globalisation

So, as we have seen in previous weeks, the most important development over the past twenty years in international communication has been the increase in concentration of media ownership both nationally and internationally. This concentration of news ownership has pretty much come with a commercialisaiton of news and the ‘softening’ up of news stories. It is my understanding that all of these processes are part of globalisation. Mix new media technologies (namely the internet) into all of this and we have quite a complicated little situation on our hands – so complicated in fact, that both the media and the legal system have been forced to re-evaluate their roles.

So global media giants enter into partnerships with national media firms and produce, provide and disseminate news and entertainment to domestic markets. Satellite broadcasting has more or less projected these products into the cultural and information marketplace of every section of the globe.

So where does this leave the rest of us? If these trends continue does that mean that we will come into an age where the majority of the worlds information and entertainment is provided by or somehow connected to one of these global media conglomerates. Herman and McChesney seem to think that these corporations will even dominate the internet in years to come.

I think that global regulations need to be put in place in order to ensure that media conglomerates and trans national corporations maintain high standards of news – it’s a slippery slope that we are on at the moment and I would really like to see journalisms integrity restored.

I found a really food article on the whole issue, you can check it out here:

http://www.idsnet.org/Papers/Communications/HEMANT_SHAH.HTM

Churnalism?

Who watched the 7.30 Report tonight (27/8)? If you missed it you should really check it out on the show's website - Nick Davies raises a lot of the issues which we have been discussing in class for the past five or so weeks. I really liked his concept of churnalism - and I must say that I agree with much of what he was saying. Journalists are basically time poor now and therefore don't really be seeming to be actively going out and seeking and gathering information - instead they just 'churn' the information which flows in to them. Davies uses the example of the weapons of mass destruction in the Iraq War, and basically states that the media clutch on to certain stories and just run with them, then when they blow up, nothing is really done to rectify the misinterpretation. Another example which has been mentioned in class is the Haneef affair - the guy basically had his life in Australia destroyed by AFP, government and media - he turned out to be innocent in the end, yet there was no real reflection on how the media stuffed things up so badly.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the journalists fault - it's just the state of the profession today - the pressures that journalists have to deal with today (commercialism, the Internet - bloggers + citizen journalism etc) have completely changed the playing field from what it was thirty or so years ago (that's not to say that there weren't problems back then though).

I'm really confused about what I think is going to happen to the profession of journalism in the next ten or so years. I think I'll have to do some more reading on the issue and mull it over a bit and perhaps come back to it in a few weeks time after it has all sunk in.

The practice of journalism

So, we have defined (or attempted to define) what a journalist actually is - but what of the practice of journalism? The readings this week looked at the role of journalism and how it has changed throughout history. The practice of journalism developed from the idea that media institutions should be seen as 'the fourth estate' - completely independent from the judiciary, government and parliament - adopting a sort of 'watchdog' role within society. However, I think it is obvious that this is no longer the case. Previous readings have showed us how the journalist can no longer be independent and that there are always pressures (financial, commercial, corporate, government) which influence the way in which journalism is now done. The Iraq War is a perfect example of how journalists are no longer able to maintain their 'watchdog' role - http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_iraqmedia.shtml - this article really highlights the point. I particularly like this section of it:

"He [Todd Gitlin] likened some war coverage – particularly that practiced by television – to a televised sporting event. Rather than journalism, it becomes entertainment. When the primary motive of media institutions becomes audience share, then these institutions "seek a rapture of attention" in order to procure as many eyeballs as possible. This, said Gitlin, conflicts with "a journalistic duty not to please," but rather to shake the safe assumptions of their audience." (Berkley News Online, 2004).

In the reading, Carey argues that journalism came about as a form of speech, a flow of conversation "that enabled the specific social formation of 'the public'" (Meadows 2008, 43). However, the question needs to be asked - who is now participating in this conversation? Are journalists really playing out their role of the fourth estate or are they simply the mouthpieces of the people paying them? I liked Gramsci's ideal of journalism, an ideal which looks to "not only satisfy all the needs of its public, but also to create and develop these needs, to arouse the public and to progressively enlarge it" (Meadow 2008, 45). Ideally, journalism should be a form of communication in which the public can participate to sustain democracy - however, as already highlighted, this is not the case.

The combining of information and entertainment has also had pretty dire effects on the practice of journalism. What constitutes news now? Is news the stories on 'Today Tonight' which describe how yoghurt can kill you? I don't think so, yet there seems to be a pretty big shift towards towards these kinds of 'human interest' stories. Oh no! Turner also believes that the move towards 'infotainment' has had detrimental effects on journalistic practices.

Journalism needs to put the public back into the practice if they want to survive in contemporary society. Gone are the days where newspapers and journalists were a persons only window to the world. New technology, like the Internet, allows almost anyone to adopt the role of a journalist. The information we want is only a click or two away - much of it is not even filtered or altered by the pressures which traditional journalistic practices are effected by. Journalism needs to change its practices pretty drastically if it is to remain relevant today.

More on journalists

In chapter two, Hirst and McManus give journalists a pretty hard time and assert that "journalists are peddlers of a commodity called information that is marketed to commercial advantage". (Burns 2008, 25). Burns also goes on to state that the advertiser is the most important customer in journalism, and furthermore, that the advertiser is always right. Evidence of this can be found in the 'cash for comment' scandal - where John Laws was more than happy to 'advertise' banks to his listeners if it meant gaining a multi-million dollar deal (the ads were passed off as Laws' opinion). However, Laws maintained that he was not a journalist, but an entertainer and should therefore not be held accountable to a journalists code of ethics. The idea of journalists as entertainers is further explored in the text.

So how do we classify journalists if the proverbial line between journalists and entertainers is becoming increasingly blurred? Are the boys from 'Chasers' journalists or entertainers? They don't educate and inform in the traditional journalistic sense - but what they do is certainly a lot more appealing to a fifteen year old then reading a newspaper or watching SBS. They still discuss current affairs (though it seems as though they do more silly skits these days), so are they journalists or entertainers or both?

Burns sums up the ideological divide pretty well, stating: "it may be argued that the commercial imperative that seems so at odds with the aspirations of a free press is at the very core of the media's independence from government control, thus securing its role as a public watchdog". Poor journalists, there is obvious some serious conflict going on between their role to inform and educate and then their job to make profits for their bosses.