Mark Coddington

Clarifying Journalism’s Quantitative Turn

As quantitative forms have become more prevalent in professional journalism, it has become increasingly important to distinguish between them and examine their roles in contemporary journalistic practice. This study defines and compares three quantitative forms of journalism—computer-assisted reporting, data journalism, and computational journalism—examining the points of overlap and divergence among their journalistic values and practices. After setting the three forms against the cultural backdrop of the convergence between the open-source movement and professional journalistic norms, the study introduces a four-part typology to evaluate their epistemological and professional dimensions. In it, the three forms are classified according to their orientation toward professional expertise or networked participation, transparency or opacity, big data or targeted sampling, and a vision of an active or passive public. These three quantitative journalistic forms are ultimately characterized as related but distinct approaches to integrating the values of open-source culture and social science with those of professional journalism, each with its own flaws but also its own distinct contribution to democratically robust journalistic practice.

Reciprocal Journalism: A concept of mutual exchange between journalists and audiences

Reciprocity, a defining feature of social life, has long been considered a key component in the formation and perpetuation of vibrant communities. In recent years, scholars have applied the concept to understanding the social dynamics of online communities and social media. Yet, the function of and potential for reciprocity in (digital) journalism has yet to be examined. Drawing on a structural theory of reciprocity, this essay introduces the idea of reciprocal journalism: a way of imagining how journalists might develop more mutually beneficial relationships with audiences across three forms of exchange—direct, indirect, and sustained types of reciprocity. The perspective of reciprocal journalism highlights the shortcomings of most contemporary approaches to audience engagement and participatory journalism. It situates journalists as community-builders who, particularly in online spaces, might more readily catalyze patterns of reciprocal exchange—directly with readers, indirectly among community members, and repeatedly over time—that, in turn, may contribute to the development of greater trust, connectedness, and social capital. For scholars, reciprocal journalism provides a new analytical framework for evaluating the journalist–audience relationship, suggesting a set of diagnostic questions for studying the exchange of benefits as journalists and audiences increasingly engage one another in networked environments. We introduce this concept in the context of community journalism but also discuss its relevance for journalism broadly.

Whose news? Whose values? Citizen journalism and journalistic values through the lens of content creators and consumers

As user-generated content (UGC) and citizen-driven forms of journalism have risen to prominence alongside professional media production, they have presented a challenge to traditional journalistic values and processes. This study examines that challenge from the perspective of the creators and consumers of citizen-driven news content, exploring their perceptions of citizen journalism and the professional tenets of good journalism. Through a nationally representative survey of US adults, this study finds that citizen journalism consumers hold more positive attitudes toward citizen journalism, but do not show a significant identification with professional journalistic values, while general news consumption is positively related with affirmation of professional journalistic values. Compared with consumption, content creation plays a relatively insignificant role in predicting attitudes toward citizen journalism and the professional tenets of good journalism. Implications for understanding the changing perspectives of news creators and consumers are discussed.

Defending a Paradigm by Patrolling a Boundary Two Global Newspapers’ Approach to WikiLeaks

Drawing on the concepts of paradigm repair and professional boundary work, this study examined the way the New York Times and the Guardian portrayed the whistle-blowing group WikiLeaks as being beyond the bounds of professional journalism. Through a textual analysis of Times and Guardian content about WikiLeaks during 2010 and early 2011, the study found that the Times depicted WikiLeaks as outside journalism’s professional norms regarding institutionality, source-based reporting routines, and objectivity, while the Guardian did so only with institutionality. That value thus emerged as a supranational journalistic norm, while source-based reporting routines and objectivity were bound within national contexts.

Fact Checking the Campaign How Political Reporters Use Twitter to Set the Record Straight (or Not)

In a multichannel era of fragmented and contested political communication, both misinformation and fact checking have taken on new significance. The rise of Twitter as a key venue for political journalists would seem to support their fact-checking activities. Through a content analysis of political journalists’ Twitter discourse surrounding the 2012 presidential debates, this study examines the degree to which fact-checking techniques were used on Twitter and the ways in which journalists on Twitter adhered to the practices of either “professional” or “scientific” objectivity—the mode that underlies the fact-checking enterprise—or disregarded objectivity altogether. A typology of tweets indicates that fact checking played a notable but secondary role in journalists’ Twitter discourse. Professional objectivity, especially simple stenography, dominated reporting practices on Twitter, and opinion and commentary were also prevalent. We determine that Twitter is indeed conducive to some elements of fact checking. But taken as a whole, our data suggest that journalists and commentators posted opinionated tweets about the candidates’ claims more often than they fact checked those claims.

