

Part I
Introducing Journalism Studies

1
Journalism Studies

Developments, Challenges, and Future Directions

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch

Just over a decade has passed since the first edition of The Handbook of Journalism Studies was published. At the time of its publication, journalism studies was a disciplinary newcomer, while journalism as a practice and an institution was undergoing rapid transformation. Since then, the discipline of journalism studies has matured and stabilized, while journalism as an object of study has destabilized and become increasingly slippery. These transformations suggest the need for this new edition, which appears in a radically different context. At the same time, key problems and issues that have preoccupied the industry and those who study it have remained constant over time.

The aim of the book is to provide an overview of the state of the art of journalism studies. To that end, we have invited contributions from the leading scholars in the field, representing both well-established and cutting-edge debates and areas of research. As the institution of journalism and the scholarship surrounding it have changed so profoundly since the first edition, so has the book itself. Along those lines, this edition is not merely an update of its predecessor but rather represents an ambitious attempt at reimagining and reconstituting the field. This means that just nine of the chapters, representing enduring debates and areas of inquiry, are updates of versions from the first edition. All the remaining chapters are entirely new contributions, curated to represent the breadth of the field and what we see as the most lively and productive debates within it.

In putting together the book, we have sought to move beyond the “presentism” that has tended to characterize inquiry in the field: for methodological and conceptual reasons, linked to the comparative youth of journalism studies as a scholarly endeavor, we are very well informed about recent events, trends, and histories through research that provides us with “snapshots” of journalism. By contrast, we know less about longer-standing trends, shifts, and continuities (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2018; see also Laura Ahva and Steen Steensen’s chapter). To allow us to take a longer view, the organization of the book therefore reflects established areas of research, while individual chapters attend to the ways in which these areas have advanced and changed over time. The book opens with an introductory section that provides accounts of journalism history, theory, and education. The remainder of the book is divided into five thematic sections, encompassing news production, news content, journalism and society, journalism and culture, and journalism in a global context.

While the book is not—and cannot be—an exhaustive account of all scholarly areas in the field, our aim is to give readers an authoritative overview, from the point of view of the leading scholars, of what journalism studies is about, and where it should be going. The story told by the book’s chapters, when read as a whole, suggests a remarkable continuity and robustness of scholarly preoccupations, refined and given substance by recent developments. As Jane Singer (2019, p. 135) recently put it in describing the state of journalism research more broadly, “the evidence we have amassed suggests dramatic change in what journalism is, offset by an equally striking resilience of core perceptions of what journalism should be” (see also Tumber & Zelizer, 2019). This introductory chapter charts the changes and continuities that define journalism studies as a field, setting the stage for the chapters that follow.

A Journey Through the History of Journalism Studies

Journalism studies has evolved as a field of inquiry over the better part of a century and a half, passing through a variety of stages. Here, we provide a brief account of these stages, discussing what we call the prehistory of journalism studies, followed by the empirical turn, the sociological turn, and the international-comparative turn. With the recent maturation of the field, we have seen growing fragmentation and diversification, leading to the development of new approaches that enrich the field methodologically and conceptually.

The Prehistory of Journalism Studies

Observers have discerned a “prehistory” of journalism studies in the thought of German social theorists in the mid-19th century (e.g., Hardt, 2002, p. 1), highlighting the normative impulses which gave the field its founding impetus. Hanno Hardt, in his classic work on Social Theories of the Press, charts affinities, continuities, and departures between and among early German and American thinkers on the press. Among 19th and early 20th century German theorists, he pinpoints the work of Karl Marx, Albert Schäffle, Karl Knies, Karl Bücher, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Max Weber as particularly influential in their conceptions of the social place of journalism (Hardt, 2002). Similarly, Martin Löffelholz (2008), in tracing the German tradition of journalism studies, found the ancestry of contemporary journalism theory in the work of the German writer and literary historian Robert Eduard Prutz (1816–1872). In 1845, long before the establishment of “Zeitungskunde” (the German expression for “newspaper studies”) as a field of research, Prutz had already published a historical account of German journalism (see Martin Conboy’s chapter).

Most early German theorists looked at journalism through a normative lens (Löffelholz, 2008). Journalism scholars were more preoccupied with what journalism ought to be in the context of political communication than with the structures, processes, and practices of news production. However, systematic scholarly work in the field began in the early 20th century alongside the emergence of journalism as a profession and a social force. This shift towards an interest in the structures and processes of news production, as well as the people and practices involved, began to emerge in the context of journalism training, first and most notably in the United States (Singer, 2008). The establishment of Journalism Quarterly in 1924 (later to become Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly) heralded this new age of journalism scholarship. Among other things, the first issue of the journal contained an essay by Willard “Daddy” Bleyer frequently identified as a founding figure of journalism research and education (see Beate Josephi’s chapter). The essay outlined key approaches to newspaper research, paving the way for new areas of scholarly inquiry (Singer, 2008). This showed that journalism was beginning to be taken seriously, not just as a practical endeavor, but also as an object of study.

The Empirical Turn

In other countries, including the UK and Denmark, journalism education took place outside the academy, within news organizations where journalists were trained through apprenticeships and skills-based short courses (see Josephi’s chapter). Here, the education of journalists was highly pragmatic, with students taking courses in topics such as shorthand and journalism law. Because of the separation of journalism training from the academy, this model did not emphasize the development of a more reflective and scholarly approach. In countries where journalism training has been industry-led, most scholarship on journalism has therefore come from social sciences and humanities disciplines that have taken up journalism as one among many other interests. This may be one of the key reasons for the historically interdisciplinary nature of journalism studies.

