Journalism Research Paper

Disputes about the boundaries of journalism have been common among both scholars and practitioners. Chalaby (1998), for example, has argued that journalism properly so-called emerged in Britain and the US with the development of commercial mass media; the production of news as a commodity, in his view, is radically distinct from the earlier practice of using the press to publicize political ideas. Journalists’ organizations, particularly in countries with state-owned broadcasting systems, have sometimes excluded those who worked in broadcast news, on the grounds that they did not practice journalism independently, but merely transmitted the views of others. In many countries today there is also sharp debate about whether those who produce new forms of ‘infotainment’—talk show hosts or producers of ‘tabloid’ news magazines, for example—can legitimately be called journalists. There is little to be gained conceptually by trying to adjudicate these disputes and establish the ‘true boundaries’ of journalism. These disputes are enlightening precisely because multiple forms of journalism have always coexisted, and because journalism has never been rigidly differentiated from other social activities, but has overlapped with and existed in relations of mutual interdependence with a variety of political, economic, social and cultural institutions, and practices.

1. Historical Evolution

The term ‘journalist’ emerged in the seventeenth century; originally, ‘journalism’ referred simply to the activity of producing a printed periodical. One can trace many of the social functions involved in journalism to earlier eras, but it seems best to say that journalism emerged with the development of the newspaper and other forms of print culture. The emergence of journalism was connected not only with the development of print technology, but also with an inter-related set of social and cultural changes. First, it was connected with the development of capitalism and the market. This was true in two senses. The market, first of all, increased the demand for specialized sources of information. Those involved in market relationships had an intensified need to know about occurrences beyond their own world of face-to-face relationships. Merchants were among the first producers and consumers of newspapers, and as increasing parts of the population were drawn into the market economy, newspaper readerships grew. Second, news-papers were themselves distributed through the market; this was true even in their early days, when the primary motivation for their production was often political or cultural rather than economic.

The emergence of journalism was connected with the rise of the nation-state and political citizenship. It is connected of course with the emergence of democratic politics; early newspapers were often primarily vehicles for public political participation. Expansions of newspaper readership were often closely connected with expansions of the electoral franchise. In the US, for example, the rise of the ‘penny papers,’ which greatly expanded the audience for news, came on the heels of the Jacksonian revolution and the elimination of property qualifications for voting. In Uruguay, one of the few Latin American countries in which a mass circulation press has developed, newspaper circulations increased from one newspaper for every 11 inhabitants in 1870 to one for every four in 1916, a period which also saw the rise of mass-based political parties.

The notion of citizenship is broader that of democracy, however, and the connection between journalism and the rise of the nation-state goes beyond the development of democratic political institutions. Another way in which the modern nation-state draws the mass public into political life is through mobilization for war; newspaper circulations have typically expanded in times of war as well as in times of expanded political participation. As Anderson (1991) has pointed out, the culture of nationalism involves a sense of belonging to an imagined community of compatriots; journalism is one of the key cultural forms in the creation of this sense of national collectivity, and it can play this role with or without political democracy.

Finally, journalism is connected with the rise of realism as a cultural form; it emerges simultaneously with a number of related realist genres, including the novel and scientific writing, and indeed has in certain historical periods overlapped with these, as novels and scientific information were published in newspapers and novelists often wrote for the press. All three of these historical changes, of course, are connected with the rise of the public.

Max Weber (1947) once characterized the journalist as a ‘type of professional politician.’ Indeed in its early days journalism was substantially—though not exclusively—a part of the world of politics. Journalists were often advocates for political causes; Benjamin Franklin, for example, who like many others in his age was simultaneously a journalist and a politician, described journalism as essentially a form of oratory and thus part of a tradition that could be traced back to the political assemblies of Greece and Rome. In democratic countries, newspapers typically became associated with political parties, as these began to emerge, or factions of parties, and often were supported financially by parties or individual politicians.

