Academic publications.
Academic publications by our members.
Our research is pushing forward the conversation on risk journalism during a time where the world faces global risks mediated by communication.
“Journalism in a Globalized Risk Area: Between Networks, Interdependencies and Power Relations” by Ingrid Volkmer, Ansgard Heinrich, and Lea Hellmueller in The International Communication Gazette, Special Issue: Journalism in a Globalized Risk Arena: Between Networks, Interdependencies and Power Relations
Decades ago, the consequences of climate change, humanitarian disasters, military conflict, financial crises, or migration have been mainly addressed in relation to national implications by national news journalism. However, it seems that today, crises like these and many others, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine or the Middle East conflict appear ‘de-territorialized’ as their transnational implications are increasingly in focus of national and local journalism across continents….[T]his Special Issue aims to shift the focus towards a transnational perspective in which today’s ‘risk’ realities serve as the lens to study journalistic production.
“Journalistic role conceptions and performance in the global south: A comparison between Egypt and the UAE during COVID-19” by Maha Abdulmajeed and Rasha El-Ibiary in The International Communication Gazette, Special Issue: Journalism in a Globalized Risk Arena: Between Networks, Interdependencies and Power Relations
Journalists in Egypt and the UAE have been differently challenged by the COVID-19 situation at multiple levels, (1) individual (2) work/routines and (3) media/organizational while covering COVID-19. Using the hierarchy of influences model, we analyze the differentiated journalists’ role conceptions, perceived performance, and challenges they faced in covering COVID-19, and how that affect their performance, as Global South-based journalists. Applying a mixed method approach, we conducted in-depth interviews with 20 journalists who reported COVID-19, representing different media platforms, as a part of the Global Risk Journalism Hub project. We also surveyed journalists (n 102) from both countries, as a part of the Journalistic Role Performance project. Findings revealed that media-organizational level challenges influenced journalists more than other levels. Journalists also shifted from the Civic Role Conception to performing the Loyal-Facilitator Role followed by the Interventionist Role during the pandemic.
“The risks of peace: exploring the relationship between peaveocracy and journalism in Kenya” by Cecilia Arregui Olivera and David Cheruiyot in The International Communication Gazette, Special Issue: Journalism in a Globalized Risk Arena: Between Networks, Interdependencies and Power Relations
Scholars have recently suggested that a peaceocracy is emerging in nations experiencing intermittent conflicts. A peaceocracy is an institutionalised political strategy – rather than a political system – that aims to promote stability in states considered fragile. While scholars know how the press functions in a democracy, little is still known about how a peaceocracy shapes journalism. This article explores the Kenyan context to illuminate how the press co-opts a peaceocratic discourse and discusses its implications to the profession. We pose that a political consensus between the state and the press foments a strong peace-building discourse that challenges professional autonomy. Secondly, in a peaceocracy, the state takes the role of the guardian of peace and the press, a promoter of peace, both of which legitimise a degree of restriction on press freedom.
“Newswork in crisis: sourcing patterns during COVID-19 through a ‘lived experience’ perspective” by Paschalia (Lia) Spyridou, Pantelis Vatikiotis, and Theodora A Maniou in The International Communication Gazette, Special Issue: Journalism in a Globalized Risk Arena: Between Networks, Interdependencies and Power Relations
During crises the newsmedia are expected to provide relevant and accurate information to help citizens comprehend the crisis and act upon it. As a source-driven practice, journalism relies on a variety of sources to validate news and provide perspectives. The disruptive nature of a crisis though raises questions about how journalists select sources and what these choices say about professional autonomy and criticality. Considering source choices as newsgathering venues and strategies, and drawing on semi-structured interviews with journalists in Greece and Cyprus, the study explores the factors that shaped journalists’ sourcing practices during the COVID-19 crisis. We find that journalists over-relied on political sources and selective authoritative voices compromising the tenets of verification and independence. The fear to convey inaccurate or ‘biased’ information amid disinformation flows, bolstered journalist's elite orientation. Professional precarity and economic pressures are found to further worsen the ‘lived experience’ of journalists limiting their ability to question and scrutinise power in times of crises.
“Saving our democracies and saving our planet: The current challenge” by Guillherme Canela in The International Communication Gazette, Special Issue: Journalism in a Globalized Risk Arena: Between Networks, Interdependencies and Power Relations
The entire planet, regardless of the specificities of the regional, national or local problems, is facing two existential risks at a global scale: serious threats to democratic institutions and the environmental crisis.
There are no simple solutions to complex problems. Likewise, there are no isolated solutions to global problems. A transnational approach, with a robust multilateral and multistakeholder governance system, is a necessary pre-condition to move forward.
Journalism is a vital piece in this puzzle. Holding powerful actors accountable; bringing corruption, human rights violations, and environmental crimes to daylight; contributing to counter the massive waves of disinformation that are damaging our democracies and slowing down the response to the climate crisis; tackling hate speech and conspiracy theories, which are concrete obstacles to peacebuilding – these are among the tasks we expect that journalists and journalism should perform in this extremely difficult global landscape.
“Risk Journalism and Globalized Crisis Ecologies: Journalists as ‘Cosmopolitan’ Actors” by Ingrid Volkmer in The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism
The term ‘risk journalism’ is traditionally used in international scholarly debates to address the various dangers journalists are exposed to in their work. The direct risks to journalists are also extended to digital domains, including, distortion of journalistic narratives by “fake” news, the threats made by extremist social media groups or professional and personal risks caused by content traceability – either exercised by authoritarian governments or commercial entities, often labelled as “surveillance capitalism”. In the case of climate change research, however, a close review reveals that the innovative and fine-lined methodological approaches outlined above seldom informed actual research angles. The emphasis on the reflexive perception of journalists in contexts of global crises allows us to better illuminate the specific ways in which they construct the crisis, such as climate change, how they perceive key issues and how they develop notions of crisis interdependence.
