Terms of Choice: Uncertainty,Journalism, and Crisis

This article considers whether thinking about journalism's present set of challenges is best served by the notion of “crisis.” It argues that adopting such a notion to explain a diverse set of technological, political, economic, social, occupational, moral, and legal circumstances misses an opportunity to recognize how contingent and differentiated the futures of journalism might be. It also raises critical questions about how institutions deal with uncertainty at their core, obscuring a fuller understanding of the permutations that get eclipsed by perceiving crisis as a unitary phenomenon.     

Explaining the Formation of Online News Startups in France and the United States: A Field Analysis

This article examines the differential formation of online news startups in Toulouse, France, and Seattle, United States. While Seattle is home to many startups, in Toulouse there have been just 4—and only 1 continues publishing. Drawing on Bourdieu's field theory, we argue that amount and types of capital held by journalists in the 2 cities varied as a result of differences in journalism's position in the field of power. These differences shaped the extent of startup formation in each city and structured journalists' capacities to convert their capital into the resources needed to form startups (e.g., funding, credentials, partnerships). These findings are positioned in relation to literatures on journalism innovation and comparative media.     

Memory in Journalism and the Memory of Journalism: Israeli Journalists and the Constructed Legacy of Haolam Hazeh

The article looks at the role of journalists as collective memory agents via an investigation of the interplay between the stories journalists tell as professionals and the stories they tell about their profession. It does so through an exploration of the stories that Israeli journalists have narrated about the sensational and radical weekly Haolam Hazeh (in Hebrew: This World; 1937–1993) over time and the ways in which such stories reflect and shape the changing professional self-perceptions of the Israeli journalistic community. The article first looks into the dynamics through which Haolam Hazeh became the "functional transgressor" of Israeli journalism during the 1950s and 1960s. Next, it probes the complementing commemorative and noncommemorative components of Haolam Hazeh's current glorified memory, as a forefather of critical Israeli journalism. Correspondingly, the article traces the conditions and circumstances that facilitated this process. Finally, the article discusses the ways by which the inquiry of transformed journalistic reputations could be used as a framework for the exploration of the development of communal journalistic consciousness.     

Making News Necessary: How Journalism Resists Alternative Media's Challenge*

News coverage following Al Gore and George W. Bush's appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show during the 2000 presidential campaign shows journalism asserting its authority to manage political discourse despite competition from alternative media. Analysis using Foucault's concepts of knowledge, power, and discipline reveals journalism affirming its continuing relevance and integrates insights from the framing and paradigm repair traditions. Journalists rejected Oprah as political discourse but reframed its elements to meet news criteria established by institutional journalism. Using negative stereotypes of women as political actors, journalists also disciplined Winfrey's “mostly female” audience for failing to adequately enact citizenship. Journalists thus both reasserted authority to manage political discourse and set standards for citizenship that positioned journalism as necessary to democracy.     

The digital public humanities: giving new arguments and new ways to argue

ABSTRACT

In response to the latest “crisis” in the humanities, advocates have marched, rallied, fundraised, and—especially—argued. This essay contends that communication scholars can support the growing “case for the humanities” by analyzing argumentative strategies, and more specifically, by offering ethical argumentative strategies that avoid replicating structures of domination. In particular, we look to Mari Lee Mifsud's theorization of rhetoric as gift, which follows Henry W. Johnstone in conceptualizing argument as something other than winning over an adversary. We place Mifsud's theorization of the gift in conversation with the methods of the digital public humanities (DPH), which acknowledge and offer abundant resources for meaning-making. Through the methods of DPH, we offer a response to the humanities “crisis” that activates the humanities’ already broad constituencies by giving resources for humanistic inquiry rather than seeking to capture adversaries. Our case study is Photogrammar, a DPH project for organizing, searching, and visualizing the New Deal and World War II era photographs funded by the U.S. federal government. The project forefronts visual, nonlinear, and interactive argumentation in order to engage publics in generative humanistic inquiry. By enlisting participants and sharing expertise, Photogrammar shows how humanities advocates can deepen attachments to the humanities and build broad constituencies of collaborators and allies.     

Relational Communication and Understanding in Conversations About Hurtful Events Between Parents and Adolescents

This article examines how the severity of a hurtful event and discrepancies in perceptions of relational communication affect perceived understanding and empathic accuracy (EA) in parent–adolescent discussions about a hurtful event in their relationship. Results from a dyadic interaction study showed that the severity of the hurtful event was negatively associated with perceived understanding. Furthermore, discrepancies in perceptions of disaffiliation behaviors during a conversation about a child's hurtful event were also negatively associated with perceived understanding. Discrepancy in perceptions of adolescent's dominance corresponded negatively with parents' perceived understanding when discussing the child's hurtful event. There were no significant associations with EA. The implications for work on hurtful events, understanding, and relational framing theory are discussed.     

