The decline in orally negotiated news: Revisiting (again) the role of technology in reporting

Abstract

This article summarizes a longitudinal study on the role of technology in obtaining the information behind print and online news in Israel, across 15 years. Rather than taking the benefits of innovation for granted, knowledge acquisition technologies should be evaluated according to their ‘epistemic bandwidth’, involving the scope of knowledge-seeking opportunities they afford, the convenience of challenging this information, and its verifiability via the same channel. Hence, innovative technologies are very likely to have broader bandwidth when bypassing human agents. However, when human sources are concerned, traditional channels, like face-to-face and telephone, have broader bandwidth. Findings show that telephone is losing its historical dominance and face-to-face is declining in favour of emails and messaging. Even though textualization may afford greater accuracy and less deniability, and emancipate journalists from functioning as ‘oral relays’ of sources, it provides them with less space to interrogate their sources and confront them with interview techniques.

Twitter as a clique: journalists' patterns of Twitter use in Israel

“…Two additional journalists affirmed that content supervision does not generally exist on Twitter. Media organizations do not typically monitor their journalists' Twitter accounts, and according to the interviewees, do not set rules or standards for social network activity, in contrast to global practice (Reich, 2018).…”

“…For many journalists around the world, Twitter serves as a tool of research, a source of news, new content, sources, eyewitnesses and a marketing tool to promote their own content, attract audiences, and refer readers to personal and professional websites (Ahmad, 2010; Heravi and Harrower, 2016). In Israel, however, few journalists use the audience as a source of information (Reich, 2018).…”

Social epistemology as a new paradigm for journalism and media studies

“…We begin with an overview of social epistemology, and proceed by addressing two encompassing sources of knowledge in journalism: the testimony of human sources, which have always contributed the bulk of published news (Reich, 2009; Sigal, 1986; Tiffen et al, 2014), and the deliverances of technological sources, whose share of news is on the uptrend (Reich, 2018). We do not claim to deal exhaustively with either subject, but hope to inspire future research, thinking and educational efforts.…”

La crisis de la prensa escrita: una revisión bibliográfica para repensarla desde Latinoamérica

“…En lo que respecta a las cuestiones laborales, algunos investigadores han examinado cómo los valores profesionales de los periodistas podrían verse afectados por una presunta pérdida de autonomía y condiciones de trabajo precarias debido al control administrativo y la presión económica (Bardan, 2015;Evans, 2016;Goyanes & Rodríguez-Castro, 2018;Hofstetter & Schoenhagen, 2017;Reich, 2018;Sarrimo, 2017). En América Latina, donde el periodismo ha sido vulnerable a intereses externos, con lógicas mercantiles y partidarias, "el proyecto profesionalizante, más allá de sus soportes y logros, se encuentra en crisis" (Waisbord 2017, p. 24).…”