Conteúdos Autónomos 50,1% Conteúdos Feitos pelos Utilizadores 28,1% Conteúdos Externos 21,8%
94 Gráfico 2
Distribuição dos conteúdos “Feito pelos Utilizadores” por categorias e percentagens na home page do P3.
As fotogalerias assumem especial relevância no conteúdo publicado pelos utilizadores na home page do site noticioso em questão, sendo o tipo de conteúdo que atinge maior número de registos. Nos 30 dias da análise, a totalidade dos textos enviados pelos utilizadores correspondem a crónicas e são publicadas diariamente na home page, obtendo o segundo lugar do ranking. No último patamar de conteúdos feitos pelos utilizadores estão os vídeos. Os conteúdos Multimédia e Áudio não atingiram qualquer valor durante o período em que foi realizado este estudo. Importa salientar que no indicador “Espaços/Apelos à Participação” existem duas funcionalidades detetadas ao longo dos 30 dias de estudo designadas por: “Eu acho que” e “Corrige”. Quer isto dizer que todos os conteúdos são suscetíveis de comentários, com a particularidade dos que são produzidos pelos jornalistas serem também alvo de correções pelo utilizador, através de um contacto de email para esse efeito.
0,00% 10,00% 20,00% 30,00% 40,00% 50,00% 60,00% 70,00% Texto (Crónica) 26,5% Fotografia (Fotogalerias) 63,7%
95 Considerações finais
A cultura participativa é uma realidade e no entender de Kolodzy (2006) não basta a um jornalista conhecer em profundidade a sua história, há que conhecer também a sua audiência, trabalhar a mensagem para esse mesmo público para que seja compreendida. A Internet como novo médium despoletou a emergência da migração das redações para o online, aquilo a que Helder Bastos (2012) apelida de ciberjornalismo e que proporcionou a exploração de novos territórios e de diferentes linguagens. A Internet reúne de facto as características de um meta-meio. Todos os media (órgãos de comunicação social tradicionais) estão presentes na rede, na qual o utilizador é consumidor e produtor de informação. Para conseguir aumentar a receita, os media vêm-se obrigados a disputar a atenção dos utilizadores, ao procurar gerar tráfego nos seus sites de informação, e, desta forma, aumentar as receitas publicitárias (Canavilhas, 2010). Contudo, o jornalismo participativo parece entusiasmar mais os utilizadores do que a generalidade dos profissionais dos media. Ao analisar a home page do site noticioso P3 percebe-se que existe uma forte corrente participativa de produção de conteúdos vincada pela publicação de fotogalerias, das crónicas e mesmo dos vídeos, contudo, existem alguns territórios vedados à participação, como é o caso da produção noticiosa de textos. Mesmo assim os utilizadores conseguem alcançar uma percentagem significativa (de 28%) de tudo o que é publicado na home page. Outro aspeto a ter em conta que caracteriza a vertente participativa do P3 é o facto de, pela mão da plataforma Instagram, ser permitido ao utilizador a publicação em tempo real de fotografias e vídeos, sendo que esses conteúdos são vistoriados apenas depois de publicados, traduzindo um elevado grau de confiança e credibilidade atribuído ao utilizador. Por outro lado, parece-nos acertada a tese de Canavilhas e Rodrigues (2012), de que mesmo com um vasto leque de possibilidades participativas oferecidas pelos meios de comunicação, isso não significa que exista, de facto, um envolvimento entre jornalistas e leitores, pela razão de que em muitos casos a participação dos cidadãos ocorre em canais separados e de uma forma bem delimitada dos conteúdos profissionais.
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98 Anexos
Análise da participação na home page do site noticioso P335
35 Os elementos desta tabela baseiam-se no estudo de Fernando Zamith intitulado “A contextualização no
Ciberjornalismo”, tese de doutoramento à Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, em 2011, disponível em http://repositorioaberto.up.pt/handle/10216/57280. A presente análise foi realizada à home
page do site noticioso P3, entre os dias 1 e 30 Setembro de 2014, num período de 30 dias, com o objetivo
99 GUARDING PROFESSIONAL JUDGEMENT AND QUALITY: FINNISH PRESS JOURNALISTS’ CLAIMS ON PARTICIPATORY JOURNALISM
Jaana Hujanen
Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki
jaana.hujanen@helsinki.fi
Abstract
The paper examines how the challenge of participation is becoming a part of journalism culture in Finnish regional newspapers. The focus is on journalists’ perceptions of the
role and practices of audience in newspaper production and how the ideals and practices of modern Finnish newspaper journalism shape the reinvention of journalism. Through journalists’ perceptions this paper examines the dynamics of professional discourses and organizational practices which affect how journalistic culture evolves.