In authoritarian countries newspapers were often either political mouthpieces of the state or of insurgent movements. In Africa, for example, many leaders of the independence movements of the twentieth century were involved in journalism.

The identification between journalism and politics was substantially changed, however, by the rise of the commercial newspaper industry. This began in the United States in the 1830s, with the development of the ‘penny papers,’ which expanded newspaper circulations by an order of magnitude and became profitable cultural industries by selling the attention of a mass audience to advertisers (Schudson 1978). In Britain commercialization of the press was delayed by restrictive taxes, but got under way in the 1850s. In Japan, similarly, commercial papers began to compete with the earlier, politically oriented papers at the end of the 1870s. Commercialization did not push politics aside altogether. Most newspapers in the United States, for example, continued to have strong partisan loyalties throughout the nineteenth century at least, and their owners and editors to be active in politics. They were, however, financially independent of parties, and their owners independent political powers in a way their predecessors often had not been. In this sense it could be said that commercialization increased the power of journalism as an institution. Commercialization also changed the agenda and style of journalism, diminishing political advocacy in favor of the competition to provide news in a timely and sometimes sensational fashion.

A sharp debate has emerged in media studies over the implications of commercialization of the news media for democratic politics. One view holds that commercialization gives the press the independence it needs to serve as a ‘watchdog’ of the state and to provide the public as a whole with information ‘without fear or favor.’ The contrary view holds that commercialization tends to drive political content out of the press, replacing it with sensational human interest material, and also to consolidate control of the press in the hands of the upper class, leading to unequal political competition between competing social interests (Curran and Seaton 1997). This argument has been developed especially from the case of Britain, where a highly politicized working class press flourished in the period when taxes inhibited the development of commercial media. Weber (1947) also observed that the commercial papers in Germany ‘have been regularly and typically the breeders of political indifference.’

Commercial newspapers were the first to employ hired reporters, editors, and eventually artists, photographers, and other specialized journalistic personnel. Throughout the nineteenth century journalism developed as a distinct occupation with specialized practices and a sense of identity. Many of the conventions for gathering and presenting information which we now think of as distinctively journalistic emerged during these years, including for example the summary lead, which synthesizes the ‘most important’ information in a news story for the reader, and the practice of interviewing public figures, which was important in part because it gave journalists a more active role in the creation of news, and in some cases increased the public profile of individual journalists.

In the twentieth century the notion of journalism as a ‘profession’ began to emerge, most distinctively, perhaps, in the United States, where the idea of neutral expertise became a particularly strong element of political culture. Professionalization meant, above all, the development of the idea that the journalist serves the public as a whole, rather than particular political tendencies, owners, or other interests. It is associated with the shift, noted by Siebert et al. (1956), from the older ‘libertarian’ conception of press freedom to the ‘social responsibility’ model, which sees the press as the holder of a public trust. Professionalization was also associated with a shift toward balance and ‘objectivity’ as primary journalistic values, with corresponding changes in writing styles, and with increased autonomy of journalists, as against owners or managers within news organizations. Journalistic autonomy has nevertheless always been limited: despite aspirations in some countries for direct journalistic control of news organizations (perhaps most notably France after World War II; the Journalists at Le Monde still elect the paper’s Director), ultimate authority in virtually all news organizations remains outside the hands of journalists.

Several decades of scholarship have painted a complex picture of the implications of the professionalization of journalism. Professional norms can be seen, for example, both as a mechanism of social control, constraining journalists and often serving to exclude nonconforming content from the news, and as a basis for journalists’ autonomy, legitimizing their right to a space of action not constrained by their owner’s political views, the pressures of advertisers, etc. (Soloski 1989). The concept of professional routines has become central to the analysis of the social role of journalism. Routines are the standard practices which enable news organizations to operate efficiently and which legitimate the many choices that must be made in the production of news, allowing them to be treated as matters of shared professional judgment rather than political debate (Tuchman 1978). Where professionalism is strong, these routines are powerful enough that particular individuals, including both journalists and owners, have limited ability most of the time to shape news content. Those routines, however, often have social biases built into them, and most scholars consider the biases built into journalistic routines to be the most important explanation for the politics of news (Gitlin 1980). Among the most important routines is the use of certain kinds of sources of information which are considered ‘authoritative’—principally government officials and other elite members of society (Gans 1979, Hall et al. 1978).

