Both Sides of the Story: Communication Ethics in Mediatized Worlds

Current transformations in the media landscape are challenging contemporary communication and media ethics in at least 2 ways. First, digitization of the media creates new ethical problems that stimulate calls for a redefinition of the norms and values of public communication. Second, new instruments of web-based media observation introduce new possibilities for media (self-)regulation and accountability, thus complementing the initiatives of traditional institutions like press councils. The article retraces those conflicting developments by reference to 2 comparative studies, representing the diverging traditions of conventional communication ethics and media accountability research. In bridging over the conceptual gap between the 2 forms of research, the article develops new perspectives for ethical reflection in the mediatized worlds of the digital ag

Under the influence: Advertisers’ impact on the content of Swiss free newspapers

The study focuses on whether and to what extent advertisers influence the editorial content of free newspapers in the German part of Switzerland. The contribution analyzes, grounded on an historic approach, the most competitive period in Switzerland, 2008, when not less than five freesheets were competing for advertisers and public attention. By using Altmeppen’s (2006) organizational theory, the paper offers a theoretical frame able to describe the vanishing co-orientation between the media management and the newsroom, a trend that aggravates commercialization processes in news organizations. In a situation of economic turmoil, so the hypothesis, newsrooms are more inclined to positively adapt the valence of their coverage about their main advertisers in order to keep them in the portfolio. Using a content analysis, the author examined the editorial coverage of six among the most important advertisers of Swiss free newspapers, carrying out an aggregated statistical analysis based on logistic regression. The study revealed that free newspapers with a strong market orientation display a higher chance to publish positive facts and evaluations about advertisers with a high advertising expenditure

Training or Improvisation? Citizen journalists and their educational backgrounds-a comparative view

While citizen journalists hope to bring new impulses to mass media performance, it is often asked whether they are adequately trained for the production of “newsworthy” stories. This paper focuses on educational aspects of citizen journalism, which, to date, have largely been disregarded by empirical research. A comparative analytical design illustrates the different ways in which citizen journalists acquire and develop the skills that are necessary to undertake journalistic activities in the different journalism cultures throughout Europe. The authors carried out a multi-national analysis in six European countries (United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Poland). In each country, an extensive desk study helped to map the field of citizen journalism and highlight the most relevant examples. Semi-structured interviews with 54 practitioners in the field (representing different types of citizen journalism) made it possible to identify the alternative strategies that citizen journalists employ to prepare themselves for news production initiatives. The research demonstrates that the educational backgrounds of citizen journalists display differences as well as similarities—both within and across journalism cultures. While some of the actors in the field have a clear idea of what constitutes good journalism (and sometimes even aspire to work in a mainstream media organization), others seem to care little about journalistic standards and have only a vague idea about the identity of the profession. On the basis of these insights, the paper develops a typology of citizen journalists that takes into account both their education and their journalistic scope

From Open Journalism to Closed Data: Data Journalism in Italy

The study investigates how journalists construct the rise of data journalism discursively within the specific political and economic conditions of Italy, and whether data journalists describe it as able to promote transparency at the level of both journalism and society as a whole. Italy is an interesting case for four different reasons: (1) to date, few analyses have been carried out on Mediterranean countries; (2) the Italian media system and its traditional journalism culture appear to be reluctant to innovate; (3) Italian data journalists are generally freelancers linked to small news agencies rather than established newsrooms; (4) the research reported in this paper was accomplished while the Italian government was approving a Freedom of Information Act. From the end of 2015 to the beginning of 2017, we carried out 15 interviews with data journalists working full-time for both established news organizations and specialized agencies. The findings show that data journalism in Italy is a highly professional sub-field, although journalistic education is not well developed. Data journalism is still largely determined by the availability and accessibility of public datasets. However, data journalists have developed certain strategies with which to generate and collect their own data, for instance collaborations and networks

The datafication of digital journalism: A history of everlasting challenges between ethical issues and regulation

Data permeates nearly all spheres of society, and journalism is no exception to this since data has become a cornerstone of reality construction and perception. This contribution sets out to historicize the datafication processes in digital journalism and the way in which European institutions of media (self-)regulation have dealt with ethical issues regarding the use of data in algorithmic journalism in three areas: accountability, transparency, and privacy. The article shows that the process of datafication in journalism cannot be observed and analyzed in isolation, given that there is a double reflexivity between data-driven societal transformation processes and what happens in journalism. However, almost all press councils in Europe have so far ignored data-driven phenomena like algorithms or news automation. As a consequence, if self-regulators do not regulate, other institutions will, with the risk of news organizations being forced to make decisions on the grounds of regulatory frameworks that are not primarily intended for journalism