Leveraging Social Network Analysis for Research on Journalism in the Information Age

Advances in information and communication technologies connect media organizations, media content, and audiences in new ways. This essay advocates the use of a relational approach to study journalism and media in the information age. This article begins with a review of the communication network typology, highlighting its applicability to journalism studies. A review of journalism studies that use social network analysis reveals a number of new opportunities for research. Finally, the essay illustrates the heuristic value of the communication network typology and multidimensional networks for the study of journalism and media.     

Gabriel Marcel's approach to recognizing presence: being,body, and invocation

Challenges in ascertaining human presence in technologically mediated communication invite reflection on how communicators recognize human presence. Twentieth-century French philosopher Gabriel Marcel offers insights into how human presence is felt, heard, and recognized. Marcel's texts suggest that something distinct from communication—human presence—calls one to recognize that one is with an other human person. Human presence is experienced as body and as invocation. This essay draws out ways Marcel's philosophy of body and being open up positioning, participation, and recognition of being with the other. Problems of presence present possibilities for and limitations to communication in technological settings.     

Staying Ahead of the Digital Tsunami: The Contributions of an Organizational Communication Approach to Journalism in the Information Age

This essay addresses the challenges facing journalism in the information age by advocating for the study of journalism from an organizational communication perspective. The communication field has maintained an illogical divide between journalism and organizational communication scholarship. First, I present an overview of subdisciplinary identities. Second, I argue for an organizational communication approach to the study of journalism and refer to an empirical study as an exemplar of this approach. Finally, I present ideas for future research regarding the study of journalism and these subdisciplines. This approach is applicable to settings like newspapers, television news, and other media organizations. Analyzing journalism from an organizational communication perspective can connect academic subdisciplines and aid practitioners in understanding a rapidly evolving media landscape.     

The Impact of Sound‐Bite Journalism on Public Argument

The rise of sound‐bite news is one of the most widely bemoaned findings in political communication research. Yet, the detrimental effects of this trend have been more assumed than demonstrated. This study examines one consequence of sound‐bite journalism: the creation of incomplete argument, in which speakers presenting their political position in the news do not also justify it. Drawing on data about television news in Germany, Russia, and the United States, it shows that shrinking sound bites consistently reduce the probability of opinion justification across widely differing national contexts. Sound‐bite journalism emerges as harmful to television news' ability to produce public justification.     

The Media and Male Identities: Audience Research in Media,Religion, and Masculinities

Findings from in‐depth interviews with 19 Evangelical Protestant men regarding their ideas about masculinity, media, and religion are reported. The authors propose a critical test of a neoconservative view which laments a modern “crisis of masculinity” and which posits media as a villain in this crisis and religion, particularly conservative religion, as the savior. The study pursues a line of inquiry suggested by D. Gauntlett (2002) and S. M. Hoover (2006) with the hope of developing clearer ideas of how men make gendered narratives of self‐understanding and presentation out of their media lives. These interviews contradicted the neoconservative claims, finding that media plays constructive roles in these men's senses of self in both masculine and religious terms.     

科研宣传与大众传媒的脱节——对中国科研机构传播体制的定量和定性分析

尽管有政府的大力支持,研究表明,我国的科学新闻仍然不十分景气。一些科学新闻工作者认为,市场导向的媒体改革导致了娱乐与体育等新闻取代了严肃的科学报道的位置。然而,本文通过研究科学新闻产出过程中的多方面因素,并分析科研机构新闻发布及相应的媒体对此进行的报道,提出中国领导大力支持的科普宣传工作,与大众通过媒体对科学新闻的需求产生了错位。以宣传成就为导向的科普模式在我国科学新闻的弱势中发挥了重要作用。如果要改善科学新闻,必须从改善科研机构和科研工作者的宣传模式着手,使科学报道成为激发不同层次受众的探索精神和让公众参与科学过程的重要工具。     

Political Involvement in “Mobilized” Society: The Interactive Relationships Among Mobile Communication,Network Characteristics,and Political Participation

In recent years, mobile communication has emerged as a channel for political discourse among network ties. Although some celebrate new possibilities for political life, others are concerned that it can lead to network insularity and political detachment. This study examined how mobile‐mediated discourse with strong ties interacts with characteristics of those ties to predict levels of political participation. Findings revealed that mobile‐based discourse is positively associated with political participation, but that this relationship is moderated by the size and heterogeneity of one's network. Participation increases with use of the technology in large networks of like‐minded individuals, but declines with use of the technology in homogeneous networks that are small. Implications and future research considerations are offered in the discussion.     