Where professional autonomy—or ‘internal press freedom,’ as it is often called in Europe—is weaker, professional routines become less important for explaining news content, and more instrumental explanations, focusing on control by private owners or the state, are often more appropriate.

There are many views about what kinds of social biases prevail in contemporary journalism. Some, for example, have argued that journalism generally under-mines the authority of established social institutions (this view began to grow in the 1970s, which probably saw the high point of journalistic autonomy in most Western countries, and also saw a decline in the legitimacy of many social institutions). Some have argued that they serve more or less consistently to support established social interests, and some that they are essentially neutral, and represent the full range of contending interests. The most common view among scholars is probably the view that in liberal societies media routines tend to reproduce the existing structure of power, but not in an entirely consistent way; under certain circumstances, for example, the dominant routines can open the media to penetration by new social movements or lead to periods of contestation over the boundaries of political debate.

2. Differentiation

Structural functionalism holds that human societies tend to evolve toward increased differentiation, in which institutions become increasingly specialized in the functions they perform. Some scholars—most notably Alexander (1981)—have argued that the development of journalism should be seen in this light. This does make considerable sense in societies where commercialization and professionalization are relatively advanced. Journalism in these societies has increasingly become separated from party politics, and has developed norms and routines of its own, a ‘media logic’ distinct from the logic of politics. In other ways, however, the notion that journalism tends to evolve toward differentiation seems doubtful. Most importantly, such a view neglects the tendency for journalism to become integrated into market mechanisms. Professionalization, to be sure, limits this to some degree, but the ‘media logic’ that has emerged in contemporary societies is very much a joint product of professional norms and the pressures of the market, which many argue are growing increasingly strong. Other scholars thus give a very different account of the history of journalism than the structural functionalists. Habermas, for example, decries the ‘colonization’ of the public sphere by the cultural industries, and Bourdieu argues that the journalistic field once heavily influenced by the political field is now heavily influenced by that of the market.

3. Journalism And The State

In some societies the state controls the news media directly. This is most common with broadcast news, but is also common with newspapers, particularly in developing countries where there are few sources of capital outside the state. In societies with clientelist political relations, journalism will often be tied to the state in various ways by systems of political patronage, as in Mexico, where until recently both journalists and newspapers were heavily dependent on state funding (Orme 1997), or in Greece, where industrialists often use their papers to bargain for favors from the state (Papathanasopoulos 1999). A similar pattern has emerged in Russia, and to varying degrees in other parts of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

In liberal societies journalism is generally thought of as standing apart from the state, serving to check its power as a watchdog or fourth estate. This is accurate to a significant degree, as reflected in incidents like the publication by The New York Times and other papers of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ (a secret government study of US decision-making on the Vietnam war ‘leaked’ to the press by a dissident former official). But close ties between the media and the state also exist in liberal societies. State subsidies and restraints do exist in such societies, as do clientelist relationships between politicians and media owners. But more important is the close relationship between journalists and government officials as sources and subjects of news, a relationship which has proved mutually beneficial to officials seeking publicity and control over the news agenda, and journalists seeking news (Bennett 1990). This relationship is highly developed, with the news media organizing much of the newsgathering process around the institutions of the state, and the state devoting considerable resources to accommodating them. In many cases the relationship is formally organized, as in the lobby system in the British parliament or the press clubs of Japan (Pharr and Krauss 1996). The closeness of the relationship between contemporary journalists and state officials means that journalists have access to considerably more information about the inner workings of government than they would as outsiders. It also means that they are often in an important sense part of the community of political elites, and reflect the prevailing viewpoints within that community. Here, again, doubts can be raised about the differentiation theory of journalism history: it could be argued that journalism is more entangled with the state than it was a century or two ago, when journalists had no privileged access to the corridors of power.

