The paper analyses newspaper delivery labour by focusing on two Slovenian companies: the media company Dnevnik and the distribution company Izberi. In response to the enduring trend of declining ...readership, Dnevnik attempted to cut its delivery costs by transferring that activity to a rival company Izberi, a move met with resistance from deliverers adversely affected by the transfer. Using the methods of in-depth interviews and document analysis, the paper aims to identify the economic rationalisation techniques used to reduce the costs of delivery labour, discipline the workforce and respond to the newspaper deliverers’ resistance to these techniques.
The article derives from the presumption that the credibility of contemporary journalism is based on the myth of journalistic objectivity and that this myth has been changing together with the ...historical and cultural context. The methodological framework is grounded on a revision of Roland Barthes’ concept of the myth and its merger with contemporary approaches in media and journalism studies. The analysis of the myth of journalistic objectivity is performed through the prism of historical factuality and actual structural factuality. In the first part of the analysis, a diachronic cut reveals the changeability of the structure: from the birth of objectivity in the journalistic community and discourse at the beginning of the twentieth century through to its reproduction in journalistic practice and in media and journalistic studies in the next few decades. In the second part of the analysis a synchronous cut reveals how myth of journalistic objectivity operates in all phases of the journalistic communication process and attempts to interpret the (self-)organisation, (self-)understanding and perception of journalism in the contemporary historical and cultural context. The article proves that the myth is expressed in the permeation of journalistic discourse with dóxa in a specific context. The myth of journalistic objectivity is adapted to power relations in time and space, but at its core it is the same – incomplete, therefore, in gathering, selecting and producing news the myth is able to bring the essence – of journalistic-ness.
iiiIn recent years, the Leveson Inquiry in Great Britain, as well as the EU High-Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism, have stirred heated debates about media accountability and media ...self-regulation across Europe. How responsible are journalists? How well-developed are infrastructures of media self-regulation in the different European countries? How much commitment to media accountability is there in the media industry – and how actively do media users become involved in the process of media criticism via social media?
With contributions from leading scholars in the field of journalism and mass communication, this handbook brings together reports on the status quo of media accountability in all EU member states as well as key countries close to Europe, such as Turkey and Israel. Each chapter provides an up-to-date overview of media accountability structures as well as a synopsis of relevant research, exploring the role of media accountability instruments in each national setting, including both media self-regulation (such as codes of ethics, press councils, ombudspersons) and new instruments that involve audiences and stakeholder groups (such as media blogs and user comment systems).
A theoretically informed, cross-national comparative analysis of the state of media accountability in contemporary Europe, this handbook constitutes an invaluable basis for further research and policy-making and will appeal to students and scholars of media studies and journalism, as well as policy-makers and practitioners.
Changing Faces of Slovenia Vobič, Igor; Aleksander Sašo Slaček Brlek; Mance, Boris ...
Javnost (Ljubljana, Slovenia),
01/2014, Volume:
21, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The study indicates that political, economic and social faces of Slovenia have changed substantially during the half-decade of the crisis. While the ability of citizens to influence important ...political decisions has been curtailed on both the national and transnational level, instability has become endemic and social solidarity has been eroded. By using quantitative and qualitative content analysis the study analyses how the unfolding crisis has been communicated in the media in the 2008–2013 period with respect to the dynamics between structure and agency as well as regarding the key (inter)national features and contours of the crisis. The study indicates Slovenian news media hardly served as an integrative force and a common forum for an inclusive and open debate. Namely, results of the quantitative content analysis indicate that journalism communicated the “causes” for the crisis by portraying it as something purely accidental, while rarely pointing at the possibility of its systemic nature. Similarly, “solutions” have been predominantly portrayed within the prevailing paradigms or through the neoliberal prism favoured by holders of political and economic power. Qualitative content analysis of how Slovenian news media communicated the decisive breaks and formative moments of the unfolding crisis shows they mostly relied on event-orientation, simplistic juxtapositions and naturalisation of the established power divisions on national as well as international levels.
