Journalism and the “Social Sphere”

Abstract

This article realigns the field of journalism studies to acknowledge within itself the multiple dimensions of social life and, as well, to provide greater clarity on the social and cultural forms and functions of journalism. It reclaims the importance of the "social sphere" as a key foundational concept for journalism studies with its links to collective identity, sociability, social honour, and soft coercion. We argue the relevance of the social sphere has been subsumed over time by the dominance of the "public sphere" and, most recently, has been considered synonymous with the rise of social networking platforms and tools. Here, we recommend that scholarship shifts from the dominant influence of political theory in explanations of journalism's societal function to the value of critical cultural sociology, which reconciles power with the basic human desire for social order within individual-institutional-cultural interactions informed by and through journalism.

Cultures of Digital Architectures: Power and Positionalities in the Backend of Online Journalism Production

“…Lule (2004), for example, examines game- and sport-based metaphors for the “countdown to Iraq” used by journalists that were also common language of U.S. military officials when presenting what they considered to be imminent military action in 2003. Such an example also represents critical scholarship that suggests in times of conflict between nations and communities, journalists struggle with Hallin's spheres of influences, mentioned above, as news functions as an interplay of power forces, often explained through normative interpretations of practice (Robertson, 2018). Ideological approaches in the news appear today in ways similar to the use of rhetoric and elite vantage point that emerged in and around the days of 9/11 and the War on Terror, particularly in political elements of and racialized fearmongering in U.S. press (Cockburn & St. Clair, 2007).…”

“…This is not to argue from the position of a luddite in an essay on technology that innovation itself is a form of inequality but that innovation (and explanations around it) is a force by which inequalities are reproduced, whether that be through representations, access, or institutionalization and normalization of hegemonic forms of governance and community. This perspective questions the degree to which discussions within the digital journalistic fieldone that has outsourced its technological innovation and in so doing undermined aspects of its authority, perhaps to its own detriment in maintaining a sense of relevancy and legitimacy to societies (Hess & Gutsche, 2018) maintains a discursiveness that attempts to (re)position itself as a technological center in its most-recent fight against digital disinformation (e.g. Thomson et al, 2022).…”

Towards (Hyper)Local Public Sphere: Comparison of Civic Engagement across the Global North

“…Further, Hess and Gutsche (2018) particularise the social and cultural forms of media and suggest the relevance of a social sphere when studying the functions of journalism. Despite the obvious importance of 'where,' it is one of the least investigated areas of the journalistic professional domain, and the links between place, local knowledge and the role of hyperlocals in the public sphere remain largely unexplored.…”

17. Journalism and Geography

“…Most troubling, however, is the degree to which spatial segregation and dominant ideologies of race and place were represented in police action, violence, and public discourse and actions through policy. This chapter's final thoughts, then, focus on concerns of the power of news characterizations of geography to obfuscate power processes of the press and publics to control (Gutsche 2015a;Hess & Gutsche 2018). Moving forward, place-making in the press should be examined from perspectives of power to measure and critique three main ideological efforts to control: 1. the influence of dominant public mediated characterizations of geographies, communities, and nations upon explanations of individual and collective action and speech; 2. the construction of an elite "public sphere" by narrowing communication to specific geographic audiences, moving away from notions of a wider and inclusive collectives into a sphere constructed of a segmented public that is spread over wide virtual and physical spaces, 3. the function of surveillance and social control via the collection of geoinformation and observations of daily lives as journalism adopts new data-gathering processes such as drones and sensors to allow the press to tell stories spanning space and time from positions of omnipresence (Holton, Lawson & Love 2015).…”