How Not to Found a Field: New Evidence on the Origins of Mass Communication Research

This article offers new evidence on the beginnings of mass communication study in the U.S., suggesting that the earliest communication programs were short-lived interdisciplinary committees at the University of Chicago that were at the forefront of an emerging field but died from lack of institutional support. Drawing on archival research and interviews, the article suggests that communication study, as separate from professional journalism training and the study of rhetoric, goes further back than previously assumed. Finally, the article investigates why the Chicago programs are unknown in our discipline's history—and what this tells us about academic institutions and mass communication research.     

ICANN's new ombudsman has a ‘community’ service mission

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has a new ombudsman's office. M. Scott Donahey, of Palo Alto, Calif., describes how the troubleshooter's office came about and how it will work.     

An Interpersonal Ethic for Communication

A modern rhetoric has developed concerning itself with considerably more dimensions of speech than was the case with traditional rhetoric's concentration on persuasion and public address. Indeed, this modern rhetoric has expanded its domain to include the whole range of types of oral communication. But while this very basic kind of evolution has been taking place, it appears that a corresponding ethic (an interpersonal one) has not emerged. The authors make bold to try to stimulate that study. The interpersonal ethic proposed in the article can be stated as follows: A's communication is ethical to the extent that it accepts B's responses; it is unethical to the extent to which it develops hostility toward B's responses, or in some way tries to subjugate B. The ethic can be observed best, the authors believe, when A discovers that B rejects the message A is sending. Such an ethic springs from the following assumptions: (1) By virtue of the very nature of the communicative act, the two parties to a communication exercise control over each other. Both the listener and the speaker are, in part, at the other's mercy. (2) One of the highest values in a democratic culture is that conditions be created and maintained in which the potential of the individual is best realized. (3) The individual will be able to realize his potential to the extent that psychological freedom can be increased for him. An interpersonal ethic, the article suggests, may have more to do with the attitude of the speaker and listener toward each other than with elements of the message (as in the more traditional rhetoric). It may concern itself more with loyalty to the person with whom one is in communication than to rationality or cosmic truth.     

The Symbiotic Sustainability Model: Conceptualizing NGO–Corporate Alliance Communication

We introduce the Symbiotic Sustainability Model (SSM) as a macrolevel explanation of nongovernmental organization (NGO)–corporate alliances. The SSM presents NGO–corporate alliances as distinct interorganizational communication relationships, symbolized to stakeholders to influence the mobilization of capital. We contend that alliance partners communicatively co‐construct the alliance with stakeholders in order to mobilize economic, social, cultural, and political capital. By focusing on the communication of alliances' existence and character, new propositions emerge concerning the role of communication, capital mobilization resulting from NGO–corporate alliances, NGOs and corporations' choice(s) of alliance partner(s), the number of partners with whom organizations are likely to communicate, and potential risks and rewards. The model is illustrated using the Rainforest Alliance and Chiquita Better Banana program as an abbreviated case study.     

Religious Communication and Epistemic Authority of Leaders in Wired Faith Organizations

The mediation of communication has raised questions of authority shifts in key social institutions. This article examines how traditional sources of epistemic power that govern social relations in religious authority are being amplified or delegitimized by Internet use, drawing from in‐depth interviews with protestant pastors in Singapore. Competition from Internet access is found to delocalize epistemic authority to some extent; however, it also reembeds authority by allowing pastors to acquire new competencies as strategic arbiters of religious expertise and knowledge. Our study indicates that although religious leaders are confronted with proletarianization, deprofessionalization, and potential delegitimization as epistemic threats, there is also an enhancement of epistemic warrant as they adopt mediated communication practices that include the social networks of their congregation.     

Disrupting the humanities and social science binary: framing communication studies as a transformative discipline

ABSTRACT

Debates whether communication studies should be housed with the humanities or social sciences have raged on for decades. In response to attacks on the humanities, we argue that the discipline has much to gain from seeing how the humanities contributes to the social sciences and the potential benefits of integrating humanistic and social scientific approaches. Specifically, we present two case studies that illuminate ways humanities-informed thinking has contributed to and benefited social science theory, method, and data. First, we review Jeffrey A. Bennett's Banning Queer Blood to illustrate the importance of reflexivity and practice when analyzing interview data. Then, we highlight how the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin influenced Leslie A. Baxter's most recent articulation of relational dialectics theory and development of contrapuntal analysis. Finally, we discuss obstacles and opportunities for engaging in transformative research.     

The Role of Theory in Developing Effective Health Communications

This study attempts to show the relevance of behavioral theory for developing communications designed to promote healthy and/or to prevent or alter unhealthy behaviors. After describing an integrative model of behavioral prediction, the model’s implications for designing persuasive communications are considered. Using data from a study on smoker’s intentions to continue smoking and to quit, it is shown how the theory helps identify the critical beliefs underlying these or other intentions. Finally, it is argued that although behavioral theory can help identify the beliefs that should be targeted in a persuasive communication, our ability to change these beliefs will ultimately rest on communication theory.