Steve Paulussen

Online News Production in Flanders: How Flemish Online Journalists Perceive and Explore the Internet's Potential

The Internet provides the online journalist with a vast range of new opportunities for feedback, customisation of content, instant publishing, archiving, (hyper)linking, the use of audio and video, etc., all of which can have serious implications for online media production and in particular online news presentation. This study examines how online journalists take advantage of the ‘added values’ of the Internet: interactivity, hypertextuality and multimediality. After a discussion of these key features of online media, the article presents a general profile of online journalists in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) as well as a first understanding of their perceptions of their role. A Web survey was conducted in spring 2001 among 73 Flemish online journalists. The survey results show, among other things, that most respondents believe that the future of online journalism lies in interactivity, hypertext and multimedia. Building on this suggestion, a second study explores the ways in which 20 Flemish news Websites actively use the added values of the Internet. A checklist was developed to analyse the use of the aforementioned Internet-specific facilities by Flemish online media professionals. The main conclusion is that there is a gap between the (perceived) potential and actual use of the Internets added values in online news production.

Using citizens for community journalism

Hyperlocal journalism is thriving. This article describes the case of a Belgian regional newspaper experimenting with citizen journalism and user-generated content (UGC) for hyperlocal news coverage. For each municipality of the region, an online news page has been created where all citizen contributions are published side by side with professional stories on local community news and events. The fact that the UGC is not separated from the professional articles makes it an interesting case to examine commonalities and differences between both types of community reporting. The findings, based on a content analysis of 474 news items, suggest that the newspaper seems to use citizen volunteers primarily as a means to outsource the “soft”, “good” and “small” news coverage of local community life, while preserving the “hard” and “bad” news provision as the exclusive domain of professional journalists. Further, the studys findings support previous research indicating that (1) local community journalism is characterised by a mix of crime reporting and news coverage of fires and accidents, on the one hand, and positive human-interest stories about social club activities, cultural events, health and sports, and school life, on the other; and that (2) citizen journalists tend to rely heavily on first-hand witnessing and personal experience due to a general lack of access to official sources of information.

Journalism education and online journalists in Belgium, Germany, and The Netherlands

This paper addresses an overlooked perspective in the literature and practice of online journalism education: an explicit connection in educational approaches and handbooks between scholarly work on online journalists, and conceptual publications regarding the change role of professional journalism online. The authors come to this issue from the perspectives of research and educational practices in their respective countries: Flanders, Germany and The Netherlands. By coupling the results from surveys among online journalists in these countries with emerging approaches in online newsrooms as well as online journalism education programs, the authors find that most educational programs do not embrace an innovative role regarding online journalism, and generally tend to focus on a strictly vocational and technological approach in teaching. While online journalists seem to be facing particular challenges regarding new roles, relationships with audiences and journalists from “offline” media, and ethical dilemmas, education seems to be geared towards using new media on top of existing practices. The authors argue that a more conceptually rigorous approach towards teaching online or even multimedia journalism is called for on the basis of both empirical and theoretical work on journalism and new media.

Citizen participation in online news media: an overview of current developments in four European countries and the United States

With the continuing diffusion of the Internet, with the changing media-consumption patterns and with the impact of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, there seems to be widespread optimism regarding democratic participation and active citizenship through online media. Authors such as Bowman and Willis (2003) and Dan Gillmor (2004) describe how, on the Internet, the people themselves have become the media. In contrast to traditional media, blogs and other community-driven media are characterised by a fundamental convergence of the roles of content producers and consumers because every user has the opportunity to both consume and create content. Axel Bruns (2005) has coined the term ‘produsage’ to refer to this blurring line, while Gillmor (2004: 136) and Rosen (2006) speak of the “former audience” to stress that the public should no longer be regarded as a passive group of receivers. Some authors regard this as being part of a larger societal development toward a participatory culture, something that Hartley also has called a “redactional society” (Hartley, 2000). There are some doubts about the foundations of such a development though. Some authors question the idea of a “hyperactive audience” (Schonbach, 1997; see also Hanitzsch, 2006). They claim that only institutionalized forms of journalism guarantee quality through organizational structures and professional work routines and that they offer society a shared meaning in the form of content that reaches mass audiences.

The triple articulation of media technologies in teenage media consumption

This study explores the meaning of teenagers’ media consumption in terms of identity formation and autonomy attainment. In domestication theory, media consumption is conceptualized as the interplay of both media object and content. However, in practical applications, the notion of object has usually been snowed under by contextual descriptions. In response, this article draws upon the concept of a triple articulation that, next to media text, separates the object and the context. Using a multi-method study, we empirically demonstrate the relevance of separating the object and context dimensions in understanding media consumption. This is especially relevant in the current age of convergence in which media scholars are confronted with a changing media landscape, characterized by content that is increasingly device- and context-independent, while a broad range of devices are appropriated in a multitude of contexts.