4. Varieties Of Journalism

Journalism has always been plural; indeed one of the distinctive characteristics of the modern newspaper is the fact that it mixes widely disparate types of content, not only in terms of subject matter but in terms of the functions it fulfills for readers. Journalism provides both information and entertainment. It also provides moral and ideological orientation. Even in countries where objectivity became a dominant professional value, there continue to be many occasions when journalists communicate value judgments to their readers, particularly when the society’s consensus or hegemonic values are considered to be at stake, in covering international conflict, for example, or in investigative reporting. Some scholars have also argued that journalists perform a ritual function, promoting a sense of community solidarity, particularly in the coverage of ceremonial events and crises

In most societies there is also some differentiation of journalism into distinct styles, often serving different parts of the community. The most striking example is probably the differentiation of the British press between the ‘quality’ or broadsheet press, serving middle and upper class readers and emphasizing informational journalism, and the mass or tabloid press, serving primarily working class readers with a much more entertainment-oriented form of journalism. In France a distinction has often been drawn among ‘rationalist,’ ‘sensationalist,’ and ‘ideological’ newspapers, the latter including Catholic and Communist organs. In many countries local and regional papers are more commercially oriented and lack distinct political orientations, while national (or capital city) papers reflect distinct political tendencies. In the US, ethnic minority media have played an important role, and often practice a form of journalism that was intended less to provide neutral information than to defend the interests of a particular part of the community.

Diverse social and political systems have also given rise to diverse forms of journalism. In Europe, for example, although partisan journalism in the traditional sense has declined dramatically since the Second World War (the longest important survivor was the Italian Communist paper L’Unita), newspapers nevertheless have more clearly differentiated political orientations than those in the US. European journalists are also more likely to see commentary and to some degree advocacy as integral to the journalist’s role than their US counterparts (Mancini 1993, Donsbach and Klett 1993). An important distinction can also be drawn between societies where newspapers have mass circulations (mainly in Northern Europe, North America, and parts of East Asia) and those (in Southern Europe, for example, and most of Latin America) where their circulation is restricted to a relatively small, usually educated and politically-active elite. Print journalism tends to be more a part of the political world and less a part of the market in the latter, and it emphasizes ‘horizontal’ communication among political elites more than ‘vertical’ communication between elites and a mass public.

Journalism in Communist societies had its roots in the Western European tradition of party journalism, oriented toward political mobilization. But with the fusing of party and state, journalists became official figures and distinctive functions evolved. Journalists have often served a function similar to that of the ombudsman, for example—as someone to whom ordinary people would complain, hoping to be heard by those in power. Journalism was an important institution in Communist societies, well supported by the state, trade unions, and other official institutions to which it was attached. In countries where the communist party remains in power, particularly Vietnam and China, a complex hybrid of party control and market orientation is emerging (Zhao 1998).

In postcolonial societies, the most distinctive form of journalism to emerge was ‘development journalism,’ particularly prominent during the 1970s, which rejected the notion of the journalist as disinterested observer, and saw it as the function of the journalist to play an active role in promoting economic and political development. Development journalism was widely criticized for subservience to state power, though to a large extent the political caution which development journalists exercised was probably dictated by the same conditions of political life that affected all journalists in postcolonial societies, whatever model of journalism they espoused. In many ways, development journalism is similar to the tradition of ‘boosterism’ in US journalism, which similarly saw the newspaper as a force for the economic development of the community, and often similarly emphasized consensus over conflict.

5. Current Developments

A number of powerful forces are currently transforming journalism and its social role, described in the following sections.

