This article examines the response of Chinese mainstream journalists towards their citizen counterparts, through an analysis of how journalists constructed a discourse of ‘netizens’ and journalism in the case of Deng Yujiao. The analysis is mainly drawn from a discourse analysis of the newspaper coverage of this case in the Southern Metropolitan Daily (SMD) and the relevant journalists’ reflexive articles on the same topic published in the Journal of Southern Media Studies (JSMS). The discourse analysis is supplemented by interviews with 60 journalists in 2011 concerning their views of netizens in general and of the conflict between journalism and netizens in this particular case. Based on these three elements of analysis, this article offers an account of how institutionally-shaped journalistic norms and values have been used to set up and maintain the occupational boundaries of Chinese journalism, in an attempt to defend journalistic legitimacy by making a clear distinction between ‘amateur netizens/them’ and ‘professional journalists/us’.
Drawing from 18 audience interviews, this article examines audience perception of the trustworthiness of COVID-19 data visualisations in UK newspaper coverage. The findings suggest that overall, the participants viewed the selected COVID-19 data visualisations as largely trustworthy. Their perception was unaffected by the types of data visualisations. The trustworthiness of data visualisations had no clear connection with their likability and learnability. Instead, the participants’ trust was influenced by the perceived problematic presentation of data visualisations, such as the inappropriate use of bars to represent data or the failure to present data in context. It was also affected by the participants’ understanding of the problems about data (production and presentation), their assessment of the credibility of data sources and news outlets, and their personal lived experiences and information gained from other sources. All of these were related to the social context surrounding data and data visualisations, rather than merely the content of data visualisations. The findings reveal that the social construction nature of data and data visualisations creates a space for the participants to question data visualisations’ trustworthiness. The close connection between trust in data visualisations and trust in data, a socially constructed product, suggests that the trustworthiness of data visualisations transcends the control of journalists and news media, extending to the context of data and its visualisations. This qualitative research reveals the importance of context to audience trust in data visualisations in the UK.
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