ABSTRACT IN SLOVENE: Z raziskovanjem zbiranja, selekcioniranja in umescanja vsebin iz Twitterja v predvolilna televizijska soocenja clanek na slovenski javni radioteleviziji prepoznava konflikt med ...spodbujanjem participativne prakse in ohranjenjem privilegirane vloge tradicionalnih odbirateljev. Z analizo kvalitativnih podatkov, zbranih z opazovanjem v urednistvu in s poglobljenimi intervjuji s kljucnimi akterji, avtor v specificnem prepletu organizacijskega konteksta, vzpostavljene rutine in individualnih dejavnikov razkriva paradoks odbiranja tvitov v soocenjih slovenske javne televizije pred evropskimi volitvami leta 2014. Po eni strani gre za institucionalno varovanje odbirateljskih privilegijev na racun bolj odprtega komuniciranja, po drugi pa odbiranje skoraj povsem prepuscajo subjektivnim shemam prepoznanih odbirateljev. Kot kazejo rezultati analize, paradoks prinasa pomembne implikacije za samorazumevanje novinarstva in subjektivno drzavljansko opolnomocenje, ki samo po sebi ne pomeni participativnega delovanja, temvec gre le za krepitev obcutka zmoznosti participacije v politicnem zivljenju. Poleg tega se na podlagi rezultatov studije zdi, da novinarstvo tradicionalnih medijev nima ustreznih odgovorov na spreminjajoc strukturni polozaj v druzbenem komuniciranju, organizacijske tezave medijskih his in identifikacijsko negotovost novinarjev. // ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH: By studying the collection, selection and inclusion of contents from Twitter in pre-election debates at the Slovenian public broadcaster, the article recognises the conflict between stimulating participatory practices, on the one hand, and maintaining a privileged role of traditional gatekeepers, on the other. By analysing qualitative data gathered through observations in the newsroom and in-depth interviews with key actors, the author intertwines organisational context, established routines and individual factors, and identifies the paradox of gatekeeping tweets during Slovenian public television debates before the European elections in 2014. The study indicates institutional protection of gatekeeping privileges at the expense of more open communication, while at the same time gatekeeping is exclusively framed by the subjective schemes of the identified gatekeepers. This paradox has important implications for self-understanding of journalism and indicates subjective civic empowerment, which in itself does not mean participatory action, but only strengthening the sense of the ability to participate in political life. In addition, based on the results of the study, it seems that journalism of traditional media does not have adequate answers for its transforming structural position in social communication, organisational problems of media houses, and contingent identification of journalists. Reprinted by permission of European Institute for Communication and Culture
Practice of Hypertext Vobic, Igor
Journalism practice,
08/2014, Volume:
8, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Despite scholarly research inconsistencies in conceptualizations of hypertext, there seems to be a consensus among scholars from different epistemological grounds that hypertextuality as a ...communication potential refers to the interconnectivity and interlayering of textual parts in an extended nonlinear chain of integrated content that enables innovation in practices within the triad journalist-text-reader. However, within this rather large area of research, media and journalism scholars have paid minimal attention to hypertext as practice despite hypertext raising many questions regarding the processes and relations of news making. In this paper the author attempts to fill this research gap and to investigate how hypertext shapes different phases of online news making, that is, gathering, selecting, and assessing information, and how these processes influence journalist-source-audience relations. This study thus provides analysis of data gathered through participant observation in the online departments of two leading Slovenian print media organizations, Delo and Dnevnik, and in-depth interviews with their online journalists and editors. The analysis indicated that (1) lack of reasoning and a conservative mind-set prevail among online staffers when conceptualizing hypertext; (2) the normalization of hypertextual news making is subordinated to speed and timeliness in news delivery; and (3) nurtured journalist-source-audience relations bring little to strengthen the social relevance of news. These results confirmed hypertext as a commodity rather than emphasizing its public character. The practice of hypertext at the two Slovenian newspapers indicates a phenomenon that could be labelled as journalistic deskilling in online news making.
Th e multifaceted character of journalistic objectivity is historically based on different philosophical underpinnings of communication, resulting in a variety of societal roles for journalists and ...competing notions of news. Th e article approaches journalistic objectivity in the context of Slovenian press history, which is oft en overlooked in conceptual debates on journalistic development in Europe. Th ree paradigms of journalistic objectivity within the 20th century Slovenian press are identifi ed and presented, namely (1) the utilitarian approach to journalistic objectivity in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the 1920s and 1930s, (2) the objectivity of self-managed journalism in Socialist Yugoslavia from the 1950s to the late 1980s, and (3) the pragmatic objectivity of high-modern journalism from the early 1990s onwards. Each concept is assessed in terms of the societal roles of journalists from monarchical to socialist to capitalist societal settings; they are then interpreted through the prism of diff erent prevailing conceptions of reality and evolving philosophical bases of understanding communication in Slovenian press history.
The study’s aim is to reveal how tensions between continuity and change in journalist–audience relationship evolved with the rise of the internet in the news industry and how journalists working in ...specific institutional settings have conceived audience members and negotiated their online connections with them in the last two decades. Previous scholarly works indicate historical diversity in articulations of the concepts of access, interaction and participation in mediatized political life, which are reflected in the complex dynamics of journalists’ conceiving of audiences based on quantifiable and generative sources. The research objective is addressed in the context of Slovenian journalism in the internet era, more specifically the leading Slovenian newspaper Delo, and aims to offer insights into diachronic diversity within journalist-audience relationship from the setting up of Delo.si website in late-1990s, opening up weblogs to audience members online in mid-2000s, to journalists’ move to Facebook and Twitter in recent years. Despite this case study’s limited scope historical analysis of the journalist audience relationship at Delo reflects a silhouette of journalism’s Janus face – on the one side, the newspaper is adopting technological changes to envision a better future through various online interactive forms, but on the other side Delo is looking back and leaning on journalists’ traditional communication privileges downsizing participation in news and established corporate logics of the news industry in order to retain the top-down character of the journalist-audience relationship.