“News Reporting of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South” by Sara Chinnasamy and Felipe F. Salvosa in The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism
Two years after the appearance of the first cases of contagion, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be an important object of study for researchers in media and journalism studies. The challenges faced by journalists as a result of COVID-19 must be understood and addressed in order to safeguard a diverse and healthy media ecosystem and freedom of speech. Many journalists are exposed to great sanitary risks when reporting on the health crisis and only a few ones receive safety guidelines or protective gear. The health crisis has also exposed glaring inequalities in the industry in which journalists working for news organizations under large business conglomerates have better access to health protection and safety gear, aside from greater resources for mobilization and news coverage. Journalists likewise often lack guidance on how to report within the context of the pandemic and there was some difficulty in verifying information online.
"The Challenges of Journalism in the Republic of Macedonia during the COVID-19 Pandemic" by Eleonora Serafimovska and Marijana Markovikj in Balkan Social Science Review
The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has led to serious changes in the lives of citizens. In a time of restricted mobility, people had to rely on media news and information to help them understand the COVID-19 crisis, hear the latest information on the extent of the spread of the disease, and learn how they can protect themselves and their families. In conditions when the media become a single window to reality and events, the role of journalists is especially important, as in any crisis situation. Hence the research interest is on difficulties faced by journalists in carrying out their mission. The research question was defined as: “What are the challenges of journalism in the Republic of Macedonia during the pandemic? What did journalists actually face in the process of providing timely information to the public?” The definition of the research problem was aimed at examining how the pandemic affected journalism in terms of the safety of journalists' physical and mental health, changing working conditions, use of information sources, exposure to pressures and influences from various factors and / or institutions. The ongoing research aims to test the assumptions that journalists and media professionals in the country work in unpredictable, stressful and difficult conditions related to their physical and mental health, amid increased pressure from state authorities in the pandemic reporting process, as well as an increasing amount of misinformation, fake news and hate speech.
Data Journalism in the Global South, edited by Bruce Mutsvairo and Saba Bebawi
This book provides the first critical overview of data journalism in the Global South. It includes empirical and theoretical chapters organised geographically in four sections. Data Journalism in the Global South incorporates contributions from a wide range of countries from researchers with first-hand experience of evolving practice.
Risk Journalism between Transnational Politics and Climate Change, by Ingrid Volkmer and Kasim Sharif
This book introduces a new methodology to assess the way in which journalists today operate within a new sphere of communicative ‘public’ interdependence across global digital communities by focusing on climate change debates. The authors propose a framework of ‘cosmopolitan loops,’ which addresses three major transformations in journalistic practice: the availability of ‘fluid’ webs of data which situate journalistic practice in a transnational arena; the increased involvement of journalists from developing countries in a transnationally interdependent sphere; and the increased awareness of a larger interconnected globalized ‘risk’ dimension of even local issues which shapes a new sphere of news ‘horizons.’ The authors draw on interviews with journalists to demonstrate that the construction of climate change ‘issues’ is increasingly situated in an emerging dimension of journalistic interconnectivity with climate actors across local, global and digital arenas and through physical and digital spaces of flows.
"Social Media’s Challenge to Journalistic Norms and Values during a Terror Attack" by Maria Konow-Lund in Digital Journalism
Over the past decade, the frequency of terror attacks around the world has increased. In the context of the 22 July 2011 terror attacks in Norway, social media use by citizens, and even victims, became an essential feature of reporting. Social media confronted the legacy media’s way of covering crisis events. It raised questions about traditional journalism’s ability to handle audience’s as, not only news consumers, but also producers. In the present article, we look at the ways in which the professional norms and values of traditional journalism are specifically challenged by social media use in times of terror, using the 22 July 2011 attacks as a case study. We find that Norwegian journalists initially held to their professional roles, and to the classic self-representational principles of journalism, including objectivity, autonomy and immediacy. When they integrated social media into their traditional platforms and modes of coverage, they framed it as a “source” of sorts. As the 22 July 2011 event coverage became more focused on the collective grief felt by the nation, in turn, the traditional journalistic principles of objectivity and autonomy became less relevant, enabling yet more audience participation and social media use in relation to the attack.
The Global Public Sphere: Public Communication in the Age of Reflective Interdependence by Ingrid Volkmer
Over the last several years, the debate about publics seems to have newly emerged. This debate critically reflects the Habermasian ideal of a (national) public sphere in a transnational context. However, it seems that the issue of a reconstruction of a global public sphere is more complex. In this brilliant and provocative book, Ingrid Volkmer argues that a reflective approach of globalization is required in order to identify and deconstruct key strata of deliberate public discourse in supra- and subnational societal formations. This construction helps to understand the new processes of legitimacy at the beginning of the 21st century in which the traditional conception of a ‘public’ and its role as a legitimizing force are being challenged and transformed. The book unfolds this key phenomenon of global deliberate interconnectedness as a discursive and negotiated dimension within ‘reflective’ globalization, i.e. continuously constituting, maintaining and refining the ‘life’ of the global public and conceptualizes a global public sphere.
Offering insightful case studies to illustrate this new theory of the global public sphere, the book will be essential reading for students and scholars of media and communication studies , and social and political theory.