The role and the position of public service media (PSM or, historically, PSB; for historical reasons we opted to use “public service broadcasters” and PSB) has been a topic of numerous research ...studies as well as many policy documents and recommendations, both by national governments and international institutions like the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the European Broadcasting Union. Most of these studies and documents emphasize the unclear position of PSB within the contemporary media environment, facing issues regarding “philosophical” aspects (raison d’etre within the transformations, digitalization of society, the definition of the public role and public interest),
The authors discuss how the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) quotes or summarizes the opinions of its sources. Using the linguo-stylistic method, they analyze the linguistic means of reference in the ...STA's reports. The analysis reveals the use of 71 verbs for saying, thinking & perceiving which can be explained as a result of the journalists' attempt to write livelier texts & to avoid repetition. The use of direct speech is surprisingly rare; journalists mostly summarize the news sources' statements, referring to the reports of foreign news agencies & media organizations which lead to double or even triple references. There is also some inconsistency as to indicating the borders between the author's part of the text & the news source's opinion. The exaggerated use of syntax structure, which expresses unreliability, can be ascribed to the journalists' excessive concern to pass on the quotes "objectively.". References. Adapted from the source document.
In the last few years, a new practice known as semi-investigative reporting has appeared in Slovenian journalism. This article presents a study of the strategies used by reporters to construct an ...image of investigative reporting and of reporters' own interpretations of this practice. A critical discourse analysis of reports of institutional scandals in the Slovenian quality daily press during a four-year period is combined with in-depth interviews with reporters. Textual analysis revealed four strategies used in the majority of reports: factism; extensive citing of authoritative official sources; reliance on faceless (secret) sources; and appealing to common knowledge and common sense. The interviewees justified semi-investigative reporting via the changes in contemporary journalism, the tastes and desires of their readers, and market-driven pressures from editors. Semi-investigative reporters do not uncover failures in society's systems of regulation, but in truth they stabilize relations of power within society. In the long term, this practice is harmful to the readers who are exposed to the agendas and frames of official sources under the veil of investigative reporting, which diminishes the credibility of quality media, which are supposed to make those holding power accountable. Reprinted by permission of Routledge, Taylor & Francis Ltd.
According to the European Commission's proposed regulation from 2010, European Union member states can also restrict or prohibit the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in their ...territory on the basis of the socio-economic factors of the impact of GMOs. The paper presents reference approaches to designing and arguing the socio-economic impact of GMOs and reveals significant variation between them. An agreement on a comprehensive, empirically supported and mutually acceptable set of factors that would allow integration into the EU's regulatory framework has not yet been achieved. Slovenia is stepping into the process of designing relevant socioeconomic factors with negative public attitudes to the cultivation of GMOs, related restrictive legislation, and the natural and structural characteristics of agriculture which at the outset restrict the possibility to grow GMOs. In the paper, we propose a set of seven socio-economic factors which reflect specific characteristics of the Slovenian agricultural and social environment, and which could serve as a platform for public debate on this issue. Adapted from the source document.
According to the European Commission’s proposed regulation from 2010, European Union member states can also restrict or prohibit the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in their ...territory on the basis of the socio-economic factors of the impact of GMOs. The paper presents reference approaches to designing and arguing the socio-economic impact of GMOs and reveals significant variation between them. An agreement on a comprehensive, empirically supported and mutually acceptable set of factors that would allow integration into the EU’s regulatory framework has not yet been achieved. Slovenia is stepping into the process of designing relevant socio-economic factors with negative public attitudes to the cultivation of GMOs, related restrictive legislation, and the natural and structural characteristics of agriculture which at the outset restrict the possibility to grow GMOs. In the paper, we propose a set of seven socio-economic factors which reflect specific characteristics of the Slovenian agricultural and social environment, and which could serve as a platform for public debate on this issue.
The author examines the role of the news media in the formation of European identity, presuming that they are expected to play a crucial role in both the perception and the construction of the ...emerging European identity as well as in the preserving and the developing of the national identity. One of the main problems at covering the EU-related issues is setting the boundaries between informing the public and promoting specific ideas leading to the construction of the EU identity. Providing the public with true, verified, accurate, relevant, unbiased, diverse and balanced information is the primary journalistic goal, in one way or another defined by the ethical codes of all the EU states, while one-sided promotion in the sense of supplying the citizens with selective truth and biased publicity should not be considered as part of any quality news discourse, even though it is occurring under the label of identity building. The author's thesis is that the news media are assign ed an important role of informing the citizens about the relevant EU issues, without having a special task of promoting the EU. A critical distance should be established towards the information obtained from the Government and other public relations sources. Journalistic questions should be asked. To be able to implement their task, journalists need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to cover the EU politics, they should aspire to follow the standards of the classical paradigm of journalism as the public service, and maintain the professional ethical attitude in all phases of the communication process.
Slovenian journalists have adopted certain strategies to create images of investigative journalism in the (quality) daily press. However, some reports covering institutional scandals may be labelled ...merely semi-investigative. The textual analysis exposed strategies of factism, referring to official and/or anonymous sources, and to common knowledge and common sense. During in-depth interviews, journalists attributed reasons for this practice to the media’s market-driven orientation; they believed that they are forced to persist in a situation which cannot be changed or is even perceived as normal. Thus, instead of playing the role of watchdogs, semi-investigative journalists allow official sources, often hidden behind a veil of anonymity, to build media agendas.
The article's goal is to present media representation of the new regime of the Slovenian borders, introduced in December 2007. Critical discourse analysis of news items, published by all major ...Slovenian media between the beginning of December 2007 and the end of January 2008, reveals that there was no single homogeneous representation of the border included by all the media. Instead, there are four discourses: discourse of borderlessness, discourse of the Iron Curtain, discourse of the Schengen fortress, and discourse of everyday life problems. All discourses are
fragmented, neglecting political and social contexts, but only the last one, which appeared in the regional media only, critically represented the new regime on the Schengen border. The elite Slovenian media also have thoroughly changed the dominant representation of the Slovenian borders. What used to be "an Iron Curtain" was reconfigured into "borderlessness", and what used to be "borderlessness" was reconfigured into "a fortress" and "a problematic border". They also reproduced a clear division, with Europe/Europeans and Slovenia/Slovenians on one side and the region and people behind the southern Schengen border on the other.
