Renegotiating online news: Journalism in the classroom

Online journalism is negotiated and renegotiated in the newsroom of Journalen, the training website for students in journalism at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, the paper examines three spring terms of online news production by journalism students, particularly looking at sources, links and their multimedia news production. The findings are compared to the students’ professional peers in four news sites in the same period. All five sites are moving towards a convergent news modality. But the students tend to use more sources than their professional peer

Crises, Rumours and Reposts: Journalists’ Social Media Content Gathering and Verification Practices in Breaking News Situations

Social media (SoMe) platforms provide potentially important information for news journalists during everyday work and in crisis-related contexts. The aims of this study were (a) to map central journalistic challenges and emerging practices related to using SoMe for collecting and validating newsworthy content; and (b) to investigate how practices may contribute to a user-friendly design of a web-based SoMe content validation toolset. Interviews were carried out with 22 journalists from three European countries. Information about journalistic work tasks was also collected during a crisis training scenario (N = 5). Results showed that participants experienced challenges with filtering and estimating trustworthiness of SoMe content. These challenges were especially due to the vast overall amount of information, and the need to monitor several platforms simultaneously. To support improved situational awareness in journalistic work during crises, a user-friendly tool should provide content search results representing several media formats and gathered from a diversity of platforms, presented in easy-to-approach visualizations. The final decision-making about content and source trustworthiness should, however, remain as a manual journalistic task, as the sample would not trust an automated estimation based on tool algorithms.Peer reviewe

Renegotiating online news: Journalism in the classroom

Online journalism is negotiated and renegotiated in the newsroom of Journalen, the training website for students in journalism at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, the paper examines three spring terms of online news production by journalism students, particularly looking at sources, links and their multimedia news production. The findings are compared to the students’ professional peers in four news sites in the same period. All five sites are moving towards a convergent news modality. But the students tend to use more sources than their professional peer

“Do You Tweet When Your Friends Are Getting Shot?” Victims’ Experience With, and Perspectives on, the Use of Social Media During a Terror Attack

On 22 July 2011, a lone wolf terrorist attacked Norway. At the island of Utøya, he killed 69 people. This article asks how the youth at the camp on the island used social media (SoMe) in the emergency situation caused by the terrorist. Answers could give significant contribution to the growing research on SoMe and crisis, especially since there is a research gap when it comes to examine terror victims’ use of SoMe. This study is based on qualitative interviews with eight survivors. Based on the campers’experiences, how do they evaluate the opportunities and challenges of SoMe during a terrorist attack? What were the reasons for not using SoMe? What was the purpose of using SoMe during the attack? SoMe play an essential role in crisis communication strategies as well as being an increasingly important tool for the public. Although verification of SoMe content is difficult, SoMe have become important sources for journalists. This study offers best practices for journalists from victims. Moreover, it sheds light on how SoMe played a role for the victims in alerting, giving and receiving information, as well as building hope and resilience

Ideal og realitet. En analyse av nyhetsreportasjen i tre norske aviser.

Nyhetsreportasjens kommunikasjonshensikt er todelt. Den formidler en hendelse eller annen informasjon som redaksjonen vurderer som en nyhet. Dessuten er nyhetsreportasjens hensikt å gi leseren iakttakelser og beskrivelser, og den går dypere og bredere inn i stoffet enn nyhetsmeldingen gjør. Slik er nyhetsreportasjen både preget av sjangeren reportasje og har føringer fra det løpende nyhetsarbeidets konvensjoner. Oppgaven undersøker forholdet mellom nyhetsreportasjen i tre norske aviser og sjangeridealet. Gjennom innholdsanalyse av Adresseavisen, Helgelands Blad og VG i 2003, intervjuer med informanter og tekstanalyse av seks konkrete nyhetsreportasjer, finner jeg at empirien i stor grad samsvarer med sjangermønstrene, slik forskning og faglitteratur beskriver dem. Sentralt står spørsmålet om sjangeren er under press. Målt i forhold til nyhetsreportasjens andel av redaksjonelt areal er svaret et rungende ja. Men journalistene klarer balansegangen mellom reportasjesjangerens og faktajournalistikkens føringer. Slik står nyhetsreportasjen frem som en klar sjanger, men en sjanger som brukes lite

Hvordan blir barnevernets oppdrag framstilt i kommunikasjonsstrategiene?

Vi undersøker hvordan barnevernets to siste kommunikasjonsstrategier framstiller barnevernets oppdrag. Både Et åpent barnevern og Barnevernet – en hjelper vil bedre barnevernets omdømme og høyne dets legitimitet. Vi påstår at det foregår en kamp om definisjonen av barnevernet i offentligheten. Ved hjelp av kritisk diskursanalyse (Fairclough, 1992, 2010) finner vi at kommunikasjonsstrategien fra 2008 underkommuniserer det kontroversielle ved barnevernet og gjør mediene til syndebukk for hvordan barnevernet oppfattes. Kommunikasjonsstrategien fra 2012 synliggjør det såkalte risikobarnevernet (Stang, 2007), men bygger samtidig ut omtalen av hjelperdiskursen og det noen kaller velferdsbarnevernet (ibid., Kojan 2011). Offentlige inngrep i forholdet mellom foreldre og barn kan være omstridt, og barnevernet har følgelig et svært krevende samfunnsoppdrag. Derfor er barnevernets kommunikasjonsstrategi viktig for å nå ut til publikum. I artikkelen analyserer vi barnevernets to siste kommunikasjonsstrategier Et åpent barnevern – kommunikasjonsstrategi for barnevernet 2008–2011 og Barnevernet – en hjelper. Kommunikasjonsstrategi for barnevernet 2013–201