In Flanders Fields: De/politicization and Democratic Debate on a GM Potato Field Trial Controversy in News Media

In May 2011, a highly mediatized direct action in the form of a “field liberation” took place in Flanders, Belgium, against a field trial of genetically modified potatoes. This direct action and its aftermath revealed the conflictual and antagonistic nature of the genetically modified organisms debate in Flanders. Consequently, it serves as a particularly suitable case to investigate the post-political thesis with regard to environmental discourse and politics. The aim of this paper is to investigate in what ways news media in their reporting contribute to processes of depoliticization and, resultantly, impede a democratic debate on the issues at stake. This paper attempts to provide an answer to this question based on a critical discourse analysis of the reporting by Flanders’ two generalist, elite newspapers, De Standaard and De Morgen and the alternative online news site DeWereldMorgen. The findings reveal the existence of three ideological cultures, which are characterized by different degrees of de/politicization. We conclude by discussing how this study adds to our understanding of the relation between the depoliticization of environmental discourse, democratic debate and twenty-first-century news media.

Local radio in Europe: Policy options for a sustainable sector

Considering its contribution to the promotion of media diversity and democracy, noncommercial local radio is gradually being recognized and funded as third tier media by an increasing number of European countries. After 30 years of campaigning for institutional support and funding, community media have finally found their place in European media policy (Jiménez and Scifo, 2010). Despite these promising policy and regulatory developments in Europe, many national states fail to provide a sustainable basis for a mature local radio sector. As Cammaerts (2009) notes, community radio is under threat, experiencing difficulties in establishing itself between the state-controlled broadcasting system and the market. In Flanders (in the north of Belgium), for example, local radio is facing structural handicaps to economic viability and to securing its future due to a lack of cohesive radio policy. A number of conflicts explain some of the current limitations on the sector’s development. Although these conflicts are to some extent unexpected consequences of the legal framework, they have increased ruinous competition in the market and have negatively affected the economic performance of local radio in Flanders. In brief, the sector suffers from overcrowded airwaves, limited geographical coverage and inadequate funding, but policy makers become stuck in path dependency (Evens and Hauttekeete, 2009). Whereas local radio in Flanders has developed following a market model, policy analysis of similar European countries shows that government can act more proactively in local broadcasting and implement innovative approaches that fully support the development of local and non-commercial radio (Peissl and Tremetzberger, 2010). In this article, policy options for the support of a sustainable local radio sector in Flanders are explored. The focus is on how policy makers can be inspired by the implementation of local radio development strategies in three neighbouring regions. More specifically, the article discusses the options available to policy makers in supporting local radio, and what lessons they can learn from experiences in other countries in boosting the

Celebrity news as hybrid journalism: An assessment of celebrity coverage in Flemish newspapers and magazines

This contribution discusses the content and characteristics of celebrity news as a hybrid news genre by means of a quantitative content analysis of a random sample from 1 year of celebrity news as published in two elite and two popular Flemish newspapers, and two Flemish celebrity gossip magazines. To this end, a theoretical framework is developed that combines insights from celebrity studies regarding the characteristics of the celebrity as a mediated construct with insights from research on (the decline of) journalistic quality, as well as insights from genre studies on hybridity. Different from what the literature suggests, the results indicate a certain dominance in celebrity news of the public over the private and a distinct attention to public interest next to human interest news, although results differ according to type of medium. The results also show clear indications both of original but sensationalized reporting in magazines and of a high level of ‘churnalism’ in (elite) newspapers. In the conclusion, the article suggests a need to pay more attention to ‘regular’ rather than exceptional celebrity news and a reconsideration of what is ‘wrong’ with celebrity news as indicative of what is ‘wrong’ with journalism in general, and shows that celebrity news is a hybrid genre in three different ways.

The energy question in the Belgian daily press during 2010: the role of region, newspaper type and newspaper section

The literature illustrates how media research on the energy question is characterized by a limited focus on separate energy options, resulting in a lack of research into the diversity of and mutual relations between various energy options. This paper reports on a quantitative content analysis of eight Belgian newspapers (N=1181), focusing on whether certain energy options are systematically more covered in certain regions, types of newspapers and/or types of newspaper sections. The results show that five energy options dominate the debate and that there are minimal differences per region, but remarkable differences between types of newspapers and newspaper sections.

When 'small' is 'beautiful' : a comparative analysis of local radio policies in Europe

Abstract In this article, the focus is on how policy makers in Flanders (Belgium) can be inspired by the implementation of local radio development strategies in three neighbouring markets (the Netherlands, Great-Britain, the French-speaking Community in Belgium). More specific, the article concentrates on the questions of which options policy makers have at their disposal in supporting local radio and what lessons they should learn from foreign experiences in boosting the sector’s development. The final aim is to come up with policy recommendations for reorganising local broadcasting and strengthening its economic and social value. To do this, document analysis was combined with seventeen local radio expert interviews in all markets involved. Next, a cross-country analysis was performed to identify structural conditions and propose policy options for a proactive media policy regarding small-scale radio.