In the United States, research on journalism was given a renewed impetus when early communication research emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. This work came out of disciplines of sociology, political science, and psychology, spearheaded by figures such as Paul Lazarsfeld, Carl Hovland, Kurt Lewin, and Harold D. Lasswell. The origins within the social sciences had a profound impact on the production of knowledge about journalism. Social scientific approaches contributed to an empirical turn, using methods such as experiments and surveys to understand the workings of news media.

While most research in this period was concerned with audiences and media effects, the emerging field of journalism studies gradually turned its attention to “news people” and their professional values, as well as to editorial structures and routines (see also Oscar Westlund and Mats Ekström’s chapter). Theories and concepts were based on empirical research, such as the gatekeeper model (White, 1950); the professionalization paradigm (McLeod & Hawley, 1964); and the theories of news values (Galtung & Ruge, 1965) and agenda setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972). This groundbreaking early research belongs to the relatively few studies in the history of journalism studies that can consensually be referred to as “classics.” These studies have generated genuine journalism theories that remain influential and important. Although many of their ideas may seem dated and have been superseded by subsequent research, they continue to be significant to the extent that they have established important research traditions.

The Sociological Turn

The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a stronger influence of sociology and anthropology on journalism research, leading to what might be described as a sociological turn in the field. The focus shifted to a critical engagement with journalism’s conventions and routines, professional and occupational ideologies and cultures, interpretive communities, and to concepts related to news texts, such as framing, storytelling, and narrative, as well as to the growing importance of popular culture in the news. The increasing attention paid to questions of culture went hand in hand with the adoption of qualitative methodologies, most notably ethnographic and discourse analytical approaches. Among the figures who have left a lasting imprint on journalism studies in this tradition are sociologists such as Gaye Tuchman, Herbert J. Gans, Philip Schlesinger, and Peter Golding as well as cultural studies scholars such as James Carey, Stuart Hall, and Barbie Zelizer. This tradition of scholarship, which often focused on work in and of national and elite news organizations, allowed for a better understanding of news production processes, but also paved the way for a view of journalism’s place in constructing and maintaining dominant ideologies (Wahl-Jorgensen & Franklin, 2008).

When scholars have looked back on “early” examples of journalism research, they have frequently framed it from within the tenets of Anglo-Saxon scholarship. To use Chalaby’s (1996, p. 303) evocative phrase, journalism can be seen as an “Anglo-American invention.” Along those lines, the predominant discourse still very much constructs a history of journalism studies based on the work of scholars based in the US and UK. This is also true for general accounts of media history, which had to be corrected after UNESCO recognized the Korean Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests’ Zen Teachings as the world’s oldest book printed with movable metal type.¹ As Liane Rothenberger, Irina Tribusean, Andrea C. Hoffmann, and Martin Löffelholz argue in their chapter for this book, journalism studies as a field has developed unevenly around the world, taking different pathways depending on local contexts. Contrary to many historical accounts, journalism research outside the Western world is not necessarily a novel endeavor. In China, journalism studies as an area of inquiry emerged as early as 1918 (Zhengrong, Deqiang, & Lei, 2015).

The International-Comparative Turn

This Western hegemony somewhat eroded after the end of the Cold War and with the rise of the internet. Increased globalization and political liberties provided a space conducive to interaction among scholars from different nations and cultures. New communication technologies triggered the rise of institutionalized global networks of scientists, and it became much easier to acquire funding for collaborative international studies. This new opportunity structure contributed to an international-comparative turn in journalism studies (see Thomas Hanitzsch’s chapter in this book). Particularly since the turn of the century, scholarship from non-Western countries gained visibility in the field’s leading journals and international conferences. If journalism itself is increasingly a global phenomenon, its study gradually became an international and collaborative endeavor. As a result, comparative projects both small and large in scale came to life, including News Around the World (Shoemaker & Cohen, 2006); the Worlds of Journalism Study (Hanitzsch, Hanusch, Ramaprasad, & de Beer, 2019); and Journalistic Performance Around the Globe (Mellado, Hellmueller, & Donsbach, 2017).

At the same time, journalism studies as a field underwent further institutionalization at the international level. This institutionalization took place both within scholarly associations and among publication outlets. Sections and divisions specializing in journalism studies were founded in the International Communication Association (ICA, 2004) and the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA, 2005) as well as in the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR, 2007). Since then, these sections and divisions have grown dramatically in membership and are now among the largest within their home associations.

The most established journals in the field, including Journalism and Journalism Studies, have now been around for almost two decades, and have been joined by new titles, such as Journalism Practice (2007), the Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies (2012), and Digital Journalism (2013). The growing volume of work published by these and other journals focusing on journalism studies highlights the rapid expansion of the field and provides a clear indication of the maturation of the field. The growth in quantity and complexity has, perhaps inevitably, initiated a process of fragmentation and diversification within journalism studies.

Multiplicity Through Fragmentation and Diversification

To capture the rapidly growing diversity within the field by a single, predominant paradigm (or “turn”) would be an oversimplification. However, we can identify a number of distinctive approaches that have taken root in recent research. One strand of research, for instance, is primarily concerned with journalism as discourse. Within this framework, a new generation of scholars, such as Matt Carlson and Seth Lewis (2015), are continuing Barbie Zelizer’s (1993) legacy of considering journalism as a culture created and recreated by journalists as interpretative communities. Current work by Carlson, Lewis, and others focuses on the ways journalists and other social actors negotiate the meaning, legitimacy, and boundaries of journalism through professional and public discourse. This discursive turn, as we may call it, has inspired further research ev...