The conceptual framework relies on theorizing of journalistic ideals, with a focus on the notions of participation, public service, journalistic objectivity, and autonomy (e.g. Schudson; Deuze; Soffer; Singer). Critical discourse analysis is also used as a frame of reference given that this study examines journalism culture through journalists’ talk. Following its theoretical understanding, this study assumes that the reinvention of journalism culture cannot be understood without examining the interwoven culture of structures, resources, histories, and discourses as well as the practices that the people engaged in the journalistic milieu exert on it and on one another.
The data consists of 20 in-depth interviews with journalists from two Finnish daily (omnubus) newspapers. They offer an interesting focus for the study. Dailies are characterized with regional framework, a public service ethos and public journalism project as well as with growing economic pressures and precarization of work conditions. Dailies increasingly rely on a policy which encourages newsrooms to invite local people to contribute to news making and on utilizing them as co-producers of content. The data is analysed using analysis of the discourses as a method.
Two discourses were found: the Discourse of Professional News Production and the Discourse of Controlled Citizens’ Debate which together construct the Discourse of Professional Journalism. In the former discourse the notion of professional skill is
100 valued high. It is not connected to (journalism) education but to the experience of pursuing journalism which follows the modern idea of ‘good’ journalism being factual, autonomous, and ethical. A demarcation is constructed between professionals and amateurs and between journalism, ‘non-journalism’ and citizen debate. Participating local people are positioned as backups and recourses in the news work but also as a threat for the future need for professional work force within the Finnish press.
The participation of the local audience is associated in the Discourse of Controlled Citizens’ Debate with discussion forums and is represented as a conversational recourse. Because audience engagement must not harm Finnish newspapers’ reputation as trusted news providers the practices of the audience need to be monitored and controlled by the professionals. This creates problems for the newsrooms studied as journalists perceive they lack time, personnel and up-to date tools needed to innovate and manage audience and online practices.
Through the merging of the two discourses and the emergence of hybrid news ideals this study indicates how the process of change is inherently slow, complex and contradictory. The study suggests how the notion of participation needs to be explored further as a historical and contextual construction.
Keywords: online journalism, participation, journalists, discourse analysis
Introduction
The types of participatory news in the mainstream news media and the attitudes of professional journalists towards audience material have been studied, focusing on how professional journalists assess and incorporate audience material (Singer, 2005; 2007; Hermida and Thurman, 2008; Thurman, 2008; Wardle and Williams, 2010; Hujanen 2013). While journalists have perceived contacts to and with the audience as good for journalism they have found participatory culture to be particularly unsettling to its professional paradigm (Heinonen 2011). Finnish journalists expressed ten years ago a worry of losing autonomy and a problem in seeing value in the content produced by citizens (Ahva 2012, 798). Similarly, professional journalists elsewhere have not regarded citizens’ contribution as real or proper journalism and mainstream media has to a great extent applied ‘old’ routines (Heinonen & Domingo 2009, 70).
101 Even though journalists have protected their profession from the competing amateurs (Örnebring 2013, 36), journalism’s ideological commitment to control, rooted in an institutional instinct toward protecting legitimacy and boundaries, may in certain media or in certain circumstances be giving way to a hybrid logic of adaptability and openness: a willingness to see audiences on a more peer level, to appreciate their contributions, and to find normative purpose in transparency and participation. As put by Lewis (2012), the challenge for research is, therefore, to track, in what kinds of discourse and practice and under what normative considerations does the logic of control become rearticulated – or not – in relation to the participatory logic.
This article examines how Finnish professional journalists negotiate the boundary between professionals and amateurs in producing a newspaper. The article discusses this analyzing how the challenge of participation and audience engagement is becoming a part of journalism profession’s self-understanding. The focus is on press journalists’ perceptions of the roles and practices of professional journalists and audience in newspaper production. The paper also examines how the ideals and practices of modern Finnish newspaper journalism are present in the invention of journalism. I analyse, first, how professional skill, journalistic ideals, and practices are perceived by the journalists. Second, I analyse how journalists perceive audience and the significance, validity and ethicality of content and information produced by the audience. Of special interest is how the norms of public service, objectivity, autonomy and ethicality affect the invention of participation and audience engagement.
The objectivity norm claims that journalists are impartial, neutral, fair and credible providers of information (Deuze, 2005: 446-447). In the modern news ideal, journalists are truth seeking media workers, aiming at factual, accurate, balanced and fair reporting (Tuchman, 1978). Soffer (2009: 474, 487-488) analysis the difference between the participatory and objective ideal of journalism as follows: objectivity connects to the expert-professional orator and non-partisan gatekeeper speaking the truth in the name of reality and facts, and avoiding polyphony and the expression of personal values or interpretations. Participation connects to journalists who listen to and reflect a variety of voices, avoid monology and stimulate discussion and engagement.
The high modern ideals of public service, autonomy and ethics (Deuze 2005) also support the requirement of dispassionate and impersonal journalism, with an outsider and matter-of-fact perspective. According to the public service ideal, journalists provide a public service as watchdogs, active collectors and disseminators of
102 information. The ideal of autonomy presupposes that journalism is independent of economic, political or other outside efforts of influence. Ethics refers to the idea of journalists having a specific sense of ethics, validity and legitimacy.