5.1 The Rise Of Television

In most of the world, television news has increased in importance at the expense of print journalism. The mass public increasingly relies on television as a source of news, and political communication, which was once channeled mainly through newspapers and party organizations, flows increasingly through television. The direction of influence within journalism has also shifted. Television once clearly followed the lead of print journalism. Today, there is a complex reciprocal influence, and newspapers still increasingly emulate the agenda and style of television. In some countries, the US, for example, this trend is decades old. In others it is more recent, dating from the 1980s or early 1990s when the public service monopoly on broadcasting ended.

5.2 Commercialization

In many countries the news media have become increasingly commercialized and journalism more strongly influenced by market factors. In the West the news media have been substantially commercialized since the nineteenth century. But for much of the twentieth century the effects of market forces on the news media were partly counterbalanced by professionalization, by public service broadcasting, and by press subsidies, which many European countries expanded in the 1970s to keep politically oriented papers alive and prevent market forces from eliminating competing voices (Gustafsson 1980). All three have become relatively weaker in recent years. The rise of television and, in Europe and some other parts of the world, the displacement of public service by commercial broadcasting is an important reason. Commercial television is primarily an entertainment medium, and journalism is much less central than in the newspaper industry.

The culture of journalistic professionalism may also have been undercut by a general decline in the prestige of political life. A key element of that culture was the idea that journalists should make independent judgments about what the citizens needed to know about public affairs. Today it is increasingly assumed that it is the journalist’s job to provide whatever content interests the media consumer. The news agenda has shifted away from public affairs in the traditional sense, and toward human interest and ‘service’ journalism useful to ordinary people in everyday life (investment advice, health reporting) Journalistic autonomy has been undercut in important ways, as the business and editorial sides of news organizations are increasingly integrated.

Some argue that these changes have made journalism less elitist, more responsive to the concerns of the majority of the population, others that they undermine the integrity of the system of public communication. Journalism clearly has important functions for the society as a whole that most private industries do not have. It is central to political life, and to the process of opinion formation more generally; some have argued that it is increasingly central, as other institutions, political parties, and trade unions, for example, have weakened. It remains one of the key questions of media studies whether market mechanisms can provide the fulfillment of these functions, and if not, what other social mechanisms can be devised.

5.3 Democratization

In developing and newly industrialized countries, there has been a general move toward liberal democracy in recent years, with many authoritarian regimes giving way to multiparty systems and greater political openness. An increased emergence of independent news media has been associated with these changes, probably as both cause and effect. Opposition parties have increasingly gained access to the media in many countries, political scandals have proliferated (Waisbord 1994), and elites have lost much of the tight control over public discourse they once held. Often commercialization of the media has accompanied democratization, and this has led to a dramatic reorientation of journalism away from serving government officials and toward the mass audience, sometimes resulting in rapid shifts from ‘protocol news’ to sensational crime reporting. Many questions remain about whether and how democratic media systems will be consolidated in these societies. To what extent will advertising-based media in societies where the middle class remains relatively small serve the majority of the population? To what extent will media owners—often small in numbers as the economic base of the media is limited—attempt to use the media to support their own political interests? Under what conditions can standards of professionalism evolve that will limit demagoguery or manipulation of political information?

5.4 New Technologies

Most discussion of the impact of new, particularly digital technologies remains speculative. It is clear that the boundaries between technology-based genres of journalism—print, radio, television—will be broken down. Some have argued that proliferation of channels will make journalism less central as a mediator of information—people will watch events live or exchange information directly on the Internet. Multiplication of channels has indeed created competition for the role of mediator as, for example, MTV or Internet gossip sheets compete with network television and mainstream newspapers. It is also quite possible, however, that the proliferation of information and its centrality in economic and social life will make those who collect and synthesize it more rather than less important. It is also not clear whether new technologies and the new information industries arising around them will result in fragmentation of journalism into distinct genres targeting different demographic groups, or in new forms of competition for a mass audience.

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