Why did the occupational norm of ‘objectivity’ arise in American journalism? This question has attracted the interest of many journalism historians but it has not previously been examined as an instance of a more general social phenomenon, the emergence of new cultural norms and ideals. Four conditions for the emergence of new norms are identified – two having to do with the self-conscious pursuit of internal group solidarity; and two having to do with the need to articulate the ideals of social practice in a group in order to exercise control over subordinates and to pass on group culture to the next generation. Reviewing the history of the professionalization of American journalism, this essay identifies the late 19th and early 20th century as the period when these conditions crystallized. Alternative technological and economic explanations of the emergence of objectivity are criticized and the difficulty of understanding why objectivity as a norm emerged first and most fully in the United States rather than in European journalism is discussed.
Political science has tended to neglect the study of the news media as political institutions, despite a long history of party-subsidized newspapers and despite a growing chorus of scholars who point to an increasing "mediatization" of politics. Still, investigators in sociology, communication, and political science have taken up the close study of news institutions. Three general approaches predominate. Political economy perspectives focus on patterns of media ownership and the behavior of news institutions in relatively liberal versus relatively repressive states; a second set of approaches looks at the social organization of newswork and relates news content to the daily patterns of interaction of reporters and their sources; a third style of research examines news as a form of culture that often unconsciously incorporates general belief systems, assumptions, and values into news writing.
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