The research setting
At the core of the press are 26 regional newspapers. This study is based on interview data collected in two big regional dailies: Etelä-Suomen Sanomat and Savon Sanomat. These dailies, published in Lahti and Kuopio, are the only daily papers in their area and have circulations of between 57 000 and 62 000 nowadays (LT2011). Besides the printed paper, they can be read on the net and on mobile platforms. The papers belong to the northern omnibus press tradition offering readers a diversity of news, from the local to the national and global levels. They have a special task to report on local issues and act as a resource for local people and communities (Hujanen 2000). Business of the papers has been profitable over the decades but sunken rapidly during the recent years.
Despite a tradition of subscribing to a newspaper, the position of the printed press has weakened in Finland. The readership of the dailies dropped from 90 % to 70 % during the deep recession in the 1990s and has continued to drop. As circulations and incomes from advertising have been falling, newspapers have become more market and audience oriented. Most of the dailies have undergone a period of changes and development projects since the beginning of 2000s. Papers increasingly rely on policy and journalism which reaches out to the ‘man on the street’. Since 1990’s, a host of projects has been launched in which the papers orientate to audiences by developing more ‘humane’ journalism, looking political and societal issues from the angle of ordinary citizens and intertwining the public and the private/the everyday as well as facts, emotions and experiences (Hujanen 2008; Ahva 2010).
In the context of Finnish professional journalism and the participatory news, the public journalism movement is of interest. Public journalism questioned objectivity and detachment as the ideals of journalistic work and challenged journalists to share their work with the public through dialogue, including alternative voices and viewpoints, and legitimating the people’s knowledge creation. People are not seen as spectators or as an undifferentiated mass but as individuals who compose an active public. (Rosen, 1991) Public journalism movement is familiar to Finnish newspapers since the 1990s (Ahva 2010). Savon Sanomat was one of the pioneers to develop the ideas of public journalism
103 in the 1990s (Heikkilä 2000). In Finland, as well as in the USA, public journalism had from the beginning a connection with the struggle for economic survival. Nowadays, the approach has merged with the broad idea of reader orientation and a market-driven point of departure to develop journalism. The papers srudied, among others, have also developed the use of market research based audience segment monitoring method (RISC analysis) in their journalistic work (Hujanen 2008).
The data consist of 20 thematic interviews with newspaper journalists. 11 of the interviewees were from Savon Sanomat and 9 from Etelä-Suomen Sanomat. Both novice and experienced journalists were interviewed, including various newsroom positions. The data set includes 1) news management 2) producers and 3) journalists. 8 interviewees worked in middle management, and the rest as journalists. 11 interviewees were male and 9 female. Except one telephone interview, the interviews were conducted face-to-face in December 2009 and in January 2010. A written questionnaire structured the interviews. The questions varied according to the speakers’ positions. The themes covered communication and interaction between journalists’ and readers 2) journalists’ perceptions about their own role in relation to publics and 3) journalists’ perceptions of the role and meaning of the audience in news production. The interviews, lasting about one hour each, were taped and transcribed. Participants were requested to give their informed consent and were accorded all due respect. Their anonymity is respected: none of the interviewees is named, and their newsrooms are not identified in detail.
Critical discourse analysis is a cover term for a collection of different approaches (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997; Wodak 2001), all of which deal with the social conditions and consequences of language use. Discourse is defined as language use as social practice and seen to figure particularly in institutional, historical and political structures and processes. Discourse is considered to be an essential part of social phenomena, including the construction of professionalism (Fairclough, 1992, 62- 65; Fairclough and Wodak, 1997: 258-259). This means that the reinvention of the ideal and practice of journalism is seen here as a local, historical and discursive process (Reese, 1990; McNair, 1998: 64; Deuze, 2005: 446).
Journalistic ideals, values and practices, from the perspective of CDA, are not constructed in a social vacuum but by drawing on discourses that have prior significations and that are socially available and possible. I assume that professional journalists resort to powerful professional discourses about ‘good’ journalism and the journalist-audience relationship; journalists are constrained by these discourses but they
104 also have options in creating, choosing and modifying them. This means that the ideals, practices, and forces in the interviewees’ talk are seen as real, but also subject to variation. In the case of Finnish press, I assume the modern ideals of journalism are present when journalists imagine new tasks and roles to themselves and to publics.
For analytical purposes, discourses can be defined as different ways of representing the world – particular perspectives adapted to particular domains. Thus the discourses occurring in the interview can be seen as ways of representing aspects of journalistic ideals from a particular perspective, but also as assuming and offering particular tasks for journalists and publics. As some discourses are prestigious and powerful while others have to struggle to gain recognition, journalists’ talk can be seen