Martin Eide

Public/Private Service Service Journalism and the Problems of Everyday Life

This article discusses service journalism — the way the news media provide their audiences with information, advice and help about the problems of everyday life — in light of the theory of the public sphere and the growth of subpolitics fostered by reflexive modernization. Service journalism addresses two main types of everyday problem — grievances and risks — but it tends to subsume the former under the latter due to the effects of promotionalism as an increasingly dominant logic shaping the popularization of media formats and content. Apropos the public sphere debate, we argue that service journalism addresses a hybrid social subject — part citizen, part consumer and part client. Moreover, despite the fact that service journalism tends to individualize problems, it is amenable to politicization inasmuch as it shares common ground — the problems of everyday life — with the social movements and advocacy/activism groups that are the collective, motive force of subpolitics. Subpolitics politicizes the problems of everyday life in the way that it tends to subsume risk under grievance and break with the exclusionary, binary logic of mediational politics. This allows plural identities, individualistic and collectivistic, to coexist in an ambivalent and fluid way.

`Science journalism' without science journalists: notes on a Norwegian media paradox

This article discusses recent developments of the relationship between scientists and journalists in Norway, a country without a tradition of science journalism. A general professional upgrading among journalists is now accompanied by a growing interest in science coverage. Paradoxically, this coverage is already extensive, though as yet not of high quality. For a proper understanding of the traditions as well as new tendencies within science coverage, we discuss cultures and traditions—within academic as well as in the media—and specific socio-historical contexts. The discussion is based on surveys among scientists interviewed on TV and in newspapers, and on a content analysis of the coverage of social science in Norwegian dailies.

Accounting for Journalism

Annual editorial reports are emerging as a prominent example of media accountability systems. This particular device is designed as a response to the increasing need for the justification and legitimation of journalism. Increasing transparency is often stated as a goal of these editorial reports. The critical question, then, is how such ambitions are realized. Do annual editorial reports promote a genuine public discourse about journalistic standards? Or will the arrangement inevitably degenerate into just another example of strategic communication? Is this actually an accountability system or is it first and foremost an incidence of self-promotion and marketing? To what extent do annual editorial reports include cooperation with the audience? This paper offers a reading of examples of annual editorial reports, in order to understand their vices and virtues as an accountability system.

How Online Journalists Learn within a Non-Formal Context.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of workplace learning, with a focus on the non-formal learning that takes place among online journalists. The focus of this article is journalists working in an online newspaper and their experiences with workplace and non-formal learning, centring on framework conditions and learning environments. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data in this article are based on qualitative interviews conducted with journalists working in an online newspaper in the Western part of Norway. The sample comprises of five informants. The interviews were based on a combination of open-ended and more specific questions where the aim was to get a broad perspective on the informants’ experiences workplace non-formal learning and to investigate alternative perspectives that emerged during the interviews. Findings – The findings indicate that a theory of online journalists’ workplace learning should take into account the fact that learning, in thi...

Journalists and Media Accountability: an international study of news people in the digital age

“Media accountability is back on the political agenda”, this book proclaims. Based on comprehensive empirical studies and with a reference to the News of the World scandal, Journalists and Media Accountability argues that media accountability and transparency remain vital in theory and in practice. Accountability and transparency can be a competitive advantage for quality journalism in a context with many new voices online fighting for our attention. The book presents results from a European Union-funded project called MediaAcT (Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe). A survey of 1762 journalists in 12 European and two neighbouring Arab states (Tunisia and Jordan) provides a convincing factual foundation for the debate on media self-regulation and other media accountability instruments (referred to as MAIs). This empirical-driven study engages in a thorough dialogue with Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) seminal Comparing Media Systems, and endeavours to go beyond Hallin and Mancini. We are reminded by some of the authors that MAIs play only a marginal role in Hallin and Mancini’s approach. In their summary, the editors maintain that Hallin and Mancini disregard a parameter that the present book considers pivotal: the degree of “accountability and transparency” that