Seeking and Sharing: Motivations for Linking on Twitter

Hyperlinks are connective devices that allow users to direct each other in digital spaces while also demonstrating their own interests in specific types of content. Communication scholars have analyzed motivations for the use of social network sites (SNSs) at a broad level, opening up questions about the impetus for sharing hyperlinks in these spaces. In particular, scholars have focused on Twitter as an important platform for news and information sharing and community building, exploring a variety of motivations for its use. This study expands upon recent research by analyzing user motivations for posting hyperlinks on Twitter. Through a survey of Twitter users, this study revealed a central social role for hyperlinks, indicating their use to seek information by soliciting reciprocal linking from other users. The findings provide new insights for researchers and practitioners into an increasingly important part of users’ engagement and information flows on Twitter. Broader implications for media scholars and practitioners are discussed.

When the Gates Swing Open: Examining Network Gatekeeping in a Social Media Setting

This study draws on the concept of network gatekeeping to examine the ways in which organizations have adapted the processes of gatekeeping to respond to the collaborative, communicative power of users upon which they are exercising their gatekeeping authority. Through a case study of the unprecedented “Social Suite” provided for social media-using fans of Major League Baseballs Cleveland Indians, this article explores the methods the gatekeeper has used to both subvert and reinforce its traditional role. Gatekeepers are found to extend their authority into networked realms by allowing for greater access, freedom, and relationship while applying more subtle gatekeeping filters, and the Social Suites users play a role as active, though gated, participants in the gatekeeping process. The findings of this article expand on current gatekeeping research to address the fluid, emerging roles of gatekeepers and gated communities within networked environments.

Normalizing the Hyperlink

This study examines the formation of linking norms among political bloggers and professional journalists. Through in-depth interviews with Web editors, reporters, and bloggers within and outside professional newsrooms, it explores the institutional and cultural forces at work in determining whom blogs and news sites link to, and in what contexts. Drawing on the framework of institutionalism, this study aims to supplement research on journalistic normalization and hyperlink patterns by providing a fuller understanding of the processes by which professional journalism and the political blogosphere mutually adapt toward new norms. It finds a significant role for blogging’s cultural values in establishing the importance of linking within professional newsrooms, but also a heavy influence on journalists’ linking practices from bureaucratic processes within those newsrooms.

Defending judgment and context in ‘original reporting’: Journalists’ construction of newswork in a networked age

With professional journalism facing vigorous competition over its jurisdiction in information production from online aggregators and networked forms of journalism, this article examines how journalists publicly construct their own reporting work in opposition to a networked alternative and argue to the public for its value. It does so through a qualitative analysis of discourse from mainstream journalistic sources regarding the document-leaking group WikiLeaks, identifying distinctions journalists made to differentiate their work and its professional value from that of WikiLeaks. The analysis suggests that journalists assign less importance to the sociocultural conventions and objects of evidence that have traditionally constituted professional newswork – documents, interviews, and eyewitness observation – and more significance instead to the less materially bound practices of providing context, judgment, and narrative power. In doing so, journalists cast themselves fundamentally as sense-makers rather than information-gatherers during an era in which information gathering has been widely networked.

Interacting with Audiences

Drawing on open-ended responses to a representative survey of US journalists, this article examines how journalists’ role conceptions may be associated with distinct perceptions of and practices toward audiences, whether online or offline. In particular, this research considers the potential for more reciprocal, or mutually beneficial, interactions between journalists and audiences. Using exploratory factor analysis and normalized index scores, journalists are characterized within four role conceptions. Results show that Populist Mobilizer and Entertainment roles are more associated with digital audience engagement, while Loyal Support and Public Service roles better characterize offline interactions. Findings point to a need for better explanations of how journalists’ role conceptions connect with their engaging (or not) in more purposeful, persistent and reciprocal interactions with audiences.