Civic Journalism 2000 Abstracts
Civic Journalism Interest Group
Engaging the Literature: A Civic Approach • Kathryn B. Campbell, Southern Oregon • Traditional civic journalism literature reviews are static, laced with separations that divorce issues from one another, divide theorists from researchers, sever academic writing from the popular press, or break publications into categories based on their bindings. These divisions simply don’t capture the unique dialogue of civic journalism. A more intriguing concept is a new model, envisioned as clusters of work through which the movement of ideas can be traced as a dialogue among academics, journalists, and other citizens.
Resolving Public Conflict Civic Journalism and Civil Society • Kathryn B. Campbell, Southern Oregon • Practitioners in civic journalism and public conflict resolution are independently experimenting with ways to facilitate communication and mediate conflict. Civic journalism can provide the public sphere in which conflict resolution can move from individual rights-based models toward public judgment models, where “the good life” might be realized. For journalists, public conflict resolution models offer a complementary philosophy and practical guides to mediation processes. Together, these transformative models of professional practice have great potential for enriching civil society.
Civic Journalism on the Right Side of the Brain: How Photographers and Graphic Designers Visually Communicate the Principles of Civic Journalism • Renita Coleman, Missouri • As the most hotly debated subject of the decade within the field of journalism, there has been an enormous amount written about civic or public journalism. Yet, the focus of that discussion has invariably left out an entire side of the newsroom – the visual. Nearly all the debate centers around the “verbal” with the “visual” – represented by the work of graphic designers and photographers – excluded from the conversation. This study aims to address this void by giving voice to visual journalists practicing civic journalism.
Public Journalism and Criticism of the Press • Guido Frantzen and William F. Griswold, Georgia • This paper suggests that in order to help revive public discourse and political participation • among the main tenets of civic journalism • the media should engage in thoughtful evaluative criticism of each other and of themselves. Analysis of the content of the Charlotte Observer in 1989, before the newspaper publicly embraced civic journalism, and 1993, after its adoption, finds the amount of media criticism virtually unchanged. The authors argue that these findings suggest an important opportunity is being missed.
Educating For A More Public Journalism: Public Journalism and Its Challenges to Journalism Education • Tanni Haas, Brooklyn College and Christopher J. Schroll, Wayne State • Given the increasing influence of public journalism on the daily routines of newspapers across the United States, students need to be taught how to find a workable balance between consulting and reporting on conventional information sources and consulting and reporting on the perspectives provided by ordinary citizens. In this paper we discuss ways in which one of the most widely celebrated public journalism campaigns, the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal’s Pulitzer Prize winning race-relations project “A Question of Color,” can serve as inspiration for actual journalism pedagogy.
A Tale of Two Cities: Do Small-Town Dailies Practice Public Journalism Without Knowing It? • David Loomis, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Yes, this case study of two small-town North Carolina dailies concludes. But in one case, the variant of public journalism should more accurately be labeled civic journalism, because of an institutionalized and professionalized emphasis on the community’s civic life and a de-emphasis of its public, or political, life. In the case of the other less-vigorous paper, the civic journalism variant is personalized but not institutionalized or professionalized.
The Making and Unmaking of Civic Journalists: Influences of Classroom and Newsroom Socialization • Michael McDevitt, Bob Gassaway, and Frank Perez, New Mexico • This study explores the origins of civic journalism values as a function of professional socialization. Findings are derived from a survey of college students and professional journalists. Results suggest a progression of socialization that begins with students supporting civic journalism. However, in leaving the classroom for the newsroom, the unmaking of civic journalists might occur as journalists develop a stronger sense of autonomy. Findings highlight the need for instruction to encourage a broader conception of autonomy.
Citizen-Based Journalism: A Study of Attitudes toward Audience Interaction in Journalism • John L. Morris, Adams State College • The growth of the Internet, the publicÕs preoccupation with interactivity, social construction of meaning theories and convergence of media raise questions that the traditional mass communications paradigm cannot answer. This paper focuses on the following: l) What are the attitudes of reporters toward audience interaction? 2) What are the attitudes of news consumers toward audience interaction? 3) What are the news values of reporters and news consumers? 4) Are there any significant demographic attributes of reporters and news consumers?
Civic Journalism: One Possible Tool for Building New Democracies and Civil Society • Janice Windborne, Ohio • Some U.S. journalists have embraced public journalism as a tool that can reinforce citizen participation in the democratic process. In many countries where the national media system is in the process of evolution to a more independent, stable, privatized media, media’s participation in the building of civil society and democracy would seem the more important. However, although the principles of public journalism make sense for these societies, certain practical constraints interfere.
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